Cold War 2.0

Peter Ohtaki

We’re in a new version of the Cold War, call it Version 2.0. Our adversaries today are the same countries we faced 50 years ago: Russia (fka Soviet Union), China, Iran, and North Korea.

What makes this Version 2.0 is China is now our largest trade partner and economic competitor, compared to what it was in the 70s. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to suppress individual rights, as demonstrated in the Tiananmen Square massacre of liberty-seeking students in 1989. The CCP’s Made in China 2025 plan’s goal is to lead in 10 technologies, and Chinese companies are notorious for stealing American intellectual property.

Democratic Presidents try to nuance diplomacy and wind up sending mixed messages to our adversaries. Republican Presidents come across as belligerent or unpredictable.

President Biden started his term with a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which sent a message of weakness to our adversaries. He’s done an admirable job standing up to Putin by supporting Ukraine, but his administration telegraphs our intentions by listing in detail the arms we provide the Ukrainians to avoid antagonizing Russia. Russia can simply stay its course well past the willingness of the West to support Ukraine..

Reagan used the CIA to supply weapons to our allies covertly. In April, the Biden administration restricted shipping 1,500 lb bombs to Israel to prevent them from using air strikes against Rafah, in Gaza. However, the Iranians fired drones, rockets and cruise missiles at Israel in April and October, so what kind of message does that send to the Ayatollahs?

What we learned in Vietnam is the President shouldn’t micromanage wars

Earlier in October as war escalated between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran, the Biden administration said the U.S. is opposed to Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, and a few days later said the U.S. also opposes a strike on Iran’s oil facilities. The White House should instead say “no comment”! Strategic ambiguity is a key advantage over adversaries.

For example, Trump publicly scolded Kim Jung Un that he’d wipe North Korea off the face of the planet, and then wound up meeting him with Kim in Singapore, Hanoi and Panmunjong. Many Republicans think his unpredictability shows strength, but when he threatened pulling out of NATO to force NATO countries to spend 2% GDP on defense, I think that emboldened Putin.

Peace through economic strength

In contrast, I remember President Ronald Reagan espoused “Peace through strength”, “Trust but verify”, and “Mr. Gorbachev - Tear Down This Wall!” with a very skillful Secretary of State George Shultz. Our innovation and free-market economy in the 1980s out-competed the Soviet command economy and won the Cold War - it was peace through commercialism. Levis jeans and rock music were as influential with Eastern Europeans looking for freedom and prosperity, as the Strategic Defense Initiative (known as Star Wars) was in intimidating the Soviets into “Glasnost” (openness) and “Perestroika” (restructuring). I took my kids to Berlin just before the pandemic to see the Berlin Wall, where we looked up at a direction sign to the “Berlin Mall”, and I thought that sign said it all.

I grew up here in Menlo Park and remember seeing a headline story in the local Peninsula Times Tribune showing a bulls-eye target on Sunnyvale on Lockheed’s Trident submarine launched missile design facility and the consequent damage to the surrounding mid-Peninsula from a Soviet nuclear warhead. My dad took a tour group in China when the U.S. normalized relations with China after Nixon opened up detente, which Kissinger called the “China card” to play against the Soviets.

Why can’t we create an Iron Dome over Ukraine?

The Ukraine-Russian war has become a war of attrition, but after two years Europe and America are growing weary as democracies do. So the Western strategy of defensive-only support for Ukraine is perpetuating this war of attrition that only Russia has the appetite for, as Putin intends to recreate the Soviet Union geographically.

IDEA: In the 90s, the U.S. and NATO established a “No fly zone” over Kosovo to keep the Russian-backed Serbian army from ethnic cleansing the Balkans. NATO should give Ukraine the Israeli-made Iron Dome air defense system to prevent Russian missiles from hitting Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians, and consider enforcing a No-Fly Zone west of the Dnieper in Ukraine.. In April and October, the U.S. assisted in a no-fly zone over Israel by shooting down some of the 300 drones, rockets and cruise missiles fired from Iran.

View my post about the Middle East