[ Cold War is America’s comfort zone. We won the last one. We
wear the white hats. It’s democracy against authoritarianism. And
we’ve got the biggest and best military. Who could object?]
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WASHINGTON WANTS A NEW COLD WAR…THAT’S A BAD IDEA  
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
August 16, 2022
Counterpunch
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_ Cold War is America’s comfort zone. We won the last one. We wear
the white hats. It’s democracy against authoritarianism. And we’ve
got the biggest and best military. Who could object? _

An F/A-18E Super Hornet attached to the “Eagles” of Strike
Fighter Squadron (VFA) 115 lands on the flight deck of the U.S.
Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN
76) in the Philippine Sea., Photo: MC3 Gray Gibson, US Navy.

 

As China unleashed live-fire military exercises
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the coast of Taiwan, simulating a real “reunification by force
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operation in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ceremonial
visit to the island last week, the bipartisan fervor for a new Cold
War with China and Russia took greater hold in Washington.

“Leaders in both parties,” Post columnist Josh Rogin reports
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“understand that the United States has a duty and an interest in …
pushing back against America’s adversaries in both Europe and
Asia.” The United States showed that it could take on both China and
Russia at the same time, he adds. The Senate voted 95-1
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add Sweden and Finland to NATO. The Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act
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bipartisan support. And politicians in both parties scrambled to give
the Pentagon even more money
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it asked for.

Cold War is America’s comfort zone. We won the last one. We wear the
white hats. It’s democracy against authoritarianism. And we’ve got
the biggest and best military. Who could object?

But haunting questions remain. Does a new Cold War—taking on Russia
and China at once—serve the real security of Americans? Does it
further President Biden’s promised “foreign policy for the middle
class?”
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most Americans prefer that this country curb our enthusiasm for
foreign adventure while focusing on getting our own house in order?

The existential threat to our security now is the extreme weather
caused by climate change, which is already costing lives and billions
of dollars in destruction from wildfires, floods, plagues and drought.
Monkeypox reminds us that the deadliest attacks have come from global
pandemics. Throwing money at the Pentagon doesn’t help. Wouldn’t
it be better if Special Presidential Envoy John F. Kerry’s journeys
got as much attention as Pelosi’s Taiwan performance? Addressing
climate change and pandemics can’t be done without Chinese and
Russian cooperation, yet the Chinese officially terminated talks on
these issues in the wake of Pelosi’s visit.

Biden’s foreign policy team has focused on lining up bases and
allies to surround and contain Russia and China. But the Ukraine war
has revealed Russia’s military weakness
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Meanwhile, sanctions 
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cut off access to Russian food, fertilizers and minerals vital to
countries worldwide and might contribute to a global recession.

China is a true “peer competitor,” as the Pentagon calls it. But
its strength is its economy, not its military. It’s the leading
trading partner
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countries across the globe, from Latin America
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Africa to Asia. When Pelosi stopped in South Korea 
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her visit to Taiwan, South Korea’s president did not receive her.
President Yoon Suk-yeol, we learned, was on a “staycation,”
attending a play. The snub by a loyal ally, home to nearly 30,000 U.S.
troops, is surely a reflection of the fact that China is South
Korea’s leading trading partner. The United States would be well
advised to focus—as China does—on developing the new technologies
that will define the markets of the future, rather than spending more
than $1 trillion on items such as a new generation of nuclear weapons
that can never be used.

The revived Cold Warriors assert that the U.S. deployment of forces
around China and Russia is defensive. But as Stephen Walt notes in
Foreign Policy, this ignores the “security dilemma”
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What one country considers innocent measures to increase its security,
another might see as threatening. U.S. administrations kept asserting
Ukraine’s “right” to join NATO as security against the threat
posed by Russia. Russia saw the possible basing of NATO forces and
U.S. missiles in Ukraine as a threat. Biden’s comment that Putin
“cannot remain in power,” echoed by U.S. politicians, and the
history of U.S. support for regime change around the world, weren’t
exactly reassuring.

Though Washington formally accepts that Taiwan is a province of China,
it arms the island
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deploys more forces to the Pacific. Pelosi described her visit
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an “unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our
democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom.” Beijing
views this as an attack on its national sovereignty, a violation of
our official position, and as a provocation designed to spur
independence movements in Taiwan.

The Cold Warriors assume that most of the world stands with us. True,
our NATO allies rallied against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine,
but two-thirds of the world’s population, according to the
Economist
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lives in countries that refuse to sanction Russia. Much of the
developing world is skeptical or worse about U.S. claims regarding
democracy or the rules-based order. This makes sanctions less
effective—China’s purchases
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Russian oil and gas, for example, have increased by 72 percent since
the Ukraine invasion. It also reflects the growing strength of Chinese
“soft power” and the declining currency of the U.S. military
force.

Great powers decline largely because of internal weakness and the
failure to adjust to new realities. In an era of dangerous partisan
enmity, the reflexive bipartisan embrace of a new Cold War is a
striking contrast. But the old habits don’t address the new
challenges. This is hardly the way to build a vibrant American
democracy.

_This article is distributed by Globetrotter
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partnership with The Nation
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* Another Cold War
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* Russia
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* China
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* military budget
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