La guerre froide est-elle devant nous ?

Is a Cold War upon us? The importance of scenarios in geopolitics. Our session today will examine an event from the past.

This may seem paradoxical: How might a past event illuminate what could happen in the future? We intend to find out just that by examining whether the Cold War or even a new Cold War could serve as a framework for comprehending the global context. It should also be borne in mind that situations can shed light on our understanding of geopolitical issues, and that's what Fabrice Ravel and I are here to do today.

-Hello, Fabrice. -Hello, Olivier. Hello, everyone.

Everyone in our audience is certainly familiar with the Cold War. Bringing up a new Cold War is perhaps more unsettling, yet in a comparative analysis, recognising the baseline is crucial. What exactly is a Cold War?

We should not cut corners when defining this concept. Clearly, this is a far cry from the purely academic exercise of first establishing a definition and then developing it further. Our objective is to assess the possibility of projecting ourselves into the future, relying on a scenario that, until now, has predominantly been associated with the past.

We should thus seek to clarify how this scenario could potentially unfold and its possible manifestations in the future. I should also add another clarification from the outset. This is not about agreeing on a comprehensive definition of a conflict which, in the past, in the second half of the twentieth century, took nearly forty years to resolve.

Rather, it's about finding a definition that would highlight certain points that might be important because we may get the impression that they are being repeated in a certain number of events such as the ones happening in the world right now. From this angle, what definition could we try to put forward? Once again, is a Cold War upon us?

A close read of this perspective would lead me to indicate a few key elements: Cold War is a particular situation in international relations (I'll come back to that later, since it's very important), in which two superpowers or two very great powers, which together dominate nearly all the dynamics in the world, are forced to confront each other and oppose each other on virtually everything, but despite an opposition on practically everything that should lead to war, they cannot go to war against each other. The immediate impression from this definition is that we're actually heading towards a situation similar to this description. Why is it that all of a sudden we're describing a future that seems potential rather than recalling a definition of a historical event?

Because by examining two major powers that seem to be sucking up, swallowing up or centralising all international dynamics today, in this third decade of the 21st century, we get the impression that this is the case for the USA and China. A second, fundamental point, which I'll perhaps expand on a little, if you don't mind, is that they disagree on everything. It's quite interesting because you can almost proceed through progressive chronological layers.

It's been well known since antiquity that confrontations between powers are first and foremost rivalries over just how far one's hegemony or one's influence could be extended and, therefore, there are bound to be areas of friction, to use a term coined by Clausewitz. That's the first, and a fairly classic dynamic. A second dynamic comes later, notably with the first factories and industrialisation, as markets transitioned from being self-sufficient or isolated to engaging more with external competition.

It's interesting to bear in mind that competition is not only for raw materials, which comes up very often, but also for market access, which isn't as popular, yet it's also generally accepted. But the most significant divergence lies in the differing perspectives on how society works. This was prominent with capitalism on one side versus Marxism-Leninism, advocated by the USSR, on the other.

It's clearly a more nuanced situation, and yet it's quite similar between the United States and China today. A divergence in ideology thus emerges in continuity. It is essential to point out that the ideological variations are both tangible and easily remembered.

Let's return to the terms traditionally used between the Western democracies and the People's Republics for the Eastern Bloc, within the Warsaw Pact and the alliance between the Soviet Union and China at the time. It seems crucial right now to highlight the present context. In this regard, and objectively speaking, Westerners struggle to admit China's criticism on one particular aspect that resonates worldwide.

China is challenging Westerners who present their systems as universal values, arguing that they are merely a means of enslaving and forcing others to follow them without being able to defend their own interests, rather than truly universal logics, and they can therefore be called into question. That's a very important point to make, Olivier, since there's clearly a combination of ideological and political differences alongside a deeper philosophical debate concerning the degree of credibility attributed to the reasoning upheld by each side. The differences clearly go a long way.

Another point that I believe deserves greater emphasis is that both powers assert that they represent the ideal example for other countries to emulate, each one claiming to be the paradigm the world should follow. When the situation is interpreted in these terms, it would seem to corroborate our premonition as we've traced it through the topic we've questioned. There's one last point, I'll be quicker on this one, though I may have to expand on it later.

This last point: war is impossible because the powers have nuclear weapons. This clearly complicates conflict right from the start. Before I dwell on that point, and to perhaps finish with this first question, which is linked to our restating the context as we refine our definition, there are two aspects that merit a closer look.

The first aspect is a key concept in the definition we attempted to make earlier, which was limited so we could better focus on our topic. The key term is ‘special situation in international relations’. This highlights, puts into perspective or echoes two considerations that I think are very important.

The first is an already mentioned aspect, which I'll just reiterate but won't dive into the logic again. This is clearly the major basis of the Western misinterpretation of the end of the Cold War as it was in 1989-90. While the Cold War was a specific situation in international relations, the end of the Cold War was not the end of international relations, but the return of classic international relations.

That's the first consideration. The second consideration is more semantic and insists on the fact that special does not mean exceptional or unique. It simply means a departure from what's normal, but if we end up with a certain number of forces that are identical to what happened during the First Cold War, then yes, it's possible that we'll see a new Cold War.

We could thus argue that the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, or the United States and the Soviet Union, was the First Cold War. It's essential to emphasise this aspect. We shouldn't have any confusion in this point.

Many observers are already pointing out this fact, which is relatively accepted in the field of geopolitics or geopolitical thinking. I'll give you an example, which is a very interesting title by Pierre Grosser, specialist in the history of international relations, particularly in South-East Asia: L'autre Guerre Froide (The Other Cold War? ).

The subtitle is also telling: The Confrontation Between the USA and China. This title clearly indicates a glance towards the future we are drawing up. It would thus be very important, at least in this respect, to see whether this is a viable scenario.

In any case, it is credible. You might have enabled us to recognise a special situation, namely a Cold War, but what would be its essential characteristics? I would argue that there are two essential characteristics of Cold War that we should bear in mind.

We should also pay attention to their consequences and logics. The first, which I'll come back to, since I implied it a little earlier, is that war between the two superpowers is impossible. Let me explain: direct war is impossible.

That's something fundamental to bear in mind. In fact, it sometimes surprises some of our students a bit, because we're dealing with an exacerbated rivalry. This will occur over and over again for forty years according to this specific chronology.

With the possible exception, and also a little-known fact, of confrontations between Soviet and American pilots in the early years of the Korean conflict between 1950 and 1953, though only admitted much later, you'll notice no direct confrontation between the two powers, ever. This is very important to remember because there is a situation here which could corroborate the credibility of this scenario, namely China's rise in power, which we already addressed in multiple Rendez-Vous de la Géopolitique sessions, notably one that specifically examined the Chinese army. Because in 2024, China should have around 400 or 415 nuclear warheads.

The Chinese are planning to double their nuclear arsenal in next 5 years. It's no secret that silos are being built everywhere, especially inside China. That figure should be 1,000 by 2030 and thus, we can estimate 1,500 by 2035.

Of course, some will point out that this is still a long way from parity, since the USA, according to some calculations, should have 5,100–5,500 warheads, depending on if they're armed, armed, equipped, installed, etc. The disparity is significant, yet China is outwardly and substantially determined to step up its game and put itself in a position to reach parity. This was also true to some extent of the USSR with parity in the 50s and 60s.

A second event also corroborates this argument, though the media tends to overlook it. A few weeks ago, for the first time since 1980, the Chinese test-launched an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) capable of delivering a strike over several thousand kilometres. In terms of numbers of warheads and the means of transporting them, we are clearly witnessing an increase in Chinese power, as Beijing seeks to establish itself as the privileged partner of the United States, thus reinforcing the scenario we're discussing.

I should backtrack now to remind you of something I didn't mention earlier. We should keep in mind that the matters we're discussing go much further beyond the issue we're dealing with here today. Ultimately, we are demonstrating an effective geopolitical methodology for forecasting that consists of modelling a certain number of past events, not in order to confine ourselves to the past, but to try to anticipate or guess what various potential scenarios could be.

I think this is essential to keep in mind, because I get the impression that today, far too often, a certain number of observers, not to say a majority of them, rely first and foremost on their preferred, and even ideological, reading grid to explain the various potential futures. Doing so, however, deviates from a logic shared by other human sciences, including pure sciences, tantamount to saying: Let's model a certain number of typologies to see if they are likely to be repeated. To put it clearly to our audience, this is the only method in geopolitics that attempts to anticipate the future.

That leads to the second characteristic that you've asked me to clarify. What can we see in the sequence of elements presented here? If war is impossible between these two superpowers, how could we even stop a cold war?

There is only one solution: one of the two must collapse on its own, collapse on itself and collapse for internal reasons. That's very important to remember. That is exactly what happened starting in the 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

He rushed to rejunenate or improve Glasnost and Perestroika. We echoed that in one of our sessions, which was intended as a tribute to a man whose efforts, though regularly ignored, led to a much smoother transition at the end of the Cold War than how many hypotheses had imagined. We should now be able to recognise this continuity.

In other words, since war is impossible between the two superpowers, the only way out of a cold war, once it has begun, is for one of them, for internal reasons, to collapse. These are two aspects should be borne in mind. For us contemporaries, there may be elements of Cold War nostalgia.

Firstly, because we get an impression that there can be no war, or at least no direct war. It also provides a more simplified way of looking at the world than the complex, fragmented world we live in. This is a cardinal, central, even major consequence of a cold war situation.

We both share that sentiment, having lived through that period, and our response to the threat of the seemingly exponential and uncontrollable embrace of the current situation might be imbued with a certain nostalgia linked to a certain impression that there was at least someone who seemed to be in control of the situation. That's about it. What's interesting is that we need to understand the situation.

Soon enough, the Soviets and the Americans, or the Americans and the Soviets, understood that the Cold War was more a means of ensuring legitimacy on one's own side, not to say ascendancy over one's own side, than a means of waging war against the other side. This situation engages, if I may use the term, the scarecrow strategy, in which the existence of the adversary is exploited to gain alliances from other powers, not so much for confrontation, but rather to justify an organisation, NATO on the one hand, and the Warsaw Pact, created in 1955 on the other. This gives a superpower the role of big brother, a term which immediately springs to mind.

In other words, this is a world where the confrontation between the two superpowers is indirect, where each one has its own sphere of influence. Visually, we can use colour codes like in strategy games, or indeed the scenarios set up by the General Staffs: the Blue camp versus the Red camp. What I am saying should simplify the understanding of some related concepts.

The US refused to intervene in Budapest (Hungary) in 1956. They also refrained from any involvement in Prague during the Czechoslovak Spring of 1968. In turn, the Soviets didn't budge during the 1973 coup d'état in Santiago de Chile.

Clearly, each one was fiercely protective of its plot, signaling to its rival that intervention was unimaginable, and thus no trespassing would occur on their inviolable territory. It was something, if you'll pardon the expression, that was frozen. I can't resist from saying: frozen.

So nobody's moving. Yet we shouldn't forget that there was a third area. This third area was more distant, when each superpower would ultimately rationalise the only place where it actually could intervene.

I'd like to mention a book by John Gaddis, a professor specialising in military and maritime history at Yale, and a great Cold War specialist. His book is appropriately called The Cold War. who had an intriguing analysis: after the Berlin Wall was built, Khrushchev finally realised that there was just no way of putting pressure on Western Europe, just as the Americans realised that they could no longer do anything beyond trying to weaken the Soviets.

The tension shifted elsewhere. That's very interesting because it means that they will engage in conflicts that would prove deadly for the affected populations, though, and I'll insist on this point, while they were particularly violent, the two superpowers would consider them as peripheral. Thus, places that potentially permitted intervention with one restriction: no direct confrontation.

This would be known as proxy warfare. That seems very important, because what does it imply? We shouldn't imagine that cold war is totally synonymous with peace.

It is synonymous with confrontation in the conditions mentioned here. This means that the outbreak of confrontation is paradoxically a sign that these places are considered to be on the periphery of the major issues deemed by the two superpowers. This is also true of the two major conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

There ought to be no room for misinterpretation. It's not because these places are considered essential, it's because they are places where the superpower can take action. In 1986, a leading expert on Russia and the Cold War, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, pointed this out in Ni paix ni guerre (Neither Peace nor War), with an interesting subtitle: Le nouvel empire soviétique du bon usage de la détente (The New Soviet Empire, or Putting Détente to Good Use).

It's full of biting humour or sarcasm, since her impression was that it was the Soviets who were benefiting the most. What did she actually uncover? The Soviet Union was venturing into areas the old Russia was not accustomed.

For instance, the Near and Middle East, but especially South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which are the only places they could intervene. I believe this is crucial since, in retrospect, as more time passes since the Cold War concluded, we are increasingly likely to overlook its less favorable elements, concentrating only on research that most observers agree with. In other words, the sense of relief rediscovering, if not peace and world order, a framework in which we would have two superpowers capable of managing the essentials globally.

The question is: will the future lend itself to this situation? To answer that, we should first know what conditions are necessary and should be met. Yes.

There are two essential conditions. The first condition is that, in the context of what we've been saying, the two superpowers must have clearly understood that they are playing the same game, and also agree to play the same game; thus communicating that they can play the same game and agree to play it. That entails a good understanding of the other player, which also implies an ability to communicate with him, the famous red telephone installed after the Cuban missile crisis in the fall of 1962.

It would also take a kind of ulterior motive in relation to its allies, but also a complicity with the opposing power. That's something that takes time and trust. To put it plainly, the US and China are not at that stage at the moment.

That's a second, very important condition. You're quite right, Olivier, to bring it to my attention. There should be no major stumbling blocks between the two.

In other words, there must be no issue that either of the two superpowers would consider to consist of some major strategic issues at stake, or even suggest its vital interests would be at stake. Because clearly, any predicament entailing a disagreement that concerns a matter each superpower deems critical to its vital interests would result in warfare. Obviously, in historical perspective, it's easy to look at the Cuban missile crisis.

It's important to note that the Soviets backed down, and that Nikita Khrushchev, who was reproached for this by the Politburo, also backed down. The question we could perhaps raise would be: Wouldn't there be friction points like these? Perhaps I could have worded that differently.

I'm not entirely convinced that Cuba in 1962 was in the same situation for the two superpowers as Taiwan is in the 21st century looking at the USA and China. There is certainly a question to be asked. The conditions haven't been met, but we could even go so far as to say that there are significant differences in the situation.

A fair point. The comparison needs to be qualified because there are at least two major differences. There are obviously more differences, but there are two major ones that should come right up immediately.

Firstly, in the third decade of the 21st century, can we really consider that there are only two superpowers? Asking that is virtually answering: No. India is hard to ignore, for example, when it comes to global geopolitical issues.

We delved into this perspective in a previous session. India is undergoing a strategic upheaval, because it is engaged in regaining a place for many reasons, not just through demographics. I should point out a very important fact about India, one that is also regularly overlooked but should nevertheless be stressed.

India is part of BRICS, which also includes China. That said, you might recall from a previous RDVG session that BRICS was conceived with geopolitical aims as an association capable of standing up against Western supremacy, to use their own terminology. But India is also part of QUAD, isn't it?

In other words, an alliance including the USA, Japan and Australia notably, which is mainly directed against China. That said, this can now even be perceived in a slightly ambiguous way. We are not looking at the same approach of a country, like at the Bandung conference in the spring of 1955, claiming non-alignment, which was also somewhat debatable.

There's no attempt at non-alignment, but rather an attempt to map out a third way. That's hardly the same thing. A third way in which India also says: No, we have as much claim as the other two powers to rally countries around us because of the legitimacy of our civilisation and our history.

The first point of dissonance in relation to what we're saying is that the Cold War seems to have been somewhat undermined because we're closer to a multipolar world than a bipolar world, to use a fairly classic terminology in relation to the Cold War. I believe there is a second difference that is not only more evident but also just as vital and simple to frame within context: China's economic power today is far greater than the economic power of the Soviet Union, and it is thus all the more important to remember that the prospect of the collapse of one of the two, as we were just saying, still seems quite unlikely. You said earlier that we need to model geopolitics and that we shouldn't use our preferences as a guide.

That's exactly what we're trying to do with this scenario, but given these nuances, there may be other possible scenarios. A fair point. I think I can say that it's all the easier to put them forward because the RDVG had a session examining whether China in 2020 compared to Germany in 1914?

In that conceptual issue, the idea was obviously not to make technological or ideological comparisons, but to find out whether these two powers were in the same geopolitical context. It's easy to see how this comparison loses ground at first glance, since Germany in 1914 plunged straight into the First World War. The striking thing here relates to a famous book we were asked to explain: Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap.

Graham Allison develops the concept of Thucydides's trap, where he summarises a scenario. Some observers were perhaps too quick to dismiss it, but it is worth discussing in any case. So what's the scenario?

It's well known. The scenario essentially sets out a context of an exacerbated rivalry between two great powers, one already established. It's clearly supposed to echo Thucydides's account of the Peloponnesian War and the confrontation between Sparta and Athens (ancient comparisons are always fascinating, right?

). The established power is deeply wary and troubled, and fears the rise to power of a city, in this case a rival country or nation. This trepidation grows stronger as the rival's growth unfolds so quickly.

Finally, to curb this fear, or strike down this threat, the established power opts to wage a preventive war to prevent any loss of status. That's a fairly classic side. Look how far this logic can take us in terms of perspective projection, yet there's the other side that leads paradoxically to the same scenario, but for the opposite reason.

Because the other side of the coin, and these are also matters being discussed by observers today, is that the rising power would notice. . .

This is interesting considering the difficulties many geopolitical specialists are indicating for the Chinese economy in particular). In other words, the rising power we thought would eventually catch up with the first finally realises that this catch-up is more difficult than expected, perhaps even impossible, leading to a certain degree of disappointment, frustration or even anxiety. This concern is then further fuelled by the fact that the prospects of the strategic window or the window of opportunity seems to be closing, which might then push this rising power to try to resolve what it perceives as fundamental issues to achieve its objectives.

It's clear that this 1914 China/Germany scenario can be used in two completely different ways. So yes, there are a number of different scenarios. Clearly that's the whole point of the approach, which is that we should consider many dynamics to see which scenario will appear to be the most credible for the future.

Yes. We've been focusing a lot on the relationship between China and the USA, but there are certainly other dynamics underway. When we place things into such a perspective, our initial question can ultimately extend much further.

Clearly, we're talking about the future logic of relations between the USA and China, and China and the USA respectively. That may seem relatively obvious, but the importance of these two powers takes us well beyond them, because we can see that the developments and dynamics associated with them can easily lead us to consider the developments taking place in global geopolitics elsewhere throughout the world. I think that's very clear.

That's how the approach works. However, we now have two unavoidable questions that absolutely must be answered. Because they have a major influence on all the logics involved.

The first: Could we not argue that the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East and the enduring war in Ukraine are accelerating the risk of war in Taiwan? It's important to understand how this question I have just asked is worded. The second major question: What political choices will the United States have to make in the medium to long term, as we can see from the short-term horizon, in terms of society and strategy, especially in the international arena?

From these two queries, it appears obvious that each one is inherently crucial, but they are bound to have an influence not only on relations between the United States and China, but also on the scenarios that need to be put in place to anticipate the future of geopolitics. Fabrice, you rarely leave us with unanswered questions. I imagine that these two questions will be addressed in two forthcoming sessions.

Thank you everyone for joining us for this session of Rendez-Vous de la Géopolitique. See you next time!