From Cold War to Cold Wars

Michael Kimmage

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Russian president Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has caused its share of intellectual confusion. Putin has never coherently or consistently explained his intentions, and Russia’s decisionmaking has often been baffling. Although hostilities have stayed mostly in Ukraine, this has hardly been a localized or regional war. It has had extensive global consequences. This war is simultaneously a high-tech conflict, pushing the boundaries of drone and missile technology, and one of tanks and trenches, much like the world wars of the twentieth century. The nuclear parameters of this conflict evoke the Cold War that ran from the late 1940s to 1991.

However this unusual war is categorized, it is not necessarily the United States’ primary foreign policy challenge. The mounting tensions between China and the United States can overshadow Europe and the conflict in Ukraine. The relation of the war in Ukraine to actual and possible crises and invasions that might take place in Asia is at least as confusing as the war itself. Is Ukraine an omen of war in Taiwan? Or is Ukraine a footnote to the world war that might begin in Asia? In his new book, David Sanger, a distinguished New York Times journalist, cuts through the confusion. Among the many virtues of New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West (Crown, 2024) is its narrative and analytical clarity.