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Cold War II, also called the New Cold War, Second Cold War and Cold War 2.0, refers to a renewed state of political and military tension between opposing geopolitical power-blocs, with one bloc typically reported as being led by either Russia or China, and the other led by the United States or NATO. This is akin to the original Cold War that saw a global confrontation between the Western Bloc led by the United States and the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union, Russia's predecessor. American political scientist Robert Legvold posits that the ″new Cold War began the moment we went over the cliff, and that happened with the Ukraine crisis″. Others, such as Andrew C. Kuchins in 2016, believe that the term is ″unsuited to the present conflict,″ but the situation is arguably more dangerous than during the original Cold War.

EU/NATO members vs. Russia

Some sources use the term as a possible or unlikely future event, while others have used the term to describe ongoing renewed tensions, hostilities, and political rivalry that intensified dramatically in 2014 between the Russian Federation on the one hand, and the United States, NATO, European Union, and some other countries on the other. Michael Klare, a RealClearPolitics writer and an academic, in June 2013 compared tensions between Russia and the West to the ongoing proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Oxford Professor Philip N. Howard argued that the new cold war has a distinct media dimension in that the battles are being fought over control of Russia's media broadcasters and through cyberwar between authoritarian governments and their own civil society groups. While some notable figures such as Mikhail Gorbachev warned in 2014, against the backdrop of Russia–West political confrontation over the Ukrainian crisis, that the world was on the brink of a New Cold War, or that a New Cold War was already occurring, others argued that the term did not accurately describe the nature of relations between Russia and the West. While the new tensions between Russia and the West have similarities with those during the original Cold War, there are also major dissimilarities such as modern Russia's increased economic ties with the outside world, which may potentially constrain Russia's actions and provides it with new avenues for exerting influence. The term "Cold War II" has therefore been described as a misnomer.

The term "Cold War II" gained currency and relevance as tensions between Russia and the West escalated throughout the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine followed by the Russian military intervention and especially the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014. By August 2014, both sides had implemented economic, financial, and diplomatic sanctions upon each other: virtually all Western countries, led by the US and EU, imposed restrictive measures on Russia; the latter reciprocally introduced retaliatory measures.

Tensions escalated in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea, and military intervention in Ukraine. In October 2015, some observers judged the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War to be a proxy war between Russia and the U.S., and even a "proto-world war". In January 2016, senior UK government officials were reported to have registered their growing fears that "a new cold war" was now unfolding in Europe: "It really is a new Cold War out there. Right across the EU we are seeing alarming evidence of Russian efforts to unpick the fabric of European unity on a whole range of vital strategic issues.” Jeremy Shapiro, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution, believed the unfolding situation in and around Syria was "a very, very familiar proxy war cycle from the bad old days of the Cold War".

In an interview with TIME in December 2014, Gorbachev said that the US under Obama was dragging Russia into a new Cold War. In February 2016, at the Munich Security Conference, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO and Russia were "not in a cold-war situation but also not in the partnership that we established at the end of the Cold War," while Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, speaking of what he called NATO's "unfriendly and opaque" policy with regard to Russia, said: "One could go as far as to say that we have slid back to a new Cold War."

In April 2015, CNN reported that "russian hackers" had "penetrated sensitive parts of the White House" computers in "recent months." It was said that the FBI, the Secret Service, and other U.S. intelligence agencies categorized the attacks "among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems."

In September 2016, when asked if he thought the world had entered a new cold war, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that current tensions were not comparable: he noted the lack of an ideological divide between the United States and Russia, said that conflicts were no longer viewed from the perspective of a bipolar international system.

In October 2016, John Sawers, a former MI6 chief, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he thought the world was entering an era that was possibly "more dangerous" than the Cold War, as "we do not have that focus on a strategic relationship between Moscow and Washington.” Similarly, Igor Zevelev, a fellow at the Wilson Center, said, "t's not a Cold War a much more dangerous and unpredictable situation." CNN opined, "It's not a new Cold War. It's not even a deep chill. It's an outright conflict."

United States vs. China

A Firstpost editor R. Jagannathan and Subhash Kapila of the South Asia Analysis Group use the term to refer to tensions between the United States and China. In April 2009, a Yale University professor David Gelernter speculated a new "Cold War II" between the US and China when the GhostNet cyber-attack in March 2009 affected computers in Southeast Asia and offices of the exiled Tibetan Dalai Lama. Financial Times also speculated the new Cold War between the two nations by citing the increased Chinese military activity in the South China Sea. Chinese media speculated a new Cold War by citing events occurred in July 2016, like the US deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) in South Korea and The Hague-based arbitrary tribunal ruling against China's favor on the South China Sea dispute.

Other analysts, including ones interviewed by The Straits Times, rejected the "new Cold War" reference to the US–China relations, mostly "citing obstacles such as a lingering distrust between ." Nevertheless, the analysts suggested US and China to ease tensions between the two countries. Jin Canrong from Renmin University (金灿荣) said, "China remains committed to building a new type of major-power relationship with the US that avoids conflict and focuses on cooperation." Wang Dong from Peking University dismissed the "new Cold War" talks as "media sensationalism" and further told the newspaper his reasons to reject the claim: "or one thing, the two are highly interdependent, economically and socially, and, for another, the cost of rushing into a new Cold War for nuclear powers like China and the US is prohibitively high." Chen Jian from Cornell University said, "A new Cold War is not going to happen if neither side makes serious mistakes, including mistakes related to misperceptions of a new Cold War."

See also

• World War III

References

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• Cold War II
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• Foreign relations of the European Union
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