- The Cold War with the Soviet Union was characterized by two power blocs capable of threatening each other with imminent nuclear destruction. The Soviets, USA, and Great Britain had joined to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The Soviet Union and the USA became superpowers with a hub-and-spoke arrangement with other world powers to manage their respective spheres of control.
- The implosion of the Soviet Union left a vacuum in global power that Russia, China, and Europe sought to fill, along with now North and South Korea, Japan, India, Pakistan, and the oil-producing Gulf states. The massive nuclear forces controlled by the US and the Soviet Union were subject to arms control treaties and non-proliferation regimes. There are now nuclear powers who are unconstrained by these arms control and non-proliferation regimes (e.g., Israel and potentially Iran) who lack formal arrangements restraining their use of nuclear weapons.
- The international Communist movement saw multiple Communist countries trading with each other under a Soviet nuclear umbrella. The United States alliances (NATO, SEATO, etc.) were largely protected by the US nuclear umbrella, although France and England had nuclear weapons capable of reaching the Soviet Union.
- China is not an existential threat—it needs US commercial and financial markets. It wants to control the US like the US wants to control it. China is developing a “Global South” coalition that can provide political power projection to complement its economy and military position. China views the US as its main enemy, as it has since its creation as a Communist power. This new age of global conflict doesn’t resemble the Cold War concept.
