It might seem premature to talk about ending the second cold war when it seems that it is barely underway. Just a few years ago, populations were celebrating the end of the first cold war. That era of animosity ended with dramatic suddenness. General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed waggishly that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, “I’m running out of demons. I’m running out of villains. I’m down to (Fidel) Castro and Kim Il Sung.” However, that happy situation did not last long.
A non-Communist Russia as the principal successor to the Soviet Union seemed eager for nothing so much as admission to the democratic capitalist West. Populations throughout the world may well wonder for years what might have happened if the United States and its allies had greeted that eagerness with receptivity instead of arrogant cynicism.
However, Moscow did not encounter a welcoming embrace. Instead, Russia’s leaders and people were greeted with callousness by their Western counterparts. By the end of the 1990’s, visible tensions involving the Western mistreatment of Russia’s longstanding Serbian clients were already beginning to emerge. Worse, the West intruded into Russia’s core security zone by adding Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to the Alliance. Instead of dramatically reducing the danger of an East-West war, the United States and its Allies had simply created a new arena farther east for such a confrontation. East-West relations have deteriorated even more since then to the point that we have a full-blown second cold war.
It is not too early to change course and seek to end the second cold war as rapidly as the first. The main difference is that this time the United States and the Western powers are primarily responsible for generating the hostile relations and most of the concessions will have to come from the West. The United States and the West is the faction intruding into Russia’s core security zone, not the other way around. The Ukraine war highlighted the arrogance or ineptitude of the Western powers. Repairing the damage will take a major sustained effort and it is never too soon to start.
Relations were rapidly breaking down even before the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Relations across the board virtually collapsed once that episode took place. Russia was the provocateur in the narrow military sense since it launched the invasion of Ukraine’s territory but the Western powers were responsible for most of the subsequent provocations.
For example, the European Union was very quick to impose a wide array of sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s military move. Many of the penalties had little or nothing to do with the actions of Vladimir Putin’s government or had any military relevance. For example, one of the principal victims of the economic retaliations from the West were the various cruise lines. Western tourists who looked forward to their vacations in Russia suddenly discovered that the scheduled stops in St. Petersburg and other crucial sites were wiped off the map. One can only ponder how penalizing middle-aged shop owners in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities would have a meaningful impact on the decision making of Vladimir Putin and his inner circle. Instead, the targets appeared to be innocent civilians who had no meaningful influence over the decisions of the Russian government.
Innocent shopkeepers were not the only victims of the West’s retaliation. The next most prominent target were ordinary civilians around the world who now had to live in a far more dangerous world. In addition to penalizing innocent civilians, the NATO powers retaliated to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine by making it clear that crucial arms control agreements would no longer remain in effect. The first casualty was the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Agreement (INF). Allowing that agreement to expire made it much more likely that tensions in Europe would soar. Washington’s decision to let the Open Sky’s Agreement expire made that outcome even more likely.
The breakdown of the original Cold War Nuclear Arms System began to unravel two years ago. Matters have grown steadily worse. U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles are now, once again, on hair-trigger alert, something that had ended with the original Cold War. There are now even doubts about the viability of the ban on testing nuclear weapons. Both Russia and the United States had signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty years ago, but the United States had never ratified it. In November 2023, Russia rescinded its ratification; a truly alarming development. The first step in ending the Second Cold War must be rebuilding the nuclear arms control system. That should have top priority if there is to be meaningful progress in repairing the relationship between the United States and Russia. Once the nuclear arms control regime is restored, only then can progress be made on rebuilding the economic and political relationship between the United States and Russia. Otherwise, much of the hostility and tension in relations between NATO and Russia will remain.
We should not want another period of multiple decades marked by hostility and a lack of normal economic relations. Let’s see if the current generation of policymakers can be wiser than their predecessors.
Ted Galen Carpenter, Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, is the author of 13 books and more than 1,200 articles on international affairs. Dr. Carpenter held various senior policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato institute. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).
