French analyst Arnaud Bertrand recently drew a parallel between today’s international situation and the beginning of the Cold War in 1948. Then, as now, two opposing blocs formed on the world stage.
For further reading, see Boris Vinogradov’s interview, in which he analyses in detail the lessons of the Cold War for the modern world.
The Western bloc is still led by the United States. It is opposed by the Eurasian bloc, but over the past decades there has been a fundamental shift in roles within it. While in the late 1940s the USSR was a giant and China was only a junior partner, today the opposite is true: China has become the economic and political centre of gravity, while Russia plays the role of ‘junior partner’. At the same time, according to Bertrand, the essence of the Eurasian bloc has remained the same — to balance and contain Western hegemony.
History of the Cold War confirms that the Eurasian camp’s alliances were not constant. During the second stage of confrontation, during the 1960s, China severed relations with the USSR and became its fiercest rival. And during the 1970s, in the third stage of the Cold War, Beijing became Washington’s de facto ally in the campaign against Moscow. This past memory, Bertrand believes, signals a familiar formula for the United States: to try once more to ‘tear away’ the junior partner from the Eurasian giant, but this time Russia from China. As far as long-term policy is concerned, this can be the mission of American diplomacy.
To continue the analogy, today’s war in Ukraine is similar to 1950–1953 Korean War. Then, the leading frontline player was China with the USSR providing assistance as a logistician. Today, the roles are reversed: Russia is conducting military operations, while China is providing indirect but significant support.
South Korea was defended in the Korean War by a broad coalition of the West, led by the United States (much as the collective West is currently defending Ukraine). The Korean war did not conclude with a peace treaty, but rather just a truce. The war between the two Koreas remains technically on-going. This previous precedent suggests that the standoff in question is apt to conclude not with a clear-cut resolution, but with a ‘frozen conflict’ to be a force in world politics for generations to come.
