Question

How was the new Cold War different from the earlier Cold War?

Answer 1

The term “cold war” was coined by George Orwell in his essay “You and Atom Bomb” published immediately after end of second world war. However this term was popularised in geopolitical lexicon by newspaper columnist Walter Lippman.Briefly, cold war was the struggle between USA and USSR to dominate over the world order. It was a struggle driven by ideological considerations. USA was acting as champion of liberal democracy while USSR was striving to encapsulate the world with communism.In the academic field of international relations, it is considered that cold war ended decisively in 1990–91 with victory of USA as USSR underwent disintegration with subsequent dismantling of communism from global political narrative.However, defying the prognosis of many experts of political science and global politics like Francis Fukuyama who predicted that world will remain a unipolar after cold war with USA acting as global leader, present trajectory of global politics is leading towards emergence of bipolar or multipolar world order with some degree of revival of cold war era global politics. In terms of similarities, in cold war era, world was divided into two camps led by two superpowers viz., USA and USSR. Likewise presently, when it comes to military or hard power dimension of geopolitics world is getting divided into two camps, one led by USA (in form of NATO) and other led by Russia. On global political economy landscape, world is getting divided into two camps led by USA and China. In addition to this, USA and Russia came at loggerheads in proxy wars in Syria, like it occurred in Korean war, Vietnam war during cold war period.Considering these similarities, American Political scientist Robert Legvold called the present geopolitical circumstances in the world as emergence of “new cold war”. Canadian sociologist Phillip N Howard attempted to define this “new cold war”. According to various analysts and experts, chief actors in this new cold war are USA and west on one side and Russia plus China and east on other side. However, in my view, such concrete division is debatable.

Answer 2

Answer:

the new cold war was different from the cold war in the sense that it was not based on ideological conflict but on balance of power. In the new cold war a new power bloc, namely the PRC, emerged as a power that would not be defeated or ignored. The intervention of the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1979 was the turning point the new cold war was marked by the effort of both the country to spread the influence mainly outside Europe