By Sarah Kirchner-Barney
The specter of the Cold War continues to loom large as nuclear saber-rattling has become commonplace from Russia, China continues its ongoing nuclear expansion, and fears of a seventh North Korean nuclear test have put nuclear weapons back in the spotlight. But why worry? The world survived a Cold War once before, so all leaders need to do is run the same playbook, right? The circumstances in 2024, however, are much more complex as major shifts in geopolitics have resulted in a fractured international stage rather than a relatively simple confrontation of two superpowers. Times have changed and the policies implemented to manage the world’s most dangerous weapons must also evolve.
Given that both Presidential candidates and much of Congress came of age during the Cold War, it is understandable that that era retains influence in shaping modern geopolitics. However, the application of Cold War-style mindsets to the so-called China problem only fuels reductionist thinking and conflates China and Russia by virtue of a common communist past. While policy makers traditionally divided into doves and hawks, such distinctions are less relevant, and less useful, in a more dynamic environment where the current generation of international relations practitioners was born after the fall of the Soviet Union and grew up under a rising China. Heavy-handed anti-China rhetoric, popular with both Republicans and Democrats, reinforces the tendency to apply a 50-year-old lens to view the issues of today.
Relying on an outdated point of view is a disservice to our understanding and analysis; the current situation deserves its own look. Despite superficial similarities, there is no ideological struggle that splits the world neatly into blocks. Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons rather than two, with some more likely to use them than others. Economic interdependence helps deter potential war between major powers while minimizing the effects of containment policy. China’s known goals are reunifying with Taiwan under Chinese control, maintaining regional dominance, and altering the current international order to its needs with the hope of ushering in the ‘Chinese century.’
China is not the Soviet Union. Nor is it Russia. Geopolitical competition and nuclear deterrence do not and should not by themselves make another Cold War. However, pushing the ‘new Cold War’ mentality risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Treating China and Russia as a bloc with nuclear arsenals to be matched not only risks an arms race but fails to understand the critical distinctions between major powers. It also draws the wrong lesson from the end of the Cold War, which led to a more secure world because the nuclear powers reduced their arsenals, not built more. Leaders of the time were able to navigate international tensions not only through deterrence, but dialogue and, where appropriate, cooperation. In the modern era, cooperation with China is almost unthinkable and politicians of both parties perceive it as political suicide.
While China, Russia, and North Korea are three nuclear-capable states that are currently aligned, overlapping interests and shared benefit is only temporarily tying them together. To address the challenges that these three nations’ nuclear arsenals present, each must be viewed independently. Despite Russia and North Korea’s alignment through a mutual defense treaty, China’s silence on the matter indicates that they are not happy about this development. Russia and North Korea continue to defy international norms and openly threaten to use their nuclear weapons. In contrast, China, while having increased its nuclear stockpile, has not made any overt changes to its nuclear posture or threatened to use nuclear weapons. China appears to be attempting to create distance between itself and Russia and North Korea, indicating that it is not in alignment with these nations.
Falling back into the “us-vs-them” thinking is all too convenient and serves as a detriment in effectively addressing the so-called “China Problem.” To address the challenges in our modern strategic environment and not rely on similarities in history, China must be viewed independently from Russia and North Korea, especially in order to understand Chinese motivations. China’s nuclear buildup is the critical factor driving rising nuclear risks, and to address it, 21st century leaders should not rely on outdated worldviews and equate modern China with Soviet Russia, or even Putin’s Russia. Instead, it would be better to leverage people with experience in China and who understand the decision-making processes of Chinese leaders to find common ground in which we can cooperate and find a path away from confrontation.
