'Back to the Future': The Ongoing, Backward Journey to the Cold War-Era

Its 'Back to the Future' moment for the world order with a steadily deteriorating global security environment.

Rajat Narang - The Radioactive Warzone

7/29/20242 min read

It's 'back to the future' moment for world order with an imminent return to the Cold War-era with all the classic signs & symptoms of it making a return and classic comeback. The 2014's annexation of Crimea by Russia was the starting point of it all which marked the return of Realpolitik & near-peer competition with the economic rise of China termed as the most direct threat to the West. It led to the onset of a rise in global defense spending which reached its highest level ever in 2023 at $2.4 trillion.

Accompanying the surge in global defense spending has been the disruption of traditional, rule-based world order led by the U.S. & West for decades since the end of Cold War. However, the emergence of revisionist states, namely Russia & China along with a nuclear North Korea & Iran, seeking a revision of that traditional world order has caused geopolitical tensions, disruptions & chaos.

The modernization of nuclear weapons arsenal & development of destabilizing delivery systems by Russia and a rapid production ramp-up of nuclear weapons production by China led to the U.S. following suit with U.S. President Barrack Obama leading that charge.

Further steps in this series of chain reaction of deteriorating events have been the irreverence for the Cold War-era arms control treatises & agreements, which have been the traditional bedrock of strategic stability and balance of power between the West & the East since the Cold War-era, which are paving the way for them becoming irrelevant ultimately and are likely to lead to resumption of a 3-way global arms race. The exit of the U.S. from the INF Treaty, over Russia's development & deployment of an intermediate range missile, led to the INF treaty becoming defunct.

The latest announcement by the U.S. to deploy long-range & hypersonic missiles in Germany by 2026 will further destabilize the overall balance as Putin has just announced that Russia will be doing the same. Further, Russia announced in Feb 2023 that it will be exiting the START II treaty after it reaches its end in 2026 while it has already exited the Conventional Armed Forces Treaty (CFE) treaty in November 2023. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in Feb 2022 and the subsequent provision of military aid to Ukraine by the U.S. & NATO has been a major factor in all this.

The latest signing of a 3-way defense security pact between the U.S., Japan and South Korea; amid an ongoing military cooperation & alliance between Russia, China and DPRK to support Russia in the ongoing Ukraine War via supply of munitions & ballistic missiles; is clearly reminiscent of and brings back the memory of traditional Cold War-era multilateral military alliances and mutual security defense pacts back to the fore and in vogue as one of the starkest reminders of the world's continued backward journey back to the Cold War-era at a rapid & relentless pace with the point of no return having already been passed long ago...