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The second cold warCRINKUNIMFNATOWTOEUNATOUYour browser does not support the element.By Sarah Paine, professor of history and grand strategy at the US Naval War College began with Xi Jinping’s accession to power, Vladimir Putin’s disposal of term limits in 2012 and Russia’s ingestion of 7% of Ukraine in 2014. Both leaders have signalled that international norms no longer matter and they have deepened their relations with Iran and North Korea, portending a hostile alliance variously known as , the axis of upheaval or the quartet of chaos. In 2025, how should America respond to it?Each of the four seeks international successes to vindicate different power paradigms. Mr Putin wants to conquer Ukraine to prove Russia’s greatness. Mr Xi aims to maintain the Communist Party’s power monopoly by rallying nationalism to take Taiwan. In North Korea, Kim Jong Un is building a nuclear arsenal to retain his throne. Ali Khamenei wants to vindicate his brand of Islam by extending Iran’s regional domination.Each also prioritises different theatres: eastern Europe and the Caucasus for Russia; north-east Asia for North Korea; the Levant for Iran; and the near seas for China. And each faces different primary adversaries: Ukraine for Russia; South Korea for North Korea; Israel for Iran; and, depending on the trouble China chooses to make, Taiwan, India or another country. Because the rules-based international order precludes their military choices, they share the ultimate goal of overturning those rules and the institutions enforcing them—making America a common secondary adversary. Given that the quartet’s primary adversaries, intermediate objectives and main theatres do not align, each will veto other members’ plans that conflict with their own. North Korea relies on Sino-Russian tension to avoid domination by either. Iran fears dependence on Russia. Neither China nor Russia wants one power, let alone Iran, to dominate the Middle East. Neither wants the other to dominate Central Asia, but each seeks to do so itself. Siberia has resources China covets on lands the tsars stole, so expect marriage problems.The quartet faces growing opposition. Their shared antipathy towards the rules-based global order threatens the prosperity of every beneficiary of the legal security those rules provide. Most countries are small, so their security depends on the rules. How will this cold war play out? History offers guidance. First, it will not end soon. Only after several generations did Chinese and Russian leaders conclude that emerging from poverty required co-operation with the West. So they called off the first cold war. But those leaders have since died.America and its allies won the first cold war through a strategy of assisted suicide. They opposed communism for its brutality, economic ineptitude and continentalist penchant for military overextension. Given Russian and Chinese recidivism, America and its allies should again amplify those economic and military weaknesses to fast-track their impoverishment and reduce their ability to fund military adventures.To do so, they should use sanctions—not to change behaviour but, like chemotherapy, to shrink the tumour. Comparing North and South Korea illustrates the long-term compounding effects of reducing economic growth by a percentage point or two. Ratchet up enforcement by eliminating the dark-money havens sheltering the kleptocrats—and use that money to aid their victims.Another lesson is to emulate the greatest generation. The conscripts of the first world war rose to leadership roles amid the Depression, and then had to send their own children to fight another world war. Their solution was institution-building on a global scale, including the , the , and the predecessors of the and . They created forums to resolve differences, not with soldiers, but with lawyers and diplomats, maintaining peace in the industrialised world until Mr Putin invaded Ukraine. So deepen co-operation in the West, build an equivalent institutional architecture in the East (Japan’s prime minister, Ishiba Shigeru, has called for an “Asian ”) and extend it globally.Finally, do not despair over Russia’s and China’s -turn on the road to prosperity. During the first cold war, the winners prospered while their enemies endured poverty of their own making. The rules-based order, however flawed, is positive-sum through compounded growth and the facilitation of co-operation. Countries vested in the rules-based order should foster each other’s economic growth during the long wait for others to relearn that territorial expansion is a negative-sum proposition that obliterates wealth and lives.
