Do We Really Want a New Cold War?

[Fallawful]

I agree with the sentiments of the article, but it's a pretty bad article, to be honest. The guy who wrote it does not really understand what the Cold War was, at least from how he writes about it. It looks like he's using "Cold War" to mean, just, war in general. The Cold War was a very, very specific thing in history and is not going to be replicated any time soon.

If he's talking about war with China then, yeah, no, of course no one wants that. China does not want it, nor do logical policy advisers in the US (not even ones in the Trump administration). What is most likely going to happen in the coming decades is the US allowing China to craft its own sphere of influence on its side of the globe. Case in point: Hong Kong. The Trump administration and most administrations in the West will not lift a finger to help it. The Trump administration has very specifically said that Hong Kong is not its problem.

Anyway, this is a tangent, but: most people in this thread are confusing ideology with countries actually being willing to go to war with each other. In history, war has always been based on material gains (through territorial gain or otherwise). Countries did not go to war unless it proved well in a cost benefit analysis (if they won, of course, and no one goes into a war thinking they are going to lose). Again, the Cold War is one of the exceptions that proves the rule on this one (another exception is the First Crusade, but very certainly none of the following ones). The Cold War was an ideological struggle, and even it was based on material consequences at the very centre of it. The West had its own economic system that it was benefitting from; they obviously did not want communism. It was not good vs evil but more of "hey, I want to keep my toys bro" versus "do you men our toys, comrade?"

So, finally, about the whole material gains and war thing: we are at a point in history where war is significantly less likely because of globalisation and international institutions (not just government institutions like the United Nations, I also mean banking, development, agriculture, and a bunch of others). Materially, there is more to lose from going to war now than ever before in any point in history. Great Power wars will not happen like they used to; at least not in the next 50 years. If that happens, it will be due to global warming and resource scarcity. Small wars? Sure, they're happening right now; many players have a lot to to gain from small wars (keeps the economy running).