New Cold War

The New Cold War is a term used to describe a perceived rekindling of conflict, tension, and competition between Russia and other Western Powers, most predominantly the United States, following the 1991 end of the Cold War. The term gained significant usage following the August 2008 escalation of hostilities between Russia and Georgia, the latter of which has become a close ally of the United States and NATO. The term "Cold War II" has also been used less frequently to describe the situation.

Background

Plans by the United States to create missile defense installations in Poland, and potentially other former Soviet Bloc countries, were met with a tense response in 2007, with the Kremlin saying that the moves by the United States "brings tremendous change to the strategic balance in Europe, and to the world's strategic stability." In addition to its close ties with Poland, the United States has become an ardent ally of Georgia and has worked strenuously towards Georgia's inclusion in NATO.

While the conflict between Russia and Georgia is directly related to the status of the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, some in the media have argued the conflict is more clearly an act by Russia to reassert its influence in its "own backyard." Former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, in an editorial published by the Washington Post in August 2008, asserted that attempts by the United States to bring Georgia into its were a "serious blunder." The Independent printed that it believed the military hostilities "revived the spectre of the most tense days of the Cold War."

Others in the media have argued the tension between Russia and the West has been growing under former Russian President, now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. An editorial from Bloomberg claimed that the conflict "is yet another example of Putin's aggressive style of Russian nationalism." The editorial pointed to past problems with gas supply problems to the Ukraine and disputes with Moscow over oil company investments by Royal Dutch Shell and BP. Putin's predecessor as president, Boris Yeltsin, however, heightened his criticism of the United States just weeks before he left office, condemning what he believed to be then-President Bill Clinton's attempts "to put pressure on Russia." At the time, in response to those comments, then-Prime Minister Putin "played down Yeltsin's remarks, arguing that it would be wrong to conclude from the president's statements that relations between Russia and the United States were souring." Only weeks later, Yeltsin surprisingly stepped down and unexpectedly named Putin as his successor.

Modern term
The modern term may have been most clearly defined by two books, both titled "The New Cold War," authored by Mark MacKinnon, a reporter for the Globe and Mail and Edward Lucas, the former Moscow Bureau Chief for The Economist. MacKinnon's book was subtitled "Revolutions, Rigged Elections, and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union" and was Published in April 2007. Lucas's book was subtitled "Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West" and was published in February 2008. In an interview following the start of the August 2008 military conflict between Georgia and Russia, MacKinnon was quoted as saying that the escalation "set a whole new direction for the West and NATO in terms of relations with Russia."

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