What if the Cold War never ended? That is the explosive thesis of Andrew Kuchins, a professor at "Johns Hopkins" University and a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest, an American think tank.
Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union, one thing has not changed one iota and that is the risk of nuclear confrontation, he points out. With the dividing line shifting eastward, the current period is far more dangerous - especially with the war in Ukraine, which could escalate and spread - than it was during the Cold War.
In an interview with the French newspaper L'Express, Andrew Cutchins analyzes the geopolitical reconfigurations that are likely to change the rules of the game.
L'EXPRESS: According to you, the Cold War did not actually end in 1991. You may surprise many...
ANDREW CUTCHINS: When we think of the end of the Cold War, three events that occurred between 1989 and 1991 naturally come to mind: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But one thing has not changed in the slightest: the risk of nuclear confrontation. Certainly the confrontation between the United States and the USSR has disappeared; we now live in a multipolar world...
Today, as yesterday, all the countries possessing nuclear weapons continue to point their missiles at each other as a deterrent. It is this that, for the time being at least, keeps the world from full-scale war...
In essence, this is exactly what my colleague Sergei Radchenko suggests on page eight of his book "Government of the World: The Kremlin's Claim to Global Power in the Cold War" (2024):"Nuclear superpowers would continue to exist unless they disintegrated from within and collapsed (as the Soviet Union eventually did).
But direct conflict between the superpowers has become simply unthinkable, which logically leads to the possibility of an endless Cold War; Cold War after Cold War after Cold War." In retrospect, it seems naive that we did not realize this fundamental reality of the world order in 1989.
In fact, George Orwell was the first to use the term "Cold War" in an article titled "You and the A-Bomb", published in October 1945, just two months after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He imagined a world in which two or three nuclear superpowers simply divided the world. And he concluded, rather grimly, that this situation would probably end large-scale wars, at the expense of "a peace that is not peace" and which will continue indefinitely.
L'EXPRESS: What is your point of view?
ANDREW CUTCHINS: The possession of nuclear weapons by the leading powers is the basic condition of the Cold War, and this certainly did not change with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, recall what characterized the post-Cold War period: the disappearance of the territorial division between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East. That configuration no longer exists.
Today, nearly thirty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seems as if the line of confrontation has simply shifted eastward. But it is still very real. The fundamental difference is that the current period is far more dangerous - especially with the war in Ukraine, which could escalate and spread - than it was during the Cold War. For these reasons, in twenty or thirty years, historians might consider the period from 1945 onwards as a prolonged Cold War.
L'EXPRESS: Only this time the armed conflict is unfolding on European territory...
ANDREW CUTCHINS: It is true that we never experienced this type of confrontation during the Soviet period, although we saw numerous crises around Berlin in the 1950s and 1960s that never escalated into outright war, probably in part because of the dangers of nuclear conflict.
But the nuclear shadow has hung over the Russo-Ukrainian war from the very beginning, with Putin's threats of escalation, carefully calibrated deliveries of weapons and other aid to Ukraine... for fear of nuclear escalation itself!
L'EXPRESS: You also claim that The Cold War is not over in Asia. Why?
ANDREW CUTCHINS: It’s worth looking at the components of the Cold War in this region, namely the lack of a peace treaty between the Soviet Union and Japan after World War II and the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. So what is the situation today? First, Japan and Russia (the USSR has collapsed) have still not signed a peace treaty, even though the conflict is long over. Second, although an armistice was signed in Korea, again a peace treaty has never been signed. And the current alliance systems in Asia closely resemble those that prevailed during the Cold War.
Once again, Russia and North Korea are very close. Similarly, Moscow and Beijing are probably closer than they ever were, even in the 1950s, during the Sino-Soviet alliance. In short, on one side we still have the United States and its main Asian allies, South Korea and Japan, and on the other side we have China, North Korea and Russia. All, of course, armed to the teeth...
L'EXPRESS: At best, you say, the Cold War would only be briefly suspended before it resumed.
ANDREW CUTCHINS: When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, the West was very optimistic and thought that the newly independent Russian Federation would become a Western-oriented market democracy. I was never so optimistic, because it was clear that the economic situation of the Russians would deteriorate significantly before they began to recover.
The economic burden inherited from the Soviet Union was enormous and impossible to overcome quickly or easily. Naturally, there was a popular backlash against Yeltsin and his team of reformers, and within a year their leader, acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, was ousted and replaced by the experienced Soviet apparatchik Viktor Chernomyrdin. Thus the nationalists and communists gained political advantage in the elections of the 1990s.
The West, and the United States in particular, were blamed for their association with the reformers and the traumatic economic and social upheavals experienced by Russians in the 1990s. The very concept of market democracy suffered damage in the eyes of most Russians.
Putin skillfully exploited this politically, reinforcing the narrative that the Americans were not really interested in democracy, but rather in exploiting Russia geopolitically during this period of relative geopolitical and economic weakness. There is therefore no precise date at which we can definitively say that the Cold War had resumed. It was a coincidence... But, again, its nuclear dimension remained unchanged.
L'EXPRESS: The main difference with the second half of the 20th century is Beijing's place in the geopolitical game... To what extent has the rise of China changed the dynamics of the Cold War?
ANDREW CUTCHINS: The traditional Cold War was characterized by a bilateral confrontation between two superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - and their allies and partners around the world. This is what international relations theorists call a bipolar conflict.
The rapid rise of China and the potential of a number of major regional powers, notably India, mean that we now find ourselves in a multipolar world, similar to that of the great European powers of the 19th century. Simply because of the increased number of significant players, multipolar formats are more difficult to manage.
The risks of misinterpreting the intentions of opponents and therefore of conflict are greater, especially when there are powers dissatisfied with the status quo, such as Russia and China today.
L'EXPRESS: Are you concerned about the growing risks associated with the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Could this dynamic represent a break in the Cold War continuity that you describe?
ANDREW CUTCHINS: Of course, I am concerned about the prospect of a new phase of nuclear proliferation, but I do not see it so much as a break in the Cold War as a continuation characterized by increasing instability.
In fact, the current situation looks more dangerous than at any time in the last 80 years: China, Russia and the United States, the three largest nuclear powers, are investing huge amounts of money in modernizing their nuclear arsenals.
And they are not alone. We are also seeing growing interest among key allies and partners of the United States - among them, related to Donald Trump's policy - in Europe, Asia and the Middle East!
Over the past 80 years, the number of countries possessing nuclear weapons has increased by an average of one per decade. This pace may accelerate. This is not insignificant, because alongside this trend, many actors are trying to strengthen or acquire missile defense systems.
In other words, the proliferation of nuclear weapons itself could maintain the status quo between the various powers, but what it generates in parallel - namely the proliferation of missile defense systems - creates a very high level of instability.
L'EXPRESS: How so?
ANDREW CUTCHINS: An impenetrable missile defense system could undermine the principle of nuclear deterrence, which, as you know, is based on the mutual ability to inflict disproportionate damage in the event of an attack.
Since the 1960s, negotiations have been trying to regulate the emergence of such defense systems, but the United States, for example, is now considering acquiring them, as seen in the "Golden Dome" project of Donald Trump.
The problem is that this encourages an offensive nuclear arms race, because it is easier for threatened countries to increase their offensive missile capabilities than to develop their own defensive systems. Putin has made that very clear.
L'EXPRESS: What impact does Donald Trump's foreign policy have on the continuation of the modern Cold War?
ANDREW CUTCHINS: Trump's policies are a response to the growing reluctance of the American people to shoulder such a heavy economic burden as they have carried since World War II as the guarantor of global security. He believes that our allies are taking advantage of US security commitments without providing enough of their own resources to maintain their own security.
I largely agree with him on this point. Restructuring these relations is a difficult long-term process, but Donald Trump is not a patient and far-sighted strategist. He wants immediate results. Therefore, there is a danger of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" and causing a deep rift in our alliance relations in Asia and Europe, which would not be in the interest of either the United States or our European and Asian allies.
L'EXPRESS: What could finally end the Cold War?
ANDREW CUTCHINS: The first, apocalyptic and most likely scenario is that nuclear deterrence fails and we end up destroying the world. Another scenario that I have always found skeptical is that all nuclear powers decide to give up their nuclear weapons.
This idea has always been popular on the left since the advent of nuclear weapons, but I consider it a wild utopia. Nuclear weapons are the main reason we haven't had a direct, large-scale conflict between major powers in eighty years. And I don't see enough confidence that it will happen, either now or likely in the future.
A more plausible scenario might be the emergence of a new weapons system that would neutralize the threat of nuclear weapons, rendering them harmless. A technology that would surpass the power of nuclear weapons.
One thing is certain: we are stuck in this Cold War for a long time. The desirable scenario is that nuclear deterrence continues to function.