New Cold War Could Go Hot Far Easier than the Old One, Golts Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 12 – There are many ways in which the new Cold War between Russia and the West is different from the old one, but for a variety of reasons, it has a far greater potential to go hot and lead to Armageddon than its predecessor, according to independent Russian security analyst Aleksandr Golts.

            “A direct military standoff between Russia and the West today is an indisputable fact,” he says. “It is taking place along the entire perimeter” of Russia, as a result of disputes between Russia and its neighbors into which “inevitably” are being drawn “not only individual Western countries but the North Atlantic alliance as a whole” (openmedia.io/exclusive/chem-grozit-novaya-xolodnaya-vojna/).

            In response, Moscow has sent strategic bombers to Venezuela, something that has revived the memory of Khrushchev’s placement of Soviet rockets in Cuba in 1962. In short, Golts says, “Russia and the West are already repeating the confrontational stereotypes of behavior well-known from the history of the Cold War.”

            But what is disturbing is that “such escapades can become much more dangerous than in the 1970s and 1980s when the participants of the standoff were quite clear in their understanding of ‘the red lines’ which must not be crossed.” Then, for example, “the unleashing of war on the European continent was an obvious tabu.”

            “Now, however, the sides are moving decisively to free themselves not only from unwritten rules but also from longstanding agreements which allowed for the control of military activity,” such as the American withdrawal from the agreement restricting the use of short- and intermediate-range rockets. 

            One can take no comfort from the fact that in the new cold war there won’t be the mass armies of the earlier one. That is because “the very same factors” which threatened to turn that conflict into a hot one continue despite that and other differences – and many of the differences make a hot war more likely, the military analyst argues.

           

            “If the earlier Cold War was called forth by the conflict of two socio-political systems, then the present one is the result of the conflict of the West’s actions today as understood by Vladimir Putin, an understanding which is shared by a majority of Russians as to how the world is organized. And this is something more than a prejudice; it is a completely clear ideology.”

            According to Golts, “this world has only an indirect relationship to reality. This is the world of Realpolitik,” not the refined kind represented by Henry Kissinger, with its balance of interests but rather “the simple, if not primitive Realpolitik of Bismarck, Metternich and … Stalin.”

This in Putin’s mind and the mind of most Russians is the world of Yalta, a world in which “the militarily weaker countries … are condemned to be subordinate to the great powers. It is no accident that in his desire to control European states, the Russian leader periodically speaks about their ‘limited sovereignty.’”

            Putin is convinced that “any popular movement is the result of a conspiracy of foreign intelligence services.” That is how he views the Maidan in Ukraine and that is why he has responded “in his own way.”

            “To resolve such a conflict by diplomacy is impossible,” Golts says. “Putin will never believe Western ‘counter-partners’ if the latter seek to explain to him that the times when Churchill and Stalin redrew the borders of other countries according to their visions has passed and will not return.” He will view any such explanations as “hypocrisy” or worse.

            At the same time, the analyst continues, Russia today doesn’t have the resources the Soviet Union did in the first Cold War. In fact, it doesn’t have any allies either. It has an aging population and cannot field a large army. It has a weak economy. And it cannot maintain a military buildup for long periods of time.

            It has only one means of restraining the West: “a gigantic nuclear arsenal.”  And consequently, “during crises, the Kremlin will carry out a forced nuclear rearmament.”

            But having nuclear weapons “does not give Putin the weight he wants” for the resolution of world problems. “The only means of transforming this nuclear potential into a political instrument is to show the West that in the Kremlin there sit not completely adequate people” but rather those who “are capable of ‘pushing the button’ not just in response to nuclear aggression.”

                “Being much weaker than its potential opponent, the Kremlin is condemned to act in a maximally adventurist fashion, constantly raising the stakes and balancing on the edge of military confrontation,” Golts says.  “In such circumstances, any incident … can end in catastrophe,” one that will destroy the planet.

            Another difference from the first Cold War also makes this one more dangerous, Golts says. “Soviet leaders who ruled the country after Stalin … had passed through a horrific war and really feared it.”  That acted as a constraint. But “the current leader evidently does not recognize how his unending game of raising the threat of the use of nuclear weapons could end.”

            Thus, Golts argues, there are two possible scenarios: “the completely horrific” and “the very bad.” The first would involve a direct military conflict with the West that would lead to the mass exchange of nuclear weapons.  The second to “a return to the state of constant military confrontation with an arms race that will exhaust the economy” of Russia.

            Consequently, he says, “today it is time to recall the positive experience of the previous confrontation of Russia and the West. This experience is called peaceful coexistence.” And that requires sitting down at the negotiating table and “beginning work on new agreements and new means of establishing trust.”