ABSTRACT
The dominant refrain of the present age is that we are in the ‘post-Cold War era’. Beyond that, we are not sure. We may be living amidst the triumph of liberal capitalist democracy and the end of history, or a period of civilizational conflict, or – as the current worldwide turbulence would encourage us to conclude – the age of terrorism. Whatever we choose to believe, we tend to think of the Cold War as a unique event, now the memory of a bygone age. This book tries to correct that impression. The Cold War is over, but cold wars are not. If we agree that the Cold War was an intense confrontation between two nuclear-armed states, yet one in which both sought to avoid actual combat, then we must allow that there is even now more than one being ‘fought’, and that there may well be more to come. If that is so, it might do us some good, and certainly no harm, if we were to examine the cold wars of yesterday and today, and try to anticipate those of tomorrow.
