Brian M Downing
A new world war is on. It was intimated with the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia – a Sudetenland of sorts – and became clear with the Ukraine invasions. The origin lies in the collaboration of China and Russia to avenge perceived wrongs and create a new order.
The Cold War led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and hope for a peaceful world. Wars such as the ones between 1914 and 1945 were deemed no longer possible. An acclaimed book proclaimed that we’d reached a point where democracy was the only practical form of government. But history hasn’t ended, especially not military history.
Two things dashed the hope. Democracy was supposed to take hold in Russia. Even many specialists believed it. However, the black earth wasn’t suitable for representative government. Russians long lived in the prestige of military might, prided themselves on a messianic destiny in the world, and revered forceful autocrats like Ivan, Peter, and Stalin. The collapse brought confusion, despair, and fear that was followed, predictably, by a yearning for the order, power, and glory of an imperial past. Putin sees the collapse as a geopolitical catastrophe contrived by the West. He promises to restore Russian power and has acted on it in Georgia, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine – to the enthusiastic approval of his people.
China’s economic growth was based on an opening engineered by Nixon and Kissinger. The Sino-Russian bloc that had seemed so ominous was gone. (Beijing and Washington even cooperated in defeating Russia in Afghanistan.) China was expected to become a peaceful partner in the post-Cold War era. Prosperity, education, and middle classes would prevail and in time move the country toward Western-style governance. Such was the faith in the inevitability of democracy.
China’s political leadership and most of the public didn’t want integration into the existing world order which they saw as having imposed unequal treaties and carved up coastal areas for exploitation. Better to pursue their national destiny and restore their rightful place as the center of the world. Xi is well on the path of the second long march, and his people are in stride.
The Russian and Chinese trajectories have a noteworthy if foreboding parallel. After World War One, Germans felt humiliated by an unfair peace treaty that took territories and imposed severe restrictions on the army – the centerpiece of national identity. Turmoil and despair became widespread and a perverse nationalism and yearning for past glory emerged. The Nazis exploited and channeled it into a war of vengeance.
Russia and China, though historical rivals, have for now made common cause to avenge past injustices and restore power. Russia wants to retake at least parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. China wants to expel the US from East Asia, retake Taiwan, and economically dominate much of the Eurasian land mass. Both want to weaken the US-led world order and replace it with one under their direction. Their weapons are diplomacy, propaganda, cyberattacks, and control of key commodities. Military force has only begun.
China and Russia pose the most serious challenge since the Axis coalition of World War Two. That war lasted six years. The ongoing war may last decades.
©2024 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.