Syria: Tensions Between Obama and Putin,We Are Not in a Cold War Climate

The smiles were fixed in place at the opening of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia on Thursday, Sept. 5. Divisions on the Syrian issue remain strong, crystallized around the tensions between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama. Despite all this, it makes no sense to speak of a Cold War climate in the estimation of Pascal Boniface, IRIS director.

In its diversity of opinion, the French press appears unanimous in evoking the idea of a new Cold War placing Russia and the United States in opposition at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.

In fact, there is — and there has been for quite a while — a frontal opposition between Moscow and Washington, regarding a conflict in what we might call the “third world,” where their respective allies confront each other.

However, this easy presentation rests more on a slightly lazy reproduction of past schemas than on an analysis of strategic realities.

A Western-Centric Vision

There is a power struggle between Russia and the United States. Despite it, we are not in a climate of Cold War. Firstly, because the world is no longer bipolar. Everything does not come back to a confrontation between the two capitals. The other participants of the G-20 are neither aligned allies of one over the other, nor passive and silent spectators.

Russia is no longer the weakened and staggered country of the 1990s. Putin directs it with an iron fist, makes his voice heard and opposes Washington, but he is no longer the head of a global alliance controlling half of Europe with bases and alliances in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

There is no longer an ideological system with the global mission of exporting itself and gaining ground on the other. With regard to profoundly divergent conceptions of national interests that do cross swords and confront each other, we are in a situation of national rivalries. However, we come back to a classic geopolitical situation and not the configuration of a bipolar world, which disappeared 20 years ago.

There is no longer the threatening possibility of extreme escalation that would culminate in a generalized nuclear confrontation.

Moreover, talk of Cold War comes out of a Western-centric vision. No one is speaking of a Cold War in developing countries. It is precisely Westerners who thought that following the dismantlement of the Soviet empire, nothing would any longer oppose their power, destabilized by the emergence of forces that contest their point of view.

Not a Logic of Blocks

However, there are certain leaders — Western experts — who have a vision of the Cold War that confuses Putin with Stalin and Russia with the Soviet Union. Their push for an anti-missile defense system recalls the debate on ballistic missiles of the 1960s and the Star Wars of the 1980s.

Putin will certainly try to form tactical alliances with certain developing countries that are also reticent about military interventions for historical reasons — especially ones decided upon outside the United Nations Security Council, and especially those led by the United States.

The United Kingdom and Germany’s nonalignment with the U.S. position shows well that the Cold War is over. They would not have adopted this kind of position at that time.

So yes, there are countries — Russia at the head — that frontally oppose the United States, but we are dealing with a logic of multiform positioning, not blocks, a logic of rivalries between states, not a Cold War.

There are some commentators who need to update their intellectual software.