Are we in a new Cold War?

A new Cold War?

The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia over the protracted conflict in Syria, accusing the Kremlin of joining with the Syrian air force in carrying out a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged city of Aleppo.

Putin’s pre-emptive strike

Anticipating the end of the Syria talks after repeated warnings from US officials, President Vladimir Putin of Russia responded by withdrawing from a landmark arms control agreement that calls for each side to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium, a material used in nuclear weapons.

‘Reset’ in relations

It’s been more than seven years since the Obama administration sought a “reset” in relations between the two former Cold War rivals. Strained by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and allegations that Moscow is behind a wave of political hacking attacks in the US, the deteriorating ties could undermine other areas the two countries have coordinated on to resolve global tensions, including sanctions on North Korea and Iran over those nations’ nuclear programmes.

The plutonium deal

Putin scrapped a key nuclear control agreement over the US’s “unfriendly” action. In a presidential decree, Putin froze The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PDMA) because of “a drastic change in circumstances, the appearance of a threat to strategic stability due to unfriendly actions of the United States toward Russia”.

Nuclear legacy

The deal, first negotiated by Putin and President Bill Clinton in 2000 and updated in 2010, committed both countries to disposing of at least 34 tons of weapons grade plutonium, enough to produce around 17,000 nuclear weapons. A draft of the law published later said Russia will freeze the deal until the US drops all sanctions, pays compensation for the damage they have caused, and reduces its military infrastructure and manpower in other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) states to the same levels as when the deal was signed.

Echoes of the past

Escalating airstrikes in Syria. Sophisticated cyberattacks, apparently intended to influence the American election. New evidence of complicity in shooting down a civilian airliner. The behaviour of Russia in the last few weeks has echoes of some of the uglier moments of the Cold War, an era of proxy battles that ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

‘Constant conflict’

US President Barack Obama, fresh from a meeting with President Vladimir Putin last month, wondered aloud whether the Russian leader was content living with a “constant, low-grade conflict.” His reference was to Ukraine, but he could have been addressing any of the arenas where Putin has revelled in his new role as the great disrupter of American plans around the globe.

Russia’s cyberpower

Cyberpower in particular is tailor-made for a country in Russia’s circumstances — a declining economy with the gross domestic product of Italy. It is dirt cheap, hard to trace to a specific aggressor and perfect for sowing confusion, which may be the limits of Putin’s goals.

A grander scheme?

The bigger question confronting US intelligence officials is whether the Russian president has a grander scheme at work. So far, their conclusion is probably not. Putin’s moves, they argue in background conversations, are largely tactical, intended to bolster his international image at a moment he has plenty of troubles back home.

Why it’s worrisome

For a year now, the White House has argued that these escalating clashes, while worrisome, do not constitute a new Cold War. There is no great ideological struggle underway. No one is brandishing nuclear weapons, though after two decades of reducing their forces, each is now racing to modernise them.

Supporting Syria’s rebels

The Kremlin says the US never fulfilled a commitment to separate moderate Syrian rebels from terrorist groups, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a website statement late Monday. “We urge the US to assess the situation once more in light of how their actions appear before the world. The stakes are very high.”

Militants regrouped

In the grey zone

Putin has shown some caution. While he has tried to intimidate Nato nations with overflights of bombers, nuclear submarine runs along coasts and military exercises near the borders of Estonia and Latvia, he has been careful to stay on his side of the boundaries. “These are all occurring in grey-zone locations with grey-zone tactics,” said Robert Kagan, a historian at the Brookings Institution who has written on the return of geopolitical conflict. The question the United States will have to face, he added, is “Are we willing to operate in the grey area, too?”

The reality

“Russian relations with the United States have been awful for the past two years and today’s developments are a manifestation of that,” said Olga Oliker, director of the Russia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Russia “was never a big fan” of the plutonium pact, so it sees little cost in suspending the agreement, she added.