Abstract The Cold War has been studied repeatedly since the war supposedly ended in
1991. However recent events are starting to cause some concern and make many
question whether or not the Cold War actually ended, if it took a different shape or
perhaps has just been on pause. I argue that the Cold War has been a conflict that has
been going on since 1947 and although the conflict has looked differently in recent
decades the conflict was never properly put to an end. The research analyzes US
decision making with respect to Russian and Asian relations over the last 24 years. I
draw comparisons between the actions of the USSR and current Russian actions to
help complete the argument. I focus upon several primary and secondary sources
including scholarly articles, published letters, current news stories and interviews. It
seems the promises of European cooperation and harmony that were so encouraging in
1991 have been tested by the cold realities of imperial interests and lack of
communication between the US and its Russian counterpart. April 27, 2015 The Cold
War: Over, Renewed, or Never Ended? Matt Phipps 3 | P a g e The Cold War is over:
the End of the Domino Theory The research on this topic is vast although the issue is
still ongoing. There is a lot of debate on this topic; some historians and analysts argue
that it is impossible for the Cold War to still be an ongoing event due to several main
issues including the argument that the New Cold War will not encompass the entire
global system. Robert Legvold, a professor at Columbia University and writer for
Foreign Affairs. In his Journal article, Managing the New Cold War, suggests that the
New Cold War will not encompass the entire global system simply because the world is
not as bipolar as it once was and the fact that they have just simply learned from the
past. (Legvold, 2014) The next major issue that the New Cold War won’t have that the
original Cold War had is what they call the domino effect. This is the idea that once one
country becomes communist those ideals will spread like falling dominos. The New Cold
war does not share the issue of communism spreading like in the past; these analysts
argue that without communism, the New Cold War can no longer be the same conflict.
(Legvold, 2014) Another major argument that historians and analysts use to suggest
that we are no longer in the Cold War era is the major change in the way civil wars were
fought in the world once the Cold War ended in 1989. There was a major shift towards
peace throughout most of the world following the Cold War, this was due to the major
decline in the amount of funding that rebel forces were receiving following the fall of the
Soviet Union, therefore they were no longer able to fund their April 27, 2015 The Cold
War: Over, Renewed, or Never Ended? Matt Phipps 4 | P a g e wars which increased
peace throughout the world and induced this major shift from proxy wars funded by the
east and west to more state funded wars. These arguments are all very valid. However,
I argue that wars can evolve and mutate over time. Just because certain issues no
longer exist doesn’t necessarily mean that the conflict ended all together. It is very
possible that Cold War values are still very much alive even though several issues may
have concluded over twenty years ago. The End of U.S.-USSR Proxy Wars Since 1990
historians have been trying to distinguish the difference between the “New and Old
Wars.” (Melander, Oberg, & Hall, 2009) The universal term for the conflicts that are
currently occurring between the U.S. and Russia is the “New Cold War” this term is
confusing, and is constantly a topic of debate. (Melander, Oberg, & Hall, 2009) Does the
New Cold War mean that this conflict is completely independent of the “Old Cold War,”
or is it just a way to simply state that this is a continuation of the Old Cold War? This is
one of the main questions that I will attempt to answer. There is no doubt that after the
fall of the Soviet Union and the destruction of the Berlin wall that there was a huge wave
of peaceful negotiations that took place throughout the world with the decrease in civil
wars worldwide. However, with the increased peace in international relations the world
saw an enormous increase in civil conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
Kalyvas and Balcells of the American Political Science Review, suggest that the reason
why these civil conflicts erupted was due to the fact that the worlds two major
superpowers had withdrawn and it created a vacuum that allowed for a new April 27,
2015 The Cold War: Over, Renewed, or Never Ended? Matt Phipps 5 | P a g e type of
civil war. (Balcells & Kalyvas, 2010) During the Cold War both the United States and
Russia infused a huge amount of military and economic assistance into allied and rebel
states. These were the type of actions that lead to a change in the way civil wars were
fought. These historians and analysts suggest that since the end of the Cold War we
have seen a dramatic decline in battle severity and the amount of deaths during battle.
In Old Wars (wars during and prior to the Cold War) the casualty rate was far higher
than in New Wars (Wars after the Cold War) (Melander, Oberg, & Hall, 2009) (Balcells
& Kalyvas, 2010) The real question we have to ask is how long this time of relative
peace will last? Is the New Cold War an ending to this relative peace we have seen
since 1989? John Feffer, Director of Foreign Policy in Focus, suggests that it is not
impossible to think that the Cold War never ended; He uses the Hundred Years War as
an example of a war that went through a similar time of relative peace before renewing
the conflict altogether. Was it just a matter of time before the conflict re-emerged and
put the two Superpowers face to face again? Perhaps this time of relative international
peace is now over.
