After the Second World War, a bipolar international order emerged, the architecture of which lasted for almost 50 years. It was marked by the division of the globe into two autonomous systems, economically disintegrated, driven by antagonistic ideologies and explicit hostility in its international relations. Its protagonists: the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR). Despite the fact that the Soviet economy was almost a third of the American one, its military capacity and political projection allowed it to compete in all regions of the world. Washington produced a strategy to “contain” what it perceived as Moscow’s expansionism, while the USSR saw the conflict as a struggle between two types of society: socialism vs. capitalism. Both resorted to the use of force, although they never fought each other.

China and the United States have traded accusations of tensions amid the Taiwan Strait incident

Latin America and order

The image of a new cold war is now used to describe the rivalry between China and the United States, but the characteristics of the relationship are different. First, the world is not divided into two cohesive blocks, it is very fragmented: Europe, India, Russia, Japan, for example, are global players. Therefore, the world economy is interdependent. Washington and Beijing have numerous mutual financial and production ties, and they share them with other actors as well. Third, the possibility of military conflict between them is less intense than in bipolarity; and, finally, China is not thinking of abolishing the world capitalist market, but of its decisive involvement in that system. The Asian economy is bigger and more successful than the Soviet economy ever was.

Unaligned world

In the described environment, Cold War strategies do not make sense. Beijing’s expansion was not territorial. Physical containment, relatively effective against the Soviets, is not a tool to stop investment policy, infrastructure and industrial exports. China is a more formidable rival to the United States than the USSR because its resources exceed its military capabilities and, furthermore, because the world environment is complex: it is no longer bipolar. Beijing’s ties to Washington’s own allies and other societies are countless. Most countries in the world require China – and also the United States – in order for their economies to function and to engage in globalization. It is not in the interest of these countries to opt exclusively for any of the contenders.

A new world order by 2030 in an oil-dependent and multipolar society

In Latin America, there is still nostalgia for bipolarity because of the emancipatory role hypothetically attributed to an extra-regional power; This sentiment also drives United States policy, from another perspective, in the belief that the strategy used against the Soviet Union can maintain Washington’s world dominance. Both views are wrong. There is no Cold War 2.0. Globalization and its interdependencies offer another scenario, diverse, conflictual, interconnected, with shifting alliances and insecurities, where the use of force continues to be an instrument of power, although it is not the only one nor has the ability to resolve all conflicts and problems. (OR)