One Cold War Among Many?

Abstract

Pierre Hassner, who died in May 2018 at the age of 85, was a long-standing friend of the IISS and contributor to Survival. His acclaimed Adelphi paper, Change and Security in Europe, appeared in 1968. His first book review for Survival was published in 1965, and his first original article, ‘Eurocommunism and Detente’, appeared in 1977. When the journal was relaunched in 2008, he accepted our invitation to become a Contributing Editor, and regularly contributed book reviews and articles until poor health forced him to stop in 2016.One of those articles is reprinted below. We asked him to write it after the August 2008 Russian attack on Georgia, knowing that a native of pre- and Second World War Romania who emigrated with his family to France to escape communism, and who became one of France’s most celebrated and profound philosophers on the canvas of international relations, would have something wise and important to say. He did not disappoint, and it seems especially valuable to reread this early assessment of renewed tension between Russia and the West that has now, 15 years later, metastasised into full-blown hostility.