Not your grandparents’ Cold War: Why America should emphasize economic rather than military strategies in its rivalry with China

Abstract

ABSTRACT The current US-China competition draws comparisons to the Cold War contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. But there are three crucial differences between the great-power contests of today and during the Cold War: China is now more economically powerful than the Soviet Union was; the American and Chinese economies are more intertwined now than the United States’ and Soviet Union’s ever were; and US allies today are wealthier and more militarily capable than during the Cold War. Because of these differences, the United States should approach its rivalry with China in a way that emphasizes economics and focuses less on the types of ideological and military contests that characterized the Cold War.