دانلود کتاب جنگ سرد دوم – چگونه جنگ در اوکراین جهان را تغییر داد

The intent of this book is to inform the reader of the current cold war that we all now live under, chronicling each major event that has happened during the Biden administration and the early Trump administration. The aim is to educate the public of the radically changing geopolitics of the globe, caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The world is now facing the Second Cold War, around thirty years after the end of the First Cold War. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the world has seen a significant rise in nuclear and military threats between world powers. It has also seen the polarisations of nations, the significant deterioration of foreign relations, economic and food crises, and the rise in countries’ aggression towards neighbouring nations territorial integrity. The invasion in 2022 has led to countries intensifying their pre-existing antagonisms against each other and aligning with others. Relations between Russia, Iran and China have quickly strengthened in this period, due to their opposition towards the US and the West. The world is now separated into three blocs: the West, the Russian bloc, and the neutral benefactors, quite like how the Iron Curtain divided nations into blocs during the First Cold War. The West consists of NATO countries, and their other allied nations and non-state actors across the globe. The Russia bloc consists of Russia, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and other aligned state and non-state actors across the globe. China would be considered a neutral benefactor, factoring the country’s initial hesitancy to provide aid to the Russian war effort. However, due to the rising tensions in the South China Sea and from its neighbours, China is increasingly aligning itself with the Russian bloc against the West. Neutral benefactors, such as Turkey, India and South Africa, play off both blocs with the attempt to accomplish their own interests and economic success. Neutral benefactors, such as India and Turkey, play off the Western and Russian blocs in order to help them establish themselves as global and regional superpower nations respectively. These benefactors appeared neutral during the early years of the Second Cold War. However, as the years have progressed, they have become emerging superpowers that are confronting the Russian bloc, China and the West, with their diplomacy and engagement in proxy wars. The Second Cold War at first was a bipolar conflict between the West and Russia, akin to the First Cold War. However, as the years have progressed, it has steadily become a semi-multipolar conflict, and tensions and proxy wars have steadily become a free for all arena between the superpowers and emerging superpowers of the US, Russia, China, Turkey, India and Iran. As shall be explored in the final chapter, even the US has become an emerging remote superpower, separate from Europe, at the turn of Donald Trump’s second presidency, due to Vladimir Putin’s exploitation of the West’s internal political infighting. The US’ growing detachment from Europe adds to the complexity of the Second Cold War’s multipolar conflict. An argument can be made that the Second Cold War started prior to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 with the Euromaidan revolution and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, where relations between the West and Russia became antagonistic. However, the author argues that the events in 2014 were not to the extreme rivalry and existential gravitas of the events of 2022 between the West and Russia. Russia’s actions in Crimea and the Donbas were received with weak condemnation and little international effort was made to stop Putin’s advances. However, 2014 was a significant year in which Russian-Western relations started to sour. The current cold war that we face is not a global wrestle for ideologies like the previous one. It is a competition between the US and Russia for ultimate superpower status by competing for influence over countries and establishing satellite states around the globe. In this competition, up-andcoming countries play the game for superpower status by exploiting the Russo-American rivalries, such as Turkey, Iran and India. The era of empires and colonial competition came to an end by the midtwentieth century. We now face a new era of imperialism. Some call the new era neo-colonialism, while others refer to these new forms of empires as superpowers. Countries that are considered as superpowers are nations that have heavy influence over their respective region, and for some, even global supranational influence. This form of imperialism lacks the features of contemporary empires, such as forced occupation over far-off countries. Superpowers spread their neo-colonial grasps over countries by entangling other nations’ economy to their own to a point where the said nations are heavily dependent on the superpower. This can be seen with the global superpower nation of China, whose economy and trade are so embedded in various nations that it is near impossible to detach Chinese economic influences away from the global economy. The nations’ attempts to rid themselves of Chinese-embedded economic influence would risk the destabilisation of their economies. Other forms of influence are lethal aid provisions to nations who are wary of a military aggression from another country. This act of military support would increase friendly relations with the said nation and make the nation reliant on their superpower ally. This can be seen with the ultimate global superpower of the US, who’s military aid and support towards European nations makes the European military wholly reliant on the US against a possible Russian military aggression. The superpower era of imperial history started in 1945 with the beginning of the First Cold War and seemed to have ended in 1991 when the US won the competition against the Soviet Union, becoming the sole and ultimate global superpower in the world. However, since 2022, the US’ reign as the sole and ultimate global superpower has been shaken and tested by various other nations vowing for global influence, hoping to surpass the US’ ultimate superpower status. The rise of democratic-liberalism and authoritarian-communist ideologies hugely impacted the conduct of twentieth century imperialism. Both ideologies detested acts of forceful colonialism. During the cold wars, the American and Russian empires established global influence mostly through indirect control over nations. The world wars saw the sharp decline of contemporary European empires and the emergence of the US and the Soviet Union filling the void. The capitalist American and communist Soviet empires sought to compete for influence over Europe and the world to counter the spread of each other’s differing ideology during the First Cold War. Political ideology of capitalist-rightism and communist-leftism was the fuel that drove the First Cold War. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia adhered to capitalism and democracy. By the mid-2010s, Russia pursued, in earnest, the restoration of its former-global superpower status and aimed to compete over the US’ status as the ultimate global superpower. The Second Cold War is, therefore, not a war over ideology like its predecessor, but rather a calculated war between competing superpower nations. Such behaviour is reminiscent of the 1871 to 1914 period in which European empires, such as France, Britain and Russia, were antagonistic towards the Imperial German Empire, but not because of the German’s political ideology. Rather Europe was in a state of cold war-esque tensions due to the rise of the Central European nations’ growing oversea imperial ambitions, which threatened its neighbouring countries’ imperial holdings and colonial trade. The possession of nuclear weapons also plays into the moulding of superpower empires’ imperial conduct as it has forced the superpowers to indirectly engage with their competitors in fear of global nuclear destruction. As shall be seen throughout this book, the nuclear factor has influenced superpowers’ foreign policy to indirectly inflict damage or hinderance towards competing superpowers, without risking a world war or nuclear destruction. There are three categories of superpower status: regional, global and ultimate global. The first two are self-explanatory: regional superpower nations have dominant influence over their respective region, whilst global superpowers have influences on an inter-continental scale. Regional superpowers naturally vie for global superpower status and global superpowers nations thereafter compete for sole ultimate global superpower status. The ultimate global superpower status refers to the superpower nation whose influences over the world are unmatched by other globalsuperpower competitors. In the twenty-first century, China has become the US’ main superpower competitor, as China’s growing global influences are threatening the legitimacy and authority of the US’ ultimate global-superpower status. Russia emerged from the rubble of the collapse of the Soviet Union and became a regional superpower when Putin won the Second Chechen War, and the Georgian War in 2008. Putin attempted to make Russia a global superpower once more with the Russian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, the formation of BRICS and the invasion of Ukraine. Several may look at this book’s title and roll their eyes. They believe that the claims that the world being plunged into the Second Cold War are merely exaggerations derived from hysteria. However, the countless times our leaders have threatened the use of war and nuclear weapons are abundant within the first couple of years since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. There have been four incidences, in a span of three years in which it appeared that a world war was imminent. The first was on 24 February 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We all anticipated a Russian invasion of Ukraine after the Russian build up on the Ukrainian border, but we were all surprised when the invasion actually occurred. The author recalls watching the news intently. The House of Commons was in uproar. However, not against each other like they usually do, but in unison. The once boring and repetitive watch of the House of Commons bared an intense atmosphere, and their anger led to them thirsting for war. An intense wait began for President Joseph ‘Joe’ Biden’s declaration of war against Russia. However, Biden made a speech declaring that the US and NATO would not be going to war. The second instance in which the world appeared to be on the brink of a third world war was on 2 August 2022, with China’s response to the House of Representatives’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. This incident, of course, would not have led to a third world war, but the invasion of Ukraine was fresh in the Western public and press memory. Strange how this incident has been outdone by other incidents that occurred after this event, in terms of severity and causing global tensions. However, the media does not portray successive incidents as nearing to a third world war like they did with the Pelosi visit. Global tensions have become the norm now. The third time was when Russia accidently bombed a farm in Prezwodów, Poland killing two people on 15 November 2022. NATO’s Article 4 was initiated. However, the NATO nations did not retaliate in any noteworthy form against Russia. The cause of the deaths of the two farmers was investigated. However, it was more complex than initially believed, as shall be discussed in Chapter Three. Both Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the bombing of the Polish farm are now largely forgotten by today’s population. Biden’s eventual decision to permit Ukrainian use of Western longrange missiles against Russian infrastructure and Putin’s reactionary threats in November 2024, was a fourth incident in which the world was close to nuclear Armageddon. However, at this point, the author, like most people, with pessimism, dismissed the geopolitical back and forth as yet another exchange of political threats and bluffs. The common exchange of nuclear blackmail became a frequent but mundane feature of the Second Cold War, to which many have grown accustomed. The world has become more on edge and is nearing militarism with conscription being considered or introduced in Western and other countries. Countries are beginning to choose a side and people’s political beliefs are more embedded and intolerable with others. Not only has Western culture shifted following the invasion of Ukraine, but foreign diplomacy has shifted drastically. In the First Cold War, international law was broken numerous times, but not to the frequent and unapologetic extents of the early years of the Second Cold War. International law has been broken numerous times on small and large scales. However, there has been a lack of effective punishment inflicted on the criminal country/leader by the international community.