The New Cold War

It was the ex-Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky who famously asserted that the Cold War was ended by the Western powers one day too early. In a 2003 interview, commenting on the Western Left’s support for Islamist terrorism, he stated that “twenty years ago the Left aided and abetted the equally barbaric Soviet regime. Even the current "peace campaign" is just a copy of the 1980s campaign for nuclear disarmament of the West and against placement of "American" missiles in Europe, against SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) and Western re-armament program. Even some participants are the same. This fact simply confirms what I've been saying since 1993: we did not win the Cold War. We did not finish off our enemies either in the East (where old communist nomenklatura and the KGB are still in power), or in the West (where their old collaborators are still a major political force).”

With Russia and China now rallying round a new strategic axis in Central Asia, with levels of Russian military and commercial espionage in the West growing to levels not seen in thirty years, and with the Chinese Communists currently attempting to buy the favour of Western governments, while maintaining a huge spy presence in countries such as Australia, it looks as though Bukovsky’s analysis continues to hold true. China’s most recent intervention, in which Major General Zhu Chenghu (speaking, as is customary on these occasions, in a "personal" capacity) threatened that China will use nuclear weapons if attacked by the U.S. in any future confrontation over Taiwan, confirms the thesis. The Cold War is not over. It has merely entered a new phase.

The West faces the same enemies as before, enemies who are now aided and abetted not only by the Western Left, but also by the newly refurbished power-manipulating instrument of international terrorism.