Decoding the New Cold War

Even though the term ‘New Cold War’ has become ubiquitous in political and media discourse since the mid-2010s, this popularity was not paralleled by an equal level of academic engagement. The New Cold War has remained under-conceptualised and siloed in different research traditions. This forum argues that understanding the New Cold War as a historical analogy, a general concept, or a historical process yields distinct insights into current geopolitics, and makes the case that distinguishing between these usages is critical for making sense of both the term’s political force and its analytical value. Regardless of which framing is adopted, the forum collectively reveals that Cold War discourses do not merely label pre-existing tensions but actively make geopolitical space, re-territorialising international politics, re-centring the state, and rendering complex rivalries legible through familiar binaries. The starting point for the forum is a critical dialogue with Barry Buzan’s article from 2024 that makes the, to date, most comprehensive case for making the ‘cold war’ into a general concept in international relations. The forum’s contributors assess the concept’s explanatory value and limits alongside its political effects from different disciplinary and regional perspectives. They hence examine the New Cold War as being both concept and historical analogy, without it being impossible to disentangle the two; as a discursive repertoire used by US presidents; as a historical process continuing the US–Russia opposition beyond 1989; as a model to define new US–China opposition; and as a lens to make sense of US–China–Russia relations in Latin America. The forum concludes with Buzan reflecting on these interpretations and defending his proposal considering contemporary geopolitical developments.