score:17
No! The Cold War was the standoff between the Capitalistic USA and Communistic USSR. Communism lost. What remains is corruption within the former communist country (Russia). The War in Ossetia was over oil (a distinctly capitalistic move) not ideology (spreading Communism) as it would have been were the Cold War still ongoing.
Upvote:-2
Yes, the Cold War continues. There are still numerous Communist, Socialist and just left-leaning regimes in the world, even after Russia turned to Capitalism. All these regimes are enemies of the US to greater or smaller degree.
If you take a look at the recent objects of US military campaigns, You'll see that the victims of the US politics are mostly left-wing regimes which somehow position themselves as being "socialist":
Socialist Yugoslavia
Arab socialist Iraq
Socialist Libya
and Arab Socialist Syria is scheduled. Note that Syria is the last remaining country in the Arab and the whole Muslim world that positions itself to be somehow "socialist", the other two (Iraq and Libya) have been already annihilated.
That said I think the main target of the current US geopolitical offensive is China which is currently the opposite pole of the current cold war (although the confrontation is mostly one-sided with China mostly conducting a peaceful policy now).
Upvote:6
If you go by official definition (e.g. on Wikipedia), then yes, Cold War – defined as geopolitical conflict between USSR-led communist block and Western democracies – was officially over December 25, 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR.
However, if you see Cold War merely as a specific manifestation of a generic geopolitical conflict between Russian interest to create a defensible empire, and US interest to prevent a creation of a powerful Eurasian empire combining Russia's natural resources and European resources, then you will see why current events show a marked resemblance to the Cold War. Because the geopolitical conflict didn't change at all even though specific political/economic regime in Russia was gone to a certain degree.
Upvote:9
No, the Cold War has stopped. If you think that the 'Cold War' is still going on because there is still slightly antagonistic relationships between Russia and Western Europe, then you have to remember that there has always been antagonism between Russia and Western Europe. Just look at The Great Game (between Russia & UK), or French invasion of Russia in 1812. If you can call the current geopolitical situation "Cold War 2", then you shouldn't have called it the "Cold War" in the first place, you should have called it "Great Game 2" (so we can call the current situation "Great Game 3").