CHINA
23 October 2025
New age of warfare
Some reflections on the new age of warfare by distinguished historian Stephen Kotkin.
This note summarises the key points made by distinguished historian Stephen Kotkin on the “new age of warfare” in his recent podcast with Paul Lay of Engelsberg Ideas.
Europe’s pacifist societies don't really have soldiers or armies, and that's a really big problem. The West has sanctions against Russia. But sanctions are something you do when you don't want to send your boys and girls to die. They don't often change the calculus of the adversary. Putin will continue the war unless it feels his regime is at stake. Wrecking Ukraine is a form of victory even as Russia fails to achieve its broader aims in the war.
There are some European countries that take security seriously. Finland has a formidable land army. Then there's Sweden which has an air force, navy and civil defense. The Poles have a substantial armed forces. Turkey has probably the most formidable armed force inside NATO. And then Ukraine has one of Europe’s most impressive armed forces and now a defense industrial complex.
Europe took advantage of a post Cold War “peace dividend”. The problem is you need a formidable military in order to maintain the peace in order to deter potential adversaries. To deter and if necessary fight Russia, the best prospect would be an alliance of Nordic countries. The challenge for such an alliance is agreeing who's in command. One advantage of NATO is that it puts the command question off the table because the Americans are in command.
Another approach is undermining the unanimity of Putin’s Russian elite, peeling off the dissatisfied elites from the regime to destabilise Putin's regime. But economic sanctions have been pushing members of the Russian elite closer to Putin.
Sometimes attacks are by a teenager in the basement somewhere, but often by your adversaries, state actors. And they do this with close to complete impunity. It is difficult to know what level of response is appropriate for a cyber attack because of attribution problems.
Even if Russia doesn't invade Estonia, it has been under “hybrid” attacks almost since independence, certainly since the 2000s when Russia regained its footing.
So it’s the end of peace as we used to understand peace. And so Europe – not just Ukraine – is at war. It’s not just drone incursions, there is a 24/7 incursion into European societies, politics, and economies.
If we look at the Baltic States, Poland, Finland and Sweden, and certainly Ukraine, they've been quite innovative in terms of the resistance to this new form of warfare or this lack of peace. But the rest of Europe has been quite slow to wake up to this. Also, it is slow to react because it would be “escalatory” and could lead to war. Kotkin argues for decisive responses. In 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian attack aircraft which strayed into its airspace, and Russian did not escalate. Russia denied that it had Wagner fighters in Syria. The US did not like what they were doing, so it killed them. Another approach would be to film an incursion and issue a strict warning.
But this is hard for European societies. The post-1989 peace dividend has entrenched a pacifist mentality. So changing is difficult.
US GDP has been 25 percent of global GDP since 1880. It has an unbelievably dynamic economy. That's still the case today and that's going to be the case in the foreseeable future. But there was an anomalous moment from 1945 to 1960 due to the destruction of World War 2 when the US share reached about 40 percent of global GDP and 50 percent of global manufacturing.
When the US formed the US-led postwar international order, the US dominated across every sphere, especially economically. It was a remarkable time when the US could make promises, could set up mutual obligations where the US provided a very significant part of the obligation. But it's a period that couldn't last forever.
With the postwar success in the Western world came a necessary rebalancing of US power. The US has too many commitments and the demand for American power is unlimited. People say let's bring Ukraine into NATO, and have a security treaty with the Saudis. These are all demands on US power. Rebalancing, which is underway, was promised for quite some time. Bush talked about this. Obama had his pivot to Asia. Biden tried in his own way. Trump is now doing it in the Trumpian fashion.
Rebalancing was always going to start with Europe. The US has 5 percent of the global population, 25 percent of global GDP and 50 percent of global military spending. Europe has 7 percent of the global population, 17 percent of global GDP and nearly 50 percent of global social spending. Rebalancing means Europe taking greater and greater responsibility for its own security.
Trump’s got the bigger fish to fry than Europe, namely the China relationship.
China collapsed into a tunnel around 1800, and remained in that tunnel until the 1980s, when its economy took off thanks to the reforms of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. China’s “century of humiliation” coincided with America’s rise to world leader in economic, science and technology, military, energy, and cultural and soft power terms. Today, China is challenging American leadership across the Indopacific and the world.
The problem is that neither side knows how to deal with each other, even though they must share the planet. Even if China goes through convulsions following the regime of Xi Jinping, China will be there tomorrow. America's not disappearing. China's not disappearing. They must share the planet, but on what terms?
World War 2 left at least 55 million dead, which is a multiple of World War 1 deaths. A third World War would lead to even more destruction, death and ruin. It must be avoided. That will be difficult. During the Cold War, both sides faced borders of victory which enabled a political accomodation.
But this time, we have borders of defeat. Ukraine’s border is a border of defeat for Russia. Israel’s borders are borders of defeat for many Arabs and certainly for Iran. The Taiwan border is a border of defeat for China. The Chinese civil war is not over yet. Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China is in Taiwan where they retreated in 1949.
Such borders of defeat make reconciliation much more difficult than in the case of status quo powers of the Cold War. In sum, the present Cold War is not like the first Cold War.
Europe’s strategic quandaries
US president Donald Trump has made clear that the Ukraine war is Europe’s war. But Europe is just not ready for the epoch in which it's now living.Europe’s pacifist societies don't really have soldiers or armies, and that's a really big problem. The West has sanctions against Russia. But sanctions are something you do when you don't want to send your boys and girls to die. They don't often change the calculus of the adversary. Putin will continue the war unless it feels his regime is at stake. Wrecking Ukraine is a form of victory even as Russia fails to achieve its broader aims in the war.
There are some European countries that take security seriously. Finland has a formidable land army. Then there's Sweden which has an air force, navy and civil defense. The Poles have a substantial armed forces. Turkey has probably the most formidable armed force inside NATO. And then Ukraine has one of Europe’s most impressive armed forces and now a defense industrial complex.
Europe took advantage of a post Cold War “peace dividend”. The problem is you need a formidable military in order to maintain the peace in order to deter potential adversaries. To deter and if necessary fight Russia, the best prospect would be an alliance of Nordic countries. The challenge for such an alliance is agreeing who's in command. One advantage of NATO is that it puts the command question off the table because the Americans are in command.
Another approach is undermining the unanimity of Putin’s Russian elite, peeling off the dissatisfied elites from the regime to destabilise Putin's regime. But economic sanctions have been pushing members of the Russian elite closer to Putin.
There is no peace anymore
There used to be peace and war and you knew the difference. Now there's no peace because everything is interconnected, which wasn’t the case a few decades ago. Today your water supply, electricity grid, media, political system and even your refrigerator at home are all now points of vulnerability that are under attack 24/7.Sometimes attacks are by a teenager in the basement somewhere, but often by your adversaries, state actors. And they do this with close to complete impunity. It is difficult to know what level of response is appropriate for a cyber attack because of attribution problems.
Even if Russia doesn't invade Estonia, it has been under “hybrid” attacks almost since independence, certainly since the 2000s when Russia regained its footing.
So it’s the end of peace as we used to understand peace. And so Europe – not just Ukraine – is at war. It’s not just drone incursions, there is a 24/7 incursion into European societies, politics, and economies.
If we look at the Baltic States, Poland, Finland and Sweden, and certainly Ukraine, they've been quite innovative in terms of the resistance to this new form of warfare or this lack of peace. But the rest of Europe has been quite slow to wake up to this. Also, it is slow to react because it would be “escalatory” and could lead to war. Kotkin argues for decisive responses. In 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian attack aircraft which strayed into its airspace, and Russian did not escalate. Russia denied that it had Wagner fighters in Syria. The US did not like what they were doing, so it killed them. Another approach would be to film an incursion and issue a strict warning.
But this is hard for European societies. The post-1989 peace dividend has entrenched a pacifist mentality. So changing is difficult.
Fundamental rebalancing of American power
There's a fundamental rebalancing of American power in the world underway that predates President Trump.US GDP has been 25 percent of global GDP since 1880. It has an unbelievably dynamic economy. That's still the case today and that's going to be the case in the foreseeable future. But there was an anomalous moment from 1945 to 1960 due to the destruction of World War 2 when the US share reached about 40 percent of global GDP and 50 percent of global manufacturing.
When the US formed the US-led postwar international order, the US dominated across every sphere, especially economically. It was a remarkable time when the US could make promises, could set up mutual obligations where the US provided a very significant part of the obligation. But it's a period that couldn't last forever.
With the postwar success in the Western world came a necessary rebalancing of US power. The US has too many commitments and the demand for American power is unlimited. People say let's bring Ukraine into NATO, and have a security treaty with the Saudis. These are all demands on US power. Rebalancing, which is underway, was promised for quite some time. Bush talked about this. Obama had his pivot to Asia. Biden tried in his own way. Trump is now doing it in the Trumpian fashion.
Rebalancing was always going to start with Europe. The US has 5 percent of the global population, 25 percent of global GDP and 50 percent of global military spending. Europe has 7 percent of the global population, 17 percent of global GDP and nearly 50 percent of global social spending. Rebalancing means Europe taking greater and greater responsibility for its own security.
Trump’s got the bigger fish to fry than Europe, namely the China relationship.
America/China contest
Today, America and China have locked horns in a great power contest. But this is the first time in history that they have been great powers at the same time.China collapsed into a tunnel around 1800, and remained in that tunnel until the 1980s, when its economy took off thanks to the reforms of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. China’s “century of humiliation” coincided with America’s rise to world leader in economic, science and technology, military, energy, and cultural and soft power terms. Today, China is challenging American leadership across the Indopacific and the world.
The problem is that neither side knows how to deal with each other, even though they must share the planet. Even if China goes through convulsions following the regime of Xi Jinping, China will be there tomorrow. America's not disappearing. China's not disappearing. They must share the planet, but on what terms?
World War 2 left at least 55 million dead, which is a multiple of World War 1 deaths. A third World War would lead to even more destruction, death and ruin. It must be avoided. That will be difficult. During the Cold War, both sides faced borders of victory which enabled a political accomodation.
But this time, we have borders of defeat. Ukraine’s border is a border of defeat for Russia. Israel’s borders are borders of defeat for many Arabs and certainly for Iran. The Taiwan border is a border of defeat for China. The Chinese civil war is not over yet. Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China is in Taiwan where they retreated in 1949.
Such borders of defeat make reconciliation much more difficult than in the case of status quo powers of the Cold War. In sum, the present Cold War is not like the first Cold War.