Oriana Skylar Mastro on The U.S. and China: A New Cold War?

In the decades following World War II, global geopolitics were dominated by two superpowers: the United States and the U.S.S.R. The Cold War era was defined by estrangement and the threat posed by a nuclear arms race between the two countries. Today, there is growing consensus that the United States is entering into a new kind of cold war with another communist superpower: China. As the U.S.-China trade war heats up—potentially morphing into a larger technology war—and competition becomes the primary dynamic, what parallels can be made? Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro of Georgetown University and the American Enterprise Institute explains why U.S. relations with China differ from those with the former Soviet Union, and why a new cold war might not be the worst outcome. Oriana Skylar Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where her research addresses critical questions regarding Chinese military and security policy, military operations, and rising power challenges to the international order. Dr. Mastro is also a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and concurrently serves in the United States Air Force Reserve as a senior China analyst at the Pentagon. She is the author of numerous publications, including The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime (Cornell University Press, 2019). Dr. Mastro is a fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program.