The Cold War is history. Now it's the Cool War | Observer editorial

New technology makes different kinds of low-level conflict far too easyConflicts are defined, in large part, by how they are fought and their technologies. The First World War we associate with gas and tanks and the earliest use of airpower; the Second World War with strategic bombing and the first use of nuclear weapons. Those technologies help define us as human beings, shape our experience and politics, mould our present fears. So what of the way our conflicts are being fought today?Last week, David Rothkopf, editor at large at Foreign Affairs and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adopted a startling new construction. In an article inspired by the revelation that a secretive Chinese People's Army unit had hacked many of Washington's public institutions, he suggested we are now living through a "Cool War".He defines this state of conflict in two ways. First, it involves "almost constant offensive measures that, while falling short of actual warfare, regularly seek to damage or weaken rivals or gain an edge through violations of sovereignty and penetration of defences". Its second defining feature, not least regarding the revelations over Chinese cyber warfare efforts, is its deployment of "cutting edge" technologies, which are changing the way in which many conflicts and tensions are being played out."The purpose of the Cold War," he says, "was to gain an advantage come the next hot war or, possibly, to forestall it. The purpose of Cool W...
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