Cool War
by Noah Feldman
A bold and thought-provoking look at the future of U.S.-China relations, and how their coming power struggle will reshape the competitive playing field for nations around the world
The Cold War seemingly ended in a decisive victory for the West. But now, Noah Feldman argues, we are entering an era of renewed global struggle: the era of Cool War. Just as the Cold War matched the planet's reigning superpowers in a contest for geopolitical supremacy, so this new age will pit the United States against a rising China in a contest for dominance, alliances, and resources. Already visible in Asia, the conflict will extend to the Middle East (U.S.-backed Israel versus Chinese-backed Iran), Africa, and beyond.
Yet this Cool War differs fundamentally from the zero-sum showdowns of the past: The world's major power and its leading challenger are economically interdependent to an unprecedented degree. Exports to the U.S. account for nearly a quarter of Chinese trade, while the Chinese government holds 8 percent of America's outstanding debt. This positive-sum interdependence has profound implications for nations, corporations, and international institutions. It makes what looked to be a classic contest between two great powers into something much more complex, contradictory, and badly in need of the shrewd and carefully reasoned analysis that Feldman provides.
To understand the looming competition with China, we must understand the incentives that drive Chinese policy. Feldman offers an arresting take on that country's secretive hierarchy, proposing that the hereditary "princelings" who reap the benefits of the complicated Chinese political system are actually in partnership with the meritocrats who keep the system full of fresh talent and the reformers who are trying to root out corruption and foster government accountability. He provides a clear-eyed analysis of the years ahead, showing how China's rise presents opportunities as well as risks. Robust competition could make the U.S. leaner, smarter, and more pragmatic, and could drive China to greater respect for human rights. Alternatively, disputes over trade, territory, or human rights could jeopardize the global economic equilibrium—or provoke a catastrophic "hot war" that neither country wants.
The U.S. and China may be divided by political culture and belief, but they are also bound together by mutual self-interest. Cool War makes the case for competitive cooperation as the only way forward that can preserve the peace and make winners out of both sides.
Praise for Cool War
"A timely book . . . sharp, logical and cool."—The Economist
"Noah Feldman's dissection of the United States–China relationship is smart, balanced, and wise."—Robert D. Kaplan, New York Times bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography
"Compelling . . . Feldman's book carries enough insight to warrant serious attention from anyone interested in what may well be the defining relationship in global affairs for decades to come."—Kirkus Reviews
"A worthwhile and intriguing read."—The Washington Post
"Masterfully elucidates China's non-democratic/non-communist new form of government."—Publishers Weekly
Paperback
English
Brand New
Author Biography
Noah Feldman is Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard University and the author of five previous books, most recently Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices. A Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, Feldman has a bachelor's degree from Harvard, a law degree from Yale, and a doctorate in Islamic thought from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He clerked for Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. In 2003, he served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of an interim constitution. He has been a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and is a columnist for Bloomberg View.
Review
"A timely book . . . sharp, logical and cool."—The Economist
"By giving realism and liberal internationalism their due, and by giving credence to both naked self-interest and legal norms, Noah Feldman's dissection of the United States–China relationship is smart, balanced, and wise."—Robert D. Kaplan, New York Times bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography
"[Noah] Feldman is a sensitive and incisive observer of what he has coined the 'Cool War' between the [United States and China]. . . . A crisp writer, Feldman has a fine eye for telling anecdotes, which he uses to frame nearly every chapter. . . . Neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic, Feldman lays out a compelling case for why the neither-allies-nor-enemies standing between the two powers is tenuous but not necessarily doomed to topple into hot war. Current affairs books always run the risk of going rather quickly from the New Releases shelf to the remainder bin, but Feldman's book carries enough insight to warrant serious attention from anyone interested in what may well be the defining relationship in global affairs for decades to come."—Kirkus Reviews
"A worthwhile and intriguing read."—The Washington Post
"Masterfully elucidates China's non-democratic/non-communist new form of government."—Publishers Weekly
"We are leaving the era of 'Chimerica'—when China and America were economically joined at the hip—and entering the era of what Noah Feldman has justly and wittily dubbed 'Cool War.' Feldman anatomizes the rapid transformation of the Sino-American relationship from an unequal trading partnership into a new and heavily armed ambivalence. Just how cool the conflict stays, Feldman suggests, will be determined not in cyberspace or at sea but in international institutions. Cool War is essential reading for any serious student of the emergent bipolar order in the Asia-Pacific region."—Niall Ferguson, New York Times bestselling author of Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire and Civilization: The West and the Rest
Review Quote
"A timely book . . . sharp, logical and cool." -- The Economist "By giving realism and liberal internationalism their due, and by giving credence to both naked self-interest and legal norms, Noah Feldman's dissection of the United States-China relationship is smart, balanced, and wise." --Robert D. Kaplan,
Excerpt from Book
Chapter One Bound Together Who won the Cold War? For twenty years now--almost half the length of the war itself--the Western democracies have assumed that they did. For the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Europe grew vastly in the absence of their greatest strategic challenger. The United States generated the information revolution. Europe increased mutual cooperation, united its currency, and incorporated the choicest bits of the former Soviet empire into the European Union. There was good historical precedent for both growth and unity: after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Britain, the main winner, initiated the industrial revolution, and the Concert of Europe represented the efforts of the European states to cooperate and manage their security affairs.1 But in the second decade after the Cold War, two surprising things happened. First, the United States, with European participation, invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and then spent trillions of dollars, enormous diplomatic capital, and thousands of its soldiers'' lives in the effort to build functioning states in each. The results were a very partial success in one case and something very much like failure in the other. The economic downturn that began toward the end of the decade was not caused by these misadventures, but taken together they signaled the possibility of imperial decline.2 At the same time, China, which had been a secondary player in the Cold War, deepened the experiment it had already begun with state-managed market reform. The result was sustained economic growth of stunning proportions. China became the world''s second-largest economy, outstripping Japan and all individual members of the European Union. The pace of its growth has declined from the consistent 10 percent or more of the post-
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