American Academy Lecture

Past & Future Cold Wars: Lessons for Winners and Losers

The West won the Cold War, but the tools of victory were ill-suited for the conflicts that followed. Washington’s assumption that it was now “the sole superpower” weakened us still further. Today, we suddenly find ourselves in a situation that seems similar to olden times—an apparent “Cold War II” with Russia and China. But the world, in fact, resembles more that of nineteenth-century power-politics, but with the nuclear weapons, instant communications, and somewhat functional international organizations that make conflict and conciliation at once more and less likely. In this talk, Fred Kaplan discusses how this not-really-quite-a-new-Cold-War is likely to shape the international landscape for decades to come.

Fred Kaplan is the national-security columnist for Slate and the author of six books, including The Bomb, Dark Territory, The Wizards of Armageddon, and The Insurgents, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Previously a staff reporter for the Boston Globe in Washington, DC, (1982-91), Kaplan was part of the group that won a Pulitzer Prize for a special magazine coverage of the nuclear arms race. He also reported for the Globe from Moscow (1992-95) and New York (1995-2002). A member of the Society of American Historians, Kaplan has held fellowships at the Council on Foreign Relations and New America. He graduated from Oberlin College and received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.