Denying Cold War II, fearing World War III

Western leaders are deeply reluctant to acknowledge the obvious: we are already enmeshed in a new Cold War. More precisely, the authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, along with their proxies and dependent partners, are waging Cold War II against the West. They have been doing so as individual states or groups against America and its allies for years, if not decades, but in recent years, the autocratic regimes have become more open about coordinating their efforts to undermine what they see as their common enemy: the U.S.-led rules-based international order. Just weeks before Vladimir Putin invaded…