America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline?
A TPF Book Discussion on the book “America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline?” by Ambassador Alfredo Toro Hardy, Former Venezuelan Diplomat and Scholar.
About the Book:
American administration under Trump’s presidency took an aggressive approach to China, unleashing a trade war. The Biden administration has gone a step further to designate China as a challenge and threat. The strengthening of the Quad and formation of the new security alliance ‘AUKUS’ along with increasing tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea are seen by many as the New Cold War with China. The war in Ukraine and the US-NATO conflict with Russia make for a complex and unstable geopolitical situation.
Alfredo Toro Hardy’s book ‘America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline?’ is a timely work given the emerging instability in the world order. The book compares America’s long Cold War with the Soviet Union with its emerging one with China. The author examines two basic questions in the book. How different as a strategic competitor was the Soviet Union to current China? How different is the United States today from its former self when confronting the Soviets?
In his preface James M Dorsey says Alfredo Toro Hardy’s analysis of the evolution and future of US foreign policy and America’s place in the world could not have come at a more propitious moment. He says the world is at an inflexion point as it transits from America’s brief moment of unipolarity in the wake of the demise of the USSR to a world in which not only China, Europe, Russia, and eventually India but also middle powers such as Turkey, Iran, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, and Japan will be more prominent. Of the group, though, China is not only focalizing America’s largest degree of attention but unleashing within its ranks a rivalry that reproduces much of the animosity that characterised Washington’s confrontation with Moscow during the Cold War years.
Toro Hardy’s book, focused on big power relations, frames the understanding of tectonic shifts marking the transition towards new world order. It portrays an emerging Cold War with China where the narrow lens of a demonised adversary could end up prevailing, and where the possibility of a foreign policy that emphasises military restraint and diplomatic engagement and cooperation runs the risk of being frustrated. In Toro Hardy’s view engaging in a zero-sum confrontation with China would only serve to accelerate America’s decline.
TPF Discussion:
The Peninsula Foundation is delighted to organise this event – a Discussion of this important Book by the Author-Scholar and Diplomat, Ambassador Alfredo Toro Hardy. The discussion will begin with the author’s overview of the book followed by an analysis and comments on the book by the discussant, Dr Manoj Joshi. A Discussion with the author and the Discussant moderated by the Chair will take place followed by a Q & A session with the audience.
About the Author:
Alfredo Toro Hardy is a Venezuelan retired diplomat, scholar, and author. He has a PhD in International Relations by the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Affairs, two master degrees on international law and international economics by the University of Pennsylvania and the Central University of Venezuela, a post-graduate diploma in diplomatic studies by the Ecole Nationale D’Administration (ENA) and a Bachelor of Law degree by the Central University of Venezuela. Before resigning from the Venezuelan Foreign Service in protest for events taking place in his country, he was one of its most senior career diplomats. As such, he served as Ambassador to the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Singapore, Chile, and Ireland. He directed the Diplomatic Academy of the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as other Venezuelan academic institutions in the field of international affairs. He is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and has been a Visiting Professor at the universities of Princeton and Brasilia and an on-line Professor at the University of Barcelona. He has also been a Fulbright Scholar, a two-time Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident Scholar, and an academic advisor on diplomatic studies to the University of Westminster. He has authored twenty-one books and co-authored fifteen more on international affairs and history, while publishing thirty peer reviewed papers on the same subjects.
About the Discussant:
Dr. Manoj Joshi
Distinguished Fellow, ORF
Dr. Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the ORF. He has been a journalist specialising on national and international politics and is a commentator and columnist on these issues. As a reporter, he has written extensively on issues relating to Siachen, Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka and terrorism in Kashmir and Punjab.
He was most recently a member of the Task Force on National Security chaired by Mr Naresh Chandra to propose reforms in the security apparatus of the country. He has been the political editor of The Times of India, Editor (Views) Hindustan Times, Defence Editor of India Today, National Affairs Editor of Mail Today, the Washington Correspondent of The Financial Express and a Special Correspondent of The Hindu in his three-decade-long career as a journalist. Before that, he was an Academic Fellow of the American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad. He has been a member of the National Security Council’s Advisory Board and is the author of two books On the Kashmir issue and several papers in professional journals. He is a graduate of St Stephen’s College, Delhi University and a PhD from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has been a Visiting Professor at the SIS, JNU, as well as a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University.
About the Chair:
Air Marshal M Matheswaran AVSM VM PhD (Retd)
President, The Peninsula Foundation
Air Marshal M Matheswaran is an Indian Air Force veteran with 39 years of active service. He is the Founder-President of The Peninsula Foundation, a policy research think-tank based in Chennai. He is a fighter pilot, an Experimental Test Pilot, and a Fighter Combat Leader, and has flown over 40 types of aircraft. He is an alumnus of IAF’s prestigious institutions, ASTE and TACDE where he was Commandant and Deputy Commandant respectively. The Air Marshal is also a graduate of the Defence Services College, Wellington and the National Defence College, New Delhi. He has held various operational and command appointments that include Senior Air Staff Officer of Eastern Air Command, Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Space), Air Officer Commanding (Maritime Air Operations), Principal Director (Air Staff Acquisition) and Director of Ops at the Strategic Forces Command.
The Air Marshal has a master’s in military science, M Phil, and a PhD in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras. He has a post-graduate diploma if financial management. He has done a Senior Fellowship in National and International Security from the Harvard Kennedy School of Governance, Harvard University. He has been an advisor to HAL, Cyient, and also as President, Aerospace Business in Reliance Defence. He continues to be involved in strategic consultancy in Defence and Aerospace.
Event Brochure – America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline?