With the return of Trump and the fracturing of Western unity, Professor Barry Buzan argues the world has crossed a threshold — and that naming it clearly may be the first step to navigating it.
Professor Barry Buzan says he was “drawn into” the debate around a new cold war several years ago when he casually mentioned it in a meeting and encountered resistance, particularly from historians. To Buzan, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and visiting Ngee Ann Kongsi Professor of International Relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, it seemed clear that “cold war” is a framework that could be applied to more than one situation, not just a specific point in history.
In a lecture, “A Third Cold War,” held at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), Buzan argued that “cold war” is best understood as a theoretical concept, one that applies whenever great powers have conflicts they consider worth fighting over but avoid direct war for fear of catastrophic escalation. By that definition, he argues, the world has now entered its third such period and understanding that may be key to avoiding a “hot war,” and perhaps one day returning to “cold peace.”
A new chronology of conflict
Buzan’s argument begins with a reframing of recent history into four distinct phases.
The First Cold War (1947–1989) is familiar: a bipolar confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. It ended not with war, but with the collapse of one side. What followed, from roughly 1990 to 2014, was what Buzan calls a “cold peace”, a period where mistrust remained, but great powers did not see their differences as worth fighting over.
That changed around 2014. Russia’s actions in Ukraine, combined with intensifying US–China rivalry, marked the emergence of a Second Cold War. This period still bore resemblance to the first: the “West” remained a coherent bloc, opposing a loose alignment of China and Russia. But it was also less ideological, more economically interdependent, and more diffuse in its structure.
The real rupture, Buzan argues, came in 2025.
With the return of Donald Trump as US president, the underlying structure of global politics changed so dramatically that it marks the beginning of a Third Cold War. According to Buzan, in 2025, President Trump began treating allies no differently than enemies by launching tariffs on long-standing partners. He also shook the foundations of NATO, questioning article five as well as threatening the territory of NATO member Denmark and mocking Canadian independence.
The result he says is that the condition of cold war, strategic rivalry constrained by fear of escalation, remains. But the architecture has been transformed.
The rupture of the West
The most consequential shift is what Buzan, echoing Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, describes as a “rupture” rather than a transition.
For decades, the West functioned as a coherent geopolitical and ideological bloc, underpinned by shared liberal values and dense networks of trust. This bloc, Buzan argues, has effectively collapsed. The United States, once the anchor of this system, has turned inward and transactional, treating all countries through a lens of short-term advantage.
In the lecture, Buzan was blunt: “I don’t see the West as existing.” Trust, he argued, has been shattered; and trust, once lost, is difficult to rebuild.
This shift is not just geopolitical but ideological. Buzan characterises the current moment as one in which far-right political currents have gained significant ground across major powers, while liberalism has “hit a brick wall.” The result is a world order that has turned away from multilateralism and globalisation, and increasingly organises itself around sovereignty, identity, and spheres of influence.
LKYSPP’s Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics Danny Quah suggested an alternative view, referring back to Mark Carney’s speech and its call for middle powers to work together. “I and others have a different view of multi-polarity,” said Quah, “It is not the emergence of literally multiple poles, but it is a flattening of the distribution and hierarchy of power.” He argued this may open space for coalitions rather than confrontations.
A more fluid world
If the Second Cold War was defined by blocs, the Third is marked by fluidity.
China, now a central player, is not seeking to replicate the US-led order. As Buzan noted in the Q&A, Chinese power projects differently: less as a universal model, more as a civilisational system that does not expect others to emulate it.
At the same time, relationships among major powers are increasingly uncertain. The US–China relationship could harden into rivalry or soften into transactional deals. US–Russia relations, once adversarial, may shift unpredictably. Even long-standing alliances, such as those involving Japan, are now less certain.
In this environment, India’s strategy of “multi-alignment”—maintaining flexible relationships across competing powers—may become the norm rather than the exception.
A world without leadership?
One striking feature of Buzan’s Third Cold War is the absence of a clear leader.
Traditional theories of multipolarity suggest competition for dominance among great powers. But Buzan sees something different emerging: a system where no major power is willing or able to take responsibility for maintaining global order.
This is already visible in responses to the fragmentation of global trade and governance systems. As Buzan observed, the dismantling of parts of the existing order may paradoxically create space for the emergence of new institutions that better represent the contemporary distribution of wealth, power, knowledge, agency, and cultural and political authority.
The challenge of global public goods
If geopolitics is fragmenting, the challenges facing the world are not.
From trade to maritime security, many global public goods depend on cooperation. But none of this is more consequential than climate change.
Here, Buzan poses a central question: how does a fragmented world order increasingly shaped by far-right politics respond to a shared existential threat?
The outlook is ambiguous. On one hand, the retreat from multilateralism and the politicisation of climate issues could hinder collective action. On the other, worsening climate impacts may eventually force cooperation, even within ideologies that currently resist it.
As Buzan suggests, even systems built around nationalism and civilisational identity may find ways to frame environmental protection in terms compatible with their own values.
Year one: uncertainty and risk
For now, Buzan emphasises, this is only “year one.”
Much remains unclear: the trajectory of US–China relations, the durability of new alignments, and the extent to which economic interdependence will continue to unravel. The weaponisation of supply chains and trade is already reshaping global production systems. States are increasingly seeking greater autonomy and resilience.
There is also the enduring risk of escalation. While cold wars are defined by the absence of direct great power conflict, they often contain proxy wars and regional conflicts. The same pattern may persist.
The session was moderated by Khong Yuen Foong, Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation and Li Ka Shing Professor in Political Science at LKYSPP, who wondered whether calling the current moment a "cold war" may be overly optimistic, since it assumes a "hot war" is off the table.
Vice Dean (Executive Education) and Associate Professor Francesco Mancini, writing after the lecture, cautioned that historical analogies are not neutral. Labelling the present a “Cold War” risks shaping how policymakers interpret and respond to events—potentially narrowing the range of strategies considered.
What comes next?
Despite these debates, there is broad agreement on one point: the world has entered a new and more uncertain phase of global order.
Whether we call it a Third Cold War or something else, the underlying dynamics—fragmentation, ideological shifts, and fluid alignments—are real. Competing frameworks may help illuminate various aspects of this transformation, but none yet fully capture it.
For Buzan, the value of the “Cold War III” concept lies not in its precision, but in its utility. It provides a way to think systematically about risk, restraint, and the possibilities for cooperation in a divided world.
As he writes, a clear theoretical lens can help identify where “the room for agency might lie,” whether in tackling climate change or steering the international system toward a more stable “cold peace.”
For now, that remains an open question.