The “unravelled” post-Cold War international order has created conditions that appear to mirror those preceding a great-power conflict, a former senior adviser to the White House has warned.
“The international landscape … [is] beginning to look uncomfortably like a pre-war environment,” said Thomas Wright, who served as senior director for strategic planning at the US National Security Council in the Joe Biden administration.
“A familiar pattern is taking shape,” Wright said on Wednesday at an event in Melbourne held by the Australian think tank Lowy Institute.
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Amid “the rapid rise of a revisionist power in China”, deep uncertainty over the balance of forces, accelerating arms development and doubts about America’s alliance commitments, the mindset of ageing decision makers today mirrored the psychological climate seen “before World War I”, he suggested.
For some, the current moment might feel like “a closing window and now-or-never opportunity to reshape the international system before their time runs out”, Wright argued, with such a mindset making restraint harder and risk-taking more attractive.
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“It’s historically exactly the type of psychology that makes pre-war periods dangerous.”