The new Cold War is a nationalist revolt against the U.S.-led postwar order, led by neo-fascist revanchists

(Originally published June 10 in “What in the World“) We’re in a new Cold War. But it’s not really a standoff between freedom and democracy on one side and authoritarianism on the other. It’s a standoff between liberal, Anglo-American dominated postwar order and a post-colonial nationalism on the other.

That may sound a lot like the postwar nationalist movements of the first Cold War. But instead of revolutionaries using Communism as the binding ideology to cast off their yokes, latter-day resistance movements are being led by incumbent governments employing populism and authoritarianism to cast off an Anglo-American ideal of globalization and restore themselves to precolonial narratives. They are, for lack of a better term, neo-fascist.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor Daron Acemoglu lays out a compelling argument for this, reminding us that globalization, while intended to be a democratizing force, introduced an un-level playing field tilted towards the West, exacerbated inequality and uprooted or threatened traditional and conservative ways of life. The earliest expression of this revolt may have been the rise of Islamic extremists like al Qaeda and, much later, ISIS. But it’s now a cause taken up by conservative autocrats in powerful nations with long histories that have grown tired of being in the backseat of globalization, including China, India, and Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin underscored his revanchist role Thursday in Moscow at a new exhibit commemorating the birth of Russia’s first emperor, Peter the Great, by comparing himself and his invasion of Ukraine to the czar’s conquest of the land around what is now St. Petersburg. Apparently, Putin keeps a bust of Peter on his desk.

Iran, taking advantage of the West’s preoccupation with China and Russia, is casting off the restrictions on its nuclear ambitions imposed by the West. The United Nations’ atomic agency said Tehran was removing 27 of the cameras used to monitor activity at its nuclear sites after the agency’s board passed a resolution censuring Iran for failing to cooperate with an inquiry into uranium found at three other sites. Passage wasn’t unanimous: China and Russia voted against the censure.