New Cold Wars: China’s rise, Russia’s invasion, and America’s struggle to defend the West

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A fast-paced account of America’s plunge into simultaneous cold wars against two very different adversaries — Xi Jinping’s China and Valdimir Putin’s Russia. New Cold Wars — the latest from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon David E. Sanger — tells the riveting story of America at a crossroads. At the turn of the millennium, the United States was confident that a democratic Russia and a newly wealthy China could gradually be pulled into the Western-led order. That proved a fantasy. By the time Washington emerged from the age of terrorism, the three nuclear powers were engaged in a high-stakes struggle for military, economic, and technological supremacy — with nations around the world forced to take sides. Interviewing a remarkable array of top officials in the United States, world leaders, and tech companies thrust onto the front lines, Sanger unfolds a riveting narrative spun around the era’s critical questions. Will Putin’s ill-considered invasion of Ukraine prove his undoing, and will he reach for his nuclear arsenal? Will China strike back at the US chip embargo, or seize Taiwan, the world’s semiconductor capital? Taking readers from the battlefields of Ukraine — where trench warfare and cyberwarfare are fought side by side — to the back rooms and boardrooms where diplomats, spies, and tech executives jockey for geopolitical advantage, New Cold Wars is an astonishing first-draft history chronicling America’s return to superpower conflict, the choices that lie ahead, and what is at stake for the United States and the world.

About the Author :
David E. Sanger is national security correspondent for The New York Times and the bestselling author of The Inheritance, Confront and Conceal, and The Perfect Weapon. He has been a member of three teams that won the Pulitzer Prize, including in 2017 for international reporting. A regular contributor to CNN, he also teaches national security policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Review :
‘[A] cogent, revealing account of how a generation of American officials have grappled with dangerous developments in the post-Cold War era — the rise of an enduringly authoritarian China, the return of state-on-state conflict in Europe — that have produced a geopolitical mash-up of old and new … compelling … vividly captures Washington.’ ‘We have just been hurtled into a new and far more dangerous world, and David E. Sanger has been present at its creation. Sanger's brilliant book is a masterpiece of reporting, revelations, and analysis. It takes us into hidden rooms and lets us eavesdrop on secret conversations that address up-to-the-minute struggles over Russia, China, Ukraine, the Middle East, and other flashpoints, as well as crucial technological innovations. Sanger’s mesmerising inside story of a world transformed will inspire and disturb, but as the author makes abundantly clear, no one who lives on this planet can ignore what is happening.’ ‘This is a highly entertaining book to read, despite its immense cautionary themes. Sanger gets both the broad theory and the human details right and along the way provides a powerful book of geopolitics appearing at a hinge moment in global history.’ ‘[A] stellar history of Biden’s foreign policy.’ ‘A study of the unexpected reemergence of superpower conflict after the supposed reign of peace following the end of the old Cold War … Sanger warns that America’s leadership has been damaged in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the Trump administration’s policy of disengagement, which threatens to resume with the next election. A provocative treatise for foreign-policy wonks, calling for both engagement and peaceful competition.’ ‘Sanger … has crafted a cogent, revealing account of how a generation of American officials have grappled with dangerous developments in the post-Cold War era — the rise of an enduringly authoritarian China, the return of state-on-state conflict in Europe — that have produced a geopolitical mash-up of old and new.’ ‘Sanger presents a rich tapestry, based on outstanding access and interviews with some of the key policy makers in both the US and globally. He and his team have been meticulous in their research and woven it into a compelling narrative.’ ‘Sanger has provided a most informative and readable account of the power dynamics currently shaping global politics. His use of extensive on-the-record interviews with foreign policy professionals make for a lively narrative … Highly recommended for any person seeking to understand the contemporary world order.’