Yet if the Cold War’s nuclear balance imposed mutual restraint, then today’s economic contest seems to reward escalation. Each side appears to gain leverage by showing that it can steer disruption, not shun it. Put differently, deterrence then was about surviving destruction; deterrence now is about mastering instability, with both countries convinced that they could outlast, outmaneuver, and outperform the other.
The tenuous trade truce between Washington and Beijing has collapsed. What lies ahead is less a conventional trade war and more of a sustained struggle in which both powers codify coercion into their economic statecraft and increasingly weaponize interdependence as a source of leverage. In this new, emerging phase, confrontation will no longer be perceived as a policy failure but as a policy tool to test supply chains, exploit asymmetries, and pressure rivals without tipping into all-out economic warfare.
The tenuous trade truce between Washington and Beijing has collapsed. What lies ahead is less a conventional trade war and more of a sustained struggle in which both powers codify coercion into their economic statecraft and increasingly weaponize interdependence as a source of leverage.
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