Sir Robin Niblett – The New Cold War

How the contest between the US and China will shape our century

An urgent and essential assessment of the global contest between the US and China, and how looking to history will help us to navigate it, from former Director of Chatham House

We have entered a new Cold War, even if most people choose not to admit it. The contest between America and China is global and unbridgeable, and it encompasses all major instruments of statecraft: diplomacy, technology, military power, intelligence, trade and investment. It has its tinder box: Taiwan. And both protagonists are working hard to draw allies and friends to their side from east and west, north and south.

We stand at its beginning. But this Cold War is nothing like the last, which defined the second half of the twentieth century. We need new ideas to navigate its risks and to avoid a globally devastating war.

In this short, urgent book, Robin Niblett argues that only by looking back can we heed the warnings and learn the necessary lessons to guide us through this new reality: he goes through the ten ways in which the new cold war is different, and offers five new rules for navigating it. How we manage this contest will determine not only whether there is still space for international cooperation to deal with our many global challenges, from the climate emergency to the technological revolution, but also who gets to dominate the twenty-first century and, quite simply, the course of all our futures.

Sir Robin Niblett is a leading expert on international relations. He is a distinguished fellow at Chatham House, after spending 15 years as its director and chief executive until 2022, and senior adviser at Hakluyt, the British strategic advisory firm. He is also engaged by the Asia Society Policy Institute and the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, where he was Executive Vice President for ten years. He has served as chair of several World Economic Forum councils, and advises governments and private institutions. His writing has appeared in many publications and books, but this is his first solo book.

Sir Robin Niblett will be in conversation with Jo Durrant

This event is kindly sponsored by Michael and Eve Bonham Cozens

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)