New Cold Wars

New Cold Wars-the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon, David E. Sanger-is a fast-paced account of America’s plunge into simultaneous confrontations against two very different adversaries. For years, the United States was confident that the newly-democratic Russia and increasingly wealthy China could be lured into a Western-led order that promised prosperity and relative peace-so long as they agreed to Washington’s terms. By the time America emerged from the age of terrorism, it was clear that this had been a fantasy.

Now, the three powers are engaged in a high-stakes struggle for military, economic, political, and technological supremacy-with nations around the world pressured to take sides. Yet all three are discovering that they are maneuvering for influence in a far messier world than imagined.

Based on a remarkable array of interviews with top officials from five administrations, U.S. intelligence agencies, foreign governments, and tech companies on the front lines, Sanger unfolds a riveting narrative spun around the era’s critical questions- Will the mistakes Putin made in his invasion of Ukraine prove his undoing and will he reach for his nuclear arsenal-or will the West’s famously short attention span signal Kyiv’s doom? Will Xi invade Taiwan? Will both men deepen their partnership to undercut America’s dominance? And can a politically dysfunctional America still lead the world?

Taking readers from the battlefields of Ukraine-where trench warfare and cyberwarfare are interwoven-to the Taiwan headquarters where the world’s most advanced computer chips are produced, to tense debates in the White House Situation Room, New Cold Wars is a remarkable 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.

A fast-paced contemporary history of America’s plunge into two very different Cold Wars simultaneously-with its two biggest adversaries working together-based on deep reporting inside the White House, the nation’s intelligence agencies, and around the world from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon.

More than thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States once again finds itself in a volatile rivalry with the world’s other two great nuclear powers- China and Russia. But these conflicts are nothing like the last Cold War; as David E. Sanger explains, at moments this new era looks like World War I, World War II, and a cyber war all fought at once. It is far more complex-and undeniably more dangerous-than the world of a half century ago.

New Cold Wars tells the riveting story of America and the world at a crossroads. At the turn of the last millennium, the era of the “end of history,” the United States was confident that Putin’s Russia and a newly wealthy China could gradually be pulled into the Western-led order. That proved a fantasy. Multiple administrations failed to absorb the looming threats, and by the time Washington emerged from the age of terrorism, three nuclear powers were engaged in a new, high-stakes struggle for military, economic, and technological supremacy-with nations around the world forced to take sides.

With high-level access to the U.S. government, foreign leaders and the tech companies thrust onto the front lines, Sanger unfolds a riveting narrative spun around the era’s critical questions- Will the mistakes Putin made in his ill-considered invasion prove his undoing, and will he reach for his nuclear arsenal if it does? Will China strike back at the US chip embargo, or seize Taiwan, the world’s semiconductor capital?

Taking readers from the battlefields of Ukraine to America’s cyberwarfare command centers to the backrooms and boardrooms where diplomats, spies and tech executives jockey for geopolitical advantage, New Cold Wars is a remarkable first-draft history of America’s return to superpower conflict, where the future of freedom once again hangs in the balance.

Author Biography

David E. Sanger is White House and National Security Correspondent for The New York Times and 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 about Russia’s effort to manipulate the presidential election. A contributor to CNN, he also teaches national security policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.