In the past two years, the initial diffidence of many politicians, diplomats and think tank analysts in calling the tensions between the West and the China/Russia axis a ‘new Cold War’ has largely disappeared.

The war in Ukraine and growing tensions over Taiwan have seen to that. This ideological binary has revived old Cold War slogans: warnings of military Munichs and moral Dunkirks, “lessons” to be drawn from showing weakness in the face of authoritarian leaders in Moscow and Beijing.