I'd disagree with the core premise underlying this paper. We often read stuff to the effect that the Cold War was in a category of its own because it entailed an existential struggle between two systems. This is just manifestly not the case. https://twitter.com/ChathamHouse/status/1296722209361276928

The Soviets had no intention of ever "defeating" capitalism in any other way except through so called peaceful economic competition, which, as Khrushchev was already beginning to realise by the early 1960s, was an empty boast.

By the late '60s - early '70s, the USSR had become a status quo power that, yes, occasionally intervened in far-flung corners of the globe but these interventions (Angola, the Horn, even Afghanistan), never threatened the West in any obvious way.

There was of course the division in Europe but the Soviets had no intention of trying to spread their "sphere of influence" to the West; in fact, for much of the Cold War they were desperate to keep their gains in Eastern Europe (e.g. 1953, 1956, 1968, 1980-81).

So, what's the lesson here? The lesson is that both the USSR during the Cold War and China today challenge the existing international hierarchy. It it that challenge - and not some phantom of Communization - that drove and continues to drive the US response.

In this sense, there is a profound similarity between the Cold War and what we are witnessing today, and yes it's bad, and yes it's dangerous. The key similarity is nuclear balance, which of course will have a deep impact on the strategies of both China and the US.

OK, this is an unpopular take among Cold War historians. I am probably the only half-way-serious Cold War historian who keeps saying this. Just blame it on my tenure with the Young Communist League.