Former PM Stephen Harper sees new Cold War, this time between U.S. and China

OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper says the world order has returned to a kind of Cold War between two superpowers, this time between the United States and China.

While middle-power countries like Canada have a role to play in that war, Harper told a defence conference today that they can’t try to set their own courses completely independent of the big two.

Following the Second World War, the U.S. and its allies engaged in a prolonged Cold War with the Soviet Union and its communist allies.

But Harper says Russia today has devolved into being what he calls “the world’s biggest disrupter,” with a comparatively small economy that puts it out of the same league as China and the U.S.