The last decade or so has seen US-China relations enter a negative spiral. The evolution of this complex relationship has triggered a fast-growing debate on whether this is a New Cold War.

Building on a deconstruction of concepts such as cold wars and Cold War, this book illustrates how the relationship between the US and China has been a 'marriage of convenience' - with both cooperation and competition - for years, but also that we might be close to the end of it. The US and China, it is argued, are locked in a "new type of cold war" where mechanisms of deterrence and competition differ compared to those of the Cold War, and which makes the return of bloc politics possible.