This month’s G7 summit seemed to confirm what has long been apparent: the United States and China are entering into a cold war similar to the one between the US and the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century. The West no longer views China just as a competitor and rival but as a civilizational alternative. Once again, the conflict seems to be about mutually exclusive „systems.“ Amid an escalating clash of values and competing claims to global power and leadership, a military confrontation – or at least a new arms race – seems to have become a distinct possibility.