The Dawn of the Second Cold War.

The U.S. face-off with China over the collision of a Chinese F-8 fighter and a U.S. spy plane may be a sign of things to come, but it sure seemed like a blast from the past.

This is Gary Powers and his U-2 all over again. Except this time, the Cold War enemy is China. But Russia may not be left out. U.S. relations with Moscow are also in a time warp, as the recent spy scandal and general chill indicate.

The Bush Administration is so full of bluster and belligerence that it might start a Cold War with both Russia and China at the same time. Old Cold Warriors never die, they just grab power in Washington, and that's what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are doing. George W. is just their nervous little messenger boy.

But he's delivering a dangerous message.

The contretemps over the plane crash must be seen in the context of worsening U.S. relations with China over the last year. The causes: Star Wars, U.S. aid for Taiwan, and a reorientation of military strategy by both Washington and Beijing.

Bush's eagerness to expand and deploy nuclear missile defense threatens China's national security. Today, China has only twenty nuclear missiles that can hit the United States. Beijing views this small arsenal as a deterrent against attack by the United States. But if Bush deploys the shield, China would feel vulnerable. Even if the shield were not 100 percent effective, China could no longer have a reliable deterrent. Especially because the United States could use Star Wars not as missile defense but as missile offense: as an integral part of a first-strike attack. If the United States wanted to attack China, it would launch a first strike to destroy as many of China's stockpiled weapons as it could find. Then the missile defense system could knock down almost all of the rest. Since China has so few to start with, missile defense would enable the United States to attack China with impunity.

"We have no intention of being the innocent party. We want to be the aggressor," says Robert Bowman, president of the Institute for Space and Security Studies, based in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Bowman was director of advanced space programs development for the Air Force during the Ford and Carter Administrations. "Star Wars has nothing to do with defense. It's about maintaining absolute military superiority by developing new offensive weapons in the guise of defense."

China's military experts are keenly aware of this. "What China worries about is losing its...