I have to apologise in advance, but this piece is going to be incredibly UK and US focused, because those are the two political scenes I am most familiar with.

The Cold War was played out as a struggle between two contrasting worldviews. Two conceptions of the state and the economy. On the one hand, under the banner of ‘Capitalism’ was a welfare state coupled to a nationalist, authoritarian conservative democratic society. Even as the left and the right fought for control, they both largely stuck to this model.

On the other hand was an internationalist, totalitarian, conservative bureaucracy with a command and control economy, under the name of ‘Communism’.

The highest ambitions of the USSR and USA were to see the other collapse and the world brought under the fold of their ideology, preferably peacefully and preferably without a nuclear war. Meanwhile, plenty of people and organisations felt trapped between the machinations of these two great powers. Many ended up taking one side or the other, either in denial of or acknowledging the flaws of their chosen side, and justifying it on the grounds that the other side was worse.

There were some, however, who, at least in principle, refused to support either side. On the left, largely Trotskyists, but also later on Maoists as well, came up with concepts in some way revolving around a third side to the Cold War – one which would be, in their minds, genuinely revolutionary. Trotskyists called this the ‘Third Camp’.

Meanwhile, right wing ultranationalist forces, ideological descendents of the Fascists defeated in the Second World War, were also regrouping to form their own opposition to both Communism and Capitalism. The Argentinian president Juan Peron, a complicated figure, but nonetheless an admirer of the Fascist Mussolini and an authoritarian in his own right, coined the term ‘Third Position’. This concept was broadly adopted by the far right.

Of course, we all know the ending to the story of the Cold War. Capitalism triumphed and Communism was defeated. It sure seems that way on the surface. But the Capitalist world also went through its own radical change of direction in the late 70s and early 80s. The old consensus of a welfare state was broken by a new generation of ‘modernisers’ who had contempt for the old institutions and were energised by a new, more radical conception of Capitalism. Although, as far as I’m aware, it was never entirely described as a third position, so much as an unshackling of Capitalism itself, it did fundamentally change the nature of Western states and set us on the path towards where we are now. This movement began to be called Neoconservatism.

In this era then, the two dominant ideologies became Neoconservatism and Communism.

After this new order of business was established in the Capitalist world, the Communist world underwent its own reformation, in similar but distinct ways in both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. In the Soviet Union, both the political and economic systems collapsed, partly under their own weight and partly from the deliberate actions of internal and external actors. This was heralded as the dawn of a new, free and prosperous future, where the former Soviet States could serve as testbeds of the ideals of an ‘Open Society’, rejecting both Neoconservativsm and Socialism. Meanwhile, KGB members set themselves up to maintain control of the political and economic future of Russia, becoming the oligarchs we know today, as crime, poverty and chaos took hold of the rest of the population.

China, on the other hand, refused to openly change, but did undergo many fundamental economic reforms which made it more akin to an authoritarian, nationalist, capitalist bureaucracy. In many ways quite comparable to the far right ideal of a third position. However, they have been largely content to look after their own affairs and not establish themselves as an ideological world power.

These two states would, in hindsight, represent something of a testbed for the two camps of the new cold war.

In the capitalist world, a mild backlash to the stark and uncaring glare of Neoconservatism was already taking place. Although in the United States, the Democratic party had begun to abandon the old consensus in the 70s under Jimmy Carter, the election of Bill Clinton heralded the dawn of a new era for left wing politics in the US. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party underwent its own reformation under Tony Blair. He denounced the old Capitalist consensus which the left was still clinging to, but also the radical Capitalism of the Conservative party. He christened his approach the ‘Third Way’.

This Third Way became what we would now call ‘Neoliberalism’. It promised an internationalist, free market, democratic society. So, without a looming enemy world power to deal with, the major political struggle of the ‘90s and ‘00s was between the relatively homogeneous Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism.

The former reigned supreme in the United Kingdom, while in the United States the downfall of Bill Clinton saw the ascendency of the latter. These ideologies, in fact, had so little between them that Tony Blair the Neoliberal got on famously well with Clinton’s successor, George W Bush, the Neoconservative.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin promoted Neoconservatism in the wake of Boris Yeltsin’s Neoliberalism. He promised a friendly, restrained form of nationalism, an open market economy, an end to corruption and friendly relationships with the West. But in reality we were witnessing a resurgence of that old, forgotten Third Position, that of the far-right, who had slowly been building up their case which seemed increasingly attractive to those left behind by the new economic consensus.

The economic crisis saw the further consolidation of the Neocons and Neoliberals. The Conservative party in the United Kingdom adopted a middle approach, pursuing a nationalist agenda but adopting other Neoliberal principles such as same-sex marriage. Meanwhile in the United States, the Republican party began to rip itself apart from within, with the far right making gains within the so-called Tea Party movement, severely limiting the party’s ability to sell Neoconservatism to the populace.

Putin had begun to show his colours to the world as a far right demagogue by the time of the conflict with Georgia, but xenophobic and homophobic sentiments had been steadily on the rise for a decade, supported by far right elements from within Russia and abroad. The annexation of Crimea could be said to mark the beginning of a new Cold War.

This time, the conflict is not between Capitalism and Communism, but between Neoliberalism and what has become known as the Alt-right. But this emerging Cold War is looking to be a far more complex one than the last. It may even end before it can really get up to steam. Neoliberalism has failed to hold back the rising tide of the new right wing. The capitalist consensus which has lasted for almost forty years has nothing new to promise us. The Alt-right has won major victories in the UK and US with the vote for Britain to leave the European Union, and Donald Trump the darling of the Alt-right won a shock victory in the presidential elections in the US. It is still possible that Neoliberalism will maintain its hold on the western world, but it seems like it can only do so at the cost of democracy itself.

How has the left wing responded so far to this change in world circumstances? We can see how, in each era, a former third position edges out and replaces the older of the two ideologies. The new ideology of the Alt-right, despite being little more than a refurbished far right third position, has vanquished Neoconservatism. The left, therefore, must be set to, hopefully in the not too distant future, replace the decaying form of Neoliberalism.

And there has been some movement on the left to establish a third position. We have seen the rise of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. But so far, they have failed. Partly perhaps that’s because it’s not quite their time to succeed. But partly it’s because it’s not a new position. The alt-right have at least managed a new paint job. The resurgent left have, so far, mostly been harkening back to the welfare state, that old left wing Capitalism from the original Cold War. What’s more, they’ve been cherry picking between Neoliberal and Alt-right talking points, allowing themselves to be wielded by both sides as pawns just as they often were in the first Cold War.

And that’s just not going to cut it. We need a new, genuinely revolutionary perspective to put Neoliberalism behind us. We can’t assume that is what will naturally develop. We’ve seen how, during the Cold War, both the far left and the far right failed to unseat one of the two positions in favour of their own third. It was a new formulation of Capitalism which took the place of a previous position, and then Communism was replaced by another form of Capitalism.

It’s possible, I would say otherwise inevitable, that a second right wing ideology – one even more terrible – will arise to oppose the Alt-right instead.

Because the Alt-right is, in many ways, an attempt to cling on to old ideas about the nation state. Ideas which are long past their sell-by date. Global capitalism will continue to march on despite the feeble protestations of nationalists, and control of the economy will slip out of the hands of the state entirely. I have already detailed what some of the consequences of this might be. The nation state is doomed, but we still have a chance to build a better society in its wake, or else bear witness to a grim, dark future.