The real Cold War never really ended.
Years ago during the Reagan and Gorbachev days, I worked with a guy who previously worked for the foreign service. He said the same exact thing, telling me that any future dissolution would merely drive things underground and that ideology doesn't change overnight.
When I was in college in Florida in 1981, I used to listen to Soviet "trawlers" off the coast using CW just under, and sometimes into 80 meters. They used the Cyrillic Morse alphabet and I couldn't understand it, even if I could copy the characters. The transmitters were really poor regulation and frequency stability. They had a bad hum and a whooping quality to them. Very distinct, almost as though you were working a Cuban ham (who was more than likely using Soviet equipment back then).
Fast forward three decades. Seems like the little balls of Eurasian mercury want to join back into the big glob it was before their breakup (almost like the Bell System).
I was in San Diego a few months ago and was eating lunch at the port. There was some commotion by one of the docks, so I asked the security guard what was going on. He said the Chinese PLA Navy was there on a goodwill stop and was being hosted by the U.S. Navy. There was a one-day-only opportunity to board the CNS Daqing. Seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I took the tour. The officers spoke English. Obviously not native speakers, but they were pleasant and polite as one would expect of any naval officer. The sailors not as good with English, but got the basics of yes, no, and very no (a "no" with a Chinese MP-5 knock-off [a Norinco NR08? I didn't get close enough or ask, "Hey, can I see that..." LOL!] coming in your general direction). No doubt this was a showboat, but the message they wanted to send was they were a professional Navy, not a bunch of screaming mad men, as might be found in other parts of the world. The sterile areas they allowed tourists through were cleaner than a hospital, and on deck, there was grease where there was supposed to be grease, and no grease where it wasn't supposed to be. They also had a Harbin Z-9W helicopter on the aft deck. From the outside, and through the window, it looks exactly like a Eurocopter Dauphin, except the controls are inscribed in Chinese.
My takeaway (aside from being dumbfounded that a Jersey boy got to board a commie boat and left without being put in chains, and "look at what all my Wally money made") was first, the South China Sea where China looks like it's been ramping up to assert its dominance, and the thought that I really, really hope our technology is better.
"Interesting times" for sure.