Rebuilding The Wall
Having been born in the late 80’s, I don’t really have any recollection of the Cold War era. Everything I know about it has been through history classes, reading Wikipedia, and action movies. I know about the perception that the government built about what happened behind the Iron Curtain, about the dangers of communism world wide, and how being liberal could be your downfall during the McCarthy commie witch hunts. But I don’t actually know what it was like to live in that environment, in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, and the shadow of a frightened United States government. When the Berlin Wall came down I was too young to understand the significance of it. I didn’t even know what “Soviet” was, other than my map said Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and that’s where the Russians were from. I never lived under the threat of nuclear war. Now I’m starting to wonder if I’ll get that “opportunity”.
The war between Russia and Georgia may cause a major reconsideration on how the West views Russia. We have hard talk from Washington pledge to help the Georgians, Poland has finally agreed to hosting a missile shield location for the US, and Russia does not appear to be backing down in the conflict. What are we looking at here? Increased hostilities between the West and Russia? They may not be Soviet anymore, but they still have one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, and bitterness could certainly still be a factor after we helped them into economic collapse with the arms race. If Russia is looking to expand back into the areas that gained their independence after that collapse we could be looking at a second Cold (hopefully cold) War. Russia is angry at our support of Georgia, we’re angry that Russia has invaded Georgia, and neither of us seem to be backing down, or even attempting diplomacy beyond telling Russia to get out. Russia maintains that it’s their right to “defend” the regions of Georgia that want to be autonomous. Don’t we have too many world police already?
Anyway, I’m hoping this conflict can blow over without exposing us to a nuclear holocaust, which I’m sure it will. In other news, John McCain is being sued for using an Obama supporting musicians music, unlicensed, in one of his campaign ads.
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