Cold war: A safer world!?

[Wat Tyler]

Before the break up of the USSR the world held it breath, proxies and surrogates would seem to play out a deadly game with nuclear obliteration being the price for a wrong move.

Citizens in may oppressive regimes died silently and conditions for some were very miserable.

Now the cold war is over, we still have oppression, the very thing that the west was going to remove from these countries, and now we dont really know where the threats are coming from.

Conventional Armies are of no consequence in today's conflicts as those who choose to hate us can just blow themselves up.

would Korea and Iran behave this way if they looked left and right to see the big boys threaten them.

Some times it feels that it was better for the West to not win the cold war.

Here in Britain the Russians control our Gas supplies via the European pipelines and they are the richest of all the Oligarchs and own a lot of British interests aboard, BP have had to deal with them for more exploration, and if BP did not then another company would have.

They are the only game in town in some places with no western influence to moderate their behaviour.

So who really won?

Would it have been safer to prolong the cold war and prop up a failing system?

[mattmiller]

Jan 25, 2011 15:02:45 GMT -5 Wat Tyler said:

Before the break up of the USSR the world held it breath, proxies and surrogates would seem to play out a deadly game with nuclear obliteration being the price for a wrong move.

Citizens in may oppressive regimes died silently and conditions for some were very miserable.

Now the cold war is over, we still have oppression, the very thing that the west was going to remove from these countries, and now we dont really know where the threats are coming from.

Conventional Armies are of no consequence in today's conflicts as those who choose to hate us can just blow themselves up.

would Korea and Iran behave this way if they looked left and right to see the big boys threaten them.

Some times it feels that it was better for the West to not win the cold war.

Here in Britain the Russians control our Gas supplies via the European pipelines and they are the richest of all the Oligarchs and own a lot of British interests aboard, BP have had to deal with them for more exploration, and if BP did not then another company would have.

They are the only game in town in some places with no western influence to moderate their behaviour.

So who really won?

Would it have been safer to prolong the cold war and prop up a failing system?

I know that the Russians are a much more tolerable nation because of it. Although they are still "shady", they will work with the US to defeat terrorism. They aren't a threat to those countries like England and the US.

[Wat Tyler]

Jan 25, 2011 22:08:47 GMT -5 mattmiller said:

Jan 25, 2011 15:02:45 GMT -5 Wat Tyler said:

Before the break up of the USSR the world held it breath, proxies and surrogates would seem to play out a deadly game with nuclear obliteration being the price for a wrong move.

Citizens in may oppressive regimes died silently and conditions for some were very miserable.

Now the cold war is over, we still have oppression, the very thing that the west was going to remove from these countries, and now we dont really know where the threats are coming from.

Conventional Armies are of no consequence in today's conflicts as those who choose to hate us can just blow themselves up.

would Korea and Iran behave this way if they looked left and right to see the big boys threaten them.

Some times it feels that it was better for the West to not win the cold war.

Here in Britain the Russians control our Gas supplies via the European pipelines and they are the richest of all the Oligarchs and own a lot of British interests aboard, BP have had to deal with them for more exploration, and if BP did not then another company would have.

They are the only game in town in some places with no western influence to moderate their behaviour.

So who really won?

Would it have been safer to prolong the cold war and prop up a failing system?

I know that the Russians are a much more tolerable nation because of it. Although they are still "shady", they will work with the US to defeat terrorism. They aren't a threat to those countries like England and the US.

there are two issues here,

firstly, I would still say that if the cold war was still in full swing, there would be no sept 11th in New york or july 7th in london.

Also the Russians will only deal in dealing with terrorism that we want to deal with if the main threats to them adopt Allquieda franchises, if they dont we can forget their assistance.

They are perfect capitalists in this respect.

[Chelexander]

Ask East Germany if it were a bad thing. Or much of Eastern Europe for that matter.

The radical groups we are dealing with do not base their war in conventional ideology and thus the Cold War would not have prevented their attacks. In fact, if the USSR were still a player, I believe it would have just given these groups two large targets instead of one. The 'terrorist' groups base their war in religion and culture, and not in political or governing ideals. This is way they are unswayed and so dangerous. It is difficult to change someone's political motives, it is nearly impossible to change culture-based motives.

[Wat Tyler]

Jan 29, 2011 8:16:19 GMT -5 Chelexander said:

Ask East Germany if it were a bad thing. Or much of Eastern Europe for that matter.

The radical groups we are dealing with do not base their war in conventional ideology and thus the Cold War would not have prevented their attacks. In fact, if the USSR were still a player, I believe it would have just given these groups two large targets instead of one. The 'terrorist' groups base their war in religion and culture, and not in political or governing ideals. This is way they are unswayed and so dangerous. It is difficult to change someone's political motives, it is nearly impossible to change culture-based motives.

I agree with with all the points you made in your post, Most normal people living in the eastern bloc had a miserable time, I dont think a shift back to it would be a great idea.

However I do think that the ideologies the we now have to consider are not new, but have had room to expand in areas that were originally managed by one of the two then superpowers