Cold War-I, say 1949-1989, came and went.\u00a0 Whathappened?\u00a0 Cold War-II started mid-1990s, building on the ruins of ColdWar-I and is now building up.\u00a0 What will happen?\u00a0 Anything to learn?<\/p>\n
Whatwas Cold War-I about?\u00a0 Reading the rhetoric of the time byestablishment and anti-establishment we might believe it was about armsrace in general, nuclear arms in particular, and the threat of a madnuclear war.\u00a0 It was about that, with alliances and their wars pittedagainst peoples and their survival.\u00a0 The slogan “better Red than Dead”expressed something, as did the equally rhetorical “better Dead thanRed”.\u00a0 Most went for neither.<\/p>\n
But, however mega-deadly serious, this was not the root issue, only ameta-issue.\u00a0 At the root were three related issues:<\/p>\n
* Who rules Eastern Europe, the West or the Soviet Union?
\n* Which economy is better, capitalism or socialism?
\n* Which polity is better, democracy or proletariat dictatorship?<\/p>\n
Were they also aiming at world dominion?\u00a0 By implication yes, beingconvinced that the world wanted the best economic-political model,meaning their own.\u00a0 The marxist position, socialism by the dictatorshipof the proletariat, had a touch of inevitability, withslavery-feudalism-capitalism to be followed by socialism and communismby the “laws” of historical materialism.\u00a0 It took time for liberalism,the West and the USA in particular, to produce something similar, the”stages of growth” with take-off into mass consumption. Walt Rostow wasno Karl Marx, but individualist materialism proved attractive.\u00a0 The”inevitability” was couched in mathematical terms impenetrable to most,hence not contested.<\/p>\n
Many had compared the rapidly growing Soviet Union of the 30s under theFive years plans with depression USA favored the former.\u00a0 They had astrong point: basic material needs to the most needy.<\/p>\n
But the West, state-centered, saw only Soviet expansion in the Red Armyin Eastern Europe, underestimating communist parties and aclass-centered distribution job that had to be done in post-feudalsocieties.\u00a0 The East saw only US expansion in favor of status quo,underestimating the growth job that also had to be done.\u00a0 EasternEurope moved in the Soviet direction, and much of the rest of the worldwas intervened militarily by USA.<\/p>\n
The contradictions were real indeed.\u00a0 Attitudinal-behavioralpolarization followed, alliances were formed, NATO in 1949 and theWarsaw Treaty Organization in 1955, the arms race sky-rocketedliterally speaking.\u00a0 For each qualitative jump into new weaponry theSoviet Union followed where the USA was leading.<\/p>\n
The Cold War did not end because the arms race subsided. The search forMAD, mutually assured destruction, went on (and still does) even ifbalanced destruction was tempered by balanced vulnerability (the ABMtreaty, leaving key cities vulnerable).<\/p>\n
What happened was that the issues actually, to a large extent, weresolved.\u00a0 It took agonizing, nerve-wrecking time, but some rationalitywas at work.\u00a0 It could have happened much earlier:<\/p>\n
* the solution to who rules Eastern Europe was obvious: theythemselves, Yugoslavia blazing a trail, gradually less communist;<\/p>\n
*the solution to the economy was a mixed public-private economy with awelfare state. Social democracy, convergence in short; and<\/p>\n
* the solution to the polity issue was human rights, but not only civil-political rights, also social-economic-cultural rights.<\/p>\n
Many argued this while the alliances played deadly games. The Cold Warended because of the non-aligned 1972-75 Helsinki process initiated byPresident Kekkonen and because people’s movements turned against thegovernments; the Western peace movement focused on the arms issue, andthe Eastern dissident movement on human rights.<\/p>\n
The Final Act of Helsinki 1975 confirmed borders in Eastern Europe,initiated a mixed economy through investment in the East, and a turntoward human rights in the Soviet Union.\u00a0 All useful.<\/p>\n
So the Cold War withered away devoid of real issues, with no winnersand no losers.\u00a0 Then came a catastrophe: the USA declared itselfwinner, followed where the Soviet Union withdrew, serving Russia theGermany-Japan formula.\u00a0 China’s growth process startled a West notimpressed with distribution processes.\u00a0 NATO moved eastward and AMPO(USA-Japan) westward, encircling Russia-China.\u00a0 The ShanghaiCooperation Organization, SCO, was the answer, with Russia-China andfour Central Asian republics as members, India-Pakistan-Iran asobservers.\u00a0 Cold War-II was born and ABM skipped.<\/p>\n
What is the solution today?\u00a0 What are the issues?\u00a0 There is a job to bedone: move people out of misery like China did for 400 million1990-2004.\u00a0 That economy is not socialist but capitalist with the Partyhaving the final word.\u00a0 The polity is not democracy nor proletariatdictatorship but democratizing in very many ways short of multi-partynational elections.\u00a0 There is armament, even an arms race with neitherRussian, nor Chinese armies abroad, but the USA having 700 bases in 130countries, engaged in devastating wars. The China-USA economic equationlooks like Soviet Union-USA 75 years ago.\u00a0 And Africa plays the role ofEastern Europe 60 years ago: raw materials against projects raising themost needy.<\/p>\n
Solutions?\u00a0 A Helsinki style conference (Kekkonen, where are you whenwe need you?).\u00a0 Declare an end, no winner, no loser.\u00a0 The US empirecollapses like the Soviet did, the USA blossoms.\u00a0 A mixed economy isalready there, social if not democrat.\u00a0 Democracy and human rights withself-determination are on the world agenda, so also in the West withtheir numerous Tibets.\u00a0 What we need are nonaligned countries.\u00a0 Andmassive people’s movements.\u00a0 Coming?<\/p>\n
Cold War-I, say 1949-1989, came and went.\u00a0 Whathappened?\u00a0 Cold War-II started mid-1990s, building on the ruins of ColdWar-I and is now building up.\u00a0 What will happen?\u00a0 Anything to learn? Whatwas Cold War-I about?\u00a0 Reading the rhetoric of the time byestablishment and anti-establishment we might believe it was about armsrace in general, nuclear arms in particular, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}