Today I am going to talk about the end of the Cold War, but not in the literal sense. We all know that as the Soviet Union became more open and reformed, communism came to an end. However, what we fail to take notice of is how the Cold War has never really left the consciousness of the American people. I am not talking about the college kids who walk around wearing t-shirts the hammer, sickle and CCCP written on it. (Ask anyone of them to explain what that means and I bet you they will begin to talk about Che Guevara or Nietzsche and think they are totally cool and "in tune" with the movement.) I am talking about those who still reference the Cold War as if it was a threat today as it was 30 years ago.
Now, before you begin to argue with me on whether the Cold War truly ended, the one thing we can agree on is the threat is different than it was back during the height of the Cold War. However, some seem to have trouble getting out of that mindset. According to Mitt Romney, Russia is our number one geopolitical foe. Late night talk show hosts joke about Putin's rise to power and how he would like to return Russia to its former glory. People on the street still use "commie" as a common slur and a whole host of computer and board games over the past couple years have used the Soviets of Soviet-like foes. So why do we sometimes still default back to our old, trusty foe when we are looking for one to fill the void? Quite honestly, I believe it is because the Cold War mentality became so engrained into the American psyche that the Soviets have become our default enemy, even though they no longer exist.
We really can't answer the question of when Cold War ended until the generations that actually experienced it have gone. I can still remember watching the news channels and hearing reports about the Soviets, seeing their flag in the top corner of the TV. Even though I know they aren't around anymore, I still can see them as an enemy entity, a default answer to a question. It is hard not to think about Russia and see, for a fleeting second, the Soviet flag in your mind's eye. That is because I lived through part of the Cold War. I grew up with the Soviet Union as our #1 enemy. I often wonder if the younger generations nowadays put two and two together. As I have said in earlier posts, some of the college kids I have questioned can't tell the Cold War from the Civil War. One kid even asked me if I dug up any of my collection in South Carolina, because he heard that is the best place to find southern Cold War artifacts.
Has the Cold War really ended? For the younger generation it has. But for us who lived during the Cold War, I believe that it will never really end for us. We lived during a time of great paranoia, mistrust and anxiety. That isn't something you ever forget about, even if the war itself is actually over. We will always carry the Cold War in us, and our minds will sometimes default back to the old ways. The thing that we have to remember is that the Cold War, at least how we knew it, really is over even if our bodies will not let us forget it.
