Back in the U.S.S.R.

I'm feeling nostalgic for the former Soviet Union. I miss their naked aggression, the May Day parades, the inter-continental ballistic missiles, the old hammer and sickle, even Leonid Brezhnev's eyebrows. They were an obvious enemy for a different time. Communism vs. capitalism, despotism vs. democracy, Rocky & Bullwinkle vs. Boris and Natasha.

And although the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union never truly heated up, there have been - ironically - plenty of casualties since the USSR's fall in the early 1990's:

1. Containing Communism - The Truman Doctrine - checking communist aggression wherever we found it - gave the US State Department strategic clarity after World War II. The policy garnered mix results (see China, Cuba, Vietnam, South Korea, West Berlin), but it had a good vs. evil symmetry American voters could fear and rally behind. Sadly, American foreign policy has largely been chasing its tail ever since. A hound in search of a fox.

2.  An Arms Race - Right up until the mid-80's, our Defense Department continually fretted and woofed over NATO, MIRV's, ICBM's and MAD (mutually assured destruction - a wonderful policy in which each superpower maintained a nuclear arsenal large enough to insure the other's complete annihilation in the event of a pre-emptive strike). Waking up every day knowing your enemy was pointing apocalyptic weapons at your doorstep (and vice versa) lent a Vick's Vapor Rub sort of alertness to the leaders in Washington. Cold War generals never doubted they were doing the right thing, whereas 21st century generals simply hope the darts of their belief hit the board at all.

3. A Space Race - You can bet your pop rocks that if the Soviet Union was alive and well in the 21st century we would have landed a man or woman on Mars by now. Don't forget, the only reason the US and USSR went into space in the first place back in the late 50's, then throughout the 60's, was to test the range and accuracy of their respective missile programs - missiles initially earmarked to exclusively carry nuclear weapons rather than dogs, chimps, and finally human beings. Nothing speeds up scientific progress more than the threat of a good old-fashioned atomic showdown. Nothing kills deep space exploration faster than a (sigh) lasting peace.

3. Summit Meetings - Remember those? The chance that any American President would sit across from a Soviet Premier even once in a four-year term was, at best, slim. Such meetings were usually preceded by mountains of journalistic conjecture, but the most any of these summits (even the term suggested gods convening on Mt. Olympus) produced were agreements to slow down the rate at which each country would produce nuclear weapons. In other words, keep constructing them but at a lower production quota. Hardly progress. Nonetheless, these rare summit meetings were thrilling clashes of culture; East meeting West - Rocky Balboa vs. Ivan Drago.

4. Athletic Rivalries - As hard as networks like NBC have tried for over three decades, they can never fabricate the national pride that swept America after the US hockey victory over the USSR (miss those CCCP jerseys) 4-3, in the 1980 Winter Olympics. Let's face it, détente, glasnost and the collapse of communism were bad for business as far as international athletic competition was concerned. As big a deal as pink-eyed Bob Costas tried to make the US team's 3-2 shootout victory over Russia in the Sochi Games, even he knows the miracle of  February 22, 1980 is unrepeatable. Then? College amateurs vs. a state-sponsored professional machine. Now? A who's who of NHL talent on both sides of the blue line. Then? A resurgence of national confidence at a particularly low period in American history. Now? A schizophrenic relationship with ourselves and the rest of the world. Whatever, as long as our wifi connection is strong.

No, of course I am not really nostalgic for Soviet-style communism. The release of their stranglehold on eastern Europe 25 years ago marked the victory of right over might. But I am nostalgic for the clarity the Cold War engendered. And also for the stability that East-West tensions fostered. Countries generally aligned themselves on one side of the Iron Curtain or the other and took their marching orders as such. No chance of a country or enclave (or terrorist group) going rogue, not while Washington and Moscow were calling the shots. Sure, the United States' moral superiority vanished with our folly in Vietnam, but we never doubted we were on the right side of history.

Now I wonder. We have been the world's only superpower for a generation but what do we have to show for it? A still-spiraling debt. A criminal corporate culture. A lost manufacturing base. Gasping ecosystems. Bloated, wasteful bureaucracies.  Growing income inequality. A stagnant, shrinking middle class. An alarming indifference to the plight of the working poor. Orwellian government oversight of individual liberties. A military-industrial complex feeding on one enemy after another. A lost American Dream. 

In other words, not much.

I believe it will take nothing short of a major paradigm shift to re-orient the American Compass - turning national priorities back in an honorable, worthy direction. But this time it can't be discovered in a newfound adversary or some back-slapping military adventure halfway around the globe, resulting in more folded flags and a repugnant either-or brand of jingoistic patriotism.

Instead, we need to reign in our appetites, outline manageable local, state and national goals, live within our means at home and abroad. Work to create a sustainable society that no longer sacrifices its collective soul to the alter of mass consumerism, and instead see easy credit and civic indifference as vices rather than two more unearned privileges. A little less what's in it for me, a whole lot more what can I do to help?

Or we can maintain our current heading. It's still our choice. Not Washington's. Not Wall Street's. Not the Money Lenders'. Not the Fearmongers'. Ours.

 

But let's not wait too long. Humanity's tipping point is visible on the horizon. The right side of history is still waiting for us to "cross over the river and rest under the shade of trees.".