For students of Cold War political history, the last several weeks has been fascinating. Georgia, the small republic on the coast of the Black Sea, attacked the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia to reclaim their break away region on the eve of the 2008 Summer Olympics where most of the world leaders attended and presumably were too occupied with sports to notice this brazen act. Except the Russians did noticed and responded with a massive show of force that caught the Georgian military off guard. Not surprisingly, the Russian military conducted an exercise the month before for the same scenario that came to be.
If you wake up the Russian bear, expect big trouble to come down in a hurry.
There was a lot of political hand wringing, of course. The Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, expected NATO and the United States to rescue him from the foolishness of his own actions. Since Georgia was not in fact a member of NATO, the Europeans didn't lift a finger, and, perhaps wisely, chose not to admit Georgia into NATO due to the potential border conflicts with Russia. America couldn't lift a finger since it's tied down in two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and any potential conflict with Russia could escalate into a nuclear conflict. It didn't help the President Saakashvili hurled insults at the Russian leadership, invoking the West losing Poland to Nazi Germany in World War II, and wildly claiming that the Russians were marching on the capital to provoke the West into action. The Russian leadership dished back the insults with equal ferocity, even demanding that a war crimes trial be held at The Hague. The Bush Administration didn't help when it publicly enabled the Georgian military to get cocky about winning a confrontation with Russia while telling them privately not to provoke the Russians, disregarding the historical sensitivity that Russia has towards threats on its borders. While the Russian leadership signed the cease fire agreement brokered by France and Germany, the real action is still happening on the ground with the Russian military neutering the Georgian military. Fear and trembling is being felt along the old borders of the Soviet Union, the West is reconsidering their relationship with the Russians, and the Georgians are wondering where the heck America was in all this.
The only people who were surprised by these events are the ones who don't learn from history.
If my life had turned out significantly different than it was, I might've ended up at Stanford University with a degree in political history, speak fluent Russian, and be traveling with Secretary of State Condi Rice (okay, maybe not). Of course, I would've graduated after the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union had collapsed. Then I would be part of the American security establishment trying to figure out the post-Cold War landscape while flipping hamburgers at McDonald. During the 1980s I lived and breathed the Cold War when I became a teenage news junkie who absorbed radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and books. (The Internet today makes being a news junkie very easy.) Talk of a Cold War revival makes me excited since I enjoy the political history that comes with it, but not the consequences that comes to innocent people who are caught in the middle of these conflicts.
If you want to understand the nuttiness of the Cold War, there are three classic movies to watch: The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (a stranded Russian sub freaks out a New England coastal village), The Mouse That Roared (a small European kingdom declares war on America and wins), and Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Loved The Bomb (a crazed American general orders a nuclear bomber into Russia). These movies were made in the 1960s when nuclear annihilation was only a thumb press away from happening. Although I grew up in the 1970s when detente was the norm, I still remember the civil defense sirens being tested every Friday morning and some downtown buildings were designated as nuclear fallout shelters.
Ironically, my first published short story, "The Uninvited Spook," was about a spook spying in on a surprise birthday party where other spooks are talking shop, with the emphasis on the Russians returning to KGB dirty tricks like the Alexander Litvinenko affair. I also finished reading "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" by John Le Carre this past weekend. I read this book for the spare narrative style and the intricate web of intrigue surrounding a disgraced spy master who is sent to the other side of the Berlin Wall. This story will serve as inspiration for a military science fiction story that I have brewing on the back burner. I been searching for a writing niche since I got serious about writing a few years ago that I can build a new career on. I think I found that niche in the thriller departmet, where danger and intrigue lurks around every corner. If so, being a retro cold warrior isn't a bad thing.
