
The West Needs a Cure for Cold War Fever
The less you know about the old Cold War, the more you’ll be tempted to feel nostalgia—or shivers down your spine. One narrative glorifies the decadeslong conflict as a time of crystalline moral clarity—a Manichean struggle between good and evil, pursued with exemplary collective purpose and discipline. It ended in triumph with the collapse of communism: the disintegration first of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe and then of the Soviet Union itself. Never mind that the East-West struggle played out very differently for many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where it was an era of proxy wars fueled by ruthless superpower competition.… Seguir leyendo »