Chapter 48 Chapter 8 The Cold War Era 4

4 At one point in the early 1960s, the Cold War seemed to have taken a few steps towards a return to sanity. During the dangerous years from 1947 to the climax of the Korean War, the world was safe from danger, and no explosive incidents occurred.Even the death of Stalin (1953), although it caused a major earthquake in the Soviet bloc, survived in the end.The countries of Western Europe found that instead of having to struggle with social crises, they began to enter an era of unexpected prosperity everywhere.This period will be discussed further in the next chapter.Old-school diplomats have a jargon for detente, or detente.Now the word "détente" has become a household term.

Détente first emerged in the last years of the 1950s, when N.S. Khrushchev succeeded in taking power in the Soviet Union in the chaos following Stalin's death (1958-1964).Khrushchev looks like a reckless man on the outside, but in fact he is very capable and admirable.He believed in reforms, advocated peaceful coexistence, cleared the concentration camps established by Stalin, and became a leading actor on the international stage for the next few years.He is probably also the only one who was born as a rural boy and became the leader of a world power.Between Khrushchev and Kennedy - the most acclaimed American president of the century (1961-1963) - the one is a bravado who specializes in bluster and bluster, and the other is good at posturing play tricks.There was a period of quite tense confrontation between the two, and this problem was the first thing that "detente" had to face.So the two superpowers were at the helm of two super dangerous players; at this time, the capitalist western countries were full of a sense of crisis, feeling that they were losing ground economically, losing to the communist economy that was advancing by leaps and bounds in the 1950s.It seems really hard to imagine now, but in the eyes of people at that time, you see, the astonishing achievements of the Soviet Union in satellites and astronauts, doesn’t it prove that it has surpassed the United States in technology (in fact, it was very short-lived)?Look again, isn’t communism surprising everyone by winning a big victory in Cuba, within a radius of tens of kilometers from Florida (see Chapter 15)?

Conversely, from the perspective of the Soviet Union, it is equally anxious.First of all, the rhetoric of the Washington authorities is ambiguous, but it is full of provocative meaning, which is absolutely unmistakable.Secondly, the Soviet Union itself broke with China on the basic line. Now the little brother in China is accusing the big brother of not being tough on capitalism.In the face of this crime, Khrushchev, who had originally advocated peace, could only put on a straight face, and was forced to adopt an attitude that was less compromising with the West.At the same time, the process of liberation in the colonies, as well as revolutionary action in the Third World, suddenly accelerated (see Chapters 7, 12, and 15), and the situation seemed to favor the Soviet Union.So the United States is worried, but at the same time full of confidence; the Soviet Union is full of confidence, but at the same time it is full of fear.The two sides threatened and intimidated for Berlin, for the Congo, and for Cuba, and the stalemate was inextricable.

On the surface, it looks dangerous and treacherous, like an abyss of thin ice. In fact, if we calculate a general account for this period of time, we can get a fairly stable international situation.Between the two powers, there is also a tacit understanding not to intimidate each other and the world as much as possible, and the telephone hotline established between the White House and the Kremlin is the best symbol of this tacit understanding (1963).The establishment of the Berlin Wall (1961) established the last uncertain boundary between East and West in Europe.The United States has also silently accepted Cuba, a small communist shop in front of its own house.The sparks of the Cuban Revolution and the liberation of the colonies ignited sparks in Latin America and Africa, respectively, but never ignited a prairie fire, and in the end they were even dying (see Chapter 15). In 1963, Kennedy was assassinated; in 1964, Khrushchev was sent back to his hometown by the Soviet mainstream who could not understand his reckless and impulsive style. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the control of nuclear weapons also made great progress: such as the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty and the signing of the nuclear proliferation treaty (the countries in favor are countries that already have nuclear weapons or do not intend to acquire nuclear weapons; while the opponents Several countries that are building their own nuclear armaments, such as China, France, and Israel), the US-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, SALT), and even some agreements on the anti-ballistic missiles (Anti Ballistic Missiles, ABM) of both sides. protocol.More significantly, trade between the United States and the Soviet Union, long smothered by political discord, began to flourish as the 1960s entered the 1970s.All of a sudden, the situation is very promising, and the future is bright.

The future is not bright. In the mid-1970s, the world began to enter the stage of the so-called "Second Cold War" (see Chapter 13).This period coincided with a major change in the world economy, namely the 20-year long economic crisis that began in 1973 and reached its climax in the early 1980s (see Chapter 14).Adversaries in the superpower race, however, were not initially alerted to the change in the economic climate. They were only aware of one thing: after the successful actions of the oil-producing cartel, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Under the current situation, energy prices have experienced a triple jump.It now appears that this, together with several other developments, indicates that the United States' position in the world is gradually declining.But at that time, the two superpowers didn't realize it, and were complacent about the stability of their own economic strength.The deceleration of economic development obviously affected the United States much less than that of Europe; while the Soviet Union--whoever God wants to destroy will first make it proud--thought it was smooth sailing, and everything was going smoothly according to plan.Khrushchev's successor, Leonid Brezhnev, was in power for 20 years, now dubbed "the era of stagnation" by Soviet reformers.However, in Brezhnev's view at that time, the world situation did have some reasons for him to be optimistic. One of them alone can make him confident: Since the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union has successively discovered rich oil and natural gas reserves. , please see that since the oil crisis in 1973, the price in the international market has soared, and it has increased by 4 times.

In addition to economic affairs, two other closely related events occurred at the time that also seem to have shaken the balance of power among the superpowers in the present and past.First, in America's plunge into a major war, there are many signs of what appears to be American defeat and instability.The Vietnam War caused depression and differences of opinion across the United States. Chaotic riots and anti-war demonstrations were frequently broadcast on TV, and an American president stepped down as a result. After 10 years of fierce fighting (1965-1975), the United States, as expected, retreated without success after being defeated.More profoundly, the Vietnam War broke the isolation of the United States.Because of all the friendly countries of the United States, no country has sent troops to fight side by side with it, not even a symbolic support.Why did the United States take this troubled water, and ignore the warnings of friends and foes—American allies, other neutral countries, and even the Soviet Union—to entangle itself in this doomed war?The reason for this is really puzzling, and it can only be regarded as a confusing, confusing, and full of paranoid historical fog.In the mist, I heard the groping footsteps of the protagonists in the Cold War.

If the Vietnam War is not enough to prove the isolation of the United States, then the Arab-Israeli war that took place on Yom Kippur (Yom Kippur) in 1973 can always prove it further.Over the years, the United States has allowed Israel to develop into its closest ally in the Middle East, and this war is taking place between Israel and Egypt and Syria, which are equipped by the Soviet Union. Israel has insufficient aircraft and ammunition, and the situation is urgent. Only Seek immediate support from the United States.However, all the friendly countries in Europe, except Portugal, which still insisted on fascism before the war, refused to lend a helping hand, and even forbade the US planes to use the US bases in its territory to carry out aid operations. The Portuguese Azores (Azores) arrived in Israel.The U.S. government believes that the Arab-Israeli war has its own stakes—it is hard for outsiders to understand why—in fact, then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger even officially issued a nuclear war warning.This is the first time such warnings have resurfaced since the Cuban crisis.Kissinger was a man of dry cynicism, and this was standard for his brazen insincerity (his President, Nixon, was fighting in vain to avoid disgraceful impeachment).However, Kissinger's rhetoric did not shake the position of the allies. What they are worried about is their dependence on Middle East oil, which is more important than support for the US regional strategy.No matter how extravagant the U.S. is, it cannot convince everyone that its regional layout is closely related to the fight against communism.Through the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the Arab countries have discovered a powerful weapon, which is to use the reduction of oil supply and the threat of an oil embargo to prevent countries from coming to help Israel.Going a step further, they have also found that they can dramatically increase the price of world oil.The foreign ministers of all countries in the world also have to notice that the United States, which has always been called almighty, is completely powerless and helpless against this trend.

Although the balance of power among the superpowers in the world and the nature of the confrontation between the two sides in various regions during the Cold War have not changed due to the two incidents in Vietnam and the Middle East, the power and status of the United States have been greatly weakened.However, between 1974 and 1979, a new revolutionary wind blew again in a large part of the world (see Chapter 15). This was the third round of great turmoil in the short twentieth century.For a moment, it seemed as if the balance between the superpowers was tilting away from the United States.In various parts of Asia and Africa, even in the Americas, many regimes turned to the Soviet Union one after another—from a real point of view, it was nothing more than providing a military, especially a naval base for the Soviet Union, which was surrounded by land and had no foreign exports.The third world revolution coincided with the fact that the United States suffered international defeat, and the two phases agitated, and the second Cold War started here.However, the smug attitude of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Brezhnev in the 1970s contributed even more to this.The conflicts during this period were mainly composed of large and small wars in the third world. Vietnam has learned from the past. Now the United States does not dare to make the same mistakes of the past, and can only indirectly support it from behind.In addition, the two sides accelerated the nuclear arms race even more frantically.But comparing the two, the raging battles in various places are more irrational than the nuclear competition.

As for the situation in Europe—despite the Portuguese revolution in 1974 and the end of the Franco regime in Spain—it has now shown that it has completely settled down. The venue shifts to the third world.The "détente" situation in Europe provided two great opportunities for the United States during the Nixon (1969-1974) and Kissinger eras: one was to expel the Soviet Union from Egypt, and the other was to unofficially incorporate China into the anti-Soviet alliance; The latter is of greater significance.However, the revolutionary waves rising in various places have the tendency to fight against the conservative regime.Since the United States has always used these conservative regimes to regard itself as the guardian of the world, the current reversal of the situation just provides an opportunity for the Soviet Union, a good opportunity to take the initiative.With the collapse of the Portuguese colonial empire in Africa, the old lands of Angola (Angola), Mozambique (Mozambique), Guinea Cape Verde (Guinea Cape Verde) and other places fell into the hands of the Communist Party one by one.As the old Ethiopian emperor was overthrown by the revolutionary masses, the political wind in Ethiopia turned eastward, and the Soviet Navy grew rapidly, gaining important bases one after another on both sides of the Indian Ocean.As the Shah of Iran resigned in embarrassment, Americans were in a bad mood, and all public opinion and public opinion almost reached the point of hysteria.Otherwise, how can we explain why the United States, as soon as it saw Soviet troops entering Afghanistan, thought that chaos was imminent, and that the advance of Soviet forces would soon reach the shores of the Indian Ocean and the mouth of the Persian Gulf? (See Section 3 of Chapter 16. Some of the reasons may be attributed to Americans' astonishing ignorance of Asian geography.)

At the same time, unjustifiable complacency on the part of the Soviet Union fed American depression and anxiety.In fact, the Brezhnev regime had already led the Soviet Union on the road of ruin and bankruptcy long before the American propagandists were brazen and put gold on their faces with the benefit of hindsight, bragging about how they won the Cold War single-handedly and brought down their deadly rivals.It invested a large amount of money in armaments, causing the Soviet Union's defense expenditure to increase by an average of 4% to 5% annually, starting in 1964 for as long as 20 years (according to real figures).This arms race is meaningless. The only thing that can comfort the Soviet Union is that it can finally sit on an equal footing with the United States on the missile launch pad. This is 1971.By 1976, it was even more dominant in the number of launch pads, leading the United States by 25 percent (although the actual number of warheads of the Soviet Union was still lower than that of the United States).In fact, as early as the time of the Cuban crisis, the Soviet Union’s insignificant nuclear warheads had already deterred the United States from acting rashly. After years of frantic competition, the strength stored by the two sides could have blown the other side into rubble and ashes.The Soviet Union has continued to work hard to build a powerful navy to gain a foothold on the global sea surface (in fact, it is more appropriate to say that it has gained a place below the sea surface, because its naval force is based on nuclear submarines as the main force).From a strategic point of view, the Soviet Union’s move is not practical, but as a global superpower, it has the right to raise flags and demonstrate around the world, so it is understandable to use the navy as a political means .However, the fact that the Soviet Union no longer sits at home and guards its turf gives the Cold Warriors in the United States the feeling of being shocked. If they do not show their strength in time and command the world again, this situation will not prove that Western hegemony will end in the long run.Moscow is full of ambitions, and has long since thrown away the cautiousness that it took every step of the way on the international stage after Khrushchev stepped down.The Soviet Union's attitude of rising confidence has increasingly affirmed the concerns of the Americans.

The hysterical response of the Washington authorities is of course not based on practical rational considerations.Although the reputation of the United States is not as good as before, in essence, the strength of the United States still has a decisive advantage over the Soviet Union.Comparing the economic strength and scientific and technological level of the two camps, the advantages of the West (and Japan) are even more inestimable, and the gap is more than thousands of miles.The rough and rigid Soviet, with its incomparable brute force, may be able to build a powerful economy in the 19th century in the 1980s more than anyone else (Jowitt, 1991, p. 78).But in this 1980s, even if it produced 80% more steel than the US, twice as much pig iron, and five times more engines than the US; if it can't adapt itself, catch up with the In the era of silicon crystal and software economy, even if the products of traditional heavy industry are more and more large, how will it help this old empire (see Chapter 16)?At that time, there was no evidence that the Soviet Union intended to launch a war, and the possibility was even slimmer (the only exception, I am afraid, was war with China). As for the military attack on the West, there was no possibility of implementation.The so-called rumors of the Soviet Union launching a nuclear attack are all the self-indulgent dreams of Western Cold War figures in the 1980s and the high-fever propaganda of Western governments.The result was just the opposite. Instead, the Soviets panicked, thinking that the West might strike first and launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union—for a certain period of time in 1983, the Soviet Union even thought that a Western nuclear bomb would be launched at any time (Walker, 1993, chapter 13) .The US's alarmist talk triggered the largest anti-nuclear peace movement in Europe since the Cold War, and strongly opposed the deployment of a new batch of missiles in Europe. In the future, historians of the 21st century will not only be far away from their personal memories of the 1970s and 1980s, but they will also be concerned about the crazy military fever, eloquent predictions of destiny, and the grotesque acts of the U.S. government in the international arena. The oddities of the early days of the Reagan administration (1981-1989) must have been mystifying.If these historians want to understand the truth, they must start with exploring the psychology of Americans subjectively.The United States suffered from serious troubles, and there was a deep sense of failure, powerlessness, and shame. The pain was so deep and the shame so intense, it really made the mainstream of American politics in the 1970s deeply saddened.Nixon stepped down because of worthless scandals, and his reputation was disgraced; he was followed by two consecutive lightweight presidents who had no weight.The disorder of the president's personnel has further deepened the pain in the hearts of Americans.To make matters worse, in the humiliating Iranian hostage incident, American diplomats were taken hostage and threatened; several small countries in Central America set off red revolutions one after another; OPEC raised oil prices again, causing the second international oil crisis.All kinds of things made the suffering of Americans reach the extreme. Ronald Reagan, elected President of the United States in 1980.The U.S. policy when it was in power was entirely based on the removal of the humiliation engraved in the heart for many years.Only from this perspective can we understand the reason why Reagan used his iron fist to show that the United States is superior and will never tolerate any challenges, and its style of dominance must never be shaken.In order to regain its prestige, the United States even resorted to force and used military actions against specific targets, such as the invasion of Grenada, a small Caribbean island in 1983; the large-scale naval and air offensive against Libya in 1986; Launching military aggression is even bigger and meaningless.Reagan obviously grasped the psychology of the people and saw through the depth of the damage to their self-esteem.This ability may have something to do with his background as a second-rate Hollywood movie star.The Americans were traumatized psychologically, and finally got a little comfort from the sudden death of their arch-enemy. Now they are finally the only ones left in the world.But even at this time of year, we can see some clues in the Persian Gulf operation against Iraq in 1991.The Americans want to take the opportunity to teach Iraq a lesson, to recover some belated psychological compensation for the humiliation suffered by the two oil crises in 1973 and 1979.Back in the day, the most powerful country on earth could not do anything to the organization of a few third world weak countries, and was threatened by them with the threat of cutting off fuel.It is tolerable, which is unbearable. Against this psychological background, the jihad launched by Reagan - at least on the surface - was not so much motivated by the restoration of the world's power balance. Its practical purpose is not as much as a psychotherapy tool to help America heal.Because the project of rebuilding the balance of power in the world has been quietly carried out as early as the late 1970s.At that time NATO - under the leadership of a Democratic president in the United States and the Social Democratic and Labor governments in Britain and Germany - had already begun to rearm.Moreover, from the very beginning, the new left-wing regimes established in Africa have been tightly restrained by movements and countries supported by the United States.American power has advanced quite successfully in central and southern Africa, and it has advanced and retreated with the seemingly unstoppable apartheid South African Republic.In West Africa, the United States is less aggressive (but the Soviet forces in the two places have important help from the Cuban expeditionary force, which proves that Fidel Castro is loyal and dedicated to the third world revolution and alliance with the USSR Big Brother for duty).Reagan's efforts on the Cold War belonged to another type, not balancing world hegemony. Reagan's contribution was not in substance but in ideology—that is, the Western world's response to the troubles and uncertainties that followed the golden age (see Chapter 14).The various social and economic policies carried out in the golden age have obviously failed; the centrist and moderate social democratic parties that have been in power for a long time have stepped down one by one; now they have been replaced by a group of right-wing governments that are committed to "business first" and insist on "complete laissez-faire" play.This was the case in several countries in the 1980s, most notably Reagan in the United States and Thatcher, the confident iron lady in the United Kingdom.In the eyes of these right-wing upstarts, welfare capitalism, which was vigorously promoted by the state in the 1950s and 1960s but no longer backed by economic achievements since 1973, is basically a branch of socialism—just as the economic Hayek, a scholar and consciousness expert, called it "the road to serfdom"—and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the end product of this social welfare system.The Reagan-style Cold War was not only aimed at the "evil empire" outside, but also aimed at criticizing Roosevelt's New Deal ideas internally.All in all, it is a firm opposition to the welfare state and any form of state intervention in social and economic life.The sworn enemies of Reagan's politics were communism and liberalism. Coincidentally, the Soviet Union also disintegrated at the end of the Reagan era, and American propagandists inevitably boasted that this was the result of the United States launching the anti-Russia and destroying the Soviet Union.The United States launched the Cold War and won the Cold War, and now it has completely defeated the enemy, leaving it with no room for recovery.This is a group of veterans' interpretation of the evolution of the 1980s, and we don't really have to take their version too seriously.There was absolutely no sign at all that the U.S. government anticipated or saw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union.When the Soviet Union really collapsed, it was not seen that the United States had made any preparations for this matter in advance.Although it did hope to exert economic pressure on the Soviet Union, the United States' own intelligence showed that the Soviet Union's physique was still very strong, and it could definitely continue to engage in a long-term arms race with the United States.Even in the early 1980s, the United States miscalculated the situation of the Soviet Union, thinking that the latter was still complacently engaged in global aggression.In fact even Reagan himself, no matter what his ghostwriters wrote for him, no matter what was going on in his often apparently not very bright head, at the bottom of his heart, he believed that the United States and the Soviet Union Coexistence is an unavoidable reality.However, he believed that the basis for the coexistence of the United States and the Soviet Union should not be based on a balance of nuclear intimidation. His dream was to build a world free of nuclear weapons.It just so happened that someone else shared this dream with him, that is Mikhail Gorbachev, the newly appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1986, the two powerhouses met in Iceland, which was full of autumn. In the bleak atmosphere close to the polar region, a strange but enthusiastic summit meeting just happened.Gorbachev's intentions were clearly shown in this meeting. The Cold War ended because one, or both, of the two superpowers recognized the sinister and irrational nature of the nuclear race and believed that the other was sincere enough to end this insane and ludicrous race.In a sense, such a proposal might have been easier for a Soviet leader to take the initiative, since Moscow, unlike Washington, did not always talk about the Cold War as a holy war; Let's take the excited people's sentiments to heart.But on the other hand, because the rhetoric is not as enthusiastic as that of Washington, if the peace-seeking ceremony comes from the mouth of the Soviet leader, it may be difficult to win the trust of Western countries in its sincerity.For this reason, the world owes Gorbachev an even greater debt.Because he not only initiated this proposal, but also succeeded in persuading the US government and the people in the West to believe that he meant what he said and did have such sincerity.Of course, we should not underestimate the contribution made by President Reagan, because his simple and pure idealism was able to break through layers of fog and break out of all kinds of demons surrounding him - ideology traffickers, crazy fanatics Molecules, careerists who want to get promoted and get rich, desperadoes, professional fighters——by their own simplicity, they believed in Gorbachev's sincerity.In substance, the Cold War can be said to have ended after two summit meetings in Reykiavik (1986) and Washington (1987). Was the disintegration of the Soviet system caused by the end of the Cold War?Although these two historical events seem to be quite related on the surface, they have their own paths in the process.Soviet-style socialism has always claimed to be an alternative to the capitalist world economic system.Since the end of capitalism has not yet come, and it seems that there is no sign of dying, socialism, if it is to be another future hope for the world, whether it succeeds or not depends on its competitiveness with the world capitalist economic system. Down - but we'd love to know what capitalism would have been like if all the socialist and 3rd world debtors had turned their backs in 1981 and refused to pay their debts to the West - but The latter has introduced the old and brought forth the new for several times over the years. There was a vigorous innovation in the Great Depression and after World War II. In the 1970s, it experienced a "post-industrial" revolutionary transformation in the communication and information industry.But the socialist countries fell behind all the way. This intensified situation became very obvious after 1960, and its competitiveness has been completely lost.All in all, as long as the competition between the two takes the form of a confrontation between two major political, military, and ideological powers, as long as either side is inferior to others, it will be doomed to destruction. In addition, the expenditures of the two superpowers in the arms race far exceed their economic capacity.By the 1980s, the debt of the United States had reached a huge $3 trillion—most of which was spent on military purposes—but this astronomical figure was fortunately buffered by the world capitalist system.The pressure on the Soviet Union is also not light, but looking around inside and outside, there is no one to share this burden with it.And in terms of ratios, Soviet military spending was high, accounting for about a quarter of its total production.In the 1980s, the U.S. war expenditure was not low, but it only accounted for 7% of its huge gross domestic product (GDP).Due to some historical reasons and the proper use of policies, the economies of the countries that originally depended on the United States for their survival have grown stronger and even outperformed the United States.By the end of the 1970s, the combined production of European organizations and Japan had surpassed that of the United States by 60%.On the other hand, look at the vassal countries of the Soviet Union, but they have never been able to support themselves, and they still have to spend billions of dollars worth of Soviet supplies every year.In terms of geography and population distribution, these backward countries that the Soviet Union hopes to one day overwhelm the capitalist global monopoly through revolution, together account for 80% of the world's total.But in terms of economic weight, it is insignificant and dispensable.As for the development of science and technology, the West is making rapid progress and growing exponentially.The difference between the two sides is so great that it is like heaven and earth.All in all, from the beginning of the Cold War, there was a huge disparity between power and invincibility. The reason, however, is not to weaken socialism by confronting capitalism and the superpowers.There are two reasons for its end: one is that the socialist economy is flawed, its economic structure is unbalanced, and it expands at a faster rate; the other is that the capitalist world economy is more dynamic, more advanced, and has more advantages.Because if it is only from a political point of view, like people in the Cold War, they like to use the terms "free world" and "totalitarian world" to represent the clear barriers between "capitalism" and "socialism", and regard the two as never able to It is hoped that the two walls of the canyon and abyss that are connected, if the two sides just go their own way, never communicate with each other, and do not engage in a suicide nuclear war, one of them can survive no matter how bad it is.Because as long as one can lie behind the Iron Curtain, no matter how inefficient the centrally planned economy is, it can barely survive—at worst, it can only survive and die gradually, and it will not collapse suddenly.However, when the Soviet-style economic system began to interact with the capitalist world economy in the 1960s, the factors for the defeat of socialism were planted. In the 1970s, the leaders of the socialist countries were still unwilling to criticize and set out to reform the economy. Instead, they were greedy for short-term convenience and trouble, chasing and using new resources that appeared in the world market (such as making a fortune by borrowing oil prices, or making a large amount of money because of easy borrowing). debt, etc.); this would be tantamount to digging his own grave (see Chapter 16).What put the Soviet Union to death in the Cold War was not "confrontation" but "détente". In a sense, the views of the fierce Cold War faction in Washington are correct.Looking back now, we can clearly see that the real Cold War actually ended at the Washington Summit in 1987.But the whole world will not admit the fact that the Cold War has really come to an end until everyone sees that the hegemony of the Soviet Union is gone or that it is dying. The accumulation of suspicion, fear and hatred over the past 40 years, and the military-industrial behemoths showing off their power over the past 40 years, will not eliminate the impression of reversal overnight.The war machines on both sides continued to operate, and the intelligence agencies remained jittery.Treat every move of the opponent as a trick to seduce yourself and relax your vigilance.It wasn't until the great empire under the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, and the Soviet Union itself announced its disintegration in 1989-1991, that we could no longer pretend that nothing had happened, let alone deceive ourselves and others, as if nothing had changed.