Are We On the Brink of a New Cold War?

Or is Vladimir Putin itching for a hot one?

courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

One of the subjects we covered in some depth this past year in 7^th Grade Social Studies as the Cold War, its causes, and its ultimate outcome. The students learned about the Iron Curtain, NATO, the Warsaw Pact, the Berlin Wall, and the proxy wars fought in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, among others.

We talked in detail about Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner!" speech, which quote, contrary to urban legend, does not mean I am a jelly donut. No one in Berlin calls a jelly donut a Berliner. President Kennedy used the exact right grammar and wording to express, in German, that he was an outsider who stood with the people of Berlin as if he was one of them.

The students watched video of the building of the Wall and came to understand that the Wall was built to trap people in East Berlin, not to keep people out.

We also watched Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall speech,” and discussed the circumstances leading up to the actual tearing down of the Wall on November 9, 1989. One of the student’s parents brought in a piece of the actual Berlin Wall that had been given to her by a friend who was at the Wall that night. It was quite a moment for my students to be able to hold that piece of history in their hands.

One of the more interesting insights to come out of those lessons was when my students asked me why the United States doesn’t have Presidents like Kennedy and Reagan any more. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what to tell them.

If I am assigned to teach Social Studies again next school year, I will have the interesting task of challenging my students to decide if we are headed into a new Cold War with an increasingly belligerent Russia.

The rhetoric coming out of Moscow lately is frighteningly reminiscent of the rhetoric that once spewed forth from that historic city during the heyday of the now defunct Soviet Union. Could it be that Vladimir Putin, once a member of the feared and reviled KGB, is longing for a return to those days when a mere growl from the Russian bear sent the world scurrying to calm the ursine beast?

While refusing to acknowledge the criminality of his seizure of Crimea or his not-so-covert invasion of eastern Ukraine, Putin is making threats against NATO and the United States should they send naval vessels into the Black Sea, seek to militarily discourage Syria’s
Assad from committing any more war crimes against his own people, or conduct military exercises on their own sovereign land if Putin feels it is too close to Russia.

It appears Putin desires a return to the power and influence the Soviet Union once had. He uses the excuse that he is concerned with defending Mother Russia, but that is a red herring, as no one is interested in invading Mother Russia. The world is well aware that neither Napoleon in the 19^th Century nor Hitler in the 20^th Century were able to defeat Russia or the Soviet Union. No nation at this point in the 21^st Century would be foolish enough to try.

Perhaps Mr. Putin should take a lesson from history. In the last 100 years, the government of Russia/the Soviet Union has only been overthrown twice, both times from within. Considering the number of rich and powerful Russian Mafioso now controlling Russia’s economy, businessmen who would stand to lose a great deal should Russia get into a large scale war, Mr. Putin should probably spend more time watching his back than he does looking out for things to beat his drum over in the West.

It seems the Peace Dividend from the end of Cold War One is gone. The question now is how long will Cold War Two last? And will Cold War Two stay cold? For the sake of my children and my students, I dearly hope so.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator