On Crises In World Affairs

I am, in a lot of ways, the last generation that grew up with The Cold War.

My cousin was killed in action the year I was born in Vietnam.  I remember very vaguely the Fall of Saigon.  I heard about Afghanistan and wars of attrition years before a great many people alive now did. I remember the Soviet Congresses and Solidarity and "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" (and ultimately the tearing down of said Wall).  I remember the constant, low level background of fear that a nuclear conflict could break out at any time.  And I remember traveling in Eastern Europe in 1990, when suddenly (and magically) there was hardly a Communist to be found.

It is with this mindset that I view the current ongoing angst of the US/Russia/Ukraine with a certain jaded eye.

You may recall that back in April I wrote on this as well as things back then had (seemed to) reach a fever pitch.   We are back to said fever pitch, if you have paid any recent attention to the media.

The intent of today's post, of course, is not discuss politics or policies (I try not to do that, both for conversational purposes as well as for the fact that when I have tried, it goes poorly).  The point is to discuss the rather fascinating alarmism that such things seem to engender.

Being a very part-time amateur historian (perhaps lover of history is a better concept), one can always see the parallels to past emergencies:  this is "critical" moment, in which if we do not respond, something terrible is going to happen.  So terrible, in point of fact, that we have to push everything to the brink of saying we will engage in military action - beyond all the usual "send the diplomats home, call each other bad names, threaten each other economically" sorts of things that make for good action pose speeches but make little difference.

What strikes me is that for so many - at least those pushing themselves out there - this is somehow a new thing.  Russia (in this case; your enemy of civilization may vary) is apparently a hair's breadth away from destroying the entire fabric of Western Civilization in the current dispute (or in other, previous, disputes).

Is it possible?  Sure.  There are still nuclear weapons that are undoubtedly pointed here (and, sadly, at our friends in Alta Canada as well).  But is the same as the post 1947 World confrontation between two ideologies that spawned a 43 year chess game of almost nuclear holocaust?  Not really.

To the younger generation, it is hard to explain what having true world ending stuff in the background is really like.  We have become used to the sorts of long term disasters that are going to happen "someday soon"; we are not used to the "It all ends now" the way it used to.  And  I was on the tail end of the Cold War; to those in the 50's and 60's, the reality was even more overbearing (insert 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis here).

And so I read the speeches and the flailing of arms and the "This is our line in the sand - no, this is. Wait, this one over here.  Do not ignore us, we are ready to do things." - and quietly go about my business of feeding the rabbits and practicing Iai and making dairy products and the host of small things that fill my life in meaningful ways.

I suppose the possibility for such a world ending scenario exists.  The reality is, it always has.  And if the past two years has taught us anything - or for us older ones, the previous Cold War - it is that living your life in fear of an enemy you can neither influence nor control or somehow become agitated and vocal about a crisis in a life where you have lived through so many, is simply a path to constantly not living your life at all.