Michael C. Goodwin's Blog, page 9

Cold War Fakeout

With Russian military ineptness on full display in the Ukraine War, I thought I would revisit one of my favorite subjects, growing up during the Cold War. As a young teen in the 60s, I watched TV footage of all those impressive Soviet military parades through Red Square in Moscow. Long columns of tanks, towed artillery, marching troops, jet and bomber flyovers, and the mother of all monster intercontinental ballistic missiles, it was enough to give a young boy nightmares. But how much of that was real, and how much was fake.

In the 60s the U.S.S.R. got into the habit of announcing, several times a year, new breakthroughs in missile technology. Then they would display them in the military parades. Only that many of these monster nuclear rockets were just plain fakes. Since the Soviet military machine was hidden behind the deepest darkest curtain of secrecy, the only chance for outsiders to see new weapons was during the May Day and October Revolution parades. And the government took full advantage of these events to put on the best show they could for all those foreign visitors, especially the Americans. In the mid-50s, they displayed one of their first long-range nuclear bombers, the Bison. During one parade there was a flyover of 10 of these bombers, then another and another and another. As you might guess, it was the same bombers, circling back over and over making watchers estimate that there were perhaps 600 bombers when the actual number of them was only 23 ever made. U.S. watchers screamed loudly that there was a bomber-gap and then president Dwight Eisenhower was blamed for the U.S falling behind the Soviets.

One of my favorites, (and biggest fear), was the giant 400 mm 2B1 self-propelled super-heavy artillery vehicle, able to fire shells at distances of 50 kilometers. Actually the thing was so big that the recoil ruined the engine and the sheer weight caused extreme wear on the tracks which had to be replaced every 20 kilometers. Only six of these were ever shown in one parade and then quietly scraped. The so-called SS-X-10 Scrag, one of the first really big intercontinental Soviet nuclear missiles, on full display in another parade, put a great deal of fear into everyone. It was, however, a total fantasy. There were several other massive self-propelled missiles that were also just for show, and every one of these nonexistent rocket systems were viewed as a real threat.

Currently, the war in Ukraine continues to highlight Russian shortcomings in their weapons systems. More then 50% of their long-range precision weapons have failed. Many of their tanks and other armored vehicles have a high maintenance failure rate, and corruption surrounding the military is hindering resupply and restocking efforts, not to mention a lack of fuel supplies. This is not to say that the high loss rate of military equipment and troops will slow or stop future attacks in the war. Russia still has a huge military and will continue to batter Ukraine without mercy. But eventually the losses will have an effect, and the mighty Russian military machine may eventually grind to a halt.

(The Bison, 2B1, and the SS-X-10 Scrag all caused great concern over the bomber and missile-gaps between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. And we spent trillions of dollars to overcome that fantasy. It was probably a good thing that we didn’t waste all that money fixing things here at home and trying to reduce the dangerous effects of climate change.)

Lionel

Christmas, 1958. I got up as always, anxious to see what Santa had brought for us kids. At seven-years-old, I had pretty much dismissed the existence of Mr. Claus. And, I was also old enough to know that my father was working various part-time jobs as could be found locally. (This would prompt our move to Utah in another year and a half so he could find full-time work). My hopes were not high for anything big, but we never had a bad Christmas, even with three kids to have to divide any spare money on for presents. As I walked into the living room where the Christmas tree waited, there was, to my everlasting surprise, the Holy Grail of every kid in the fifties, a Lionel train set.

The Lionel Corporation, founded in 1900, specialized in electric objects such as fans and lighting. Historically, the first train made by Lionel was thought to be for a window display, built to attract attention to his other products. But requests for his train prompted Lionel to begin making toy train sets for the public. His main competition through the twenties was against Ives and American Flyer. With aggressive advertising, he soon became the market leader, eventually buying out most of the other companies. His pairing of toy trains with Christmas made them even more attractive and the sets were also made larger then his competitors, making them appear to be a better value. Lionel narrowly avoided bankruptcy in the 30s during the great depression and in World War II, they produced nautical items for the U.S. Navy.

After the war, Lionel began to make more detailed and less colorful trains then before, and made the O-gauge the standard. His steam engines featured a tablet you could put in a working smokestack which made them seem very realistic. By 1953 the company made $32 million that year and became the world’s largest toy manufacturer, though by the end of the fifties, profits fell as interest shifted to the beginning of the space race and travel by rail declined. A smaller HO-gauge, which became more popular the the O-gauge, couldn’t revive profits and even space and military-themed sets couldn’t help reclaim the toy market share. The last year that Lionel itself made sets was 1969. The company went through a number of other owners and difficult competition with toy company chains and finally went out of business in 1993.

Many years later, I found out that my father took a part-time job doing construction upgrades for a bowling alley and he took the train set as part of his payment for it. He also build for me, a low table on which to play with the train, which made it easy to store under my bed. In addition to the things on the table, there was a large number of other working accessories, cars, track and buildings which at the time would have cost a considerable amount. True to the Lionel company advertising, I never failed to put a track around our Christmas tree for many years. And yes, I still have that amazing train set.

World Wars

World War 0 – The Napoleonic Wars, (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of French domination over most of continental Europe. In December 1805 Napoleon achieved what is considered his greatest victory, defeating the allied Russo-Austrian army at Austerlitz. It ended after a coalition of British, Prussians and Netherlands defeated Napoleon’s army at the Battle of Waterloo, April 15, 1815. The War of 1812, (June 18, 1812 – February 17, 1815) was a conflict fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It began when the US declared war on June 18, 1812 and, although peace terms were agreed in the December, 1814, Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until ratified by Congress on February 17, 1815. (Wikipedia – with additions of my own throughout.)

World War I – Was started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, were assassinated on June 28, 1914 by a Bosnian Serb separatist. In 1914, the Great Powers were divided into two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente, consisting of France, Russia, and Britain, and the Triple Alliance, made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and the interlocking alliances involved the Powers in a series of diplomatic exchanges known as the July Crisis. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia; Russia came to Serbia’s defense and by August 4, the conflict had expanded to include Germany, France and Britain, along with their respective colonial empires. In November, the Ottoman Empire, Germany and Austria formed the Central Powers, while in April 1915, Italy joined Britain, France, Russia and Serbia as the Allied Powers. America entered the war on April 6, 1917. The war lasted until November 11, 1918 with the defeat of the Central Powers. (Wikipedia – with additions of my own throughout.)

World War II – Is generally considered to have begun on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. The United Kingdom and France subsequently declared war on Germany on September 3. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had partitioned Poland and marked out their “spheres of influence” across Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. America entered the war after the Japanese Empire attack on the American territory of Hawaii, at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. The war lasted until September 3, 1945, with the Japanese surrender after the atomic bombings of two Japanese cities. (Wikipedia – with additions of my own throughout.)

World War III – Is said to have started on February 24, 2022, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I must admit, the reasons that I put this list together were a bit murky, and I never expected to see a frightening pattern. So, was it my imagination, or have the last few major world conflicts started in Eastern Europe? And in addition, all of the world wars also really got going when nations with interlinked alliances came to the aid of each other. Today there is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is an intergovernmental military alliance with 28 European countries including Canada and the U.S. All of the countries involved have pledged mutual defense if any other country, not part of the alliance, attacks any NATO members, (Ukraine is not a member). The alliance was formed after World War II at the start of the Cold War against possible threats from the Soviet Union and its allied countries.

This does not give me much confidence in the peaceful future of the human race in view of recent history during the last two centuries. Will Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, dare to attack any NATO nation to keep them from supplying Ukraine, or simply escalate his war with by using chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons there? And what would be the response by NATO? It is a future fraught with terrifying implications, and not many people really realize that right now.

(Since Russia cannot immediately achieve a military victory, it is now slowly dismembering cities and infrastructure in Ukraine. Image courtesy Retuers.)

Under the Rainbow

In November, 1985, we took a road trip to Tucson, Arizona, to attend a fantasy convention to sell our books and art. On our way back we stopped at Lake Powell, that watery wonderland right in the middle of desolate desert country in Southern Utah. We also used the opportunity to take a boat tour to Rainbow Bridge National Monument, isolated far away in the twisting labyrinth of canyons much further up the reservoir. At the time, the lake was at its second highest level at over 3,700 feet above sea level, more then 96% of capacity. That was the last time the reservoir was ever completely full. It is now 175 feet below that full pool elevation and at 24% of its capacity.

The bridge itself was not discovered until 1909. The rock formation is a naturally weathered arch of sandstone which has a span of some 275 feet across a small canyon and is the largest natural bridge in the world. Before the lake, Rainbow Bridge was visited only with great difficulty. One way was to float many miles down the Colorado River and then hike up the canyon five or six miles to the bridge. Another way was to hike 14 miles of desert from Navajo Nation land, which requires a permit as the land and the bridge have long been sacred to the Navajo. Today, with the much lower level of the reservoir, there is at least a two mile hike involved and there is currently no dock access to the Rainbow Bridge trail. When we took our boat tour in 1985, the water and dock almost reached to the bridge itself. With a short hike we were able to walk under the incredible sight of a massive span of rock stretching over our heads.

There was much opposition when the decision was made to build a dam in the middle of the scenically beautiful Glen Canyon area. Constructed in the early sixties and rising 710 feet above the canyon floor, it is the second largest arch concrete dam in the U.S. It began filling in 1963 and started flooding Glen Canyon and 90 side canyons of unparalleled natural beauty, including Forbidding Canyon where Rainbow Bridge is located. The wisdom of building a dam and reservoir in the middle of the desert has been long debated. With the current and continuing drought in the U.S. Southwest, the future of the lake is in some doubt. Some advocate draining the lake to supply Hoover Dam, (Lake Mead), downstream on the Colorado River which supplies electricity and water to more then 30 million people in Nevada, California and Arizona. Draining Lake Powell would also allow the unique and fragile canyon environments to reestablish themselves. With the current, and much lower water levels in Glen Canyon, that has already been happening. Whatever the future holds for this area, we were incredibly lucky to have taken our boat ride to this scenic wonder when we did.

(Lynne and Rob at the observation point over the almost full dam in the background. Happy times at the reservoir, everyone who was anyone had a houseboat on the lake during that period. (Currently, none of the boat ramps at Lake Powell actually have any access to the water). Lynne and Rob walk down the dock which led to the short trail leading to the bridge. Looking back down the canyon and the magnificent span of Rainbow Bridge.)

Desert People

In June, 2007 we drove over to Pueblo, Colorado to preview a traveling exhibit that would shortly be coming to Treehouse Children’s Museum here in Ogden. On our way back we decided to drive through Southern Colorado and Utah to do some sightseeing. We stopped at Mesa Verdi National Park and then at Hovenweep National Monument on our way to Bryce Canyon National Park. We had never been to Hovenweep, (on the Utah-Colorado border), and were quite interested in seeing the ruins of the small, ancient, ancestral Puebloan villages there. We drove through a rather flat, rolling countryside dominated by sagebrush and a few scraggly scrub oaks. Arriving at the monument we found a small canyon and at the bottom was a trickle of water, a shallow tributary of the San Juan river. It was rather warm, in the 90’s, but it was only June, so the real heat would was still a month or so away. We were younger then and hiked around to several of the old buildings.

Ancient hunter-gathers had been there since the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago and then about 200 AD, possibly due to a more favorable climate, they started making permanent shelters. The remaining buildings have few windows and they are aligned so that the light of the summer solstice shows through. The towers were also possibly used for religious purposes and were certainly used for storage and as a way to watch for game on the higher surrounding plateau. The people stayed until about 1325 when a 23-year drought set in and by 1350 most of the inhabitants had fled south to more reliable sources of water and food, leaving their structures to slowly decay.

Water has always been the difference between life and death in the desert southwest and today is no difference. On Tuesday the level of Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the U.S., behind the Glen Canyon Dam in Southern Utah, (not all that far from Hovenweep), fell below 3,525 feet above sea level. Since March, 2020 the reservoir water has fallen 75 feet. The 3,525 foot mark is a key holding point that is 35 feet above the minimum level needed to generate hydropower of which 3 million people depend on. The entire reservoir is at 24% of its total capacity, and water releases will have to be made on Colorado River reservoirs further upstream to insure that it will continue to be able to generate power. The levels in lake Mead further downstream are also as low and the more then 30 million people who rely on water from the Colorado River may have some serious restrictions to deal with. Spring runoff will most certainly raise the level of the reservoir, but dry soil conditions in Colorado and Utah and lower then normal snowfall may not bring that much relief to the reservoir. As the native people of Hovenweep learned, water cannot always be relied on in a shifting environment.

(It is a tribute to the ingenuity of the ancient Puebloan people who were able to exploit the area to live in such marginal conditions.)

Foolishness

“It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.” Historian Will Durant.

For the first 40 years of my life, the world was engulfed in what was termed, The Cold War. This was a major geopolitical conflict between the communist Soviet Union and the democratic capitalistic countries of the world led by the United States. The two superpowers faced each other in a large number of incidents around the world and threatened nuclear war if each didn’t have its way. The near constant antagonization and deadly political jockeying was always something that lurked in the background of my life as I grew up, started working and settled down to marry and raise a family. The Soviet Union military, as I was constantly reminded, was huge, powerful and ready to crush the free world. The Russian nuclear forces were always ready to launch against the corrupt forces of capitalism and to destroy us entirely. We believed this to be actually possible and there was always the notion that we had better be ready to fight for our freedoms at any price.

Despite the utter horror that I have experienced watching the events of the last three weeks play out in Ukraine, it is with considerable satisfaction that I see the Russian military forces stagger through a comedy of errors in their invasion plans. They are however, more then capable of inflicting untold amounts of misery and outright death to large numbers of unarmed civilians and cause destruction on a huge scale. Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia has, predictively, threatened the rest of the world with nuclear destruction if they interfere. But we now see him as a poker player with a weaker hand these days. And now, nothing will ever erase the vision of his modern military ineptness from my mind. My youthful bogeyman has become somewhat clownish.

Was I and the rest of the world foolish to believe that the Soviet Union was ever that big of a threat? That is a very good question. After crushing the Nazis on the eastern front in World War II, the victorious Soviets had created a massive war machine. All of the Eastern European countries that they had overrun in the war they now occupied and were determined to keep them under their control. Other parts of the world beckoned, former colonial countries, unaligned peoples and resource rich areas of the world were ripe for the picking. The watchword for the U.S. was containment, keeping the communists from taking over the world, and we spent heavily to oppose them.

Yes, they were really that powerful, but even the powerful eventually grow weary. The shear cost of maintaining the Soviet Union caused it to collapse in 1991 and split into 15 separate countries, each independent of the others with Russia the largest. Now Russia wants to revive their former empire by threats, intimidation and outright invasion. This time around they have the same powerful military machine that they once had but the ability to conquer seems to be a bit lacking. The nuclear weapons are still there, but for the Russians to use them is to cause their own destruction as well as everyone else. That is one option that goes beyond the realm of sensibility and leads to nothing at all for anybody.

(The Soviet Union was our ally against the Nazis during WWII. But as soon as the war ended, the communists started to make sure that they would never be weak again and suffer invasion like Germany inflicted on them in 1941.)

The Covid Option

It has been exactly two years since the Covid-19 pandemic landed on our doorstep and began to dominate our lives. After spending those last two years dealing with Covid, everyone is finished worrying about it. We are all overly eager to engage in the lives that we had before it all started. Even though the average death toll in the U.S. is still around 1,100 lives a day, no one appears to be concerned anymore. 964,000 people have died since the beginning of 2020 and it is expected that in another two months or so, the official death toll will finally top 1 million. There are a couple of worrying new strains of Covid lurking out there, but again, this is no cause for concern for the masses to want to stop the drive for being able to do whatever they want again.

Despite my own quarantine and very careful preparations whenever I chanced to go out into the world, I contracted Covid in December of 2020, (before there were any vaccines), and got very sick. However, I was lucky and recovered after a couple of months, or did I? I still have not entirely gotten back my former vigor, (if indeed I had it, being of a certain age). Other odd infections have sprung up including a very painful five week-long episode of shingles, (despite having had a vaccination 5 years prior). My diabetes has slowly gotten worse so that I have been driven to a rather strict diet and more exercise to keep it under control. Other minor things have been nibbling at me and giving me new concerns, but again, it could just be just my age. So I will continue to be more proactive on my health in concert with the rest of my family.

Covid will never go away entirely, just like the flu. Although Covid does have a higher rate of death then the flu has for older persons who also have additional health problems. If you are a minority, then the concern is higher for you as well. Which is most likely why the rest of the population, and those who are much younger, have lost their fear of the virus. Every year another strain of the flu virus appears and every year there will be more Covid viruses. I know that sounds rather horrible, but that is the way that mother nature works. With a warming climate, some other viruses may increase their range and severity as well. All in all, not the best news we could have, but the rapid development of vaccines for Covid and other problems give us much hope for the future of such things. Staying healthy is always the best option, it has gotten me this far and I will definitely continue to work on it with a little more vigor.

(The new treadmill in the library, big, ugly and in the way. I have invaded Lynne’s peaceful place of restful quiet. I wish there was another option.)

The Good Times

After two years of living with the Covid pandemic, I look back at what has happened and to where I am now. As a post-World War II baby boomer, I grew up into an economy that was strong and expanding. My father and mother, both tried and tested in the Great Depression and WWII were strong and resourceful. Through very hard work they acquired a house, cars, children and grew a good life right in the middle class, and then passed on the privileges and opportunities of their life to their offspring. I was able to go to college, the first in the history of my family to do so. I was able to get jobs and grow my own life in the middle class, marrying, having a child, a house and all of the other trappings of the good life.

Even during the great technological revolution that started in the mid-80s and up to the new century, I was able to re-educate myself and make the jump to become a tech-savvy worker, able to adapt to new ways of working and become very productive, the kind of worker that every company needed at the time. But, with the turn of the century, the cracks began to appear in the good life that everyone wanted. The technological advances began to outstrip the workers and they began to fall by the wayside. The economy had started to shrink and companies sought other ways to use tech to replace workers and maximize profits. During the economic shock of 2008 I managed to keep learning and continue to work, but by the beginning of 2014, like many other companies, the internet made my occupation much less necessary and I lost my full-time job along with many others in my profession. The tech that had kept me employed, had discarded me.

This time, my long experience and abilities were no help, Ageism was by now, completely entrenched in modern working society. While I was fully qualified and even tech-competent, my age was a barrier to further full-time work, and I had to go down the path of self-employment. I managed to continue and even somewhat thrive in the last eight years. But, of course, I didn’t count on the arrival of Covid-19. Everything in our society has been turned upside down and survival is the theme of the day. Fortunately my wife is still fully employed, for the time being, but she is contemplating retirement and withdrawing from the workforce, we all get old.

With Covid, many other occupations still face threats to their ability to operate, and it is hard to see which ones will continue and which ones will fall by the wayside. The good times are officially over and I have long since settled down to a period of waiting for the pandemic to end. Which of course it will not. It is going to be with us in some form for a long time to come, even as everyone is trying to pretend that it no longer exists. As always, the key to carrying on is the ability to adapt and change. Things are no longer easy, if they ever were. Like the rest of the world, I will have to make my way as best I can with what I have.

(Here is a photo of my father after WWII with his first car, he worked hard to acquire a good life for himself and his family. No time in history was ever easy for anyone and that is just how it always has been, and perhaps always will be.)

Nuclear Climate Change

I have not thought about nuclear war for quite some time. As a child in the 50’s and a teenager in the 60’s, it was much on my mind as the United States and the Soviet Union were in their decades long atomic confrontation. New bombers, new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarine development, the space race, small wars on other continents and worries about survivability in event of a missile attack all added to my childish concerns. It was a rotten way to grow up as a kid, always looking over my shoulder at the specter of nuclear war. We were constantly being told that those vile Soviets were determined to destroy our American way of life. But who could predict that in the last 20 or so years, the narration would turn around 180 degrees and that the Russians were our friends and we should admire and cooperate with them. So imagine my complete and utter lack of surprise that they have now turned out to be the same old nasty commies that they always have been, and are threatening us again with nuclear war.

In my old age, my latest concerns have been all about the new fear, Global Warming causing Climate Change. There is more then enough about this new concern that once again, it is something to make my life uncomfortable. Now add to climate change, the idea of nuclear war on top of that, and suddenly, it becomes the sum of all my life-long fears.

Suppose the president of Russia, Putin, gets tired of the failure of his military in attacking Ukraine, and decides to drop a small tactical nuke on Kyiv to get rid of the Ukraine leader and the annoying people who are resisting his forces there. In outrage, NATO drops a few nuclear bombs on Russian forces and their nearby bases, and Putin responds in kind. So where does it stop? And if a few cities accidentally get destroyed along the way, what can we do about it and what happens to the rest of the world? In a 15-year-old study, it estimated that if only 100 small nuclear weapons were discharged, the number of people killed would be the same as all of the fatalities of World War II and smoke, soot and ash from the resulting blasts would diminish sunlight, contributing to a world-wide cooling trend, but not in a good way.

Aside from deadly, poisonous fallout, global precipitation would diminish by 10% and many formerly productive areas could experience drought and a diminished growing season leading to a drop in world-wide food production. Effects could be felt in the oceans with declines in the marine food chain leading to much smaller catches. Ocean acidification could get worse, and the ozone layer would be diminished, leading to higher, dangerous UV radiation reaching the ground. Most all of the plants and animals of this planet would also feel adverse effects of a small nuclear war, not to mention the human inhabitants as well. In order to rebuild parts of our society we would have to rely on readily available fossil fuels to power a resurgence of our civilization. This would only add to the great amounts of CO2 already in the atmosphere, eventually making the planet even warmer. It is all more then enough to make any grown, sensible person lay awake at night and worry about the future. I have been there before and I do not like it.

(Nuclear war on top of climate change would be disastrous human folly, but I am not holding my breath for anything better from my fellows. Photo of a conventionally destroyed city near Kyiv in Ukraine, courtesy AFP.)

Cold War 2.0

The Cold War was a long period of political tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and all of their various allies. It is said to have begun shortly after World War II in 1947 and lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. The term Cold War came into being because there was never any large direct (hot) conflict between the two superpowers. However, there were a considerable number of smaller regional conflicts, each backed by the two, and were known as proxy wars. These were geopolitical and ideological struggles, that in various different countries, determined whether they were democratic or authoritarian.

After WWII, the Soviet Union had become very strong militarily and dominated the conquered countries in Eastern Europe. There was considerable concern about the militaristic U.S.S.R. in the recently freed European nations and with the U.S., they formed the NATO military alliance in 1949. In response, the Soviet Union formed its own military alliance with the conquered eastern European countries in 1955, called the Warsaw Pact. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. fought for influence in the Middle East, Latin America, many former colonies in Africa, Asia and the Pacific Ocean area. Of the many hotter side conflicts, there was the Korean War, 1950-1953. The Hungarian Revolution in 1956 along with the Suez Crisis in the same year. There was the Berlin Crisis in 1961 and in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis. There were various countries involved in the Vietnam War which lasted from 1955 to 1975. There was Soviet Union involvement in Afghanistan which lasted from 1979 and ended in 1989. The worse aspect of all of this was the long drive on each side to achieve atomic dominance with the development of nuclear long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines.

One of the most dramatic developments of the period was the Space Race, where each side sought to develop superiority in space flight abilities. It started in 1955 with the U.S. announcing that it intended to develop an artificial satellite. The Soviet Union got there ahead of the U.S. with the first satellite launch in 1957. Development of ballistic missiles would eventually allow astronauts to be sent into orbit, and again the U.S.S.R. got there first with an man launched into space in 1961. American President John F. Kennedy raised the game with an announcement that the U.S. intended to land a man on the moon. With the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. each trying to top each other in spaceflight capabilities during the decade, the U.S. achieved a landing in 1969, being the only nation to put astronauts on the surface of the moon.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it split into 15 separate countries and the Cold War came to its conclusion. But with the rise of the now president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer of the old U.S.S.R., he has reversed democratic trends and any pretense of free elections. He has reestablished corrupt autocratic rule with the suppression and jailing of any political opposition and eliminated media freedoms. In 2008, he invaded two breakaway provinces in Georgia and has sought to once again expand Russian territory in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and Eastern parts of Ukraine. With the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, he has raised international tensions to a fever pitch. Welcome to the new Cold War, as many other democratic countries seek to find ways to discourage Putin from his outrageous pretense of protecting Russian interests. This is not a proxy war or a defensive conflict as of old, but a direct invasion and we will not step back and ignore it.

(Destroyed Russian military vehicles on a street in Bucha, a city west of Kyiv. Image courtesy CBC News.)