A retro trend that looks longingly back to the 1950s for a more secure, innocent time is again making the rounds. Countering that are those who point to an era too easily identified with Communist witch hunts, a Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Some context.
Retrospection reinforces a rule of thumb. It’s better to oppose a secular ideology than a religion. A set of earthly tenets or Koranic cherry-pickings? Generals and uniformed soldiers representing a nation state or clerics and martyrs on a jihadi junket from Allah? ICBMs that stay in their silos or heat-seeking epistles that rally zealots to suicidal carnage?
Geo-political conflicts aren’t always zero-sum games. But a civilizational war necessarily is.
The U.S. and the Soviets were ultimately deterred by MAD – the unthinkable prospect of Mutual Assured Destruction. We were eyeball to eyeball with a super power peer. But we were both playing by the same rules – with the ultimate stakes equally acknowledged and respected.
Those were the days.