Cold Warrior

Bombs on the Way

I grew up in the “Cold War” Era.  In fact, the Cold War was a major emphasis of my college degree.  It  wasn’t just history, it was current events.  The dark humor of our foreign policy study group, steeped in the utter destructiveness of nuclear weapons, came through in a joke about a television announcement: “This just in, Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven!!”  The “joke” was that if bombs were really on the way, there would be no station left to show the film at eleven, nor were we likely to be alive to see it.

I lived in the intersection of circles, a Venn diagram of the areas of destruction from twenty megaton nuclear weapons.  Living in Granville, Ohio at Denison University, we were on the edge of total destruction if Columbus (and particularly Rickenbacker Air Base) was hit, and well within the destruction if the missile development base in Newark, Ohio was destroyed.  Surviving a nuclear attack wasn’t an issue: we wouldn’t.

At that time, the “stability” of the world depended on a theory called Mutual Assured Destruction, “MAD”.  It was pretty simple.  No matter what kind of attack we made on the Soviet Union, or they made on the United States, there was no way that would completely disable the other side’s response.  Launch every missile, all the bombers, ballistic missile submarines:  in the end the “other” side had an invulnerable second strike capability.  That second strike would cause unacceptable losses.

Eyeball to Eyeball

It wasn’t that the United States and the Soviet Union didn’t come up against each-other’s military.  We stood “eyeball to eyeball” across the Berlin Wall, and the length of the East German border, and in dozens of other spots in the world.  But we avoided direct combat with each other because of the risk of escalation into a wider conflict, one that could go nuclear.  We got close enough to that in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I started learning about that in first grade.  It was 1962, and all of a sudden what used to be “tornado” drills, were now called “air raid” drills.  We first graders were lined up in the hallway, against the brick wall; head between our knees and hands over our neck.  We knew that if a “bomb” went off, we’d be OK.  But we felt bad for our teachers, standing behind us, nervously pacing the hallway.  They were going to get “hit”.  

It was the Cuban missile crisis, and we were living in a Detroit suburb.  A twenty megaton bomb on Detroit would absolutely have destroyed our community as well, sitting or standing. 

So instead of risking direct conflict, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a series of “proxy” wars.  One side would support a “third party proxy” to combat the other. It started in Korea, when the Soviets supported North Korea and later China in direct warfare with US and other allied Forces.  Then Vietnam, when the Soviets supported North Vietnam against the direct intervention of the US in South Vietnam.  Next was Afghanistan, when the US supported the Mujahideen against the Soviets.  And throughout the era, there were multiple parts of Africa and the Middle East, where both Soviets and Americans supported groups struggling to gain power.

Pay to Play

The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union went bankrupt trying to “keep up” with the United States militarily.  It wasn’t just the enormous amount of both blood and treasure the USSR was spending in Afghanistan, it was also the high tech weaponry that cost astronomical amounts to create and produce.  An example:  the US built 32 SR-71 Blackbirds as a supersonic, edge of space flying platform for reconnaissance.  They cost  $23 million each.  In response, the Soviets developed their own Mig 25 Foxbat and Mig 31 Foxhound to try to shoot the SR-71’s down.  All of the planes were extremely costly, but the US economy was strong enough to bear the cost.  The Soviet economy was not.

Out of the ashes of the Soviet collapse, the present day Russian oligarchy rose.  It’s a nation based on corruption, the wealth of a few individuals based on the “fire sale, pennies on the dollar” dissolution of the state owned Communist economy.   The leaders of Russia are the rich, and the people of Russia are left behind, just as they were by the Soviet system.  President Vladimir Putin has greater goals than just his billions of rubles hidden away.  He wants to rebuild the “Soviet Empire” as his own Russian Empire.  It’s nothing new, he’s been doing it for two decades.  

Russian Empire

The world did little about Russian incursions into Georgia and Chechnya.  And Putin has pulled Belarus and Armenia “close” as well.  Even when Russia sliced off two eastern provinces and Crimea in Ukraine in 2014, the only world response was economic sanctions.

So it should be no surprise that Putin wanted more, and launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine two years ago.  The difference is, for the first time, a former Soviet province had enough power to stand up to Russian might, and even drive it back.  That’s where we are today, two years later.  The Ukrainian democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s stopped what was supposed to be the third most powerful military force in the world.  

That’s in the United States best interests.  If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, there is no reason for him to stop there.  Transnistria, a renegade province of neighboring Moldova, is already under Russian influence.  And bordering Moldova is Bulgaria, a member of NATO.  NATO members also are west of Ukraine, and next “on the block” for Russian expansion.  Under Article 5 of the NATO charter, an attack on one member is an attack on us all.

Ukraine’s Stand

The equation is simple.  We can support Ukraine, willing to shed their blood to stop the Russian advance.  The US can spend money and resources without risking American lives, and not only defend Ukraine, but drain the Russian military and economy even more.  It’s a scenario that Ronald Reagan would love.

Or we can let Ukraine fail, and Russia takeover.  And we can expect that, soon, we will be fighting with American forces, somewhere in a NATO country in Eastern Europe.  And, by the way, the missiles are still in the silos, the “bombs” can still be on the way.  Do we want a direct confrontation with the “other” biggest nuclear power in the world?

The choice is clear – a “pay me now” or “surely pay me later” scenario.  If we can look past our own domestic politics, it’s in every American’s interest to help Ukraine.  We can call it military aid, which it is, or we can use the ruse of “lending” Ukraine materials, a loan that will never be repaid.  It doesn’t matter what the political fig leaf is; what matters is that the materials keep flowing to Ukraine.  Not only does their courage and sacrifice deserve it; it’s in America’s best interest. 

Ukraine Crisis

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.