SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
During the cold war, there was a clear narrative: an ideological opposition between the US and the Soviet Union. Moments of great tension were understood as episodes within that narrative. The closest we came to nuclear confrontation was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the two countries seemed on the edge of war. But the crisis itself was finished inside a fortnight, and there was a wider framework to fall back on. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty calmed the waters.
Then, in the early 1980s the tough-talking but critically derided , Ronald Reagan was elected US president. He reignited the cold war rhetoric and began escalating the arms race, and there was an assumption – particularly in Europe – that nuclear destruction was creeping closer. But it was still within a recognisable context. That ended with the collapse of communism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. For a while the world felt a much safer place than it had been.
But the cold war was replaced by uncertainty. And now the uncertainty is combined with the unpredictability of Donald Trump. The recent bombing raids in Syria and Afghanistan were isolated moments, without any sense of programme or continuity. Nor does there seem any logic to why North Korea should have suddenly become a pressing issue. Incidents that seem to arrive out of the blue can be much more frightening. We're probably not on the verge of nuclear war, but it's destabilising if we can't make sense of events.
Is the world more dangerous now than during the cold war?
[Related]: Nuclear war will ignite in May 2017, mystic Horacio Villegas says
What do you think ?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:16AM (3 children)
You idiots who worry about Trump, in the manner of some neurotic senile person,
obviously are not doing too much independent thinking.
The reasons the world is more dangerous than it used to be are completely
independent of Trump. That means that even if Trump and his entire administration
were all abducted by little green men from another galaxy, the dangers would
still exist.
Try thinking critically for yourself, rather than parroting things other people have told you to think.
Yeah, it might seem like work when you first try it, but the rewards are very real and it is worth the
extra effort. Or if you don't want to do that, just shut the fuck up and let your betters do the talking,
because you have nothing of value to offer the discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:25AM
You are talking to a brainwashed lifeform ;) There's a person Yuri Bezmenov that has some really interesting things to say regarding this situation.
(Score: 3, Funny) by srobert on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:46PM
Yeah, try thinking critically for yourself, rather than parroting things other people have told you to think.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:00PM
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. He may not be the major factor, but he is a large factor. So are his opposite numbers. And, yes, there are also lots of factors that don't connect to individual humans.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.