And it’s about time we started acknowledging that.
The myth is taught in history classrooms all over the Western world, reinforced by Hollywood movies. It’s a fanciful story that there was a specific conflict, and it ended in 1989. America and friends prevailed over the Soviets and their allies. Russia became a capitalist democracy and Soviet communism was finally destroyed.
It’s like a movie plot. Freedom vs. Tyranny. The good guys battled the bad guys. The good guys won, freedom came to oppressed communists, everyone was happy. The big bad Soviets were vanquished, the Russian people embraced Western economics, and the world got more peaceful because we we’re all finally on the same page.
So here we are, some forty odd years later, Putin invaded Ukraine and so many people expressed shock. How could he? Putin’s an evil despot! Russia was supposed to be like us!
If however, you understood that the Cold War never ended, then Putin’s actions came as no surprise.
Humans, we like our stories. Characters that have arcs, plots that conclude, everything wrapped up in 3 acts. If you can throw a moral in there, even better. We like stories so much that we impose them on events that are not story-like at all.
The Cold War, so named because, you know, bombs didn’t go off (barely), and it was only spies and the like firing a bullet here and there, does not fit the war narrative very well. There was no crack-pot leader ordering soldiers to take over a territory. There was no clear definition of winning. It was a conflict of ideologies between two countries that spent billions of dollars trying to get every other country in the world to join their team.
Ideology, however, is not easily vanquished.
And the ideologies that shaped the Soviets haven’t gone anywhere.
1989 wasn’t the end of a war, it was a shift in the operational theatre. The Russians didn’t suddenly embrace a new -ism, nor did they give up on their desire to be a premiere world power. They kept on doing what they’d always done. Attacking the West on the dl. Sabotage, subterfuge, all the things they did in the 60s and 70s. They continue to attack Western nations with actions that are easy to ignore or propagandize away.
The Russian government, they are not giving up. They will continue to sow discord in the West, fund propaganda, and ultimately try to undermine our democratic and social systems. I write this not to be scary, but to call it out, to raise awareness. Because it’s hard to fight what you don’t even see.
Read this: Agent Sonya by Ben MacIntyre. If you want to know what a successful spying career looks like, Agent Sonya was an exceptional spy. Working for the Soviets, she survived Stalin’s purges and all manner of drama. The woman retired – on its own an amazing achievement for a spy during that time.
The book also gives insight into the Russian ethos of spying. Well worth the read.
Thanks for giving me the gift of your time.
Rhiannon