Who's fault is it?

[CCIP]

Yes, but I should note one other thing: I don't consider the end of the cold war to be positive. Although I agree that 'progress in understanding' was made strategically and I'm even willing to acknowledge that Mr. Gorbachev was a very good diplomat and, unlike so many Soviet leaders (and citizens) knew which way the wind was blowing internationally - he was a bad strategist and let things slide out of hand; likewise, the West, assuming that the 'right way' was found in Russia and it would promptly come to the 'good side' of democracy and market liberalism once the Soviet Union collapsed, celebrated too early and failed to see a humanitarian catastrophy and political mess that actually happened. I think the West was too busy winning the Cold War to notice how badly the Soviets lost it and what consequences it would lead to. I don't think people on this side of the fence really appreciate what a disaster (rather than triumph) the dismantling of the Soviet Union was, both internally and internationally (nb - not the fact of the dismantling itself per se but the manner, timing and spirit in which it occurred).

[loynokid]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Yes, but I should note one other thing: I don't consider the end of the cold war to be positive. Although I agree that 'progress in understanding' was made strategically and I'm even willing to acknowledge that Mr. Gorbachev was a very good diplomat and, unlike so many Soviet leaders (and citizens) knew which way the wind was blowing internationally - he was a bad strategist and let things slide out of hand; likewise, the West, assuming that the 'right way' was found in Russia and it would promptly come to the 'good side' of democracy and market liberalism once the Soviet Union collapsed, celebrated too early and failed to see a humanitarian catastrophy and political mess that actually happened. I think the West was too busy winning the Cold War to notice how badly the Soviets lost it and what consequences it would lead to. I don't think people on this side of the fence really appreciate what a disaster (rather than triumph) the dismantling of the Soviet Union was, both internally and internationally (nb - not the fact of the dismantling itself per se but the manner, timing and spirit in which it occurred).

I'm going to have to research this topic a little more to respond to this... It is a different perspective though

[CCIP]

It's a different perspective because I lived through it

[loynokid]

Originally Posted by CCIP

It's a different perspective because I lived through it

That's one thing I can't say for myself... I am kind of glad that i didn't live through it though, it didn't sound like the funnest thing... :hmm:

[geetrue]

I can't describe the feeling of being sound asleep and hearing the 1mc blare out, "Now man battle stations missile" 2X's

By the time your up putting on your poopy suit and shoes ... the captain is saying, "We have just recieved a message from the President of the United States to launch missiles"

The captain didn't always say, "This is a drill"

So by the time I got to sonar (which was always rigged for red and seperate from the control room) we didn't really know.

If I was on watch when it went down, someone would always say, "Is this another BS drill?" or "Why don't they do this when I'm on watch" or "Hey, that was a good movie"

We didn't really know ... we were drilled pretty regularly too by the Joint Chief's of Staff and by Norad in Colorado and our log's had to correspond with their logs when we came back in.

Gentlemen it was the cold war ... the other side was doing the same thing. We were ready to nuke them, we were volunteer's, we were paid professionals and we really didn't care about politic's out at sea ...

The cold war was simple ... be ready to end it all if they fire first ... I'm out of the loop now, but something tells me a whole lot of people took our place.