University Times

Ah, the good old Cold War. Back when a handful of nations shared a monopoly on nuclear weapons, and showed no desire to use them.

When the only civilian casualties of bombings resulted from faraway proxy wars (Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.) or ancient blood feuds (as in Northern Ireland and the Middle East).

When military antagonists claimed to be defending "democracy" and "world socialism" but didn't take ideology or religion too seriously.

Nostalgia for the hazy, crazy, bipolar days of the Cold War is shortsighted — the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to bring not just targeted murder and destruction, but Armageddon — but it also is understandable, said Joseph White, a Pitt associate professor of history whose research specialties include the Cold War and the nuclear age.

"One thing about the Cold War that made the world feel more stable than it does today is that, until the late 1980s, it seemed as if the Cold War was locked in place indefinitely," White said. "Plus, there is the fact that, at least in some people's thinking, the United States and the Soviet Union never had any intention of waging war directly against each other. If there is nostalgia today for the days of the Cold War, I'm not surprised. It's not based entirely on moonshine or wistfulness."

Between the end of World War II and the collapse of the USSR in 1991, American leaders assumed that their Soviet counterparts were basically rational, White pointed out. "That stands in sharp contrast to today's enemies, the terrorists, who are faceless, largely nameless, and not attributed with any degree of what social scientists call 'substantive rationality.'"

It's hard to imagine a Warsaw Pact agent carrying out a suicide bombing against civilians, White said. "It's often overlooked that the Soviet Union did not practice terrorism, except against its own citizens and those of its allies," he noted. "Assassinations of foreign leaders and spies, yes, but not the random killings that you have with terrorism."

By 1980s, the cynicism that had always been present in communist systems had become overpowering, according to White. "By the end, any revolutionary elan on the part of the Soviets or their allies had disappeared. Whereas, this new crop of characters [terrorists] are ultra-volunteers. They really think that their beliefs and actions will change the world."

–Bruce Steele