Catastrophic Change

So I was waiting for a friend to arrive at a movie theatre a few weeks ago, and decided to kill some time in a bookstore. While there, I picked up - but didn't buy - a book written in the 1950s about the obvious madness behind US and Soviet policies. The author argued (based on the dustjacket) that the massive weaponry buildup that both powers were engaging in - including the then-newly terrifying nuclear arsenals - would inevitably lead to disaster.

This may or may not have been one of the first anti-Cold War tracts along those lines, but it certainly wasn't the last. For almost 50 years, the world was locked in the Cold War and nobody could see a way out. There were debates about the relative positions each side should take - we now know that even in the Soviet Union under Stalin, there was pretty fierce debate as to what Russia should do. But nobody seemed to be able to imagine a world without the Cold War rivalry basically intact.

Many years ago, I read a Tom Clancy-style novel that must have been written in the narrow time frame between the US victory in Iraq (February 1991) and the collapse of the USSR (December of that same year.) The book referenced the Gulf War, but had the Soviet Union as an existing entity, though a very weak one at that point. (Incidentally: The post-Soviet nemesis that was besting America across the globe: Japan.) It was astonishing because - reading it in the late 1990s - I found it hard to believe that the author couldn't foresee the fall of the USSR, given that it was literally months away.

And then just this year, in a course on intelligence and national security, one lecturer - a former intelligence analyst - put it this way: "People were really down on us for a while, you know. 'Why the hell didn't you guys see this coming?' they said. Well, let me tell ya - the fucking Soviets didn't see it coming, so I'm not sure how we were supposed to!"

The common thread to all this, of course, is the fact that almost nobody - and absolutely nobody in power - saw the sunrise approaching. They were rapidly approaching the end of a horrible, terrifying period in human history and nobody realized it. Nobody had even seriously considered the possibility of the Cold War ending with less than a whimper. But oddly enough, that's exactly what happened.

Not only did the Cold War end peacefully, but the speed at which it unravelled is really astonishing. The real thaw between Reagan's US and the USSR only began in Reykjavik in 1986, and by 1989 revolutions were sweeping across Eastern Europe. By January 1, 1992, the USSR no longer existed.

While I don't think the age we proceeded in to has exactly turned out to be roses and sunshine, we can't underestimate our good fortune. To put it succinctly, my father once believed that his duty as a husband and father was to figure out where to bring his family in the event of a nuclear war. I have never had to consider that possibility seriously.

(Yet.)

Why do I bring this up? Mainly because it's been on my mind lately. There's any number of other examples I could choose to illustrate this point. Look at how quickly Roosevelt changed American politics forever in the US. Look at how quickly the rise of China has changed, oh, every topic in the news. Look at how quickly oil prices have made all sorts of alternatives appear not just useful but necessary. The basic point is that history is not linear, and we delude and deceive ourselves to pretend that it is. When we talk about oil, or climate change, or Iraq, or any of the countless issues that humanity grapples with collectively on any given day, we need to remember that every once in a while, history throws us a curveball. And all of the sudden all of our projections - whether they were "optimistic", "pressimistic", or "business-as-usual" become worthless.