Hacker News Reader

Comment by rytis | Hacker News Reader

Nazis were defeated as such, so there was no way to have them as some sort of 'imaginary enemy'. So failing that govt invented another one - USSR. And that worked both ways, US was such an enemy from the USSR's point of view. USSR collapsed (an event, just like defeating Nazis) - time to look for another 'imaginary enemy'. Since it was hard to use a country this time, let's pick something less tangible - terrorist organisations. This can't be easily defeated, and also allows to 'attack' countries that supposedly are home for such 'terrorists'.

Just my POV into all this. And I'm not picking on US, it's just that it's most prominent there...

View on HN

How exactly was the USSR "imaginary"? And how was it invented by "govt"? Do you mean the US government? Please try to formulate your thoughts more clearly, and please study history more carefully before proposing sweeping theories.

I'm not saying that USSR was imaginary (I was born there). I'm saying that USSR as an enemy to US was more or less 'imaginary'. (Same goes the other direction as well, BTW). Did USSR attack US on a massive scale, and on US soil? Like Germany attacked Poland during WW2? Was the threat as real as it was being presented to the masses?

"Did USSR attack US on a massive scale, and on US soil?"

No, they did not. But is that because the USSR was never a threat? Or, was it because the US correctly assessed the USSR's threat and planned accordingly? I won't say that the M.A.D. deterrence strategy was the correct strategy, but I think it would be silly to say that there never was a threat of global war. There certainly were moments where that almost happened. It's worth noting that while both the US and USSR drew up battle plans for potential war, only the USSR had a preemptive strike as a key part of its primary plan.

>Or, was it because the US correctly assessed the USSR's threat and planned accordingly?

Absolutely not. Read/watch some Noam Chomsky and/or various BBC documentaries like "The power of nightmares". The USSR was falling apart. Yes, they had nukes and could have nuked us but the threat was vastly overblown precisely for the reason the GP states: to give us a boogy man to be scared of.

The USSR was falling apart in the 1960's during the Cuban missile crisis? I've actually studied the downfall of the Soviet Union and the notion that it fell apart simply because of economic or political pressures is rather simplistic.

The problem with the USSR over it's entire existence is that it had trouble maintaining legitimacy. The Communist Party effectively ruled the country but it's legitimacy was derived from revolutionary nature. The further the Party strayed from the promotion of world-wide Communism, its entire modus operandi, the more clear it became that it actually ruled for itself.

With this in mind, the Communist Party had to maintain a state of constant belligerence with the United States and the Western world and had to promote international Communism with every chance it got. International Communism had to be its end game and this entailed, ultimately, war with America.

When Gorbachev took control and softened relations with the United States, as well as shifted control of the country from the Party to the Government, he actually weakened his right to rule and that is one of the many reasons he was ultimately deposed.

While it is certainly true American politicians used the Cold War for political ends, It's simply not true that the Soviet Union was no threat, or that the threat was even vastly overblown. The documentary you mention is comical in that is is both fear mongering and condemning fear mongering.

A country with nukes which is falling apart seems scarier, to me, than a country with nukes which is not falling apart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov suggests that they did come very close to nuking the US. Is this what you call a "vastly overblown" threat?

It wasn't to give us a boogy man, it was just that the whackjobs that thought the USSR was a huge boogyman (before we turned it into one) were listened to. There's a decent section on this in the book Drift.

Many people wanted the US and UK to drop nuclear bombs on Russia shortly after WWII. That was a real threat to the Soviet Union.

See, for example, Bertram Russell

> "If the whole world outside of Russia were to insist upon international control of atomic energy to the point of going to war on this issue, it is highly probable that the Soviet government would give way on this issue. If it did not, then if the issue were forced in the next year or two, only one side would have atomic bombs, and the war might be so short as not to involve utter ruin."

The US had plans for sudden nuclear attack against the USSR. (http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/To_Win_a_Nuclear_War.h...)

The US government in the 50s and 60s wildly overstated the strategic threat from the USSR to the United States, notably the infamous bomber and missile gaps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_gap

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap

hmm you probably couldn't be faulted about thinking that all this was imaginary until you get a grenade thrown at you - I was part of an NGO team in Kabul, Afghanistan that was targeted by a grenade thrown from a motorcycle (tandem) that providentially didn't explode.

But the presence of violence in Afghanistan is not evidence of a broader existential threat or a globally organised campaign. Its evidence of a country that has had decades of war and death. This [1] survey suggests that many Afghans don't even know about 9/11. What threat are these people to the USA?

[1] http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/19/think-tank-afghans-don...

And how is that an example of terrorism? By your own admission you were in Kabul, Afghanistan, a country that neither called for nor welcomes the U.S., it was an invasion. I would expect hostile action in an invaded territory (unless you were a muslim NGO, in which case I'd retract).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan#Invasi...

"Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

Exactly. This is the thing that frustrates me the most about the reporting about Iraq and Afgan wars: anyone who fights back is part of the terrorist organization. I imagine if Russia plopped down bases, artillery, tanks and so on on american soil, citizens would probably attack them in the hopes of driving them out. That's not terrorism, that's defending your country from an unwanted foreign invader. Some might say that's the duty of any able bodied citizen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com