(This was the last decade of the Cold War, the feeling of which I find almost impossible to actually explain to almost anyone under thirty. We were young, but we seriously expected we could die with minutes of notice and were powerless to stop such a thing happening
This is worth noting. Contrary to the hindsight-ridden narrative of the Cold War that is common nowadays, according to which it had already wound down by the 1980s, there was in fact serious anxiety about a USA-USSR nuclear conflict almost right up to the dissolution of the latter country.
(The explanation for this narrative probably lies in the fact that it is often told by people who lived through the climax of the Cold War, i.e. the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis etc., or else by people too young to remember even the 1980s.)
Contrary to the hindsight-ridden narrative of the Cold War that is common nowadays, according to which it had already wound down by the 1980s
I’m … boggling. Your statment is not implausible, but do you have links to such assertions?
Really, we thought we were likely to die at any time with no warning. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War was over, there was a zeitgeist of ”… Um. OK. We’re going to live. I have to plan now. Oh, God.”
And as far as I can tell, the anxiety was there right up to the moment of collapse. Despite Gorbachev’s excellent and calming media image in the final few years of it.
it is often told by people who lived through the climax of the Cold War, i.e. the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis
It is relevant, I think, that the “we” I speak of were young and powerless.
This is worth noting. Contrary to the hindsight-ridden narrative of the Cold War that is common nowadays, according to which it had already wound down by the 1980s, there was in fact serious anxiety about a USA-USSR nuclear conflict almost right up to the dissolution of the latter country.
(The explanation for this narrative probably lies in the fact that it is often told by people who lived through the climax of the Cold War, i.e. the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis etc., or else by people too young to remember even the 1980s.)
I’m … boggling. Your statment is not implausible, but do you have links to such assertions?
Really, we thought we were likely to die at any time with no warning. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War was over, there was a zeitgeist of ”… Um. OK. We’re going to live. I have to plan now. Oh, God.”
And as far as I can tell, the anxiety was there right up to the moment of collapse. Despite Gorbachev’s excellent and calming media image in the final few years of it.
It is relevant, I think, that the “we” I speak of were young and powerless.
I know someone who had a child because the she felt enough better about the world after the Berlin Wall fell.