The Myths And Realities Of The Cold War, Its Effect On The Current US – Russia Relations And The World

Immediately after the Second World War in 1945, the world was ushered into a kind of politics whereby decisions that were taken were viewed through the prism of East-West dichotomy- The Cold War. The Cold War was essentially based on ideological hatred and political distrust between the United States and its allies (also called the Western bloc) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the Eastern bloc).

However, long after the end of the Cold War in 1991, northing had changed much in the foreign policy of the US towards Russia- a former member of the Eastern bloc. The former and its allies continue to show hostility towards the latter.

Moving the debate further back, scholars of International Politics still hold varied views about the genesis of the Cold War. Some have argued that the concept of the Cold War was the creation of one man, Reinhard Gehlen (1902-79) who was an SS (Schutzstaffel) responsible for the murder of many prominent Jews in Russia. Fearing that he and his cohorts would be arrested and tried at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Gehlen lied to the then US administration that he was in possession of an Intel about Russia’s nuclear weapons programme and military capabilities. The former bought into this clever move to evade prosecution by Gehlen and further refused to extradite him to Europe to face trial on war crimes. Several decades after, the US realized that it had been fooled by Gehlen as all the intelligence he had provided proved false and useless.

The second group of scholars had it that it was a case of mutual suspicion. That although the Soviet Union fought alongside the US to defeat Nazi-Germany, Italy and Japan in World War Two, they could never became friends because Russia could not forget that the West led by the Us tried to undo the Bolshevik revolution and intervened in their civil war. On the other hand, those of the group who argued from the US side posited that the Soviet Union had declared her intention to overthrow capitalism world wide through a revolution.

While the above groups of scholars have argued that the Cold War was a figment of the mind of some people trying to play with the emotions and intelligence of the world, the Post-Revisionist theorists have argued that the United States had long held an anti-Soviet policy long before Truman and the marshal Plan of 1947 in an attempt of the latter to install Communist regimes in other parts of the world.

The problems confronting the world today is the one of miscalculations by the US. One, the US believed that the end of the Cold War marked the triumph of Western values (liberalism, capitalism and Judeo-Christian values) which had been captured in Francis Fukuyama’s book entitled: “The end of history and the last man”. In that book, the author argued that “…liberal democracy is the final form of human governance”, but the emergence of China as one of the economic giants with centralized political system, disproves Fukuyama’s claim. The US hegemony and its unilateral behavior in the world stage is that which is breeding global chaos. For instance, the involvement of the US in the Middle East had proved very catastrophic. Clash of civilizations is on the rise and so is global terrorism.

The United States stepped its foot into Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda was created. In Iraq, the US supported rebels against the then Saddam’s regime and created ISIS. Again, in Libya, the US and its allies aided opposition forces to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi, the resultant effect, today that country can be described as a failing state. Furthermore, the principle of “Assad must go” in Syria has brought the US to supporting terrorists groups like the DAESH, etc. America and its cohorts have worked to unsettle these countries and since then Middle Eastern countries have lost their shine.

Moving away from the accusations, the US must recognize the fact that the era of fighting inter-state wars are over. The common threat today is global terrorism which is the resultant effect of clash of civilization cleverly posited by Samuel Huntington’s in his famous book:”The clash of civilizations and the remaking of the world order”. China and Russia must be recognized as major powers and worked with in the UN Security Council to effectively deal with terrorist organizations acting as non-state actors and that of rogue states like North Korea, Iran and Lebanon.