Was our zealous pursuit of the fall of Russian communisn a prelude to the growth of global terrorism?
In the midst of an ordinary day, when something was not going quite right, I jokingly remarked that it must have been the result of "a communist plot." And then I thought about all that has occurred since such a comment made sense in the world community.
I remembered a time when the world was seen in the usual dualistic mode of simplistic politicians, of the freedom-loving Americans and the totalitarian Russian Communists.
It is not a time I remember nostalgically, for it was a time of great fears, hyperbolic patriotism, and an extreme "you are with us or you are against us" attitude.
But I do remember it, in part because it created a modern America which would see itself as beseiged by a great threat, working on behalf of divine moral principles, in which someone who was not your friend was automatically your enemy.
Yet, in that scenario, of the West versus the East, of democracy versus communism (yes, I know, that's really like comparing apples and potatoes) a delicate balance of power was maintained.
That balance was sometimes tested (Berlin, Cuba, etc.) but over a long period of time the balance was maintained. And each of the two major sides worked hard to keep that balance maintained.
Our rhetoric may have been about the dimantling of the atheistic evil in Russia, but beneath the surface no one on either side wanted to push the equation to any limit.
In such a global standoff, neither super power could afford for there to be a wildcard. And no wildcard element could find much of a foothold in a world so polarized. Surely, terror activities erupted in the hegemony of both powers, but they were isolated and quickly quelled. If a terror group attacking one of the super powers looked to the other for support, they would usually find it lacking.
Both sides trained and armed guerilla fighters, and both sides engaged in espionage and intrigue and coup d'etat actions. But, acts of terror against military and civilian populations were minimized; the various military engagements in places like Laos and Viet Nam played out in the countries of origin and had easily identifiable players.
Central to the balance of power maintained was the use of diplomacy, making sure that representatives of interest were at the table. There were few un-identified or self-identified groups who were excluded from the maintenance of the balance of power.
Then, suddenly, with the Soviet regime gone, the balance was gone, as were the many ways in which that balance had been supported. All the checks and balances of the cold war were dissolved.
And one of the results has been the rise of terrorism world wide, an attempt to move into the power vacuum left when the two great world power no longer saw their mutual future as facilitated by keeping rogues in check.
With Russia armed with weapons of mass destruction, we waltzed through decades of their non-use; now in the absence of the band playing the waltz for our usual dance partner we hear the strains of strange music whose steps we do not know and whose origins we do not fathom. In many ways, the development of potential weapons by North Korea and Iran seem more threatening than the known possession of much greater weapons by Russia. We knew them - who will be in control of the new weapons may be beyond our ken and outside of our diplomacy.
And what do I make of all of this?
Watch out for what you wish for!
In our stumbling blindly into a War on Terror, using the same old argument of "with us or against us," have we given any thought to that which worries the Terrorists, because it is out of their control?
What I mean is - Communist Russia and America knew that the wildcards were the terrorist who could unbalance the delicate understanding of the ruling powers. What do the present terrorists think of as wildcards in their world view - those actors and actions which threaten the terrorists' own balance with the peoples and nations of their support.
We better know what comes after Terrorism before we decide that anything might be better. When we thought that anything might be better than the threat of Communist Russia, we were surely wrong!