Cold War

 Cold War     

Cold War, 1980
Date	1947 - 1991
Interest of	George Kennan
Description	The official narrative had 2 diametrically opposed systems locked in combat with one another since soon after WW2. Each of the "superpowers" and its team of allies needed to outdo each other by creating ever more and deadlier weapons, creating a kind of perpetual war for perpetual peace, with the warring parties engaging mainly in covert/proxy wars. Deep state interests blossomed in the climate of fear and paranoia.

Official Narrative

The official narrative was of diametrically opposed systems locked in combat with one another since soon after WW2. In the blue corner, the US led NATO, in the red corner, the USSR led Warsaw Pact. Both of these so-called "superpowers" (and their allies) were locked in an arms race, needing to outdo each other by creating ever more and deadlier weapons of war and/or effective defenses against the other superpower's new weapons. National Security therefore meant that the welfare of citizens could not be the top priority.

The rapid fall of communist governments in the nations of Eastern Europe around 1989 and subsequent end of the USSR brought the cold war to a sharp and - for Western policy analysts at least, unexpectedly rapid end.

Problems

The cold war was undoubtedly real in the minds of many people, and the basic ideology behind it was more or less unquestioned by the commercially-controlled media. However, an examination of some of the less explored corners of history - for example, Operation Gladio and the activities of certain members of Le Cercle - would reveal that the notion of two ideologically opposed superpowers locked in opposition was a convenient yarn to spin for both the US and the USSR governments. Anthony Sutton has exposed that these 'enemies' did engage in more mutual assistance than was publicly admitted.

"Peace Dividend"

For a brief period after the end of the cold war, there was talk of a "peace dividend", i.e. a sharp decrease in military spending and a consequent increase in spending, worldwide, of benefit to humanity. This might logically have been presumed, if the military expenditures during the cold war were really a response to a communist threat. However, the exact opposite actually occurred - military spending increased, most notably after the "war on terror" was launched with the 9/11 attacks.

Polarising Nature

Echoing as it does the illusion that is 21^st century party politics, the simplistic narrative of the Cold War polarised thought into an us/them, left/right perspective, narrowing thought and discourse about possible political systems. Many nation states, particularly in Africa chose not to align themselves with either "superpower". In the USA, the Soviet military threat was vastly exaggerated, so the need to maintain "parity" with the enemy was a fiction, albeit widely believed.

Mutually Assured Destruction

In his farewell speech as US President, the first commander of NATO, Dwight Eisenhower notably warned that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex." This was not successfully guarded against, and the M.A.D. policy (Mutually Assured Destruction) presented no obstacle to the spiralling of military budgets (and hence profits) of the military contractors.

National Security

Full article: “National Security”

The ensuing climate of fear and paranoia provided a toxic environment in which the clandestine intelligence agencies thrived and the deep state using proxy wars to rapidly extend their power. Doctrines of "national security" were developed and refined to cloak wrongdoing and obscure the deep political significance of events.  

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Electronic Espionage - A Memoir	interview	August 1972	Perry Fellwock
File:Rogue Agents (4th edition, 2015, full).pdf	book	2014	David Teacher	A book about the activities of the covert European groupings responsible for the realisation of the European Union between the end of World War II and the mid 1990's
Sins of Statecraft - The War on Terror Exposed	paper	29 July 2006	Brian Bogart
The Spectacle of The False Flag	WikiSpooks Page	1 March 2015	Eric Wilson

References

• War Set of radio shows about the cold war

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