Most ASU undergraduates today probably have little memory of what it felt like to grow up during the Cold War. With the typical age of undergraduates between 18 and 23, by the time they were old enough to have any political idea of the Cold War it was over, and Dillard's was selling chunks of the Berlin Wall. (Really, I saw them.)
So you have little idea of the anxiety those of us who were cognizant felt. I was in fifth grade in 1983 when ABC broadcast "The Day After," a terrifying TV movie chronicling the effects of a nuclear holocaust in the American heartland. The morning following the broadcast, kids at my elementary school gathered at recess in somber groups and discussed the film in hushed tones. All the while, we glanced up nervously at the gathering clouds, reassuring ourselves they were cumulonimbus and not of the mushroom variety.
We no longer fear global nuclear war -- at least most of us don't. We're so relieved to have "won" the Cold War after 50 years on the nuclear brink, so ready to have it all behind us that we're too willing to overlook certain disturbing facts.
One such fact is that the Russian Federation, as it is now known, is still in possession of 8,000 or so nuclear warheads. (A recent episode of "Nova" on PBS provided a rare glimpse of Russia's nuclear facilities.) No need to do the math on the destructive power of 8,000 nuclear weapons. Just know that one such weapon is far more powerful than the two atomic bombs America dropped on Japan combined.
The "Nova" crew also revealed that the Russians have developed missiles that fly inside the atmosphere. (Most nuclear missiles fly outside the planet's atmosphere.) These missiles are designed to evade any Star Wars missile defense developed by America -- yet another reason for policy hawks to abandon the unworkable idea.
Do I think the Russians have secret ambitions to nuke America? No, but there are other concerns here. First, the troubled Russian economy is in no position to provide adequate upkeep for such a massive arsenal, increasing the possibility of an accident. Second, the widespread corruption in the Russian military and government -- Russian President Putin recently admitted this corruption -- could lead or may already have led to black-market sales of nuclear weapons or weapons technology. A lot of nuclear black marketeering has surfaced recently, and it's probably only a matter of time before we learn that Russia is involved.
What Russia needs -- what it has not had in its whole history, from the czars up through the 1917 revolution and 70 years of a totalitarian dictatorship -- is a free, open society. We are so eager for a market economy to work in Russia, so eager for our former nemesis to embrace our way of life and make it work, that we conveniently overlook that the Russian government still controls many aspects of its citizens' lives.
Russia also controls Chechnya, and the effects of this (especially apparent over the last couple of weeks) have been catastrophic. Instead of working toward more freedom for Chechnya, Putin is cracking down even further -- installing another puppet president after Chechen rebels assassinated his last puppet president.
Unfortunately, in part to justify his own war on terror, President Bush has given carte blanche to Putin to act however he wants in Chechnya. Instead of pressuring Putin to back off his oppression, Bush insists that Putin is merely fighting their shared war on international terrorism.
This does not encourage an open society in Russia: It ensures a closed one. Putin recently said that Russia needs to tighten up its defenses against both internal and external enemies. If tightening up defenses in this country after Sept. 11, 2001, meant curtailing some civil liberties, what will it mean in Russia?
But I think that Bush's political ends are only one of the reasons he applies so little pressure on Russia. I think he, like the rest of us, can't imagine having to deal with a dangerous Russia again. We were supposed to have won that war. To fight it again, along with everything else, is too depressing to consider.
Michael Green is pursuing graduate degrees in creative writing and film and media studies. Heap praise on him at michael.b.green@asu.edu.
