The Cold Conflicts of Today
This article goes over an interview with the author of the book “The things they carried” Tim O'Brien. As well as 6 articles about modern world affairs and one political cartoon that can be connected to the cold war. I’ll compare the world affairs of 2021 to what was happening back in the ’50s -'90s. It’s shocking just how much the cold war still affects the whole world today.
This interview of The Things They Carried was written by NPR, with Neal Conan as the interviewer on March 24th, 2010. I chose this interview because I know NPR is a reputable source, I have used their work in projects before, also it’s a podcast so you can just listen to it if you don’t feel like reading. The purpose of this interview is to give readers some more insight into what the author was thinking when he wrote the book.
On June 16, 2020, North Korea demolished a liaison office that was a symbol of improving communications between the North and South. It’s almost too perfect to be a coincidence but this happened on the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, which started the split between the north and south in the first place. right when it seems like relations are improving between the north and south Korea, the north slaps the south in the face with this disrespect.
70 years after the start of the cold war, the world still faces a rising nuclear threat. Though we have brought down the number of nukes in the world substantially since the cold war, there are still many active nukes today. About 14,000 nuclear weapons to be exact, which is way too much, 90% are owned by the U.S. and Russia.
Today Vietnam has almost completely recovered from the war, the 2 biggest effects that are still a problem to this day are how poor the country is and the fact it has only one political party. The Communist Party of Vietnam made a lot of reforms after the war, including getting rid of any political opposition, trying to integrate agricultural collectivism (which failed), and retaining relations with the USSR. Now Vietnam is rapidly growing both economically and population-wise
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia heating up leftovers labeled “cold war”, a comedic yet relevant cartoon. This piece was created to subtly talk about Rising tensions with Russia and the revitalization of the cold war which in 2014 was a very possible reality. I also like the detail of 20:14 on the microwave time. Overall I like the funny yet subtle comedic nature of this comic, even to this day I think it is relevant and can obviously be connected to the cold war.
The cold war was a war all about spying and espionage. Many people think that all this espionage stopped with the cold war, however that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Even today, many Russian spies operate in America to try and steal our economic and political secrets, but Russia isn’t the only guilty one, the U.S. does it too. Though this new world of technology has fundamentally changed spying, many old tactics are still used to this day, old habits die hard.
The collapse of the soviet union may seem like a long time ago for us but for Russian politicians, it feels like yesterday. Today Russians are still dealing with the backlash of the Soviet collapse, from economically to politically, Russia has been a mess for years now and is only just starting to find some kind of normalcy.
In conclusion, After looking at these 7 articles and interviews of “The things they carried” I’m sure you can agree, even though the cold war ended in 1991 with the collapse of the soviet union, the entire world is still feeling the effects of this long “war”. Vietnam’s economic growth and struggle, Russia’s chaotic government, rising nuclear threats, and America’s evolution of espionage, the cold war changed. Even though the times have changed, the conflicts and world relations aren’t all that different, maybe there will always be a cold war.