Friday, September 3, 2010
Keeping the United States Focused
"It now appears in retrospect that the Cold War, while it had many downsides, had one big upside: It kept us focused as a country. It was a disciplining mechanism. We knew that we couldn't be as dumb as we wanted to be when facing the Soviet Union. But with the disappearance of the Red Menace, " we have no competition lately," and it has made us complacent and lazy, said Fareed Zakaria" (Hot, Flat, and Crowded).
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When the United States became involved wih the Cold war they had to stay on their toes. The Soviet Union was a smart country so the U.S. had no room for mistake. every American out out durring the war. the Soviets and the U.S. were both attempting to make better wepons than each other, so the weapons industry improved due to the constant hope of one-upping the Soviets. as the U.S. built a bigger weapon, the Soviets built an even bigger one, erging the U.S. to build something even bigger. also the science industry began to rise as well. the race to space brought the most ingenious minds to the surface to beat the Soviets to space. all of this kept the U.S. on edge which kept them sharp, but once th Cold War was over and the U.S. had no one to beat/one-up the U.S.'s economy began to drop because no one had any drive anymore. Even with the U.S. fighting in the war in Afghanistan there is no more push to one up anyone so even with this new war, nothing is happening to keep us sharp and focused. If We want to get out of this state of "beng as dumb as we want to be" we have to find some kind of focus to push us along.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atomicarchive.com/History/coldwar/index.shtml
-This site explains step by step our focus and dicipline durring the Cold War.