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-Was the Soviet threat really a chimera?
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I would love to see this discussed. My only knowledge of the cold war is that I always heard McCarthyism was bad, then I read "Treason" which said McCarthy was right about a lot of things, but this is coming from Ann Coulter. It's safe to say I know very little about the soviet threat, but it seems that the cold war is incredibly relevant to what's going on internationally now.
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Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis (Wiki)
The threat was real - The actually extent of and which threats were potentially most harmful or dangerous or real can be argued about. And all countries (i.e. governments and public and private entities) trump up the threat of others for various propaganda reasons that are not hard to figure out.
Usually, but not always, the threats as perceived at the time turn out to be less dangerous than judged by the people involved, but this is seldom seen at the moment and the passage of time allows for historical and objective analysis to offer up its judgment. But this is certainly easier accomplished from the comfort of a library or archive and without the tense emotional involvement of the moment, the zeitgeist of the times, and within the context not only of hindsight but with the ability to rubber-stamp your own perspective and bias on the subject of study.
-Zeno