Sherri,
You write:
> I think in the US we didn't celebrate the end of the cold war because we
> were losing a very profitable enemy outside. Profitable because war
> stimulates the economy and we had to keep all those innocent little
> countries out of the hands of the commies. Profitable in a power sense
> because if we expand our influence in the world we gain power. Profitable
> in a psychological sense because we can ignore the horrors at home if we
> just look enough for that enemy outside.
I didn't celebrate the end of the cold war because their are still nuclear
weapons in the former Soviet Union, some of which no one can account for.
And I didn't celebrate it because all it did was shift the balance of
power, froma bi-polar structure to r egional structures. I fully expect to
see an increse in regional disputes and terrorism. I do not see the end of
the cold war as the end of profitability, as you describe it. If anything
it will increase profitability because we'll be engaged in far more
disputes . . . such as Bosnia.
It did bring some interesting side-effects that cause me to chuckle. The
CIA had a real struggle figuring out it's new role, although I think it is
pretty apparent. And the military has had to figure out how to fight
small-scale, regional wars more effect ively. Suddenly the huge armaments
and massive weapons of destruction are useless; the small, tactical forces
such as the Army Rangers, Special Forces, and Navy Seals become more
important - - both in winning wars and preventing wars. (I watched a
fascina ting TV show last night on the Navy Seals, and how the end of the
Cold War has caused the military to seriously debate how best to use them.
It was on the Discovery channel, you might want to watch it.)
The question is what did we learn from the Cold War experience? Do we
really understand why it ended? Why were we successful? And even as we
learn from the past, we're confronted with many new challenges that create
new opportunities to learn.
And then there's the bigger question: Who learned from the cold war?
Politicians? Military strategists? Businesses? How is that knowledge
shared, disseminated? What did you and I learn? How have we benefited? How
do we behave differently because we lived through it and saw it end?
The Viet Nam war was particularly useful, to me, because it created a type
of widespread learning. People cared about their country, their fellowmen,
and other nations. The learning wasn't isolated to those at the top; it
became a participative action. It was a painful period, a moment in our
history that has become so ingrained in us that we relive it over and over
and over. I'm not sure we've learned all the lessons taught us by that
war. But perhaps we've learned enough to avoid a similar situation. Go
erge Bush learned from it, and went into Desert Storm with the sole aim of
winning the war. . . quickly!
But America's history is full of foreing policy blunders, domestic
blunders, and political disasters. It's fascinating to see how resilient
we are, as a nation. We keep moving forward, achieving new successes
despite our failures. I wish our organizations were as resilient. Perhaps
part of the secret is once an American, always an American. No one ever
gets fired or laid off because the economy isn't doing well; people's
right to free speech and protest is protected; and we're all able, if we
want to, to influence how our nation interacts with the rest of the world.
Our organizations are bereft of many of these basic privileges. Perhaps
that has something to do with their short lifespan. . .
Oh, and BTW, I think a war is only economically profitable if the nation
is below optimal production levels. In such an situation, increased
production for war material creates jobs which is good for the economy
(i.e. WW II). Other than that I think war i s not very profitable.
-- Benjamin Compton DWS Computer Consultants "The GroupWise Integration Experts" E-Mail: bcompton@emailsolutions.com http://www.emailsolutions.comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>