A new cold war?

Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that the world is on the brink of a new cold war with Russia. He now looks much older - not at all the fairly youthful leader we all came to like (LHS). Somehow I feel he is correct as the current leader of Russia seems to have got the date wrong.  Someone needs to explain to him that the USSR went a long time ago.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29966852 .

Cold war?

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29686756 .

It sounds like the stuff of spy novels from many years ago, but the Swedish military may indeed be hunting a Russian sub in the waters not far from Stockholm. Neutral Sweden? Why? It beggars belief that the Russians would want to bother with Sweden.

If they do this with Sweden, you can only imagine the spying going on between the Russians and the USA for example.

Russia - the cold war ended a nearly a quarter of a century back! This is the 21st century, remember? Major nations try to behave like adults nowadays. It saddens me to think some major world players still play war games. I expect the USA and the UK are just as bad.

Remember the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis?

The Cuban missile crisis took place exactly 50 years ago. 

For those of us old enough to remember this time, it was a truly terrifying week. Each morning I went to school unsure if I would return home again before nuclear war broke out. I even recall the chilling words on the BBC radio news, "a need for war may arise".

Later analysis suggests we were even closer than we thought at the time to an all out nuclear exchange and the end of civilisation. It was thanks to the politicians on both the American and Russian sides that eventually tensions were reduced. Thereafter, the Cold War was never quite the same again, and over the following decades we slowly edged towards its end.

What lessons can be learned?

• Great care is needed in complex international crises, 
• Never trust the military (they would have bombed Cuba in this case),  
• Jaw jaw is better than war war, 
• Think about the people we elect into great offices of state as one day our lives may depend on their judgement in a time of very great stress.