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Kasparov Arrested By Russian Police
New submitter perdelucena writes "Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was arrested outside a Moscow court, where the verdict in the trial of the Pussy Riot group members was being announced on Friday, Russian police said." Update: 08/18 01:14 GMT by T : Kasparov has written an account of the arrest.
Ideology was the rationalization, IMHO. You're right that it wasn't nukes. I think the Cold War is best understood as a sort of continuation of WW2.
The US and the USSR were pretty much the only major powers which weren't gutted by WW2. The USSR nearly was, and probably bore the true brunt of the defeat of the European Axis powers. It was just big enough to absorb its losses, whereas Britain and France were not. The Soviet entry into the Pacific theater against Japan was probably at least as significant in the Japanese acceptance of unconditional surrender as was the use of atomic weapons by the US, which is not really understood by the public at large.
Churchill was very conscious of Stalin's ambitions, and sought to position the West favorably for the postwar period for probably a year before the end of the war. But the British star was already waning and it was America which was already sitting at the head of the table. Truman and Eisenhower were looking more toward ending the war in Europe with fewer American casualties (looking to finally focus on the Japanese), and were willing to let the Soviets bleed Hitler from the East, and let the Russians pay the price in lives for doing so. Which made the loss of Eastern Europe into the Soviet sphere of influence inevitable.
I give Stalin a lot of credit for quickly building the Soviet economy after the end of the war, despite grievous losses. While Americans were demobilizing and reaping the peace dividend and building the consumption economy, the Soviets were making sure their near-defeat never happened again. It took a while before the American public noticed there was a new global competitor, so it became necessary for American leaders to propagandize the matter, and make the public afraid. Which is where the anti-communist ideology and space race and nuclear arms race came in so handy. People who are afraid are more easily led.
The Baby Boom generation has been rather non-introspective about these matters, as has America as a whole. We haven't really figured out what it all means and drawn mature conclusions because we just haven't bothered to examine it very closely. Godwin's Law is a great illustration of this.