A Dictionary of the Cold War
These Cold War definitions are unfortunately all too relevant again with the advent of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Some terms are from the original period of nuclear anxiety between the United States and the Soviet Union, and are being fleshed out with new terminology from the age of frigidity between Putin’s Russia and the so-called decadent West — a monolithic evil seen through the eyes of Kremlin propaganda once more.
Russian psychological warfare has even come home to roost here in the United States, finding a home — quite curiously — in the right-wing circles formerly best known for their virulent anti-communism.
Yet now those in power on the American right share much of the worldview of the mafia state Putin runs with his oligarchs — that in order to preserve white male hegemony over the earth, absolutely anything must be done at any cost. The Republican Party no longer is paranoid about communist infiltration — it’s paranoid about non-imaginary targets: fellow citizens in its own country, who happen to vote for the other party. These people are the true un-Americans, they say, without a hint of irony as they beat police with flagpoles and break unlawfully into the Capitol, where they are loudly threatening to kill the VP and Speaker of the House.
In a reality where the presumptive nominee for the GOP is a pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine broke billionaire who threatens World War III except that this time, we will join the Axis Powers — we would be wise to learn our history and understand the strategy, tactics, and psychology of the fundamentalist forces arrayed against liberal democracy. We are currently all pawns in an information war, whether we know it or not — we’d better at learn the language of the realm.
Cold War Dictionary
- Active measures
- Bespredel
- Brainwashing
- Capital flight
- Chekism
- Demoshiza
- DΓ©tente
- Dezinformatsiya
- Disinformation
- False flag
- Gazprom
- Glasnost
- KGB
- Kompromat
- Komsomol
- Kuchino
- Kurchatov Institute
- Maidan revolution
- Maskirovka
- Perestroika
- Potemkin village
- Rosneft
- Samizdat
- Siloviki
- Sistema
- Snow Revolution
- Solidarity
- Trial balloon
- Unmasking
- Whataboutism
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