@sinistar: MAS? Mutually Assured Stroke? Mutually Assured Stupidity? Mutually Assured Slaughter?
Hmm, I was sure it stood for "Mutually Assured Survival" but after a quick check, I can't find much info on that.
I think it might have been a thing I read in one book or study, it might have not been "Survival" but something else and apparently it's not a universally known/accepted thing as I believed. And before anyone says MAD was about "survival" too, MAS (or whatever it was) was, if I remember correctly, more along the lines of open co-operation between blocks, less/no nukes and more/just ICBM defense systems. Basically idea where superpowers co-exist not because they fear the weapons other side has but because they know both side's defenses are strong enough not to even bother launching nuclear attack. And of course just, you know, co-operation and peaceful co-existence and stuff.
I'm saying all this out of my head and thus it's all pretty vague. Can't remember where I read that as said (I have an idea though) or even if I did. Could be I just mixed bunch of stuff.
Look, I also don't like the peace to be based on fear, but there isn't any other way! Literally - there's no other way to make large groups of people be at peace with each other. Humans just work that way. We (humans) will always find some distinction to divide all humans into "us" and "them" and then start to rally for a war against "them". And if there isn't the guarantee of unavoidable destruction in case you attempt to war against "them", then the war will happen eventually.
Yeah, see, I do actually realize that use of force or just threatening to use it is sometimes needed. I'm not trying to sell you some hippie crap about love and peace and such (well, at least not today). But I still call bullshit on that humanity can't be coaxed into co-existence in
any other way. I mean, take a look 2 years back - did anyone seriously consider Russia to be any sort of Big Bad back then? Apart from rare fringe radicals still going on about how "we out to nuke Russia"? Was Russia not just another big, EQUAL player in geopolitical and economical sphere? And look how situation is now! I'll tell you something you might consider crazy and you are free to say so (though it seems a completely rational to me...), but I think Crimea take-over
actually strengthened NATO. And the further conflict in Ukraine escalates or is just let open, the further it will strengthen NATO! Shit, 2 years ago, people would call you paranoid if you'd say there needs to be a bigger NATO presence in Baltic. Now? I'm pretty sure you'll find completely rational people being scared of Russia. And it's no crazy talk that the more Russian representatives use rhetoric like that in Denmark, the more the other side will do the same. Not saying it doesn't go vice-versa, of course... But eh, I'm again not making much sense. Sometimes my passion get's the better of my rationality.
The point is, I guess, this saber rattling needs to be toned down by both sides lest it leads into another full-scale cold war. And before you say cold war will offer you more secure life, please just answer this - was 2 years ago your life
really that worse? Worse than the one in a new cold war can be?
And this will continue to happen, until we completely overwrite our biological and social instincts which cause us to do that.
And we have to start doing that one day, no? So why not now?