Thoughts and Reflections: The Two thousand Year war

  

          The Cold War was about America and Russia each trying to expand their empires. The war went on from 1945 to 1989. In 1989 the Russian empire collapsed under the strain of the struggle with the Americans in the cold war. In 1981 Walter Carp had written about the way the Peloponnese War was similar to the Cold War.  Walter Carp said that the Athenians were like the Americans and that the Spartans were like the Russians. As in the cold war the enemies in the Peloponnesian War were ideological foes and for many years neither was physically capable of winning. The Spartans were an inward agricultural society whereas the Athens were a commercial fast moving and far ranging state.   This was similar to Russia and America.  He also suggested that Russia and America could learn something from the the Peloponnesian war, that American and Russia should both have been each happy with their existing empires and not tried to expand at the expense of the other's empire.  When you make a mistake something will go wrong.  It is better not to make a mistake and thus have everything go right. We can often learn learn to avoid mistakes by studying the past. In this case Russia tried to expand its empire and wound up losing its empire all together. By studying history we can learn lessons form past about which policies that are likely to work and which policies that are likely likely to fail.