The Cold War ended on November 9, 1989, sometimes with the fall of the Berlin Wall. To be sure, there have been important events to date and others are following And, not everything went smoothly.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were nationalist movements and radical Islamic terrorism in some of Russia’s client states. Thereafter, Russia began interfering in matters considered its “imminent republic.” However, until the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, it was assumed that these conflicts were a reduction in violence and a departure from the growing overall trend of living standards and civil liberties.
Now, we face the prospect of a new Cold War.
The following top ten list of popular songs (original) is designed to capture the frustrations of the Cold War period. The countdown reflects the chronology of time and the social impact of the song in many ways.
10. Mr. Khrushchev, Bo Didley (1962)
The song reflects the nation’s stupidity in the 1960s under President John F. Kennedy. He urged Americans, “Don’t ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Through selfless sacrifice to replace self-reliance (or what people should do for themselves), he creates the stage for a great society where a growing number of people specifically ask what their country can do for them. Kennedy added, “We will pay any price, carry any burden, face any adversity, support any friend, oppose any enemy,” a mentality that led us to the Vietnam War.
9. Russian, Sting (1985)
Sting misjudges both Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and President Ronald Reagan. Khrushchev’s “threat” to bury us was not with bombs, but with refrigerators, family cars and good schools and medical care. Similarly, Reagan wanted to overtake Communism so much that it would explode. We conducted the experiment and found out which of the two economic systems was actually able to deliver the product.
8. The Revolution, The Beatles (1968)
The Beatles presented a different perspective, not military or economic, but cultural. Rejecting the “hateful mind”, seeing the murderous demagogues of real-world communism as they really were, and taking a moderately optimistic view of the future.
7. Commissioner, Falco (1981)
In the 1980s, real-world communism was recognized as the greatest form of corruption by all except the most committed members of the New Left and followers of the critical theory of Herbert Marquez. The elegant proof of Ludwig von Mrs. and. The central plan that FA Hayek did not work (even if the bureaucrats had honest intentions) actually missed the mark. It was not “economic reckoning under socialism.” It was “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay.”
6. 99 Hot Air Balloons, Nena (1983)
Also in the 1980s, the risk of accidental nuclear war was recognized. In Germany, children’s balloons are distinguished from weather balloons and other types of balloons by the suffix “loft”. 99 In Lufthansa, a fight is stopped by misreading Lufthansa as a warning balloon (as used during WWI when a chemical attack was detected). To maintain the meter in the English translation of the song, “Luftballons” has been changed to “Red Balloons”.
5. Eve of Destruction, Barry McGuire (1965)
From time to time, the Cold War became heated. Most notably in Vietnam, but also in other wars of national liberation and other conflicts.
4. War (What’s Good for It), Edwin Starr (1970)
And, here in the United States, these conflicts have been linked to ethnic divisions.
3. We Didn’t Start a Fire, Billy Joel (1989)
A generation is overwhelmed by the burden of war and the threat of nuclear destruction.
2. Back to the USSR, The Beatles (1968)
In the midst of this brilliant Beatles satire, the Beatles imagined a Soviet spy returning to the USSR after being raised in the West, with some samples from the Beach Boys. Again, with the Beatles, the emphasis is on culture.
1. A Hard Rain A-Gona Fall, Bob Dylan (1963)
The song was written after the Cuban Missile Crisis. For many at the time, it was “better dead than red.” The song was performed when Dylan received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.
But with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we were not red or dead. Instead, we were alive and free, and with the revolution in the developing economy of the 1990s – ready for the greatest advancement in the history of global quality of life.
On September 27, 1991, President George HW Bush warned the U.S. Missile Forces. Great Falls, Montana, the site of one of our missile bases, the realization of a terrible possibility that we missed. The mayor of that city and the commander of that missile base, Vijay, decided to march. After teaching Air Force officers who took their turn at the launch site in an MBA program there, I can say that the Victory Parade was cathartic.
And here we are again, under the ghost of nuclear war. Which songs will follow and who will sing them?
Clifford F. Thesis
Clifford F. Thesis is a professor of economics and finance at Shenandoah University, author, co-author, contributor and editor of more than a hundred books, encyclopedia entries and articles in scholarly journals.
He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Private Enterprise and a former Bradley Resident Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. He is the past president of the faculty senate of Shenandoah University and the University of Baltimore. He has also served in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve.