1992/04/01 by John Lewis Gaddis · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #International Relations and Foreign Policy #Dictator #CONTEST #Communism #Rivalry #Law #Power (physics) #Political economy #Ideology #Political science #Democracy #Politics #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1992.tb00499.x
openalex publication_date 1992/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
When the fictional dictator Big Brother proclaimed the propaganda slogan “War Is Peace” in George Orwell's novel 1984, first published in 1948, he turned out to be a better prophet than anyone, including his creator, could ever have imagined. For we can now see that the Cold War, the most dangerous, bitter, and protracted rivalry between Great Powers in modern history, did in time become the most protracted period of freedom from Great Power war in modern history. Whether or not one approves of the means by which this happened, whether or not one even agrees on the way in which it happened, the simple fact is that the Cold War did evolve into a Long Peace.1 Whether the Long Peace can survive the end of the Cold War is, however, quite another matter. The Cold War was many things to many people. It was a division of the world into two hostile camps. It was a polarization of Europe in general, and of Germany in particular, into antagonistic spheres of influence. It was an ideological contest, some said between capitalism and communism, others said between democracy and authoritarianism. It was a competition for the allegiance of, and for influence over, the so-called Third World. It was a game of wits played out by massive intelligence organizations behind the scenes. It was a struggle that took place within each of its major adversaries as supporters and opponents of confrontation confronted one another. It was a contest that shaped culture, the social and natural sciences, and the writing of history. It was an arms race that held out the possibility—because it generated the capability—of ending civilization altogether. And it was a rivalry that even extended, at one point, beyond the bounds of earth itself, as human beings for the first time left their planet, but for a set of reasons that are likely to seem as parochial to future generations as those that impelled Ferdinand and Isabella to finance Columbus when he first set out for the New World five hundred years ago.