Warday полностью

After an encounter like that, we sub-poppers of the Royal Navy feel that we are doing a job vital to the security of the world.

Looking back, it does not seem strange or even improbable that the United States and the USSR were rivals. Even without the ideological differences, geopolitics would seem to have made it inevitable.

But what does seem strange is the way the rivalry became so formalistic toward the end, almost a kind of ritual, which continued along its traditional lines despite the enormous changes in the two countries and the world around them.

It is not possible to assess blame; both sides were at fault, and both sides were trapped. Nobody knows what normal relations between the United States and the USSR would have meant because they never had normal relations, not at any time in their history. They either hated one another beyond reason or pretended to unrealistic friendship, such as during the Second World War or the “Detente” period of the seventies.

With hindsight, we can see that they should have been neither mortal enemies nor fast friends. Some things about them suggested partnership, and others suggested competition, but nothing suggested the murderous war that occurred.

Do we think that the old rivalry will be rekindled in the future?

The polls say no. Perhaps the war has finally put the seal on the anguish of the old superpowers. Perhaps.

Do you believe that the Soviet Union will emerge once again as a world power?

Should the Soviet Union emerge again as a world power, do you believe that it will start another war?

Do you believe that an unfair portion of international war relief is being sent to the Soviet Union?

Do you believe that the United States should attempt to rearm itself militarily?

Some interesting differences appeared in response to the preceding question among age groups:

When we crossed the border into Nevada, Whitley seemed almost too drained to react, but I felt like breaking out champagne. I contented myself with a quiet sip of water from our bag.

We are now on the western edge of the Great Plains. I wish I could have gone with Captain Hargreaves when he left the train at Ogden, but his world and mine are not the same.

I contented myself with this train’s less scenic route. The going was slow and rough through the Rockies. We used old freight tracks for this part of the run. Now we are south of Denver, on our way to connect with the Southwest Limited in La Junta. Next year perhaps the Zephyr will resume its old route across Nebraska and Iowa, but not yet.

The great transcontinental migration passed through this land, and the legendary trains of the Union Pacific and the Western Pacific, their engines gleaming brass and black, their whistles stampeding the astonished buffalo.

That happened barely a hundred years ago. In the time since then, the Rockies have lost perhaps a tenth of an inch of their peaks from the ceaseless wind. Two thousand animal species have become extinct in this land, and the world that extinguished them has slipped through our fingers.

The grandsons of Buffalo Bill and Bat Masterson might well have been alive to see Warday.