Today: Cold War Revisited

BOB:Time magazine's recent cover suggesting the possibility of a Cold War II between the U.S. and Russia is irresponsible at best and uninformed at worst. The evidence to support the cover was almost exclusively about Ukraine and the downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight.

CAL: The evidence is overwhelming that the Russians were responsible for that airline tragedy.

BOB: True, but Time has taken that incident and Russia's annexation of Crimea as the principal reason that we are moving toward a new Cold War between the United States, its allies and Russia. Nothing could be further from the truth.

CAL: Maybe they were trying to sell magazines with a provocative cover. We always seem to be re-fighting the last war, whether hot or cold. There is no comparison (yet) to the years of Soviet dictators that featured occupation of Eastern Europe, forced famines, Siberian gulags, communism taught as doctrine in every school, persecution of Jews and the threat of nuclear annihilation, though the government there again controls the news media, as it did during the Cold War.

BOB: The real Cold War began after World War II and continued until the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union disintegrated. Today, many countries once dominated by the USSR are members of NATO, which was created in 1949 by the United States and its European allies in an effort to contain Soviet expansion in Europe.

CAL: NATO succeeded. And who can forget President Reagan's 1987 Berlin Wall speech during which he famously said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

BOB: Exactly. When the wall fell, communism was exposed as a failure. Today, the expansion of NATO has extended to the Russian border. The idea that these countries (among them Poland, Hungary and the Balkan states) could return to Russian influence is absurd.

CAL: In order to quell Russia's meddling, not only in Ukraine but also Putin's desire to restore as much of the old Soviet empire as he can — he has said, "Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the (20th) century." — we have to remember that the breakup was caused not just by internal rot, but also by external pressure; Reagan's "peace through strength" philosophy. Bullies are less inclined to bully when they confront someone with as much or greater muscle, and who are seen as a credible threat to use that muscle in certain circumstances.

BOB: The first two-and-a-half decades of the real Cold War brought with it an unprecedented nuclear arms race between the United States and the USSR with the potential to destroy the planet several times over. It was that "mutually assured destruction," appropriately abbreviated as MAD, that kept us from destroying each other. That threat is much less today.

CAL: What remains the same is that Putin is an unreconstructed communist. He was also a Cold War spy for the Soviet KGB. Opinion polls show that more than 80% of Russi ans approve how he's handling his job. Russian pride was damaged after the Soviet Union collapsed, and it didn't help that a lot of Americans rubbed their noses in it.

BOB: The Cold War was born out of a legitimate fear in the U.S. and its allies about the spread of communism. Congress investigated federal officials, Hollywood and academia in an effort to root out supposed communist sympathizers. Today, such fears are overblown. Time and other major news outlets point to Russia's annexation of Crimea in the Ukraine as evidence of an emerging new Cold War. Many Ukrainians have deep Russian roots, but it does not compare with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Russians put nuclear weapons in Cuba and threatened to trigger a nuclear war.

CAL: Here is what I think is a major reason for Putin's actions. In 1990, Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev reached an agreement. Russia would not oppose a re-unified Germany in exchange for a U.S. promise not to expand its security commitments. The subsequent U.S. expansion of NATO was seen by Russia as a threat and a challenge to what has historically been its "sphere of influence." That's not the entire explanation for Putin's actions, but it is a significant component. The history that has seen Russia invaded from Eastern Europe and the millions of Russians killed in hot wars partially explains Putin's attitude.

BOB: President Obama's united response with Europe imposing sanctions on Russia are not likely to change Putin's attitude or actions, especially because they simply don't go far enough.

CAL: You're right. And sanctions, like tariffs, always bring retaliation. I laughed when I heard that Russia is now going after McDonald's. According to The Huffington Post, "Russia's consumer protection agency has filed a claim accusing the restaurant chain of violating government nutritional and safety codes in a number of its burger and ice cream products." Will we now sanction their vodka?

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.