"

No one would have predicted, as the world worried over nuclear war, that these rifles, with their cartridges of reduced size, would become the most lethal instrument of the Cold War. Unlike the nuclear arsenals and the infrastructure that would rise around them—the warheads, the mobile launchers, the strategic bombers and submarines—an automatic rifle was a weapon that could actually be used. And none of the Cold War’s seemingly infinite and fantastic array of killing tools could more readily slip from state control. In this way, 1949 became the year of a mismatched but fated pair, RDS-1 and the AK-47, whose descendants were to work in consonance and shape the conflicts ahead. The nuclear umbrella froze borders in place and discouraged all-out war between the conventional armies stacked in Europe, helping to create conditions in which the Kalashnikov percolated from continent to continent, nation to nation, group to group, man to man, maturing as its numbers grew and its reputation spread into the age’s dominant tool for violence in conflict zones. At first the distribution was piecemeal and incremental; gradually, it became almost unchecked. By the early 1960s, after the Cuban Missile Crisis had startled its participants and as the war in Vietnam was expanding and quickening, the Kremlin and the White House comprehended that their nuclear arsenals had made total war unwinnable. Small wars and proxies would be the means through which the Cold War would be fought.

The Kalashnikov era had arrived.

We are living in it still.

"

C.J. Chivers, The Gun.

I’m not even through the preface of this, but it’s already great. The AK-47 is the most terrifyingly mundane weapon in the world, so easy that children can—and do, every day—use it, and so well-made that Soviet testers actually had problems making it jam up in their labs. It was this single rifle that secured a steady stream of human-rights abuses and never-ending low-grade, asymmetric warfare all around the world, from Los Angeles’ ganglands to Africa’s dictatorial conflicts.

Mission: Impractical →

Here is a hilarious MSNBC article from around the time of Mission: Impossible III’s release which notes how the first film may have been the most subversive of the 1990s—at least, to fans of the original TV series—and how the entire series can be interpreted as having a cynical message about the spy game. Notably, that IMF produces its own enemies. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how the pure Ghost Protocol can fit into this scheme, but I still found it very amusing. Here’s a choice quote describing Jim Phelps, the hero of the TV series, recast as a villain in the first film:

“Who was Jim Phelps? A cranky old spy, pissed off that the never-ending Cold War had ended. Not visionary enough to foresee the never-ending War on Terror just around the corner, and feeling like an outmoded piece of technology that wasn’t worth upgrading, he decided to 1) kill all the agents on his team and 2) sell a list of every American agent (the NOC list) to America’s enemies for a Dr. Evil-like sum of six MILLION dollars.”

This is one of the reasons why I was so excited to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I’ve heard that both le Carre’s novel as well as Alfredson’s adaptation make the point that Cold War-era spies were power-hungry nerds, engaged in covert games that ultimately didn’t matter much in the great scheme of history.

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themodernhistory:

The Soviet Union Was Dissolved 20 Years Ago Today - Mental Floss

Twenty years ago today, on December 8, 1991, a group of Soviet leaders got together in a house in snowy Belarus to declare the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The resulting treaty, the Belavezha Accords, split the former USSR into a series of independent states.

Sometimes, good things happen in history.

(via idreamofaussies)

picturesofwar:

The fall of the Berlin Wall, part II:

As word spread out across both East and West Berlin concerning a new travel policy by the Eastern Communist government, thousands of Berliners on both sides of the wall inundated border guards at multiple checkpoints.  People started climbing atop the wall and demanded that the guards open the gates.

28 years after its construction (back when JFK was President), the Berlin Wall was now obsolete. 

November 9, 1989 - 22 years ago today.

"The Wall is now history, but it must not be forgotten. It is our responsibility to keep its memory alive and pass it on to future generations so that such injustices never repeat themselves."

Berlin has marked the 50th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall was erected with a memorial service and a minute of silence in memory of those who died trying to flee to the West. Read more here. (via corazon-gitana)

(via poorjeremy)

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For the curious, there’s a good, short (about fifty minutes long) documentary on Hulu about the School of the Americas, called Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins. (It’s under the PBS Indies series, which looks pretty interesting overall). The documentary is a bit old, from 1997, so it isn’t up to date—the school was reopened as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001, though it’s debatable that much has changed (besides, the most unsavory elements of the school may have just moved to lesser-known institutions)—but it’s still a great glance at how the SOA trained many Latin American war criminals, particularly in the ’80s, and how a protest movement against it grew in the early ’90s. It’s a sobering look at the injustices that have been performed in our names.

"This ain’t a scene, it’s a goddamn arms race."

President John F. Kennedy (via historysaidwhat)

(via backshootingford)

fyeahhistorymajorheraldicbeast:

True story.  I’ve been an X-Men fan for years, but even the fact that the film concerns one of my favourite superhero franchises was not enough to overpower my historygasm.

THIS x infinity. Okay, so I was sort of quietly geeking out over this movie, but now that pre-release reviews have given it a 100% rating on RottenTomatoes (though I’m curious how critics at large will review it) I can honestly now say that I’m REALLY FUCKING EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE.

I’m finally going to watch X2 this week, too. I saw the original movie for the first time last month. It was surprisingly good! However, the plot of First Class is a secret history from the Holocaust up through the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s one of the most interesting periods in history, you guys. I’m bugging out.

Peter Watkins’ The War Game.

I saw this today! It’s a 1965 short film (ostensibly a documentary—it won an Oscar in that category—but more of a docu-drama) about the catastrophic effects of a nuclear strike on Britain. Really brilliant. It keeps the scope of the attack local, focusing on the town of Kent, making it appear all the more real. Interspersed with the documentary footage are quotes from politicians, scientists, religious leaders, and even a poet. coThe film was produced for the BBC, but they refused to air it due to disturbing situations and imagery (among them is the killing of civilians in a food riot by police forces). Between this and that Hiroshima documentary, I’ve become more terrified of and interested in the horrors of nuclear arms. It’s only forty-six minutes long. You should watch it.

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chrisdwoo:

alla1:

pterodactyls:I wrote another Mental Floss quiz, yay! Click through.

omg. this. yessssssss.

Aweeeeeeeeeeesome.

I got nine out of ten!!!

fyeahhistorymajorheraldicbeast:

http://rubbersoul4163.tumblr.com/

(Source: x3, via newyearskiss)

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warispeace:

Today in History: On January 5, 1968 a period known as the Prague Spring begins in Czechoslovakia. Slovak Alexander Dubcek came to power on this day and he intended to grant rights to citizens and make reforms in the Soviet dominated nation. He began to decentralize the economy and loosened censors on speech, travel and media. Eventually the Soviet Union would invade the nation in August and put an end to the reforms. They would remain in power in the nation until 1990. 

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10inspace2intime:

mudwerks:

1956 … missile brains! (by James Vaughan)

Missiles + human brains = Soviet Domination of the West.

We dodged a bullet, people.