Space Strategy: Defensive Shields or Death from Above

For the last year I have heard time and time again that the cold war is over. Articles were published by the NDU Press which spoke of US Strategy After The Cold War, and the Washington Post headlines screamed (before 2 August) of the Peace Dividend as a result of the end of the East-West confrontation. Experts in National Security spoke often of the end of the cold war and what the new multi-polar world would look like, and Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize. This simple soldier DOES NOT, however, believe that the cold war is over! The peace dividend is a delusion which may prove disastrous for our country in the long run. I believe, as did Winston Churchill, that the Soviet Union is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. While I will agree that the current situation is irreversible to the extent that it will never go back to the way it was before glasnost and perestroika, I can never believe that the Soviet government will become a Jeffersonian Democracy without a violent revolution. And what is most frightening is that we have no experience in dealing with a nuclear super-power embroiled in violent civil war. One misstep in the future may prove catastrophic.