Pick Your Enemy: OBL/AQ or the USSR

[displacedyankeedem]

Say what you will against communism(bigger, potentially could end world, held sway over half the planet), but they at least had this going for them: they were always unpredictably predictable. That is, that they would always do what was in their own best interests; the difficult part was figuring out what the heck the Soviets thought exactly what their best interests were.

OTH, OBL/AQ are completely nuts; the old Soviet leadership could at least be reasoned with. In the grand scheme of things they're like mosquitoes, persistant and annoying, yet can cause considerably smaller amounts of harm than USSR. If the USSR was an animal, it would be a fat, lazy bear. Potentially very serious, but has too many faults to really be dangerous unless you attack it.

God I miss the Cold War alraedy.

[CanuckAmok]

1. Let's not forget...

the strategic advantage of having a fixed target which also happens to be the biggest nation on Earth. Try squeezing the former USSR into a cave in Afghanistan...it just can't be done!

[Vulture]

2. Russians were okay enemies

The Russians were rational, predictable, and generally honorable enemies. For all the nominal hostility, it was largely a drawn out chess match and both sides respected the capabilities of the other. The Russians were good at the game, and had a fair amount of finesse. (Both the Russians and the Americans complain that the Chinese are clumsy and lack finesse as an adversary, interestingly enough. The French also used to have a pretty smooth geopolitical operation, but that's all but evaporated now -- mostly just industrial espionage.)

Al Aqaeda, on the other hand, is a bunch of whackjobs. You can't get game theoretic with these folks, you simply have to exterminate the lot of them. Far more dangerous. I too would take the Russians any day, who at least were quite rational.

[displacedyankeedem]

3. Remember the pre-9/11 days when China....

had a jet fighter which collided with a surveillance plane, forcing it to land in China and holding the crew hostage ~10 days or so. Smooth the Chinese ain't.

[jukes]

4. our enemies

are the occupation in the WH.