CDIH

For those of you that lived under the spectre of complete annihilation by the Soviets how do you think it compares to the fear that Americans had after 9/11?

it was better during the cold war because spy movies were much cooler!

I think the fact that when the Cold War was going on it was basically a "this sides yours and this sides mine" issue. We pretty much tried to stay out of each others way even though we each stepped on the others toes once in a while. Living under the threat of a nuclear holocaust was and is still not fun. With these al Queda slobs it seems like there is no compromise. They are not a sovereign nation and seem to have very little vested interest in anything. They have already declared war whereas there was an uneasy peace during the cold war (as wary a peace as that might have been).

I was younger when the cold war was going on so I think I was a bit more paranoid. The movie "The Day After" really freaked me out as a kid and I wasn't old enough to process the news well enough to realize there was an uneasy peace or understand the politics of it all. In my mind, they could have dropped the bomb at any minute, and that was a scary thing to have rolling around your head all the time.