Luke Thrumble

PhD Candidate in History of British Foreign Policy (University of Nottingham)

”For me, the Cold War is a parable about humanity’s ability to overcome the challenges it faces. Who could have imagined that the greatest excesses of violence in our history, the World Wars, would be followed by such a prolonged period of relative peace? Time and time again, from the beginning of the Cold War to the end, we shirked from our baser instincts and chose competition over annihilation at the first moment in our history when the decision to go to war could have meant the end of us all. Scientific advances in rocketry, pursued for the purpose of delivering a more durable doomsday, instead sent Yuri Gagarin to the stars. Today, hundreds more have followed him, and thousands yet unborn will one day follow them ever upwards. In the long run, the legacy of the Cold War may not be its proxy wars, its treaty negotiations, its myriad near-misses or its espionage thrillers, but the simple fact that it was the moment when the human race stood at the precipice of Armageddon and chose instead to take one small step into a new frontier. This, I think, gives us some much-needed perspective about the problems we face today. At the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in Texas, just a few feet away from a monument depicting the demolished Berlin Wall, is a wall engraved with a quote. “Let future generations understand the burden and the blessings of freedom. Let them say we stood where duty required us to stand.” Though we are faced with a new set of twenty-first century challenges, with the lessons of the Cold War fresh in our minds, I think we will stand where duty requires us to stand.”