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I know they didn’t change.
I’ve worked with several.
Some who got out before the wall came down...
Others who came afterward.
I’ve met “the Soviet mindset,” and Ivan Ivanovich never had any real taste for world domination.
The working stiffs wanted Russia First, not Russia Only.
They wanted Levis, an Atari, and a Big Mac.
Trouble was rarely the common people; always their leaders, and most of them were only posturing for the rest of them.
Only a few nutters were really True Believers.

Same as us.

I knew the whole damned time all the pearl-clutching about getting nuked was bullshit. Hollywood notwithstanding, Soviet rank-and-file military weren’t interested in getting fried just to prove a point for the Politburo.
Besides, Russians are of a more Western, civilized mindset; they’re not prone to cold utilitarianism like men raised with Eastern philosophy: China, the Norks...

If the ol’ CCCP had been full of Chinese...THEN we’d have really had our butts puckered.

If they’d have been Islamic, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Some idiot in 1980 blabbing about how Reagan — “That gunslingin’ cowboy” as he called him — was gonna get us into a shooting war with the Soviets.
Reagan was maybe the ONLY leader in Washington who WOULDN’T.
Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev — not a real zealot among them; they didn’t have their hearts set on dying.

Not like this Middle Eastern lot.
They’re a whole ‘nother level of berserk.

But the disintegration of the American ethos is spawning loons domestically. Our agencies are getting a little too loose in the hinges. They’re beginning to think they can take liberties, and in several cases they have. The J6 smirking chimp trials seem to have really energized them as to what they may be able to get away with.

About all a man can do is make money and spend money.
Keep quiet and look sharp.
Work your Mozambique pattern to the point of muscle memory.
Hope you never need it, but answer decisively if the call comes.