The Swahili have a proverb: When the elephants fight, it's the
grass that gets trampled. For more than 45 years, the
elephantine superpowers of the former Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR) and the United States fought the Cold War --
and some might argue the grass was, in this case, the rest of
the world. While the Cold War was largely a war of threats,
there was plenty of real violence, too. The aggression between
the U.S. and USSR spilled over into places like Angola and
Nicaragua, and the two nations fought proxy wars -- conflicts
between warring parties of a third nation, but supported by the
U.S. and USSR. The soil of European nations served as nuclear
missile sites for both sides. In Soviet satellite states,
populations were repressed and subjugated by communist rule.
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet condoned kidnapping and murder
of the leftist population under an American-backed regime. And
the global psyche was plagued by anxiety over possible nuclear
war. The tense standoff that characteri