Their Fight Is Our Fight

The truth is kryptonite for authoritarians and oligarchs-in Russia, and here at home.

- By Monika Bauerlein

I GREW UP learning to speak Russian. The Cold War was at its height in the early '80s, and my school in Germany offered English as a second language in fifth grade and Russian in ninth. Just in case, you know? We were caught-though I didn't fully realize it as a bookish punk-rock teen-between two massive powers that might just conclude that a little nuclear war in Europe was the price to pay for global dominance.

So, in my overalls and with bangs down to my nose, I marched against NATO, its nuclear missiles, and the superpower leaders who seemed determined to rob my generation of any kind of future. As our editor-in-chief, Clara Jeffery, noted in compiling an amazing playlist of '80s doom you can dance to, the music of that era is all about nuclear apocalypse. If you had told me that I would make it to middle age, I would not have believed you.

I would also not have believed it if you had told me that 40 years later, the Cold War would be long gone but a hot war would be raging in its place; that nuclear plants would start to look like the lesser energy evil (and would simultaneously terrify us as they came under artillery fire); or that a battle between pro-democracy forces and a global authoritarian movement would engulf not just the former Soviet Union, but also the United States.

In fact, just typing this all out feels crazy. How the hell did we get here? And where do we go from here?