First off, understand that I'm not an expert in politics or sociology in any way or form. This is me throwing ideas in the air and see what sticks and what falls apart. Having said the latter <em>DISCLAIMER</em>, I can say (type) what I feel.
<ol>
	<li>Having two superpowers -- the US and the <a title="Soviet Union" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union" target="_blank">USSR</a> -- kept the world on check as a stalemate game of chess where the queens and kings were nuclear arsenals and trigger-happy men. Aside from the level of animosity between these two unions at the time, which I still don't understand, no one wanted to do anything stupid like attacking the other including allies and friends (democracy/capitalism vs communism/socialism). With the Cold War paranoia, many wars could've been prevented as very few countries would've wanted to be on the bad side of one or the other superpower or, worse yet, caught in the middle of both.</li>
	<li><a href="http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/800px-Berlin-wall.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-4669" src="http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/800px-Berlin-wall-300x202.jpg" alt="Berlin wall on November 16, 1989" width="300" height="202" align="right" border="0" /></a>After the fall of the <a title="Berlin Wall" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall" target="_blank">Berlin Wall</a> (picture on the right) and its domino effect on the <a title="Soviet Union" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union" target="_blank">Soviet Union</a>, the various of the former nations Soviet became unstable and uncontrollable by the rest of the world, especially the US. Lots of arsenal (nuclear or not) hasn't been accounted for since. This means that these weapons and/or technologies may still be available to some and most likely in the wrong hands. The latter's brought weapons of all kinds to many rogue states worldwide, which in return caused increasing risks of terrorism worldwide.</li>
	<li>As brutal as mankind's proven to be numerous times, I don't think we'd have engaged in a nuclear war -- a <em>"nuclear error"</em> (as <em>The Clash</em> mentioned in their song <em>London Calling</em>) maybe, but not war. We'd have undoubtedly been scared beyond belief, but that might've been the better of two evils.</li>
</ol>
Although I lived through the last two decades of the <a title="Cold War" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War" target="_blank">Cold War</a>, I was fairly sheltered from it all. Nonetheless my life was somewhat affected by it and I do have an opinion about the <em>possible benefits</em> of knowing who the enemy was.

By the way, regardless of the animosity then, I was still attracted by Russian literature (fan of <a title="Leo Tolstoy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy" target="_blank">Leo Tolstoy</a> especially) and science (<a title="Ivan Pavlov" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov" target="_blank">Ivan Pavlov</a> being an early hero of mine). Well now, I can also enjoy their cinema like <a title="Night Watch" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/" target="_blank">Night Watch</a>.

If you're <em>old enough</em> to have lived during the <a title="Cold War" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War" target="_blank">Cold War</a> (approx. 1945-1991), let me know what you think.