As 2014 marches on, it seems like our long national nightmare in the Middle East is finally coming to an end. For young people, it must seem like a paraphrase from "1984": America has always been at war with Terrorism. It isn't the first time that America has been at war with an "ism", however. In the 60s and 70s, America was at war with Communism. That was the boogeyman that was on the verge of destroying The American Way, unless we used our military to strike down communism wherever it showed its face. Thus, we endured a Cuban Missile Crisis, battled in Viet Nam, and conducted a long Cold War against the Soviet Union.

It wasn't until the mid 80s and a change in leadership in the USSR when Perestroika, Glasnost, and the dissolution of the USSR into individual countries brought that Cold War to an end. We began reducing our nuke stockpiles, turning the doomsday clock backwards, and ushering in a technological and consumer renaissance in the U.S. Still - we spied on Russia, and Russia spied on us, and we continued to fight our war via proxies, as Russia and the U.S. inevitably supported opposite sides in various skirmishes around the globe.

Which brings us to where we are today. Russian leader Vladimir Putin seems to have allowed his megalomania to get the better of him. He seems intent on reconstituting the former Soviet Union, one sovereign nation at a time. The Ukraine always seems to be a sore spot for Russia, and it was their invading and annexing Crimea that has put the entire planet on edge. Former Soviet Union nations like Poland (and the remainder of Ukraine) are preparing and bracing for further incursions from Russia, as Russia amasses troops on its border with Ukraine.

Russia is claiming it's just an exercise and that they will be pulling their troops back from the border soon. After seeing the Russian troops in Crimea with no national affiliation indicated on their uniforms, one has to wonder how many have already slipped over the border. The U.S. is countering by deploying troops to other countries in the region:

Along with sending troops over, we are also demanding that Russia take concrete steps to - if not defuse, then at least - not aggravate the situation any further. Ukraine is sending troops to the eastern region where it shares a border with Russia, and where most of the pro-Russia trouble is occurring. It is in that area where an American journalist has been taken into custody by the local leadership:

This is the sort of thing that used to happen all too frequently with the USSR. Journalists would be rounded up and accused of being spies. An international crisis would unfold, with trades made for captured spies being held by the U.S. Hopefully, it's an aberration, not a harbinger of things to come.

It's not a cold war - not yet anyway... but it sure is heating up into something pretty chilly.