Another Masonomist Likes the Naughts

Earlier, Bryan Caplan pointed out that we did not a world war, Hitler, or the Soviet Union, which is an improvement the decades from 1911-1990.

I know I'm going to be accused of "moral equivalence" here, so let me state that I am not saying one is as bad as the other.

OK now on to the question: Why exactly was a world with the Soviet Union so scary? Because they were trying to use their might to intimidate and/or literally take over as many countries as they could, right?

So, from the point of view of people outside of the US, especially the kind of countries that were subject to the imperialism of the Soviet Union...are they thinking the world is really great (on that score) since 1990?

OK now on to the question: Why exactly was a world with the Soviet Union so scary? Because they were trying to use their might to intimidate and/or literally take over as many countries as they could, right?

60+ million deaths in the 20th century caused by the USSR is pretty scary. The fear they created is almost insignificant next to the weight of this fact.

Bob,

Yes. If nothing else, consider the rate of land mines being placed vs. removed.

A slight variation on the name for the past decade is the naughties.

We've really cranked down our genocides. The only thing we had going in 2000-2010 was Darfur, "just" 200K-400K.

No comparison to Rwanda 1994 (500K-1M), Cambodia 1975-9 (1.7M-3.0M), or the Great Leap Forward in China 1959-62 (20M-43M).

Jayson gets to the core of the issue, but beyond the death, there was also the destruction, the fear, the need for the US and other countries to spend an enormous amount of wealth to prepare defenses against the threat (since the USSR fell the US has been spending something like 3 to 5% of our GDP on defense, as opposed to several times that in the cold war), and just all the people that where abused or had their freedom limited by the USSR.