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Article: Enemies: a love-hate story. (United States and the Soviet Union)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- September 9, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Non-Americans often say the United States craves an enemy. When the Soviet menace fades, America looks for Arabs or Japanese or South American drug lords to demonize. Indeed, for a country as diverse as the United States, external challenges can build unity. Otherwise, when Americans think about enemies, they are tempted to look next door, as in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Now, the United States has lost the second great enemy of its modern life. The first to go was the communist ideology, which disappeared as a serious challenge about the time that Poles, Russians and Vietnamese began applying market reforms. The second is the crumbling power of the Soviet state ...