[F&R] How We'll Win the Cold War

Alexei downed another shot of warm vodka. He had been waiting for six hours without any sign of the convoy. His fake beard and moustache were itching. The sun was hitting hard, and the air inside the old Toyota was unbearable. He opened the passenger door.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked Dimitry.

"I have to get some air-"

Dimitry interrupted him.
"You'll get some air when we'll be back to the Motherland comrade. Sit tight! They could be here any minute."

Alexei closed the door and exhaled in discontent.
"I don't understand what we're doing here anyway. Syria will be reduced to a pile of rubble no matter what. What we are doing here is pointless!" he exclaimed.

"That's why you're a doer and not a thinker. You don't have the vision," replied Dimitry. "This is not about Syria, Iran or Israel. It's about Russia and America; it has always been. Every single conflict that has happened since WWII has been an extension of the cold war. What we are doing here today is the final touch. The last step in a plan that has been orchestrated for decades. We have won the cold war. It is over."

Alexei laughed. "Sun and vodka," he said while shaking his head.

"You don't believe me?" inquired Dimitry.

"Your theories are interesting, but I don't think anything was planned. Everybody #ed up, and America more than us. That's what I think," Alexei answered.

"Perhaps you should drink some more vodka to lubricate your brains." Dimitry laughed. "Truly we got it from them. What they did to us. We're doing it to them. But they think they understand the world when they don't! That's what is going to be their downfall. They think they will have a durable impact on the region with their glorious hollywood and whatnot. All those years of war will be gone with one year of democracy in the middle east. It was the same thing with us in Afghanistan. You see, what they don't get is that people from the third world just don't give a # about our ideas. East or west that means nothing to you if you don't have a TV bombarding you with propaganda all day long. The greed has blinded them. They want to make war to make money but to make money you have to stop fighting. And now they just can't stop. All they do is spending money on useless wars and they don't even realize that we are doing it."

"Doing what?" asked Alexei, "I'm a bit lost by your drunken ramblings."

"We're baiting them," said Dimitry, "we're sending them in the never-ending war that they can't afford. Today, the convoy is a shipment of weapons from the CIA to the insurgency. It will not arrive. By the end of next week the mobile SAMs will be operational and their little revolution will fail. Then whether they intervene or not doesn't matter; Syria will fall on its own anyway. This isn't about saving Syria, it's about making them believe that the actors are real. Iran, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Israel; they are all our proxies. And when Israel goes to war against all its neighbors they will have to intervene to save their only stable foothold in the oil region while we will sell equipment to their enemies and just wait until their public debt reach 120% of GDP with negative growth and increasing deficit. Their economy will be ruined. People will riot in the streets, the police won't be paid, the military will be busy fighting the biggest war they have ever seen while their homeland goes up in flames. This will be our victory. The great proletarian revolution overthrowing the mother of all capitalism. This is how we'll win the cold war comrade. Peace is war without bullets"

"A Shakespearian tirade for a Roman tragedy," Alexei said, "you should go to Hollywood and make a movie about it," he added with a smirk.

"Red cross convoy incoming!" Dimitry exclaimed, "stand ready to blow that bridge."