The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

Children playing on a statue of the Soviet statesman Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin in 1991. Credit Shepard Sherbell/Corbis Saba A Choice Between Boredom and Blood Sunday August 17 th , 2014  at  10:08 AM 1 Share PARIS — I WAS born in  Russia  at the dawn of the Brezhnev era, and Brezhnev died when I was a senior in high school. At the time, Russia and  Ukraine  were part of the same country. War between them — which many now fear is imminent — was unimaginable. My friends and I read books about Ukraine’s anti-Nazi underground fighters, as boys read books about knights or pirates. Any wars were always “out there” — a long time ago or far, far away. The world of my childhood was quiet and secure. There were no unemployed, beggars or homeless — or maybe I just never met them. There was no Coca-Cola or McDonald’s — but no one was starving, either. Of course, the TV and newspapers were filled with state propaganda, but we tuned it out, the way our chi