Transforming my paradigm shift essay into a Ted Talk was different for me. My paradigm shift essay revolves around the geopolitical climate between the United States and Russia from after World War II to today, whereas my Ted Talk was a look at the way that media has been effected during that period. In a way, they complement one another and give someone different lenses to look a big chunk of our history. The Cold War practically dominated our mind and our fears for 45 years. While I, and many of you reading this, were never alive during that period, especially since it ended in 1991, I think that it is important to see the effects it had and understand what a similar situation would cause in your life. Who knows… tensions have been rising recently between the United States and Russia. Many people believe we could be seeing the beginning of a second cold war and maybe even open conflict. The events we see today have meaning to us and being able to put them in context with previous events is a valuable thing. It helps to better understand possibilities and make forecasts of what could happen.

In my paradigm shift essay, I point out how during World War II we worked together with the Russians to defeat the Axis Powers. However, after World War II Russia began to violate agreements that had made. They marched their Red Army into countries like Iran, manipulated elections, and were constantly working to improve their sphere of influence. There are many events today that are very similar to what happened back in the 1940s. It can be eerie to think about. General Patton had wanted to go to war with Russia right after World War II because we knew they were depleted and they didn’t have the same military abilities that we had, but his requests were consistently denied. Maybe we should have listened to him, because then we wouldn’t have needed to go through a cold war for 45 years. In the 1990s the USSR collapsed and we worked towards friendship for almost two decades. In 2008, Putin started to make life difficult for us again and like dominoes everything has started to unravel since then.

During the Cold War, there was constantly some type of rivalry going on. We had the nuclear arms race, the space race, the art war… it was over anything and everything. There were also many tense situations that constantly unfolded, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis or the U-2 Incident. The world honestly lived in fear of annihilation and nuclear fallout. These issues permeated into our media, which is why I tried to show that perspective. I also thought it would make for a much more interesting topic to people. The Soviets and the Americans both put out propaganda films and we saw the rise of spy thrillers and blockbusters based on the escalation of events between these two superpowers. It appeared in our literature and art… and sports. The rest of the world watched every single time that our nations went at it. Then in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything changed. The film industry, for example, stopped putting out these USA vs Russia films. It was usually just some rogue faction. Which continued into the 2000s, but again recently we have seen more interest in spies and USA vs Russia plots. I think it correlates with the rising tensions.

Overall, doing the Ted Talk was very different. I had to do more research and try to find if there was a paradigm shift in media that went with the shift in the geopolitical climate. I think that it exists. There was a change. We started using other groups as our enemies instead of the Russians. I’m glad that I got to look at the events from two different angles. It’s cool to see how the events change the landscape and how it effects media. On top of that, it is cool to see how media effects the geopolitical climate. They basically work in tandem. They work together to change how we think and how we see the world.

USA-Russia Relations involved with Pop Culture

• Cold War Era
o Post World War II and 50s
 Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945)
 1984 by George Orwell (1949)
 Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (1959)
 Between 1948 and 1953, 70 anti-communist films were produced
 Between 1946 and 1950, 45.6% of villains in Soviet films were American or British
o 60s
 “Daisy” Commercial 1964
 Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (’59-’64)
 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (’64-’68)
 Art Wars. Russia owned ballet and chess. USA owned jazz and abstract expressionist paintings
o 70s
 1972 Gold Medal Basketball Game (1972)
 Flyers-Red Army Game (1976)
o 80s
 Miracle on Ice
 Apple “1984” Commercial (1983)
 Red Dawn (1984)
 Rocky IV (1985)
 WarGames (1983)
 Wendy’s “Soviet Fashion Show” Commercial (1985)
 Summer Olympics Boycotts of 1980 and 1984
 Glasnost
o Early 90s
 The Hunt for Red October (1990)
• Post Cold War Era
o 90s
 Massive decline in this type of media. Maybe related to tentative peace?
 Air Force One (1997)
o 00s
 Start to see some Cold War based media
 Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon (2001)
 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
o 10s
 Throwback to Cold War era topics. Russia vs USA never seems to happen in modern times.
 Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)
 Red Dawn (2012), switched enemies
 The Americans (2013)
 Salt (2010)
 Yulia Efimova, Rio Olympics 2016

•Introduction
o Paradigm Shift
o Rivalry between U.S. and Russia
•Cold War Relations
o Nuclear Arms race
o Hemispheric influence
o Vietnam
o Korean War
o Afghanistan
o Cuban Missile Crisis
o U-2 incident
•Fall of the USSR
o Glasnost
o Poland’s 1989 election
o Fall of Berlin Wall
o Coup against Gorbachev
o December 1991, Collapse
•In pop culture
o The Americans
o Salt
o Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
o Red Dawn
o Ivan Drago, Rocky IV
o 1984, Animal Farm by George Orwell
o The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
o Wendy’s Commercial, Apple “1984” commercial
o Call of Duty: Black Ops
o Billy Joel “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
o The Hunt for Red October
o Ghost Recon
o “Daisy”
•In Sports
o USA vs Russia, Miracle on Ice
o Flyers vs Russia
o Summer Olympic Boycotts of 1980/1984
o Yulia Efimova, Rio 2016
•The 1990s, growing positive relations
o Yeltsin visits USA
o Washington Summit 1992
o Moscow Summit
o Helsinki Talks
o G-8 Summit
o ISS cooperation
•Lifestyle
o Good vs bad
o Constant fear
o Red Scare, McCarthyism
o Russian crackdowns
o “duck and cover” drills
o Air raid sirens, CONELRAD emergency broadcast stations
o Space Race
o JFK assassination
o Protesting, hippies
•Putin and G.W. Bush Era
o Missiles in Poland
o Generally postitive
•Obama and Putin Era
o Russian-Georgian Conflict
o North Korea nuclear threat
o Syria
o Reset
o July 2012, Fighters in Alaska
o Akula-class submarine scouting Gulf of Mexico
o February 12, Guam incident
o Snowden
o Ukraine and Crimea
•Current Events
o August 2016-now
 Marines being placed in Norway (possibly)
 47% of people think USA will start WWIII
 Russian television warns of coming nuclear war
 New nuclear drills taking place and defense exercises
 Russia orders officials and families to come home
 Russia considering bases in Cuba and Vietnam
 US army chief briefings
 Alleged hacking of US election
 Threats
 Suspension of nuclear agreements
 US blamed for attack on Russian Damascus embassy
 Russia bombed UN convoy
 US bombing of Syrian troops during ceasefire
•Peace
o Emergent shift becomes residual again
•War
o Emergent shift becomes dominant again
•Conclusion
o Active paradigm shift
o Wait and watch