Among all conflicts and confrontations that mankind has faced over its history, the most dangerous was probably the continuous confrontation between USSR and USA and their allies, which took place in the XX century – the Cold War. An exchange of threats was characteristic as opposed to all previous murderous wars; these treats included total destruction of enemies and even a practical possibility of global devastation – the nuclear winter. Although some regional battles emerged, a global collision involving the accumulated weapons was avoided. As life science experienced an onrush, efforts and resources of both parties were to a great extent focused on development of military technologies and production of more and more powerful mass destruction weapons (which de facto appeared to be deterrent weapons) and means of its transportation. During some decades a large amount of weapons was piled up, starting from uranium, plutonium, then hydrogen and neutron bombs, followed by vacuum bombs and robust earth penetrators, as well as their carriers – jet airplanes, Stealth fighters, missiles (first regular, then cruise missiles) and super-armed submarines.

Biological and chemical weapons were also subject to thorough research. Though less information is available about those weapons, their development and production (mostly illegal) levels have also reached a dangerous grade.

By the end of the 1980’s the amount of mass destruction weapons totaled about 70,000 nuclear bombs for the both parties together, 40,000 tons of toxic agents and tens of pathogenic strains.

Expenses of the both parties during the confrontation build up to $ 5 to 8 trillion. (This variation is due both to different methods of assessment and to exchange rate changes). Given significantly higher economical, intellectual and industrial capacities of the West, USSR and allies managed to preserve parity by means of total mobilization of resources and life quality degradation. However USSR maintained an army of 5.5 million people and 65,000 tanks, which was more than the forces of any three of the other states of the World, including USA and China. USSR also held the leading position in the number of submarines and other military devices.

Drastic changes to the process of threat exchange and military technology development emerged as president R. Ragan came to power. USA specialists developed, or rather announced the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as Star Wars, 1983) – a program of development of particle-beam and laser weapons, creation of a space-based anti-missile defense system and other absolutely new devices based on advanced technologies. The overall target of the Initiative was gaining domination in space and creating an anti-missile shield. USA military expenses doubled from $150 billion per year to $300 billion.

Being unable to increase its military expenses promptly USSR began to develop and spread the idea of “asymmetric response”. The country also experienced growing economical and political problems – drop in oil prices (the main income source for state budget), inadmissible degradation of civil supply, failure of political informational isolation of the citizens. The Afghanistan war caused a raise of outbound pressure; countries of the Warsaw Pact expressed anxiousness, which sometimes escalated to a critical level.

These circumstances (probably the possibility of losing military parity in particular) have prompted the required radical reforms. First of all, this comprised ending the Cold War – leaving Germany, significant army reduction, mitigation of foreign policy. Reformations also took place in the economic and political systems, disintegration of the country: the population reduced by two times, the territory – by 1.5 times. Virtually it was a defeat in the Cold War, which fortunately didn’t cause any significant fatality or other damage to the losing party.

Today we may state, that weapons for the Star Wars have not been created even though being developed for 30 years by now: particle-beam weapons are unable to send their concentrated flux of charged particles to long distances near the Earth; intensive laser beams (to attack missiles) generated by airplanes is still being developed. However information about possible development of a new weapon (together with other afore-mentioned circumstances) resulted in USSR ceasing military confrontation in the end of the XX century – military expenses were reduced, missiles aimed at USA were set off duty etc.

For some time the World existed without the Cold War and almost without regional conflicts, which, in most cases, were previously provoked by the two major forces. It seemed that a bright future was awaiting the whole World. When a critical situation emerged – after the terroristic act in New-York – former enemies cooperated in antiterrorist actions, including neutralization of Talibs in Afghanistan. A number of international acts on disarmament were signed; Russia received support in destruction and utilization of weapons created during the Cold War. The outlook into the Planets future was based upon political and economic changes, which took place around the World – expansion of the European Union, fast economical growth in China, advances made by India, Brazil and other countries. The outlook is also significantly affected by possible future technologies, which may change the type and capacity of future weapons drastically. Futurologists and globalists predict an exceeding rate of changes to life on Earth with instability and global disasters possible during the XXI century.

In this essay we shall discuss the relationships (another confrontation?) between former military opponents - two of the main participants of the international arena – Russia and USA. It is likely that in the nearest future their interrelationship well be determined by new USA strategic military concept – development of a whole-new weapon – the weapon for a Prompt Global Strike (PGS), which had begun in USA some years ago. The main idea of this concept is development of accurate and superfast missiles, which could strike a target located thousands of kilometers away within a short period of time. Sufficient target accuracy (about 1 meter) should be achieved to destroy the enemy’s launching sites with a conventional (non-nuclear) warhead. It is assumed that launching a thousand or more missiles within an hour or so would disarm the enemy. The remaining missiles would be destroyed by countermissile defense (partially situated in Eastern Europe), capable of acquiring up to 200 missiles. If such weapons come into place, the “atomic constraints” upon which current Russian policy is based will prove itself inconsistent.

Hereby, the atomic parity, which warranted and warrants safety for both parties and the whole World, would be dismissed. This resembles the abovementioned situation which took place in the 1980’s with the onset of the “Star Wars” program. This leads to an assumption, that Russia may, once again, be defeated and lose part of its territory and resources, followed by further degradation of national economics. An extreme case would be characterized be loss of arms control (especially concerning nuclear forces). (Let us recall that today some industrial and military facilities accept foreign visitors).

The possibility of such a disaster should not be neglected; it may be aggravated by public discontent with life level, democracy, development rate compared to many other countries, including those, that have reached high levels long ago – USA, UK, Scandinavian countries – and those having achieved prosperity within the last half of the century – Germany, Japan, S.Korea, Singapore enc.

Given the 20 year-old experience of national restructuring, we should assume the possibility of such an outcome.