Merry Christmas. War Is Over.

Or more specifically the Cold War is over. 

What is referred to as the Cold War today was actually a period of time from 1945 to 1991 that encompassed much of the world’s major political events including but not limited to several “hot wars” in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. If that last sentence sounded too textbook-y, then this next one won’t. In the simplest terms possible the Cold War was nearly 50 years in which the world was under threat of nuclear war between the United States of American and the Soviet Union because they wanted to see who had a bigger penis.  (By penis I mean nuclear stock pile) 

Both countries were vying for power hoping to be the predominant world super power. The launch of Sputnik, the moon landing, three wars, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Chernobyl disaster  and the Cuban Missile Crisis were all part of the over arcing struggle between the two countries. The development of modern day political allies and other relations can be attributed directly to both the NATO Treaty and the Warsaw Pact. In short all of what is taken for granted today has roots directly in the Cold War. That stands true for today’s videogames.  Nearly all modern war games, whether they be RTS or FPS, place Russians as enemies. But the thing all those games (and the people who develop and publish them) seem to forget is that the Cold War is over. Has been for over 2 decades.   

Then why are Russians always the enemy?

To be perfectly frank this gaming trope bothers the hell out of me. I was born in 1995, after the Cold War had already ended. During my formative years there was no major American adversary. No threat from an opposing country. America was just another country in the relatively peaceful world. Of course that didn’t last very long. One of my earliest memories is of 9/11. I was in kindergarten. I did not really comprehend what was going on then but I do recall clearly that the people responsible for it were not from one specific country. War was declared on a group and an idea they held. America still had no opposing countries. 

So maybe my view of the world is different than someone who spent their formative years in the Cold War. Those people who learned to fear and hate the Russians. And at the time they had good reason to. The ever looming threat of nuclear war had scared their parents and most likely their grandparents as well. Russian antagonism was just another part of normal American life. And then the Cold War ends when these children are already grown. The mindset has already been planted and that underlying fear cannot be erased.  

Now I am in no way saying that the elder generation is racist against all Russians. Quite the contrary. People themselves have the ability to change. Society as a whole does was well, but it often lacks any sense of urgency in that change. Why else did it take nearly a hundred years from the 13^th Amendment to the Civil Rights movement? Russia is still a societal touch stone of antagonism.  An acceptable enemy in a world where the lines between enemy and ally draw ever blurrier. 

Or to make this even clearer: It has been 21 years since the Cold War ended. The average age of a game designer is 31 according to the International Game Developers Association. That is ten years of societal fear ground into the creativity behind some of today’s biggest selling franchisees.   

And there is no franchise that sells more than Call of Duty. In its ten year history there have been nine games released in the main franchise. Two thirds of those games (or six of the nine) involve fighting and killing Russians. The Modern Warfare series has them as the main antagonists and the Black Ops series has them as predominant enemies in the first game. Black Ops II which has been marketed to take place in the future and promises a compelling new antagonist in Raul Menendez cannot help but to place some of its levels as flash backs to the 1980s in the Afghanistan conflict. Who were the enemies then and there? That’s right; Russians. 

I, personally, am strongly opposed to this type of preconceived notion that all Russians are the enemy. It unjustly stereotypes 141,930,000 people (the current population of the Russian Federation) as vile murderous war-mongers. Thousands of American gamers view Russians through their gun sights every day. It leaves a negative impact of an entire nation of people in the minds of gamers today: Gamers that were not born during the Cold War. Yet through the proliferation of war videogames where Russians are the enemy, the same societal fear from the Cold War lives on. And that is, by any definition, wrong.

But then what can be done to fix it?

My suggestion is to simply have other groups or nations as the enemies.  Although they take a lot of criticism for being trite and predictable, sci-fi shooters present a good alternative to killing Russians; killing aliens. In a sci-fi shooter like Halo or Killzone, the enemies are completely fictitious. That gives the games writers a chance to create new and interesting antagonists. Ones that are compelling and truly evil. Without the safety net of supposed Russian evilness, writers must actually come up with interesting villains. They cannot use the crutch of “He’s Russian so he must be the enemy” when designing their game. 

Or the game has to be a gritty realistic shooter taking place in today’s volatile political climate use another nation. Homefront, for all its flaws, had an interesting premise and enemy in the North Koreans. It presented a frighteningly possible futuristic situation in which North Korea had launched a nuclear attack on America followed by a full scale invasion. By not falling back upon the ingrained fear of Russians, Homefront presented an enemy that was not only possible but truly scary.

Finally if the game must have enemies that have Eastern European accents and a predisposition for saying the word “comrade” then make them from Belarus, not Russia. As the world stands today the Russian Federation is only a threat to the United States economically. Belarus on the other hand is formerly Soviet Republic that upon getting its freedom has been working ever steadily to go back. The government of Belarus is a “republic in name, although in fact a dictatorship”. That quote is directly from the CIA World FactBook.  Under the harsh rule of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus has committed human rights violations and been called “the last true remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe”. If that is not basis for a modern war game, I don’t know what is. 

Russians have been inappropriately labeled the enemies for far too long now. It is time that that stopped. There are enough current other viable threats to America that can be used in the next Call of Duty. But please leave the Russians alone, the Cold War is over.