Cold reality

The National Cold War Center in Blytheville at the Eaker Air Force Base is brimming with possibilities for the region and the state. Kudos to leaders — such as Mary Gay Shipley, Liz Smith, Rep. Rick Crawford and many others — who have spearheaded efforts to make this vision a reality.

In case you missed it, the National Cold War Center took another step in the right direction a few weeks ago when it announced a partnership with the Woodrow Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute. The Wilson Center focuses research and conversations globally on Cold War history, but more importantly, current world affairs. Remember, if you’re not a student of history, you’re doomed to repeat it.

We live in troubling times and the Wilson Center connection can lift the National Cold War Center to new levels. How?

For starters, the partnership should access new fundraising opportunities. It will make the Northeast Arkansas attraction more inviting to a new cadre of potential donors. The connection should also be good for efforts in grant writing and nonprofit funding. In short, the Wilson Center will add heft and gravitas to the mission of the National Cold War Center and open new doors to fundraising.

Officials are still farther away than they care to be from their $46 million goal. There have been state commitments and private efforts to raise the money crucial to overhauling the building space, building out exhibits, and putting the financial discipline in place to pay for operations over the long haul, but much more is needed to meet an aggressive opening date of 2026.

Northeast Arkansas, with its growing strength in the steel industry and legacy in agriculture, will be front-and-center in the new world order that once was dominated by the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Today, Russia, North Korea and China pose global threats to democracy and U.S. influence. Steel is crucial to infrastructure and weapons production, so the economic interests of our state have much larger importance to the global world order.

Likewise, agriculture is a critical puzzle piece on the world stage. Food production is important to U.S. national security. A country that can’t feed its citizens and soldiers is doomed. And as we’ve seen in the wake of the pandemic, droughts, and worldwide supply chain disruption, the food supply has a lot of pressure points that can quickly derail normal business for farmers.

Farmland is important too. We’ve seen states — including Arkansas — create new laws to protect property from ownership by foreign interests that might be considered hostile to our country. To some, these laws seem xenophobic, and we’ve already seen abuse in Arkansas with a law that targeted erroneously an investor of Taiwanese origin who has spent decades and millions of dollars in the state. Still, the need for protection from unwelcome foreign interests is important; we just have to be more responsible in our efforts to regulate this.

After all of this good news for the National Cold War Center, I turn my focus to other partnerships in the state and region that make sense to the future of the project. Once the National Cold War Center is open, how cool will it be to see the center take part in programming with The Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock or the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri? Harry Truman was president at the dawn of the Cold War, while Bill Clinton saw the first baby steps of the post-Cold War world.

I sat down recently with Dr. Christian Ostermann, co-chair of the National Cold War Center’s Advisory Board and director of the Cold War International History Project at the Wilson Center. He had this to say about his role with the center and the international context for his work.

“Among a number of programs, we have a history and public policy program that tries to bring historical context to public policy issues. Bringing Cold War history context to public policy issues has been a big part of our work. We explore archives around the world for new information on the history of the Cold War and recent international history … We’re a national memorial created to commemorate Woodrow Wilson, but really to connect, to build a bridge between the world of ideas and the world of public policy …  We actively use history, historical context in our work. And here’s where our mission aligns with that of the National Cold War Center: We try to, we believe firmly that without knowledge of the Cold War, you really have a hard time understanding our global landscape today.”

That’s the reality of the world we live in.

Editor’s note: Roby Brock is the editor-in-chief of Talk Business & Politics. The opinions expressed are those of the author.