The formal end of the cold war was sometime between 1989-1991. It was after Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika and Ronald Reagan's threat of the Strategic Defence Initiative (aka Start Wars).
As Reagan's speechwriters put it, the Ivan and Anya and the Jim and Sally had more in common within their domestic lives than worrying about respective governments' ideologies.
Today we see the individual fortresses being rebuilt. The erratic, narcissistic, so-called president of the USA has gone all national protectionist. The Russians have a scary thug as their leader. The UK is becoming more like Orwell's Airstrip One.
And then, today, the Russians have summoned the Brits to close the British Council in Moscow and the Consulate in St Petersburg.
Post-cold war espionage still affects le Carré jargon, but its languor has made it less direct. It is about to click up a few notches. By the 1990s Russia was ripe for mafia-style monetisation. Force, fear and subverted power were used to get rich quick and move the huge piles of money out of harm's way. Putin clawed through the ranks to become the feared power broker. He surrounded himself with other newly powerful people. Be loyal or die.
And, as Putin routinely lies, he also knows how to grab advantage from an opponent's truth. Want to close a few inconvenient UK diplomatic structures? Let the Brits deport a few Russians, then a judo-like retaliation by shutting down some British operations in Russia.
It's difficult to know how to categorise this form of tyrant. One thing for sure. His dark power will guarantee his re-election this weekend.
The Brits have known about the Russian presence in London and elsewhere for long enough. But now, suddenly, it's time to notice all those fill-yer-boots oligarchs with copious acres of prime London real estate. The Gurievs, the Goncharenkos, the Abramoviches, the Usmanovs...basking in wide leafy streets, whilst hiding their true business in labyrinth Kabarov corridors.
There's chatter now about making a list of the UK ultra rich residents with unexplained sources for their wealth. Like it's a new surprise rather than something profitable for UK business over the last three decades. Of course these people are not directly paying money to political parties, but there's other ways for convenient funds to arrive.
The oil greasing the wheels of Londongrad won't be given up that easily. Putin operates a very distributed empire. The SVR (Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service) don't seem to be in the news, yet probably know much about various of the Russian-linked crimes across the UK over the last few years.
The politicians juggle the paradox. Less Russian money in the UK economy. Brexit. Unstable global powers. Amazonioan destruction of town centres.
I'm not sure there's any escape route. I'm seeing some resonance with those Russian artists Ilya and Emilia Kabarov's ideas. The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment.
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