*** Welcome to piglix ***

Russians (song)

"Russians"
Russians Sting vinyl Commonwealth Realms.jpg
Standard 7-inch vinyl artwork (UK single pictured)
Single by Sting
from the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles
B-side "Gabriel's Message"
Released November 1985
Format
Length 3:58
Label A&M
Writer(s)
Producer(s) Sting and Peter Smith
Sting singles chronology
"Fortress Around Your Heart"
(1985)
"Russians"
(1985)
"Moon over Bourbon Street"
(1986)

"Russians" is a song by Sting, from his debut solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, released in July 1985, and released as a single in November. The song is a commentary and plea that criticises the then-dominant Cold War foreign policy and doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) by the United States and the Soviet Union.

The song speaks to both sides ("there's no monopoly on common sense/On either side of the political fence") as it describes the thoughts of ordinary citizens of both superpowers and their divergence from official U.S. policies in the early 1980s of a limited or 'winnable' nuclear war ("there's no such thing as a winnable war/It's a lie we don't believe anymore"). It then recounts and rejects the views of both US President Reagan ("Mr. Reagan says 'We will protect you'/I don't subscribe to this point of view", a reference to the proposed SDI/'Star Wars' initiative) and Soviet Premier Khrushchev ("Mr. Krushchev said we will bury you/I don't subscribe to this point of view"). Hence he hopes that the "Russians love their children too," since this would apparently be the only thing that would save the world from eventual obliteration by nuclear weapons ("[J. Robert] Oppenheimer's deadly toy").


...
Wikipedia

...