re: Are We In A New Era Of The Cold War?

Might as well be, tensions rising with Russia along with the bullshite going on in Syria and Ukriane.

Were you alive for the Cold War? This is nowhere near that level.

I remember reading in a history of the Civil War that two large forces of the South were within 5 miles of each other when a battle started between one of those forces and the Union.

The force not involved in the battle never joined. It didn't even know a battle had started. Couldn't hear what was going on.

We think 5 miles or so isn't a long way because we drive that distance so quickly. But, walk a straight distance of 5 miles and you'll realize that that's not really "close by". Drive 5 miles away from Tiger Stadium when it's full and a rivalry game is being played. You don't have to be 5 miles away before you can't even hear that a game is being played.

Tom Clancy's "Sum of All Fears" is a pretty good flick that while fictional, it showied what kind of tensions were typical during the Cold War. Even War Games captured the typical mood in some ways.
I was in the USAF in England in the mid 80's. We had a life expentency of about 13 minutes if the flag ever dropped for WW3.
But we were going to make them pay hell in those 13 mins I'm here to tell you. ;)

There were several close calls to it "going down" back then that few know about.
A NATO excercise in 83' and a missing russian boomer that mysteriously sunk (K-129) not far from Hawaii in 68' were two instances that had us closer to nuclear holocaust than that stuff in Cuba ever did.
The russian sub may have sunk when part of the crew that didn't mutiny shut the missile hatches as the rest of the crew tried to launch nukes on Pearl Harbor to start WW3.

And , supposedly, the movie Crimson Tide was based off of rumours of an incident during that time period as well.

So Syria and NK are a sunny walk in the park compared with that chit.