The story goes that at some conference/meeting/summit held in the US, a visiting USSR official spots a common cylindrical projection map with US foreign military bases or some-such marked and which makes the Cold War roughly look like an East-West conflict. The official sends for a map from his office to show his counterpart: the USSR used a North Pole centered projection map, making the USSR look quasi-surrounded.
I know a lot of people are very passionate about map projections and that kind of thinking is consistent with what I've read about Russia's strategic concerns but did something like this really happen?
While I can't address the veracity of this specific story, the USSR did use pole-centered maps which did make the USSR and its allies look encircled by the USA and its allies.
While not the most balanced of sources, the following is relevant:
"In the indoctrination lectures, the Communists frequently displayed global charts dotted with our military bases, the names of which were of course known to many of the captives. "See those bases?" the instructor would say, tapping them on the chart with his pointer. "They are American — full of war material. You know they are American, and you can see they are ringing Russia and China. Russia and China do not have one base outside their own territory. From this it's clear which side is the warmonger. Would America have these bases and spend millions to maintain them were it not preparing to war on Russia and China?" This argument seemed plausible to many of the prisoners. In general they had no idea that these bases showed not the United States' wish for war, but its wish for peace, that they had been established as part of a series of treaties aimed not at conquest, but at curbing Red aggression."
I think I can imagine it but does could someone please show me an example of such a map?