An American tourist in Russia
Before I start, let me clarify something: there is no specific economic concept that I wholeheartedly support and I don’t consider myself a communist. On the other hand, capitalism has proved to be less than perfect, to put it mildly. Truth is probably elsewhere or in between. Let’s start with my brand new axiom (it … Read more
Remember that old Hans Christian Anderson story about emperor who walked through the streets naked, and everybody had to pretend he had clothes, out of fear of death? Good thing it’s just a silly story and didn’t become reality, right? Aside from fairy tales, when we imagine totalitarianism, we reflexively invoke alleged examples from other countries and cultures. We rarely even invoke Nazi Germany. We say “This is just like Stalinist Russia!” or “This is just like Maoist China!” In reality, we are in an echo-chamber of our own making, and our perception of other cultures is just a mirror image of our own.
In the past 18 months we have seen large scale offensives in the Ukraine. The first offensive, by Russian forces against NATO-trained defenders. Now we are seeing the reverse, with an offensive by NATO-trained forces against Russian defenders. What successes, mistakes, and patterns have we seen so far?
