You want to win but are you ready to pay the price?

The Soviet Union was formally dissolved in 1991 but its end had come much earlier in November 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. In the summer of 1989 Francis Fukuyama wrote "The End of History" in which he said that western liberal democracy had won against communism, which proved its superiority against other forms of social structure. The sudden destruction of the old communist structure, an ineffectual Yeltsin government and the rise of the oligarchs saw a collapse of the Russian economy. For a time it seemed that Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin would cement a friendly partnership between the 2 countries and that Russia would even join Nato. If that had happened it would really have been the end of history because Nato would have ruled the world and the rise of China's power would have been aborted. That did not happen because the US treated Russia with contempt and decided to impose its hegemony by inviting the former Comecon countries, sharing borders with Russia, into Nato. Drunk with power the US did not realise that some Russians felt deeply humiliated by the dismissive treatment of their country and one of them was a KGB officer, named Vladimir Putin. He set about improving Russia's military, its weapons and its diplomacy. As Russia got stronger the talk from western countries was one of confusion, anger and abuse of Putin. One, Molly K McKew has written an essay about Putin's long term strategy to weaken the US, which is amazing in its hatred for Russia and in a completely irrational sense of superiority in some illusion of 'American Values'. What are these wonderful values that the Americans are so proud of? "The basis of America's greatness and ability to lead the world stems from universal values that underpin a set of rules that uphold the others' rights, not an America that tries to base its greatness on a set of deals aimed at getting the better of others," writes Prof Ricardo Hausmann. Really? When asked whether the death of 567,000 children in Iraq due to US sanctions was worth it the then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright replied,"I think this is a very hard choice , but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Viet Thanh Nguyen, a refugee from Vietnam writes about Henry Kissinger's lack of any remorse for the hundreds of thousands killed in the bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. 'America is great because America is good' is not true, he writes. Kissinger is also held responsible for the crimes committed by the military regimes of Argentina and Chile. "We won the last Cold War. We will win the next one too. When it's us against them, they were, and are never going to be the winner," writes Ms McKew. She was a strategic adviser to Georgia and Moldova. God help us. A female Genghis Khan. Terrifying.