By any measure Russia is the laggard in that part of the world. Forget the US. Just think about how countries do for themselves. China, Japan, South Korea, Tiaw

By any measure Russia is the laggard in that part of the world. Forget the US. Just think about how countries do for themselves. China, Japan, South Korea, Tiawan, Singapore, Vietnam have all found a way to go forward post WWII. Russia is still stuck on the file labeled pre-WWII and worse they like that file. Here's a true story. I worked in former east Germany after the collapse of the wall. Upon entering I ran into an amazing amount of interest in a nobody (me) that seemed vaguely like intelligence or politics snooping. Looking back it was in over my head outside my gig. At any rate I visted what looked like a university that had a bar or some such across the street. Out of sheer curiosity I went in for a beer knowing no German. After I stuck out like a sore thumb I attracted several locals taking German/Russian. The first thing they did was remind me with a puppet show of fingers of how our V2 was shot out of the air (powers 1960 incident). After the wall down... and that's what's on the brain? Here's what we could have talked about: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/summary/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/summary/ See literature prize. I've read that book twice but stopped 60% of the way through both times. It's depressing, and yet profoundly interesting.