You may be right about the lack of ability of the U.S. to have much impact. Though I don't think the outcome of the was so forgone. There was lots of corruptio

You may be right about the lack of ability of the U.S. to have much impact. Though I don't think the outcome of the was so forgone. There was lots of corruption in the Soviet Union. But we're talking about orders of magnitude difference here. Soviet corruption revolved around small bribes for services, lies on official documentation, etc. For 30 years now, Russia's resources have been looted to enrich several dozen people. We're talking about one of the largest shifts in wealth inequality in the history of the world. The current crop of Russian oligarchs are generally not former communist party officials. They did gain their resources from former party members and largely by bribing these people. Much of this could've been prevented however with an orderly transition away from the single party system. By outlawing the party, Russia broke the central disciplining and organizing structure of government, the economy and law. This left in place the people but without discipline or oversight which allowed the looting to take place.