Exactly. Anyone who doesn't see this is deluding themselves. The biggest threat to authoritarian regimes everywhere are functional democracies their citizens ca

Exactly. Anyone who doesn't see this is deluding themselves. The biggest threat to authoritarian regimes everywhere are functional democracies their citizens can point at as an example of what they could be instead. That's the reason why "patriotic" Russians hate Poland so much (because it succeeded after freeing itself from their rule) and why they absolutely had to prevent Ukraine from following in that same path no matter what. NATO is just an excuse, the real reason is democracy and rule of law. "Patriotic" Russians can sort of accept democratic US (but they'll do anything they can to harm it), elements of democracy in Germany France, Italy(but they'll do anything to corrupt it) because they consider Americans, French, Germans "different people". They absolutely flip however when they see, what they consider "people like them" (Polish, Ukrainians, Czech, Latvians etc.) buid democratic societies that despite their faults succeeded hugely in bringing up the quality of life and improving the rule of law, and general wellbeing in the region. What many people in the West don't realise is that "patriotic" Russians have this very twisted mix of national self depreciation and self glorification. Self depreciation, because they are conditioned to believe with all their hearts "democracy cannot work here". Why? Because they consider their own nature "too bad for it" (too criminal, corrupt, short sighted and so on). They think only "rule of a strong arm" can keep them strong therefore safe. Therefore all attempts to establish democracy in Russia is a western plot to make them weak. Their national self glorification comes from racism and xenophobia. They fear other cultures and people so much they cannot feel safe unless they enslave everyone in a 500 km radius around their borders. The country is in absolute ruin, but the majority of the population "feels good" if they can think they rule over others and those people have it worse. This "patriotic Russian" mindset is a cancer on human condition similar to what took over people when they voted Hitler into power in Nazi Germany. This way of thinking wasn't rare 200 years ago, but the majority of the world moved on. Russia didn't. Why? Why could Germany largely "fix" it's madness that was Nazism and Russia can't? The difference is that Germany was defeated in war and it was forced to do it against it's will with force. Many Russians to this day consider their Soviet history "glorious". It is such country Snowden decided to escape to. Russians no doubt love it, but they'll never trust him. Don't be surprised if he gets visited by the serial suicider. Living there he knows very well he will be alive only as long as he is useful. That usefulness can span various things. Giving confidential info, teaching them how US systems and procedures work internally, but there will come a point in time when they'll extract his entire "practical knowledge" and then all he will have is his face and name. When this time comes expect to see him in more and more tv interviews that glorify Russia and diminish the West. This way eventually he will burn through any credibility he has left in the West. Then he will be killed and Russia will accuse US of doing that. He isn't stupid, he must be aware of how this works. He couldn't "compromise his ideals" to work for NSA with the knowledge he had? So now he is working for people a thousand times worse. Is he feeling better? The whole idea is silly. No one in Russia believes it. If he really wanted to expose NSA to the US public he could've done it in many different ways without committing treason by handing over information and devices to FSB. Personally I think he was an operative for a while. He either realised he is going to get caught, or his handlers decided he can't provide them with more value in his current position so they steered him into doing that entire "expose". Perhaps one day we'll learn how did they get to him in the first place.