>I think the main difference is that if you were a US friend in Europe or Asia it would be an improvement, if you were so in Latin America or Africa it would be

>I think the main difference is that if you were a US friend in Europe or Asia it would be an improvement, if you were so in Latin America or Africa it would be pretty bad. Romania was a neighbor of USSR and was part of the Europe that was under USSR domination, so countries that were not neighbors with USSR like India might cry about USSR death while all ex-USSR countries are still in danger from Ruzzia's imperialist dreams. OP is right, you can be very objective here because you can observe countries that look West and enter EU and NATO and countries that looked East, the former are better economically the later a poor, corrupt, and with territories occupied by Ruzzia. And if you really want to study this area of the world try to see the puzzeling Ruzzian mind, where they pretend USSR was the best democracy in history and they pretend that there is ZERO motives the exUSSR countries hate imperialist Ruzzia.