Epstein Secrets

mptions can lead you into as much trouble this quickly. Even in 1989-90, those countries were the exception and not the rule. Think Ukraine, Belarus, Yugoslavia, Romania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and of course Russia itself. More people live in countries where the 1989-90 revolutionary wave failed t

lavia and Belarus or, at best, Ukraine. We, and they, may get lucky, and the revolutions in the Arab world may lead to something that looks more like Central Europe than like Central Asia. That would be a nice surprise, but we should not be placing large bets that this will actually happen. China, by the way, doe

ble. But would the general decline in military budgets hold? Would the new national boundaries that divided the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia be sustainable? As modern authoritarianism has taken root and ex- panded its influence, the answers to these questions are increasingly negative.

, and ways of doing things that had strengthened democratic governance in some of the more successful post-au- thoritarian societies, especially in Central Europe. More recently, modern authoritarian regimes have turned this concept on its head by sharing their own experiences with laws and tactics that have

engage from Europe three times since the end of the Cold War, and each time the disengagement failed. The Clinton administration tried to outsource Yugoslavia to the Europeans in the 1990s and was ultimately pulled into the Balkans. George W. Bush tried to conduct foreign policy around and over the heads

would be a smaller and more poorly situated power than the Soviet Union. Germany remains united, Poland is free, and Russia cannot hope to dominate Central Europe as the USSR once did. European fecklessness dragged the Clinton administration kicking and screaming into the morass of the bloody wars of the Yugo

rable. But would the general decline in military budgets hold? Would the new national boundaries that divided the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia be sustainable? As modern authoritarianism has taken root and ex- panded its influence, the answers to these questions are increasingly negative. 1

es, and ways f doing things that had strengthened democratic governance in some of the more successful post-au- thoritarian societies, especially in Central Europe. ore recently, modern authoritarian regimes have turned this concept on its head by sharing their own experiences with laws and tactics that have th