Old Habits

Here's the thing you've got to read today: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29504880/. It's an article about what the Dean of the Russian's Foreign Diplomatic Academy said about U.S. economy.

Now it might be easy to dismiss his comments as nonsense. He's just blowing smoke. He doesn't have all the facts. But the reason to care is that, whether he's right or not, he's spouting this stuff off to the future foreign diplomats of the country! These are the folks who'll likely one day be representing Russia around the world in embassies, at the UN, and elsewhere. After living in Russia for two years, I honestly believe that this is where the Russian political mindset is right now. It's not that Russians are really anti-American in the way that say, Iran is. It's just that Russians are really pro-Russia right now. (Actually, if you look at the speech, it's far more nationalistic than anything else.) There is a growing sense of nationalism and imperialism in that country, particularly among the politicians and those in university, and every empire has to have an enemy. For Russia, by default, that becomes America. Why? Because it's familiar. After all, the United States and the USSR have been playing this game for quite a long while.