Wall Street Journal (September 20)
“China’s economic and technological strength dwarfs that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Since 1885 the U.S. has never faced a competitor or group of competitors with a gross domestic product greater than 40% of our own. China’s economy is likely at least 75% of ours. It also has a larger navy (even more so in its home waters) and a shipbuilding capability that far exceeds ours.”
Tags: 1885, China, Cold war, Competitor, Economic, GDP, Navy, Soviet Union, Strength, Technological, U.S.
Financial Times (August 18)
With the momentum of the Solidarity movement, Poland broke free of the Soviet Union on August 24, 1989. “Twenty-five years on, a generation of Poles has grown up with no personal experience of communism. Poland is a sovereign democracy, an increasingly prosperous market economy and a proud member of Nato and the EU— a nation transformed from the dreadful era of one-party rule, dismal living standards and subservience to Moscow. Poland, you could say, has never had it so good.”
Tags: Communism, Democracy, EU, Market economy, Momentum, Moscow, Nato, Poland, Solidarity, Soviet Union
Forbes (March 24)
“Vladimir Putin has made a strategic blunder that could rival the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Moscow, counting on Western weakness, may, in the short term, succeed in carving up the country or ending the 22-year existence of an independent Ukraine. But it has set in motion forces that will severely damage Russia, as well as Putin’s own reign.”
Tags: Afghanistan, Blunder, Damage, Moscow, Putin, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine, Weakness, West
Los Angeles Times (August 3)
North Korea is much more difficult to understand than the old Soviet regime. “Kremlin watching” was an “inexact science,” but it brought some understanding of the government. “In North Korea today, it’s nearly impossible even to discover where the government and its new leader, Kim Jong Un, operate.”
North Korea is much more difficult to understand than the old Soviet regime. “Kremlin watching” was an “inexact science,” but it brought some understanding of the government. “In North Korea today, it’s nearly impossible even to discover where the government and its new leader, Kim Jong Un, operate.”
Tags: Kim Jong Un, Kremlin, North Korea, Soviet Union
