America gave the world the notion of the melting pot - an alchemical cooking device wherein diverse ethnic and religious groups voluntarily mix together, producing a new, American identity. And while critics may argue that the melting pot is a national myth, it has tenaciously informed the America's collective imagination.
Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.
Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often complain about their leaders and their institutions. The gap between the ideal democracy and the existing one cannot be bridged.
The post-Cold War order in Europe is finished, with Vladimir Putin its executioner. Russia's invasion of Georgia only marked its passing. Russia has emerged as a born-again 19th-century power determined to challenge the intellectual, moral and institutional foundations of the order.
Bulgaria has been deindustrialized by interest groups who extracted state assets like oil states extract the oil in their ground.
America is a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of people who never emigrate. Notably, Americans living outside the United States are not called emigrants, but 'expats.'
For the Kremlin, it is more feasible to preserve its great-power status in cooperation with the United States than in confrontation.
Russians clearly perceive America's global influence as being in irreversible decline and American society shattered by major political, economic and ideological crises.
America is militarily overstretched, politically polarized and financially indebted.
The United States and Russia probably do not have common aims and dreams, but they have common worries: Both Washington and Moscow are concerned about the rise of China and are threatened by the rise of radical Islam.
A more stable relationship between Poland and Russia based on reconciliation might revive the reunification of Europe.
Regimes like the one in Russia are stabilized by the fact that they have no ideology. There is really no ideological means to attack them.
