Regarding your discussion about RD, I think you should incorporate a discussion about the incentives provided by strong intellectual property rights.

I would be interested to know more about the current state of patent protection.

It is a very well-known historical interpretation that middle-class fear of Communist in Weimar Germany was one of the major factors in propelling that country into Nazism. I said absolutely nothing about fascist social reforms (most of which were of a regressive character anyway).

It is also a very well-known historical fact that following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the US withdrew most of its forces from Europe and vastly downsized its standing army. There is no reason indeed that the US would not have not gone back to isolationism had the perception of a Communist threat – embodied in the USSR – not existed. It appeared, however, due to the Berlin blockade and the Korean War, and this was what really committed the US to worldwide policies of commitment to containment.

I don’t know why I continue to bother. Anyway, you are an idiot, a troll and as such not worthy of my time replying to you. Now please go away and stop polluting this board with your presence.

However, it is awfully unusual of both you and Nashi to try and give Russia credit (even in the form of notoriety) for things the West did in response to the multi-dimensional Red Menace. What next, give Russia credit for inspiring the U.S. to land on the moon? Or inventing the Internet (which was intended to keep U.S. computer networks running after a nuclear attack)? I think I can be forgiven for conflating your and Nashi’s equally perverse lines of argument, especially when they both point to the same very unique conclusion: that the 20th century was the Russian Century.

You noted in your welcoming comments that your blog is “the polar opposite” of the La Russophobe blog. I am sure we will find that is true, because on the LR blog we frequently read sharp criticisms of senior U.S. officials and U.S. policies (mostly toward Russia), but I predict there will be nothing on this blog that will contradict or citicize anything Putin ever says.

And that is because your blog, like Nashi, does not actually express the views of any free-thinking person or group of people. It is simply another mouthpiece for the Kremlin.

Please, prove me wrong.

1. The Nashi Manifesto is a manifesto. I.e., a call to action, not a proper analysis. This article (Towards a New Russian Century?) provides arguments, based on analysis of modern day trends (economic, technological and environmental), on why Russia has the potential to shape the world to its values within a 20-40 year timeline.

2. Where exactly in this article did I give “Russia credit for various social reforms initiated in many countries in the West at the beginning/middle of the 20th century”? Have you even read it?

3. The argument that the 20th century was Russia is really quite tangential to the article. It was a piece of rhetoric to launch the reader into its main substance, which is that the world will become tripolar (from unipolar today), with China and Russia as the two new poles.