Whenever the CIA is accused of spinning its intelligence analysis to
fit policy preferences, it replies tartly that it "tells it like it
is." For the most part, it really does. But in the case of Russia,
telling it like it is, and seeing it like it really is, are both very
difficult. This article explores some of these difficulties.
The saddest disappointment of the post-Cold War era has been the
failure of Russia to find and follow the path of political and
economic democracy. In the long run, this disappointment may also be
the most dangerous: Russia is a country that spans ten time zones and
contains thousands of nuclear weapons and other deadly materials
besides.
Most troubling of all the effects of the Russian crisis is its impact
on Russian hearts and minds. When hammer and sickle gave way to
Russia's tricolor in 1991, Russians believed themselves destined for
democracy and a free-market economy, the two key constituents of what
they called simply a "normal society." They also exhibited admiration
for the United States unequaled by any other of America's adversaries
after the great conflicts of this century. Such attitudes are now
hardly perceptible. They have been replaced by hostility toward what
has been foisted on them in the name of democracy and capitalism, and
toward the United States, which most believe to have been in some
degree responsible for the failures and perversions of "reform."
