Russia is Not a Dictatorship

 Russia isn’t a dictatorship. The Russian President was constitutionally given super-powers to address internal and external threats. When the Ukraine war is over the nation may resume evolution toward constitutional democracy. I suppose Russia is comparable to the Roman Republic that appointed a dictator for a year at a time when wars occurred in order to fight the war to a successful conclusion. It may be useful to make propaganda talking points and sound like an ignorant hillbilly chatting with friends, yet it is actually counter-productive tor one’s own political interests when people believe you are.

Some of the news media like to lump North Korea, Iran and Russia into one basket of ‘those dictatorships’ in order to simplify things for American viewers, as if it is true when it is not. Same difference lol. The west does like to create enemies just to have them. Iran’s nuclear program was a threat. North Korea is a hybrid political system where a family dynasty surmounted the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Russia had fine developing constitutional democracy before the wars following the expansion of N.A.T.O. eastward. It is also known the democracies historically have often launched themselves into total war and enabled dictators. Vladimir Putin though, would probably like to return Russia to a peaceful and prosperous democracy interacting harmoniously with the west. It is just that he cannot do that on the west’s terms. Apparently Russia want’s some of its historical land back- basically places where there are many Russian speakers, and the west wants all of Ukraine- so propaganda flows to generate hate toward ‘the enemy’.  At some point I would think that America’s 40 trillion dollars (nearly) of public debt that is accelerating its rate of growth would be a concern and bring the U.S. to seek normal relations with Russia and everyone else. Peace is cheaper than war.

When nations forget the truth about history it does tend to create general political incompetence. Then sometimes force is the ultimate reason. In the contemporary context of a surfeit of lethal weapons of mass destruction and extinction, reliance upon force as the ultimate ratio (ultima ratio regum-Louis the 14th) is not rational.