John Lukacs: Russia and the United States

Russia and the United States. Tocqueville wrote one hundred and sixty years ago about these great powers beyond Europe, one standing for freedom, the other for servitude, each powerful enough “to sway the destines of half the globe.” This is over now. The United State is no longer the unique incarnation of a free democracy; and servitude in Russia, especially the kind of servitude that still existed in Tocqueville’s time, is gone too. (The servitude imposed by technology and bureaucracy and the internal and external rise of the New Barbarians threaten both; but that is another story, the problem of the twenty-first century.)

As I wrote before: Russia and the United States never fought a war. They were allied in the two world wars, against Germany. (And, in a way, against Japan.) Also: it is not only that the Russian and American people have never disliked each other. They also have some characteristics in common.