Russia's Political Future?

Russia's Political Future?

If there is a candidate for a renewed fascism in the new millennium, it is Russia. Loss of national territory and diminishing status in the regional or international communities are fundamental prerequisites for fascism's return. Or the desire for territorial expansionism. When Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany shook the foundations of international politics, they were both seeking to radically reformulate territorial and national borders through colonialist expansionism. Russia might long for the return of territories lost after the fall of the USSR in 1991, but chances of regaining them are slim. Russia's own territory is rife with simmering territorial disputes such as Chechnya and Ossetia.

Yet, for a more optimistic note on Russia's political future, see Deepak Chopra's appraisal of the sleeping Russian "giant":

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/will-russia-join-the-worl_b_230773.html

When Chopra asks whether Russia will join the world, does he mean follow the American model of liberal capitalist democracy? Given the history of the Russian czars, Bolshevik and Stalinist totalitarianism, and Putin-led authoritarianism, the chances are slim that Russia will embrace the American or Western models. But the deeper question is whether the world inexorably moves towards a homogeneous, liberal political and economic model on a planetary scale?

Tamir Bar-On