I'm Convinced That After Years Of Studying

But How Can You Speed Up The Transformation Of Society In A Country As Large As Russia? Those Sounding The Moral Outcry Are The Ones Who Are Trying To Dictate Their Standards From The Outside. Of Course, That Isn't The Right Way To Go Either. One Cannot Impose Democracy From The Other Side Of National Borders, Which Is Something We Ourselves Experienced During The Communist Era. The West's Policies Toward Eastern Europe, The Helsinki Process - None Of That Really Helped Us.

The Largest Threat To Freedom, Democracy, The Market Economy And Prosperity, Is No Longer Socialism. It Is, Instead, The Ambitious, Arrogant, Unscrupulous Ideology Of Environmentalism.

I Am Afraid There Are People Who Want To Stop The Economic Growth, The Rise In The Standard Of Living (though Not Their Own) And The Ability Of Man To Use The Expanding Wealth, Science And Technology For Solving The Actual Pressing Problems Of Mankind, Especially Of The Developing Countries.

Human Relations Tend To Be More Difficult When You're Dealing With Someone Who Weighs 30 Kilograms More Than You Do. That's When You Worry About Whether A Well-meaning Gesture Could Produce Complications. We Have No Problems With Countries Like Madagascar Or Bolivia, For Example. But Germany Is Our Neighbor And We Have A Shared Past. Besides, Germany Is Powerful And Ambitious And More Than Four Times As Large As We Are. It Makes Complete Sense That We Would Act Cautiously. It's Simply Realpolitik.

Eu Expansion Is, Unfortunately, Continuing Without A Constitution, As A Gradual Process Of Standardization - And That's Far More Dangerous. It Is Very Difficult To Slow Down This Process, Which Is Being Pushed Forward Without Significant Public Participation.