Interesting how powerful a nation’s perceptions and mentalities remain fixed over decades and centuries, even in the face of a changing world around them.
Yes, there seems to be a Russian mindset that goes back centuries.
During the latter Bush administration, I felt like I was a neo-conservative, whatever the definition of that protean term actually is, and bought into the notion that everyone is motivated by Maslow’s Hierarchy, desiring the same things in life and thus similar in outlook.
The invasion of Iraq with its subsequent revelation of the Muslim mentality disabused me of the presumption that people are mostly alike.
They’re not. And outside the perimeter of Western CIv, nothing can be taken for granted. Nothing.