Francis Fukuyama: Ukraine Crisis Incomparable to Cold War

American political scientist and economist Francis Fukuyama shares his views on the geopolitical implications of the Ukraine crisis, in an interview for Deutsche Welle.

The Cold War was a global struggle, and it was a struggle over ideas and over very different kinds of political systems. This is really a struggle, you know, to restore the dignity of Russians, and really doesn't have implications outside of the areas of the former Soviet Union. So in that respect, it's really not anything like the Cold War itself.

I think that Russia did not develop into a real liberal democracy, and it's got territorial ambitions, so geopolitics has not disappeared. But in the end, I think the Russian system is a very weak one. It's completely dependent on high energy prices. Even within Russia, I think it's not fully accepted as a legitimate form of government.

In many ways, President Putin and many other Russians are drawing from a well of resentment that Russia was not recognized, that it was regarded as weak, that it was disregarded, that its interests were not respected by Western countries during NATO's enlargement and the things that went on in the 90s and 2000s.

History, in the philosophical sense, is really the development, or the evolution, or the modernization of institutions, and the question is: In the world's most developed societies, what type [of institutions] are they? I think it's pretty clear that any society that wants to be modern still needs to have a combination of democratic political institutions in a market economy. And I don't think that China, or Russia, or any of the competitors out there really undermine that point.

You can read the full interview HERE.

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