[Leica] US Attitutdes to Foreign Lands

[pdzwig at summaventures.com (Peter Dzwig)]

Marc James Small wrote:

> 
> Russia is in much the same situation, and so is China.  But these are right
> now nations much poorer than the US.  Walt keeps reminding the LUG that the
> US is the 900-pound gorilla in the parlor, and so we are but there might
> well come a time when these nations -- or, say, Brazil -- might be in our
> position.  
> 

Marc,

by and large I tend to agree with you but over Russia I must beg to differ. 
Russia has been painfully aware if its neighbours for a thousand years. The 
original political and military reason for the Russian Empire, later the 
Soviet 
Empire was to form a buffer to protect Russia from the Mongols, The Swedes, 
The 
germans, The British, The Japanese, The Persians, Islam, The US, China, 
Japan 
etc (choose your era). The economic benefits of larger markets (particularly 
in 
the 19th Century) came as added benefits and in some cases almost 
liabilities. 
The continuation of this of course happened at the end of WWII. The Soviet 
Union 
sought buffer states against the Western Powers - and a potentially 
resurgent 
Germany(in the form of West Germany) - and to ensure that any war would have 
to 
be fought there before it got to the heartlands. That these countroes would 
suffer both socially and economically had little or nothing to do with it. 
The 
"liberation" of the workers was merely a modernist expression (within the 
context of Russian aims) of a very long-standing Russian, not Soviet, 
perspective on the world. The need for a barrier may indeed be thought of as 
isolationist, but at no time has Russia/Soviet Union been isolationist in 
the 
same sense that, I think, you mean.

China on the other hand HAS historically, along with Japan, been 
isolationist, 
believing that all nations were subservient to The Dragon Throne. Japan as 
is 
well known shut her doors to external trade for almost two hundred years and 
got 
us Madama Butterfly as a consequence!

Peter Dzwig
> Marc