This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Duchter visiting with my friend Germanicus.

We're in Londinium. It's late afternoon. It's cool. We're going under the theater after we sacrifice to Augustus.

You bet because he gives us the security to look at the 21st century.

A very famous scholar in the 21st century is published an essay about the five futures possible that Washington can see right now.

Stephen Kotkin is his name is at the Hoover Institution.

He's written a trilogy biography of Joseph Stalin. He's extremely

well informed of the history of Russia since the Revolutionary Times, late 19th, early 20th century.

Germanicus, you know these five very well.

Retrenchment, vassalhood, hermit kingdom Kingdom too, like North Korea, Chaos, and to become a pole of

multipolar world. Mr. Kotkin, I will give it away, identifies retrenchment as the best

case scenario for the U.S. Chaos, that's easy to see as the devil takes the

hindmost.

Where do you land Russia?

I lined Russia outside of the compass orbit of his sight, his insight, which is blind to actual realities, I believe, in Russia.

He is not an empath.

He may have written books about Russia,

and I've read many books about Russia and about you know all sorts of

other places written by Americans who have no idea what's actually going on in those other places.

The only way to understand another culture is to, as they say, walk a mile in their shoes.

You have to see them as they see themselves

and feel them as they feel.

And he does not have that capacity.

...