American life and geopolitics are ever more in the shadow of a lurking Russian bear.

We have to protect our intelligence assets.

We do not want to compromise our sources and our methods of getting intelligence from any adversary, let alone Russia.

The president has given aid and comfort to Russia, which is our enemy, even though he won't admit that Russia is our enemy.

Vladimir Putin and Russia are our adversary.

Something that's been true for so much of the past 80 years, that it's almost easy to forget

the decade-long interregnum between the fall of communism and the beginning of Putinism. It was a period of

relative transparency, democracy, and peace, owing mainly to the vision and courage of one man,

Mikal Gorbachev. A young hot-shot communist technocrat, he rose rapidly in the shambles of the

economically and morally bankrupt empire

that had been so mismanaged by the likes of Brezhnev and Dropov and Chernenko.

Gambling that the Soviet Union's very survival depended on radical reform, or perestroika,

party leaders installed Gorbachev as that performer.

Today, the dreams of change embrace the entire nation.

For people like Jonu, more independence for his homeland.

For those like Valia, a more decent life.

But the future remains uncertain.

He immediately introduced glasnosed, openness on the way to democracy and the end of communist rule.

The iron curtain fell, Germany was reunited, missiles were disarmed.

It was, as George H.W. Bush said, a new world order.

Whereupon everything went haywire, the nationalist fragmentation of the former Soviet Union, crony capitalism of the most malignant kind, and the ascension of authoritarianism and renewed international bellicosity.

Gorbachev is now 88, trying to reckon with his place in history.

...