So, as turnabout is fair play, take a look at his analysis of the AP's problems in covering the war in Iraq.
And since Roger says he likes reading what I have to say about Russia, here are some more thoughts:
Of course, almost everyone in Moscow is on the side of the AP, viewing the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the bombing of Yugoslavia, the support of Georgia and Ukrainian independence as American agression against Russia. Iraq was sort of Russia's Saudi Arabia, an oil partner and Middle East ally, so it sort of makes sense from their point of view. But they don't understand that American's don't see it the same way.
The problem is the same as the one De Tocqueville described in 1835:
There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from different points: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations; and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but these are still in the act of growth; all the others are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its weapons and its arts: the conquests of the one are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the other by the sword.
The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common-sense of the citizens; the Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm; the principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.
This insight was repeated 175 year later by Dmitri Simes, in "After the Collapse: Russia Seeks its Place as a Great Power," when he observed:
Russia derived little material benefit from its imperial possessions. This was a consequence of the fact that Russian empire building was primarily driven by the needs of an absolutist government to expand its reach, not an outward flow of merchants or settlers. Its dynamics were precisely opposite to the building of the American nation.
Until Americans and Russians realize they are still using different "operating systems," misunderstandings between the two nations are bound to continue.
Just yesterday, an educated Russian told me that the solution to the Ukraine crisis will be for the Crimea to secede--since it was a mistake for Kruschev to give this historically Russian territory to Ukraine in the days of the Soviet Union. This was not government propaganda, but dinner table conversation...
