I have written before about the work of the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama whose 1993 book became an instant bestseller. The book, The End of History, was written after the 1991 collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, and the breakup of the country founded by Lenin and made into a global empire by Stalin. According to Fukuyama, recent world history saw bloody conflicts between ideologies. Two world wars were fought when one ideology tried to defeat the other. First, it was the battle between South and Central European authoritarianism against West European and American liberalism. The West won. The second world war once again pitted the same ideologies and once again the West came out the winner.
These hot wars were followed by a cold war that lasted for a much longer period. For 46 years — from 1945 when the Second World War ended to 1991 when the USSR broke up into its constituent parts —…
