Western analysts have been consistently keen to demonize Vladimir Putin, and predict his early departure. Wishful thinking is never good policy analysis. Assassinations and illness are always wild-cards and possibilities. But the Wagner episode was a mutiny in a teacup.
And what does that mean for the next era of strategic alliances? A new NATO? A new period of diminished cooperation between the US and Mexico, the US and European NATO, and so on?
Perhaps the “experiment” in universal, forced literacy, has been a failure, an historical blip. Literacy is in retreat because of technology and because inquiring minds challenge leadership patterns. Yet intellectual capacity— signified by literacy— determines strategic success. What is to be done?
