If you haven't been paying attention to world affairs lately, don't worry--you haven't missed anything new

These days, events in Egypt and Syria have tended to slip from the American public consciousness. Perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising, given that little has changed. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is “officially” declared the terrorist group it always had been before it had been given temporary “legitimacy” as a political organization and subsequently abused its power. The declaration by the current ruling junta came following a wave of bombings and the destruction of dozens of Christian churches in the wake of the ouster of Mohammed Morsi as president. Some Muslim political observers are claiming that “history” will record that Egypt only experienced “true democracy” during the Brotherhood’s brief reign, but that is a misinterpretation of what democracy is; the Brotherhood’s aim was eventually to discard even the fig leaf of “liberal” democracy and establish an Islamic state—which was practically written into its “constitution.” 

Meanwhile, in Syria Bashar al-Assad still more or less clings to power. In fact, after recent successful military offensives, which he describes as "trying to restore security and stability in the main areas that the terrorists have struck," after which "we will go after their positions and sleeper cells later," the Syrian rebels—including Nursa, the Islamic extremist group that wishes to establish an Islamic state in Syria—have been on their heels in recent months. Even Syrian public opinion has moved toward support for the Assad regime, after negative public relations moves by extremists, including killing civilians in bomb attacks. Given the fact that there is a great deal of apprehension now concerning what a post-Assad Syria will look like, there is not so much enthusiasm in the outside world to find out, although Western government spokespeople still talk the talk. 

All of this has been overshadowed by the goings-on in the Ukraine. Putin trying to take Obama for a sap by lying about Russia’s hand in the unrest. Ukrainian “elite” forces conduct a brief offensive, and end up surrendering their weapons to a pro-Russian mob. Russian media displaying its “independence” by reverting to the days of old, as a propaganda organ for the Putin regime—accusing the pro-West Ukrainian government of being a “fascist regime” under the control of “the U.S. government.” Anti-U.S. and West news reporting is the most popular programming in Russia today, and a poll suggests that most Russians don’t care if they are being lied to by their government or not. Nevertheless, not everyone in Russia is immune from the truth; recently 10,000 people staged a “March of Truth” in Moscow, denouncing the Russian media’s parroting of Putin’s distortion of reality.

I’m old enough to remember the closing decades of the Cold War. When I was serving in the military, West and East Germany were still separate countries, and I spent time doing night observation patrols on the Czech border. One wonders what has changed; recently Russian fighter jets flew over U.S. warships, and NATO has decided to beef-up its presence in Eastern Europe. Satellite imagery suggests that Russian forces have not only been building on Ukraine’s eastern border, but have actually infiltrated into eastern Ukraine. Not a thing has changed in Russia’s adversarial attitude toward the West since 1917; it still fancies itself a country under “threat” despite its vast expanses and resources. This is apparently at odds with the West’s desire that Russia become more like the West in its outlook, yet Russia today seems more than ever moving toward retrenchment into the past.