With the recent headlines in mind about Vladimir Putin’s maneuvering of the 2016 US Presidential Elections reminds me of the book written by bestselling author, Jennifer Welsh

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 The Return of History

Recalling the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 which I personally witness was very much similar to another political change in 1983 in a country like the Philippines when then Philippine President Marcos ended an era under a Martial Law regime by fleeing out the Malacanang Palace en-route to exile in Honolulu, Hawaii.

As author Welsh quoted American political commentator Francis Fukuyama about his famous essay, “The End of History”. The essay depicts the demise between communism and capitalism towards expanding the West Liberal Democracy towards the ideals of “progress”in history. In both of the above events, the breakdown of the wall during the Reagan years signified one of the greatest achievements of the divide between East and West Germany. Growing up in terms of living a couple of teenage years in Germany I can personally testify the mass disparity of income and inequality prior to that historic wall coming down.  At the same watching the news on the developments on the fall of the Marcos regime was very significant to the impoverished society living right at the wall of the Pacific Ocean in Manila.

The book illustrates the traditional barbaric and aristocratic way of a tyrant in this new millennium age by way of Vladimir Putin. The espionage and treason of course is local in Russia but the new cyber way and hacking which was seen in the recent US Presidential elections is a good example. Back in the cold war era it was of course more exemplified by warfare showing off military might. Today’s new tactics on spying, hacking, adware as well as internet viruses and attacks are just some of the most creative way of advance technology led infiltrations.

As Jennifer Welsh writes, ” Another way in which the West could re-examine its recent history and temper its triumphalism would be to look inward and reassess the health of its own political and economic model in this renewed era of competition with Russia”.

Indeed the  Soviet threat in arms takes a turn on a new form with regards to how the West should assess what goes on today and with the recent analysis on how Russia has played it’s cyber attacks during the recent US Presidential elections.

Alex Esguerra

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