Opening Totalitarian Societies to the Outside World: A View from Russia

Abstract

Despite advances in human civilization, some countries continue to exist under totalitarian governments that trample on basic human freedoms and rights. Moreover, some of these countries present a threat to the rest of humanity, as they possess stockpiles of dangerous weapons, and their relations with the rest of the world are not checked or constrained, either by their own citizens or by international organizations. Until recently Russia was such a countty, and Iraq, Libya, North Korea, China, and others remain so.