Back in the days of the Cold War, pundits used to talk about how the conflict between capitalism and communism would end with the “convergence” of the two systems, “blending the personal freedom and profit motive of Western democracies with the Communist system’s government control of the economy.” Well, it didn’t happen, right? Instead, communism failed, and the communist countries moved rapidly toward capitalism.

And then came the Bush-Obama era, and today we read in the New York Times that “the Kremlin seems to be capitalizing on the economic crisis, exploiting the opportunity to establish more control over financially weakened industries that it has long coveted.” Ouch. That’s a little too close for comfort.