From the perspective of academic research, news gathering and intelligence analysis it proved that all the Russia experts were wrong.
Nobody predicted the collapse, nor the nature, nor the fact that they would find Russia to be a 3rd World country.
During the 20th Century the US at 2 times received a giant victory, after WWll and with the collapse of the USSR. The people running the US 1945-1970 did a much better job of using the opportunity than 1990-2014.
Germans behaved a great deal better than expected when the Berlin Wall came down. Contrary to expectations, rich West Germans were willing to pay the cost of rebuilding East Germany. Germany was a greater beneficiary of the collapse of the USSR than the US.
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Hope this helps ⇔
