Convergence

"Choose your enemy carefully, for you will become like him."

I've long been concerned that the United States and Soviet Union were on convergent courses. Not in everything, perhaps, but in many significant ways. Perhaps it's just the side effects of being superpowers together.

Russia has picked up some of those threads; how could it not?

Today's news had more than the usual amount of convergence.

Russia's infrastructure is falling apart. Actually, that's been true for a long time. The roads are horrible. Now it looks like the cargo boats on Russia's impressive rivers that long have served the same purposes as trains and trucks in the United States are headed in the same direction as America's bridges and highway system.

The United States has been messing around since the 1970s with an antisatellite and general-purpose flying laser system. A recent flight test supposedly was its first success, but I'm waiting to hear more. The Russians aren't, however. They're reviving their own flying laser that hasn't worked. This may be related to the discussions of missile defense, another shared delusion. Both sides think it will work. The tests suggest otherwise.

Finally, President Dmitri Medvedev is offering to try to use Russia's connections with Libya to urge Muhammar Ghadaffi to hand over the government to...someone. The article doesn't say whether Russia is offering him a dacha in Norilsk with a staff of Ukrainian nurses, however.