Word: soviets
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...regardless of whether you like their food or their policies, McDonald's is still widely seen as one of the true vanguards of peaceful globalization. After 14 years of discussions with the Kremlin, the Soviet Union's first McDonald's opened in Moscow in 1990 - a move credited with helping thaw Cold War tensions. Columnist and author Thomas Friedman has asserted that nations with McDonald's locations do not go to war with each other - the so-called Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention - although that thesis notably collapsed in the case of the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia...
...before anyone calls for a congressional investigation, let's remind ourselves that Afghanistan isn't Sweden. We had no problem dealing with Afghan Islamic fundamentalists, terrorists, drug dealers and thugs when the Carter and Reagan White Houses waged a proxy war against the Soviet Union in the '80s. The CIA and the White House turned a blind eye to our proxies' faults because the fundamentalists were the best fighters and happy to take down our Cold War enemy...
...except for lightbulbs, automobiles and firearms. Though Osama would punish his boys for laughing or smiling and send them on forced marches in the desert without water, Omar and his brothers could at least console themselves with the honor of being sons of the man who helped defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, a hero in both the Muslim world and the West. "When I was a young boy, I worshipped my father, whom I believed to be not only the most brilliant, but also the tallest man in the world," Omar writes. "I would have to go to Afghanistan...
...several years, passed the New York bar exam and worked in private practice before being summoned back to Georgia to be part of a movement of young reformers, many of whom had been living in the West, that would transform what had been until 1991 a republic of the Soviet Union...
...strength of Georgia's democracy is not a small thing; it is the only thing. If a pro-Western liberal democracy can thrive on Russia's southern border, other struggling former Soviet republics might follow suit. And since the Caucasus region is a key route for getting Central Asian oil and gas to Western markets without going through Russia, Georgia could help lessen the West's dependence on Russian energy. But first Georgia needs to become stable, peaceful and prosperous. History will judge Saakashvili, and all his enthusiasms, on whether or not he can make that happen...