I hope “we” learned our lesson with China and Saudi Arabia. Also the (mostly) failed wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. The best you can do in a country that doesn’t adhere to principles of democracy is work with them on a limited basis. We will never, ever convince them to be democratic. That will only happen from within the country. For example there have been rumblings of revolt in Iran. Maybe we can provide access of burgeoning democracies to information and resources, but that’s about all we can do, as well as protect new ones like helping Ukraine fight the attempted genocide by Russia against the Ukrainian people. Our democracy is doing fairly well. We have a harsh polarity right now, but I think that is mostly driven by Trump and his MAGA allies. Not sure how that’s going to turn out, but I think Americans are too independently minded to watch Trump just settle in and destroy our country with concentration camps, imprisonment/elimination of his political opponents, iand military occupation of “blue”cities that he has been advertising as part of his campaign.

Maybe, or he could be even worse, or maybe Russians will get someone who isn’t quite so bloodthirsty and delusional. It can’t be that everyone is delusional about restoring the USSR when China sitting on their backside ready to take all their resources.