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idealists think about revolution today, they have Poland, the Czech
Republic and Hungary in mind.
Few assumptions can lead you into as much trouble this quickly.
Even in 1989-90, those countries were the exception and not the
rule. Think Ukraine, Belarus, Yugoslavia, Romania, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and of course Russia itself. More people
live in countries where the 1989-90 revolutionary wave failed to
establish secure constitutional democracy than live in those where it
succeeded.
More, the countries that had ‘velvet’ revolutions shared a number of
important characteristics. They had or longed to have close political
and cultural ties to the West. They wanted to join NATO and the EU,
and had a reasonable confidence of doing so sooner rather than later.
They could expect enormous amounts of aid and foreign direct
investment if they continued along the path of democratic reform.
They lay on the ‘western’ side of the ancient division of Europe
between the Orthodox east and the Catholic/Protestant homeland of
the modern liberal tradition.
No Arab country looks anything like this. Indeed, most seem closer
to Yugoslavia and Belarus or, at best, Ukraine. We, and they, may
get lucky, and the revolutions in the Arab world may lead to
something that looks more like Central Europe than like Central
Asia. That would be a nice surprise, but we should not be placing
large bets that this will actually happen.
China, by the way, does not look very much like the Czech Republic.
Revolution there is very unlikely to produce a US or European style
democracy anytime soon.
If realists ignore the inevitability of revolution, idealists close their
eyes to the problems of revolutionary upheavals in societies that have
difficult histories, deep social divisions, and poor short term
economic prospects. Unfortunately the countries most likely to

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