IVAN KRASTEV

America gave the world the notion of the melting pot - an alchemical cooking device wherein diverse ethnic and religious groups voluntarily mix together, producing a new, American identity. And while critics may argue that the melting pot is a national myth, it has tenaciously informed the America's collective imagination.

The E.U. cannot act as guardian of the post-Cold War status quo without risking a collapse of Europe's current institutional infrastructure.

Germany, because of the fact and the perception of a special relationship with Russia, is the only one who can influence Russian debate. Russians also believe that Germans understand them best because they've been through a big war and know what humiliation means.

America is militarily overstretched, politically polarized and financially indebted.

Regimes like the one in Russia are stabilized by the fact that they have no ideology. There is really no ideological means to attack them.

For the Kremlin, it is more feasible to preserve its great-power status in cooperation with the United States than in confrontation.

Living in truth cannot be reduced to having access to full information.

Any unveiling is also veiling. No matter how transparent our governments want to be, governments will be selectively transparent.

Transparency is not about restoring trust in institutions. Transparency is the politics of managing mistrust.

Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.

America is a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of people who never emigrate. Notably, Americans living outside the United States are not called emigrants, but 'expats.'

Remember, until the 1970s, the spread of democracy has always been accompanied by the decline of inequality. The more democratic our societies have been, the more equal they have been becoming. Now we have the reverse tendency. The spread of democracy now is very much accompanied by the increase in inequality.

Russians clearly perceive America's global influence as being in irreversible decline and American society shattered by major political, economic and ideological crises.

Before, revolutions used to have ideological names. They could be communist, they could be liberal, they could be fascist or Islamic. Now, the revolutions are called under the medium which is most used. You have Facebook revolutions, Twitter revolutions. The content doesn't matter anymore - the problem is the media.

As China is about adaptation, not transformation, it is unlikely to change the world dramatically should it ever assume the global driver's seat. But this does not mean that China won't exploit that world for its own purposes.

The United States and Russia probably do not have common aims and dreams, but they have common worries: Both Washington and Moscow are concerned about the rise of China and are threatened by the rise of radical Islam.

The crisis of democracy in the West is not the result of falling in love with another system. In Europe and America people who are disillusioned with democracy do not dream about the Chinese model or any other form of authoritarian rule. They do not dream about government that controls Internet and puts in prison those daring to disagree.

For the European Union, Russia is as important politically and economically as China is to the U.S.

In 2008, Putin's message was, 'We aren't like a Central Asian republic, we aren't going to build a personalistic regime, we will have institutions.' This is all abolished now. The very idea of a governing party and party career, as you have in China, that didn't work.

What makes me worry today is the alarming decline in the trust in democratic institutions - political parties, Parliaments, political leaders. Less and less people are going to the polls in most advanced democracies.

As a rule, governments monitor people.

Bulgaria has been deindustrialized by interest groups who extracted state assets like oil states extract the oil in their ground.

Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often complain about their leaders and their institutions. The gap between the ideal democracy and the existing one cannot be bridged.

True, Putin's Russia does not dream of joining the E.U., but Russia's stability depends on preserving the European nature of its regime.

A more stable relationship between Poland and Russia based on reconciliation might revive the reunification of Europe.