The danger of the other path is catastrophe. The history that Putin had reentered is the older kind, which inevitably leads nations down rivers to the heart of darkness, borne on the currents that gave rise to fascism and Communism, Hitler and Stalin, two men who had caused the death of tens of millions of Russians. When history appeared to come to an end at the conclusion of the Cold War, the specter of another world war was lifted, and with it some of the sense of drama that Putin had tapped into. And while wars fought online were not often tied to actual violence, a dizzying array of
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