Shock Therapy. That was the US policy toward Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. That brought economic anarchy, a real depression, and the clamoring for a strongman government. And today we see the results. According to our guest Professor Robert Toplin, in the 1990s, Russians were actually hopeful. A gradual shift with help toward democracy from the west might have avoided the predatory oligarchs. And the fearsome dictatorship of Putin.