Blood Debts

Blood Debts: What Putin and Xi Owe Their Victims goes to the core dilemma of world affairs-how to cope with two powerful dictatorships that have inflicted severe harm on their own peoples and menace their neighbors and the entire world. Global cooperation is needed to address global problems, but is it feasible to compromise with evil?WHAT EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THIS BOOKAs Blood Debts demonstrates, Walter Clemens never fails to be original, incisive, and provocative. Unafraid to tackle controversial topics and offer bold policy solutions, Clemens asks, "e;What do Putin and Xi owe their victim?"e; He concludes that nothing short of a thorough regime change in Russia and China can supply the answer. Clemens ends on both a hopeful and a gloomy note. The solution, he argues correctly, is liberal democracy. At the same time, Clemens weeps for the cultures that are no more. What, he asks, happened to Russia and China? Their top leaders have lived by the all-crushing maxim of Vladimir Lenin and Iosif Stalin: "e;kto kovo-who will do in whom?"e;-Alexander J. Motyl, Professor of Political Science, Rutgers UniversityWalter C. Clemens is at once a practical-minded political scientist, seasoned expert on both Russia and China, and a deep-died moralist. Combining a knowledge of history and international law, a grasp of Realpolitik, and moral acuity, he explores the horrific twentieth century legacies of both superpowers and their meaning for the present.-S. Frederick Starr. founding Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program at the American Foreign Policy InstituteWALTER CLEMENS is Associate, Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Boston University.