By Gianni Riotta
Originally published in La Stampa
Real Clear World - December 19, 2013
Half a millennium after the publication of Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince," one of the most brilliant books ever written on political theory, the world has become more Machiavellian than ever.
The United States, which has been democratic for more than two centuries and invented the Internet as a place of transparency, has now ended up in trouble for its National Security Agency (NSA) spying on allies. The former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin, in his semi-free country where independent journalists are murdered, welcomed NSA mole Edward Snowden as a political refugee, as he put on his laticlave and preached to the world about human rights and privacy.
Meanwhile, in Syria, just because President Bashar al-Assad is massacring his subjects doesn't mean that he'll meet the same fate as Hosni Mubarak or Muammar Gaddafi. He's still in power in Damascus, a merciless and bloodthirsty character lifted right from the pages of Machiavelli, who pays no attention to his conscience, just to power and its cruel nature.
The clash between China, Japan and the U.S. over the minuscule Senkaku-Diaoyu islands oozes pure Machiavelli. Beijing implemented an "Air Defense Identification Zone" around the islands, Tokyo challenged it and Washington still sent B52s into the zone, declaring they would continue to carry out unregistered flights in the region.
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