Dresden, Budapest, Tbilisi, and Baku on 40 Barrels of Oil a Day

Over at Antiwar.com, inveterate globe-trotting journalist Jon Basil Utley gives a brief but interesting account of a recent to Germany, Budapest, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. A snippet:

The Caucasus nations are evolving in a positive way. Competent and honest government is still a ways off, but there is growing recognition of what economic conditions are necessary for freedom and economic prosperity. Also, they have the advantage that the communists provided solid basic education and suppressed tribalism for nearly a century. Consequently, they have the possibility of becoming modern nations.

Whole thing here.