In his article authors tries to examine why the European unification is in crisis. He gives two "standard" explanations: the first one is the unwillingness or just failure "to reform the institutions of the Community in a direction that should have more democratic and more federal"; the second one is, that "recession is always bad for the Community ". But then he claims, that those two arguments do not explain everything. He said that "[w]e must look deeper", and offers a number of factors , that "can be divided into two groups: some concern Western Europe's relations with the rest of the world, some concern its internal situation". Based on his arguments authors make a conclusion, that "the face the Union shows to its members is unfinished. The face it presents to the outside is often unpleasant", and that the only thing that will change the situation is "the elites and the government that will have to take the decisive steps". But he points out, that currently we are "lacking elites and leaders with a daring vision.

In his article authors presents the view of the Europe from the socialists perspective. He says, that "on the social democratic left, there is no European strategy"; he says, that everything in Europe is national: parliaments, national politics, national electorate. The author give a number of arguments, that would explain the difficult path toward "beacon for the social advance in the third world" and "the model of the social organization". The difficulties, in his view, are the big difference of the economic development between West Europe and East Europe, the unequal regional development among members, and the "bad shape" of the socialists parties throughout most of Europe.

Author starts his explanation of the end of the Cold war from the beginning: why did it begin, and why did it begin in late 40s, and not in 1917. His version is that before the World War 2 "Soviet Union was relatively weak and only one of several Great Powers in a multipolar world." Then he explains, what he thinks the Cold War was: "The Cold War had both an ideological and geopolitical dimension." Although he thinks that the "nuclear weapons helped to keep the cold War cold", he believes that " West did not win the Cold War through geopolitical containment and military deterrence". The Cold War came to the end, in his opinion, "when a new generation of Soviet leaders realized how badly their system at home and their policies abroad had failed."

Author claims, that Reagan's administration should be credited with the achievement of the end of the Cold War, because it put a lot of pressure on the Soviet regime, by Reagan's military programs, "panegyrics on freedom and democracy", and " attacks on tyranny and totalitarianism". He also said, that the Cold War could be ended only, if Soviet Union would make a lot of concessions, because, as he claims, " the cold war was not a two-way street, but rather a function of Soviet policies". He also said, that Gorbachev did make a lot of changes in the Soviet domestic policies only because he "did not want to preside over a sinking ship"; the Soviet crashing economy wasn't the reason: "deteriorating state of the Soviet economy was not a threat to the power of the Soviet oligarchs."

Author's theses in that insert was, that "nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- won the cold war". He claims, that USA cannot "influence precisely the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in another great country". He also said, that the changes in the Soviet politics began in 50s, but American hard policies only slowed down and then reverse the process of changes in 60s.

The author examines the role of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the authors opinion, Gorbachev was not intended to destroy the Soviet empire or the Communist party, the main support of the empire. "His [Gorbachev] aim had been to strengthen the political and economic systems that he inherited. Instead he had fatally weakened it." Gorbachev wasn't the Western-style democrat, but, as author pointed out, unlike his predecessors, Gorbachev refused to used force to restore the "order" in the Soviet Union nor Eastern Europe. And for this he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

The approach, that was taken in this article by author, is the comparison of the Soviet empire to the different European and Asian empires from the past to explain the collapse of the Soviet Union. He talks of "parallels in the history of the decline and fall of other empires", namely Ottoman Empire and Habsburg empires. The author also criticizes several Sovietologists for their narrow perspective: "for very many, the basic time-frame for understanding contemporary Soviet politics began in 1953." But, as author showed, to understand it (contemporary Soviet politics), one has to start at least in mid-seventeenth century. To illustrate his point, author compared the modernization under Alexander II and Gorbachev (but he also said, that neither of them were democrats), and conservative regimes of Nicholas I and Brezhnev. That's why, he said, many historian did not expect the "demise of the Soviet communism within six years".