Pictures from the military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3 will haunt political analysts for a long time.
It was a truly extraordinary event: The leaders of the world¡¯s most dangerous revisionist states ¡ª China¡¯s Xi Jinping, Russia¡¯s Vladimir Putin and North Korea¡¯s Kim Jong Un ¡ª celebrating a victory that wasn¡¯t theirs over an enemy that ceased to exist 80 years ago.
The military component of the parade was not particularly impressive; we¡¯ve seen similar displays many times before. What stood out was the vivid illustration of George Orwell¡¯s famous formula from the novel ¡°1984¡±: ¡°Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.¡±
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