The American Dream vs. Vladimir Putin

By: Scott Phillips

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In the end, it was the American Dream that defeated Vladimir Putin.

The allure of freedom and opportunity was far more compelling than economic stagnation, totalitarian repression, and the dread of being sent into a ‘meat wave’ assault in Russia’s next war of aggression. It caused people to leave Russia in droves. Mostly they were young, educated people eager for a better life. Many just wanted a safe place to raise a family. First a million. Then two million. Then many more. Nearly 15 million in total over the years.

America welcomed them with open arms.

The scenario above is fiction. The American Dream vs. Vladimir Putin is not. The book offers a nonviolent strategy to increase political pressure on Vladimir Putin to end his war against Ukraine and his conflict with the West by competing for the very thing he fears losing the most: Russia’s population. It proposes a strategy of opening America (and the West) to mass emigration for Russians who wish to flee a totalitarian regime that imprisons its critics by authorizing 10 million or more American Freedom Visas over the next decade.

This is a provocative attempt to undermine Vladimir Putin’s regime at its very foundations with a Grand Strategy that could accelerate a demographic decline in Russia paired with a Grand Bargain for U.S. immigration reform that provides tangible benefits on both side of the partisan divide.

In a world increasingly dominated by fears of demographic depopulation, this proposal plays to America’s greatest strengths: The freedom, liberty, and opportunity that have long attracted immigrants from all over the world. It is a proposal consistent with America’s long support for refugees fleeing violence and repression from totalitarian regimes and one that would deliver enormous economic and social benefits to an America facing its own demographic challenges.

The American Dream vs. Vladimir Putin is the second in the Strategic Futures Scenarios series that uses fictional narratives as a mechanism to explore breakthrough innovations in public policy and geopolitics.