Homosexuality was a criminal offence that landed people in jail throughout the duration of the Soviet Union and survived the superpower's 1991 collapse.
But for now, Mr bin Laden has to try to exploit the news, rather than to make it.So it was with his last philippic, an audio recording issued on January 14th, in which he claimed that his jihad against America since 2001 had been responsible for bringing about the superpower's economic collapse.
The setting is a futuristic America in bedraggled decline, but, as Mr. Shteyngart points out, he learned everything that he needed to know about decaying superpowers from the collapse of you know what.
In "Diplomacy," he foretold that alliances would grow more important with America's emergence as the sole superpower after the Soviet collapse.
With the declining power (and subsequent collapse in 1991) of the Soviet Union, the war also emphasized the role of the United States as the world's single military superpower.
He also believes the collapse of a rival superpower has ended half a century of stability.
While the United States is used to regarding itself as a global power, and its status as the sole superpower has steadily grown since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming disparity is still a big change.
The Soviet Union was on its heels about to collapse and there were no other superpowers, or emerging superpowers.
Some bored Tories, furious at the reunification of Germany and the ascendancy of the United States as the world's sole superpower, are now blaming Churchill for the collapse of British influence over the course of the 20th century.
Russia position as chair of the G-8 is of critical importance in Putin's campaign to remake his nation as a superpower more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Those were important issues, but they were hardly what should be the main thrust of discussion between the world's two superpowers at a time of potential European collapse, rising protectionism and a volatile North Korea.
