This struck me the other day - the parallels between the Soviet Union in 1980 and the United Kingdom in 2012.

1. Hosting the Olympic Games.
2. Illegally occupying Afghanistan.
3. Glorifying the military using the media to enforce support of "our boys"
4. Spending large sums of money on parades for heads of state that were not democratically elected.
5. Using military power to create and control puppet regimes.
6. State owned broadcaster pumps out establishment propaganda.

The only real difference is that in 1980, most Russians would have known they were being fed propaganda - in the UK in 2012, most people still believe that not only is the BBC anti-establishment but that it is also the purveyor of truth.