The first unaccompanied American pilots to fly into Russia during WWII didn’t know what to expect. They were sheepishly pulled aside by briefing officers, who told them that the flight maps they had would be of little use, and asked them to note any landmarks they saw on the way so that the mapping could be improved. After entering Russian territory, the pilots drifted off their course to gawk at the ruins of towns as they came over the horizon. They had never seen such devastation. Entire cities hammered to dust by the Germans, as well as Russia’s own ‘scorched earth’ policy. They had flown thousands of kilometers, deep into the country’s heartland, realizing something else. They had not seen a single road. The railroad and the Manych canal were there, but little else in the way of transportation infrastructure, save for horse trails and paths for agricultural vehicles. Russia would now have to recover from a brutal war with a stunted economy. The lack of a modern road network to...