(KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)
Putin 4.0
The Post-Election Power Plays Begin

The arrest of two oligarch brothers may signal a new power struggle over the Prime Minister post, or an intensified crackdown on private business. Either way, don’t bet on liberal reform in Putin’s next term.

(Courtesy of National Democratic Institute)
A Pre-Election Reflection
Hungary and Democratic Decay

Hungary emerged from the collapse of European communism as the poster child for seamless transitions. Today, its future looks more than a little like its pre-communist, authoritarian past.

Orlando /Three Lions/Getty Images
Playing Ball
Poor Sportsmanship

For generations, team sports have helped socialize kids from poor and immigrant families into the American mainstream. Today, these kids are getting priced off of the playing fields.

(Edward Miller/Keystone/Getty Images)
Historical Legacy
Seven Theses on the Marshall Plan

70 years after its implementation, the Marshall Plan continues to be held up as the gold standard of American foreign policy and mined for contemporary relevance. Why did it succeed?

(SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)
The Middle East
The Gaza Crisis and the Clash to Come

The recent violence in Gaza will only exacerbate months of simmering tensions between the rival Palestinian factions.

The Colonial Sublime
Non to Tocqueville!

America’s favorite Frenchman is not what he seems.

(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Geopolitical Decay
The Decline of the American Brand

For the first time in decades, America is consciously squandering the gifts of its geography.

(Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)
America's Institutional Health
You Can’t Fix Stupid?

The changes wrought by scientific-technical innovation are far outrunning the capacity of our temperamentally conservative institutions to keep up with them.

Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images
Something New Under the Sun
Political Identity Politics

What is new is not identity politics, but politics as identity—and it’s driving a culture of grievance.

(Credit: W. Kompała courtesy of Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland)
Poland Past and Present
March 1968 and the Contest of Memories

Half a century ago, Poland was rocked by student protests and anti-Semitic purges that it has never fully grappled with—and which still divide the country to this day.

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