The West’s inability to comprehend how Vladimir Putin sees the world means it has trouble thinking constructively about how to deal with him.

We gave you the winners; now here are their opposites.

To kick off 2015, we present our take on who the real “G-7” countries are: the world’s seven great powers, ranked by their ability to shape both their immediate environments and the broader world.

Never have liberal ideas been so firmly entrenched within America’s core elite institutions. Never have those institutions been so weak and uninfluential.

The Obama administration may represent “Peak Left” in American politics. As a result, what we are getting from the left these days is a mix of bewilderment and anger as it realizes that this is as good as it gets.

If there is one thing that has become clear since the end of the Cold War, it is that the United States needs to raise its game in foreign policy. The United States Congress has to be part of the solution.

President Obama’s new initiative is unlikely to succeed politically—in part because Democrats are overconfident that rising Hispanic immigration will deliver them a permanent, left-leaning majority.

Elections can’t and don’t tell us who will win the next one, no matter how much pundits like to claim otherwise. But elections can be very informative about the state of the nation, and about where the country wants to go.

The crisis has been averted, but only temporarily. Meanwhile, Putin retains the ability to throw Ukraine into political and military crisis whenever he likes.

Ukraine’s elections have confirmed the country’s desire to continue on its course for integration with the West. But the road ahead is long and difficult, with oligarchs whose interests don’t include transparency and accountability still holding overwhelming power in the country.