[T]he Bush Administration is floundering in its own moral fog. It refuses to identify its basic enemy as militant Islam. It defends Islamic values as morally equal to Western values. It often subordinates military victory to Muslim goodwill. It focuses on the violent methods of some militant Islamists rather than the more dangerous goals of the ideology. In order to avoid the charge of cultural imperialism, the Bush Administration is routinely lapsing into cultural relativism. As a result, America lacks a clear vision and purpose in this conflict -- and that undermines our capacity to eliminate the grave threat posed by militant Islam. The corresponding impression of weakness and self-doubt emboldens the militant Islamists' dreams of transforming America into an Islamist theocracy.

In Russia, the pro-market economic determinism of the 1990s created the illusion that capitalism’s benefits would eventually produce a country of staunch democrats. Instead, Russia’s experience proved that economic growth can trigger nationalist nostalgia for a long-past superpower role. Derailed en route to democracy, Russia now sits idle in a way station where strength mingles with impotence, powerful bureaucracies constrain authoritarian leadership, and thriving private businesses uneasily coexist with state-run enterprises. [FOREIGN POLICY]

[M]ost transitional societies are hybrids of some kind. (Just look at China.) But precisely what kind of hybrid is Russia? What path does President Vladimir Putin envision for the country in his second term? Will he find the courage to undo the bonds between power and business, between those who make the decisions and those who influence them? And what fate awaits Russia if he does not?

Unlike its Soviet predecessor, the Russian economy is tied to world markets, but in Yavlinsky’s view it survives only on the most distant margins of the global economy. Despite Putin’s first-term pledge to dismantle the oligarchic economic system, entire swaths of the Russian economy remain monopolized by tycoons, many with insider ties to powerful bureaucrats who dominate sectors such as agriculture, defense, oil, and natural gas. Little has changed since the Stalinist era, Yavlinsky observes. Instead of planning the economy, the government now manages business.

Russian society is suffering from chronic reform fatigue after enduring countless initiatives that produced many losers and just a handful of winners. Among Russians, stability and order are the preferred options, suggesting the possibility of yet another reformist experiment in Russia—this time, with harsh authoritarianism. Without institutional reforms, Russia is destined to remain on the periphery, growing more disenchanted and hostile toward the West.