Masha Gessen, New Yorker: Alexey Navalny and the Empty Spectacle of the Russian Election
It’s hard to write about the Russian Presidential election, not because it is particularly difficult to understand but because the normal language of such things can’t describe it. There are candidates, but their names can appear on the ballot only if the Kremlin allows it. There is a campaign, but candidates are allowed to appear on television only if the Kremlin O.K.s it. There are, usually, debates, but Vladimir Putin, who has been in power in Russia for eighteen years and is running for another six-year term, doesn’t deign to take part in them. There are opinion polls, but their results are adjusted to fit the probable result of the vote. And then there is the vote, but its outcome is preordained. In other words, the event scheduled for March 18, 2018, is not an election, but it is called one.
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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 27, 2017
Israelis Don't Care How the UN Votes. Here's Why. -- Daniel Gordis, Bloomberg
Will North Korea Blow Up the Winter Olympics? -- Tom Z. Collina & Catherine Killough, Foreign Policy
Beijing complicates Washington’s Afghan strategy -- MK Bhadrakumar, Asia Times
Who killed Benazir Bhutto? The theories behind the murder -- AFP
From hope to despair in Myanmar -- Bertil Lintner, Asia Times
Can New Zealand’s unlikely coalition deliver in 2018? -- Stephen Levine, East Asia Forum
Madrid and Barcelona need to talk. That’s not on the cards -- Miguel-Anxo Murado, The Guardian
Power on the Periphery of Europe -- Antonia Colibasanu, Geopolitical Futures
How a hard Brexit could hurt Germany: Reasoning with the worst that may befall -- Arthur Sullivan, DW
Why Has Latin America Turned Away from the Left? -- Andrés Velasco, Project Syndicate
Trump didn’t complete his foreign policy to-do list in 2017. That’s a good thing. -- VOX
The Fentanyl Crisis is a Reverse Opium War -- Greg R. Lawson, National Interest
The real fake news of 2017 -- Rex Murphy, The National
How the Era of the Big-Name News Anchor Crashed to an End -- Lloyd Grove, Daily Beast
Bitcoin Is an Implausible Currency -- Megan McArdle, Bloomberg
When the bitcoin craze becomes a panic -- Jeff Spross, The Week
