Publications

These are heady days for Turkey's president. Last month, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country's larger-than-life strongman, eked out an electoral win over opposition rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu to secure a third five-year term in office. In the process, he dashed the hopes of many in the West for a more democratic turn on the part of NATO's only Middle Eastern member.

In his efforts to revive a Russian empire, Mr. Putin may have decisively doomed his country’s chances of ever being one again. For that, Russia’s president has no one but himself to blame.