WILLIAM J. DOBSON

Russia’s back yard is littered with authoritarian regimes—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Uzbekistan, to name a few—whose leaders seem to view positions as lifetime appointments.

The end of some of the harshest dictatorships has not necessarily spelled a more free world. The extinction of the thing we despise is not giving rise to the democracy we hoped for.

Russia’s back yard is littered with authoritarian regimes—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Uzbekistan, to name a few—whose leaders seem to view positions as lifetime appointments.

The end of some of the harshest dictatorships has not necessarily spelled a more free world. The extinction of the thing we despise is not giving rise to the democracy we hoped for.