The conviction and sentencing of Russian activist Alexei Navalny this week sends a stark message: Any organized civil resistance to Vladimir Putin’s rule, be it to corruption or authoritarianism, no matter how peaceful and constructive, will be crushed mercilessly.

Dr. Leon Aron reviews Masha Gessen’s biography of Vladimir Putin, The Man Without A Face, and further meditates on Putin’s political career and ambitions.

Civil unrest, no matter where it takes place, is always difficult to assess. Evaluating the prospects for Russia's "new" protesters, who began to mobilize en masse after fraudulent State Duma elections in December 2011, and the civil society from which they sprang is no exception.

Obama's plan for nuclear reductions is letting Moscow get away with murder.

Here is the truth: Erdoğan, who spoke at AEI a few years ago, has begun to transform Turkey into an Islamist bastion.

Left in the ruble of civil society in Russia are only stagnation, hatred, and radicalism. Left behind is scorched earth, incapable of upholding democratic institutions, when this regime falls or implodes – just as happened after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In late May, Sergei Guriev, a prominent Russian economist and dean of Moscow's prestigious New Economic School, fled Russia fearing imminent arrest. His crime? Being critical of the Putin regime.

When a small group of environmentalists banded together on May 28 to save an Istanbul park from being turned into a shopping mall, their sit-in hardly seemed likely to spark what is already being called the Turkish Spring.

Every assault on civil society is a tragedy for Russia. Nongovernmental organizations are, first and foremost, schools of democracy, teaching personal responsibility, self-organization, peaceful dissent and compromise. Left in their rubble are stagnation, hatred and radicalism.

The centrality of hydrocarbons to Russia’s economy is hardly a new issue, but it is one well worth revisiting today. With a likely significant thinning of oil and gas rents, at stake might be the stability of the regime and perhaps even its survival.