Bruce Jackson is a foreign policy analyst and commentator who wrote for The Weekly Standard on democracy, geopolitics, and political developments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. His contributions to the magazine, published between 2004 and 2007, focused on democratic transitions, Russian politics, and Ukraine. He is known for his work promoting transatlantic security and democratic expansion in post-Cold War Europe.
THIS SUNDAY'S parliamentary election in Ukraine shares at least one thing in common with next year's Presidential election in the United States. During overlong campaigns, in the parade of political personalities and the blizzard of distortions and half truths, it is nearly impossible to remember…
THE MOST CURIOUS thing about Europe's newest democracies is their propensity to suffer serious reversal at their moment of greatest triumph. After gaining membership in the European Union and NATO, the Central European success stories of the 1990's have hit a bad patch recently.
ON THE FAR SHORES of the Black Sea, just south of the Caucasus mountains, mounting tensions between the Kremlin and tiny Georgia seem to have gotten out of hand.
(1) What are the necessary institutional requirements for a successor state of the former Soviet Union to succeed in a transition to democracy? And how have these institutions, which would be essential for a democratizing Russia, fared in President Putin's Russia?
LATER THIS WEEK, the leaders of the Western world will gather in Istanbul for the NATO summit. There at the classical gateway between Europe and Asia as many as 60 heads of state will wrestle with the great problems of our time: the persistence of war and terror and the hope for democratic change…