Whose Side Is Russia On in the War on Terror?

Nicholas Gvosdev thinks fears of a new Russian tyranny are overblown:

There are pronounced authoritarian tendencies, tendencies that have accelerated in the past year or so. But there is no justification for classifying Russia as a "tyranny" or lumping Russia in with countries like Egypt, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, or even the People's Republic of China.

For the last five years, I've felt Russia is best understood in terms of "managed pluralism" — a system which mixes democratic and authoritarian features, where zones of relative freedom uneasily coexist with areas where the regime exercises more control. Some of my colleagues believe that "managed pluralism" is but a fancy name for soft authoritarianism, a criticism I admit has some merit. But no matter what, it is a far cry from any sort of return to Stalinism.

This is patent nonsense.

There is no such thing as a half-tyranny---one either has liberty or does not. The most basic aspect of freedom is the ability to choose the nation's leadership. Can the Russians truly do that today?

Freedom of the press is another bulwark of liberty. Is the Russian press free to criticize Vladimir Putin?

Democracy is not meted out by the drop, but by the raging torrent. An authoritarian regime which permits some strictly-controlled pantomimes of liberty is not democratic. By this standard, Cuba is free because Fidel Castro allows state whores to set their prices. That may be good enough for Jimmy Carter, but conservatives need to set a higher standard for freedom.

Simply saying that Putin's Russia is not so bad as Stalin's Russia is not to say it is as free as it should be, or as it was during Yeltsin's tenure.

One can detest Honecker's East Germany while noting that it wasn't quite so monstrous as Hitlerite Germany was.

Freedom is on the march. Why tiptoe?