Your special report on Russia is a splendid read (“Enigma Variations,” November 29, 2008). It dutifully goes through all the horrors—such as state intervention, corruption, legal and judicial disarray, population collapse, and tyranny in the Caucasus—before it concludes that the last few years do not spell a return to the cold war, but something much more dangerous. To wit, “the danger lies in [Russia’s] unpredictability.” Well put. And yet, this conclusion was perfectly obvious from the very start, as the cover of your special report shows a close-up of Vladimir Putin. Indeed, there is no major country in the world today that relies so heavily as Russia does on one single individual. And he is unpredictability incarnated.