THERE IS NO RUSSIA:

What Putin truly fears is what Navalny's movement seeks--a change of power in Russia, followed by cashiering its corrupt clan of oligarchs and spies. It isn't NATO that keeps Putin up at night; it's the space for democratic dissent that NATO opens up along his border. This fear, Navalny argues, is what drives all the conflicts Russia wages with the West. "To consolidate the country and the elites," he writes, "Putin constantly needs all these extreme measures, all these wars--real ones, virtual ones, hybrid ones or just confrontations at the edge of war, as we're seeing now."

Rather than convening talks or offering concessions, Navalny wants the U.S. to pressure the Kremlin from without while Navalny and his supporters pressure it from within. The combination, he believes, will split the elites around Putin, ushering in what Navalny's followers like to call "the beautiful Russia of the future," one that is free, democratic, at peace with its neighbors and the West.

But that slogan elides the ugliness of how dictatorships often fall. Russians need not look far for examples. In early January, protests swept through neighboring Kazakhstan, an oil-rich autocracy to Russia's south. Government buildings were set ablaze. Scores of police and protesters were killed. Kazakhstan's President issued a shoot-to-kill order to his security forces and called for assistance from Russia and its allies. Within hours, Putin dispatched thousands of troops to help put down the uprising. The crackdown worked. The protests subsided.

In our exchange of letters, I asked Navalny about the prospect of such violence in Russia, and whether he sees it as the price of change after 21 years under the rule of one man. "Our path," he wrote, "was never strewn with roses."

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