Chechnya has been plagued by two wars and an ongoing insurgency since the fall of the Soviet Union. In recent years, Chechen militants have escalated attacks in the North Caucasus and revived bombing…

President Vladimir Putin continues to downplay atrocities by Stalin. Some see Russia’s refusal to come to grips with its Soviet past haunting relations with the West.

Whether to engage heads of rogue states, a perennial foreign policy dilemma, has emerged in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign.