The Countries With the Worst Bad Habits

Russia poisons its enemies, Germany's obsessed with fiscal responsibility, and America's addicted to spreading democracy. A list of policies governments ought to kick

The New York Times published an interesting article recently suggesting that the Russian government has been murdering dissidents, critics, exiles, former officials, and other alleged enemies, often by poisoning them. Prominent cases include Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium in London in 2006, and Alexander Perepilichny, who died while jogging in 2012 but whose body was later found to have contained extracts from a rare poisonous plant.

What struck me about this disturbing piece was the continuity of this policy over many decades. As the Times article makes clear, political murder — and in particular, the use of poisoning — seems to have been hard-wired into some key organs of the Soviet/Russian state, going all the way back to the days of the NKVD and maybe even back to the Tsars. Leon Trotsky was no threat to Joseph Stalin by 1940, for example, but the latter still had him killed in exile in Mexico. Dealing with dissidents and other opponents in this way became a standard operating procedure, with a durable bureaucracy dedicated to maintaining these capabilities as part of Moscow's repertoire, even when the people targeted are at worst minor irritants and killing them does more damage to Russia’s international position than leaving them alone.

Such behavior, in short, is a bad habit Moscow has yet to break....

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