Letter from the editor.

• Author: Rebhun, Elliot
• Position: Editorial

IN AMERICA'S MILITARY, WOMEN DON'T officially serve in combat, but as our cover story notes, the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan can be anywhere, and women soldiers are engaging the enemy--and being killed and wounded--in greater numbers than ever before.

IN RUSSIA, WE LOOK AT THE increasingly authoritarian rule of President Vladimir Putin, who, critics say, is placing the country's fragile democracy at risk. (Our Times Past on Russia's 1917 revolutions considers Russia's long...