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He had questioned judicial independence, threatened the freedom of the press, called for violating Muslims’ equal protection under the law, promised the use of torture and attacked Americans based on their gender, race and religion. He had also undermined critical democratic norms including peaceful debate and transitions of power, commitment to truth, freedom from foreign interference and abstention from the use of executive power for political retribution.

Mr. Trump also recently inflated his election performance, claiming — without evidence — that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” This, too, is nothing new. Authoritarians often exaggerate their popular support to increase the perception of their legitimacy. But the deeper objective is to weaken the democratic institutions that limit their power. Eroding confidence in voting, elections and representative bodies gives them a freer hand to wield more power.

As a C.I.A. officer, I saw firsthand authoritarians’ use of these tactics around the world. Their profound appetite for absolute power drives their intolerance for any restraint — whether by people, organizations, the law, cultural norms, principles or even the expectation of consistency. For a despot, all of these checks on power must be ignored, undermined or destroyed so that he is all that matters.

Mr. Trump has said that he prefers to be unpredictable because it maximizes his power

Trump’s inconsistencies and provocative proposals are a strategy; they are intended to elevate his importance above all else — and to place him beyond democratic norms, beyond even the Constitution.

In our nation, power is shared, checked and balanced precisely to thwart would-be autocrats. But as we become desensitized to the notion that Mr. Trump is the ultimate authority, we may attribute less importance to the laws, norms and principles that uphold our system of government, which protects our rights

We can no longer assume that all Americans understand the origins of their rights and the importance of liberal democracy. We need a new era of civic engagement that will reawaken us to the cause of liberty and equality.

We cannot allow Mr. Trump to normalize the idea that he is the ultimate arbiter of our right

In the past 500 years, Russia has been invaded several times from the west. The Poles came across the European Plain in 1605, followed by the Swedes under Charles XII in 1707, the French under Napoleon in 1812, and the Germans—twice, in both world wars, in 1914 and 1941.

In Poland, the plain is only 300 miles wide—from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Carpathian Mountains in the south—but after that point it stretches to a width of about 2,000 miles near the Russian border, and from there, it offers a flat route straight to Moscow. Thus Russia’s repeated attempts to occupy Poland throughout history; the country represents a relatively narrow corridor into which Russia could drive its armed forces to block an enemy advance toward its own border, which, being wider, is much harder to defend.

On the other hand, Russia’s vastness has also protected it; by the time an army approaches Moscow, it already has unsustainably long supply lines, which become increasingly difficult to protect as they extend across Russian territory. Napoleon made this mistake in 1812, and Hitler repeated it in 1941.

Just as strategically important—and just as significant to the calculations of Russia’s leaders throughout history—has been the country’s historical lack of its own warm-water port with direct access to the oceans.

Many of the country’s ports on the Arctic freeze for several months each year. Vladivostok, the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean, is enclosed by the Sea of Japan, which is dominated by the Japanese

it prevents the Russian fleet from operating as a global power, as it does not have year-round access to the world’s most important sea-lanes.

when protests in Ukraine brought down the pro-Russia government of Viktor Yanukovych and a new, more pro-Western government came to power, Putin had a choice. He could have respected the territorial integrity of Ukraine, or he could have done what Russian leaders have done for centuries with the bad geographic cards they we

Enter Ivan the Terrible, the first tsar. He put into practice the concept of attack as defense—consolidating one’s position at home and then moving outward

He extended his territory east to the Ural Mountains, south to the Caspian Sea, and north toward the Arctic Circle. Russia gained access to the Caspian, and later the Black Sea, thus taking advantage of the Caucasus Mountains as a partial barrier between itself and the Mongols.

Now the Russians had a partial buffer zone and a hinterland—somewhere to fall back to in the case of invasion. No one was going to attack them in force from the Arctic Sea, nor fight their way over the Urals to get to them

to invade it from the south or southeast you would have to have a huge army and a very long supply line, and you would have to fight your way past defensive positions.

In the 18th century, Russia, under Peter the Great—who founded the Russian Empire in 1721—and then Empress Catherine the Great, expanded the empire westward, occupying Ukraine and reaching the Carpathian Mountains.

Now there was a huge ring around Moscow; starting at the Arctic, it came down through the Baltic region, across Ukraine, to the Carpathians, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Caspian, swinging back around to the Urals, which stretched up to the Arctic Circle.

Two of Russia’s chief preoccupations—its vulnerability on land and its lack of access to warm-water ports—came together in Ukraine in 2014

early Russia, known as the Grand Principality of Moscow, was indefensible. There were no mountains, no deserts, and few rivers.

He chose his own kind of attack as defense, annexing Crimea to ensure Russia’s access to its only proper warm-water port, and moving to prevent NATO from creeping even closer to Russia’s border.

From the Grand Principality of Moscow, through Peter the Great, Stalin, and now Putin, each Russian leader has been confronted by the same problems. It doesn’t matter if the ideology of those in control is czarist, communist, or crony capitalist—the ports still freeze, and the European Plain is still flat.

The history of capitals, as well as countries, confirms the importance of courts. The rise of Berlin, Vienna, Madrid (often called Corte), St Petersburg and Istanbul cannot be understood except as court cities, apparent in the appearance of their streets and squares or, in Istanbul, mosques. A final, fatal expression of that role occurred in July 1914. Thousands, eager for war, gathered in front of palaces in London, Berlin, Munich (where, in a photograph, the young Hitler can be seen in the crowd) and St Petersburg, to wave hands, flags and hats, cheer and sing the national anthem as their monarch appeared on the palace balcony

The Louvre was a royal palace before it became an art gallery, founded by Francis I and principal residence of Louis XIV from 1652 to 1671. After the Revolution Paris again became a court city and remained one from 1804 to 1870.

The development of constitutions also owed much to courts. The rise of the House of Commons was helped by disputed royal successions – no monarchy had more of them than England – as well as the needs of royal finances. The founding document of constitutional monarchy in 19th-century Europe was the Charte constitutionelle des francais, promulgated by Louis XVIII (who was one of its authors) on June 4th, 1814. The Charte became the principal model for other constitutions in Europe, including those of Bavaria (1818), Belgium (1831), Spain (1834), Prussia (1850), Piedmont(1848) and the Ottoman Empire (1876). Britain could not have a comparable influence, since it did not have a written constitution to copy

A constitution was a royal life insurance policy: when Louis XVIII’s brother Charles X violated it in July 1830 the dynasty was deposed. Nevertheless France finally became a republic, after 1870, only after three dynasties – the Bourbons, Orléans and Bonapartes  – had been tried and found wanting

Having helped to finance the struggle against the French Empire, the Rothschilds became financiers to the Holy Alliance. They financed Louis XVIII’s return to France in 1814, Charles X’s departure in 1830, the Neapolitan Bourbons both before and after their exile in 1861 and the Austrian monarchy. As one Rothschild wrote to another, on February 8th, 1816: ‘A court is always a court and it always leads to something.

Under Edward VII public ceremonial increased in splendour, the court entertained more frequently than before and there were more royal warrant-holders

He wrote admiringly about monarchs, from Henri IV and Louis XIV to Charles XII. In the 19th century Walter Scott was an admirer of George IV, whose visit to Edinburgh he arranged; Chateaubriand was a brilliant royalist pamphleteer and memorialist; Stendhal and Mérimée were convinced Bonapartists

Court history also subverts national boundaries. The Tudors came to power with French help: Henry VII, after 14 years of exile in Brittany and France, had French as well as English troops in his victorious army at Bosworth. One aspect of Anne Boleyn’s appeal to Henry VIII was her French education and the skills she had acquired while serving at the French court. The House of Orange was both German and Dutch (and partly English), the Bourbons acquired Spanish, Neapolitan and Parmesan branches. The Habsburgs were  able to switch nationalities and capitals between Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and, in the brief reign of Philip I, London

Through the prism of courts and monarchy, Cortes could communicate with Montezuma. The Sunni-Shi’a struggle now destroying Syria and Iraq is another war of succession. It began as a dynastic dispute, between the prophet Muhammad’s Umayyad cousins and his son-in-law Ali over succession to the caliphate: from the start Islam was a state as well as a religion. In 680 the struggle culminated in the murder of Ali’s son, the Imam Hussein, in Kerbela in Iraq. Every year, on the Day of Ashura, this murder is commemorated by Shi’a in mournful flagellatory processions

Above all, courts subvert boundaries between the sexes. Because of a European consort’s role in assuring the succession and enhancing dynastic prestige, her household and apartments could rival in size and splendour those of the monarch. Sometimes she controlled her own finances. The court of France was called ‘a paradise of women’. A court was therefore the only arena where women could compete with men, on near equal terms, for power and influence. Hence the decisive impact on national and international politics of, to name only a few consorts, Anne Boleyn, Catherine the Great and Marie Antoinette. Or, among rulers’ mothers: Catherine de’ Medici and Anne of Austria in France; 17th-century Valide Sultans in the Ottoman Empire; and the Empress Dowager in China

There were mutinies in the army and an attempt to kidnap the young queen from the royal palace in Madrid, possibly inspired by her mother

she was married to her Bourbon cousin, Prince Francisco de Asis

There two years later she abdicated in favour of her teenage son, Don Alfonso

Prince Amadeo of Savoy was the nominal ruler, popularly nicknamed King Macaroni because he spoke Spanish with an Italian accent

There was yet another Carlist civil war in the 1870s and Alfonso died in 1885