Russia has made a tradition of puzzling the world with its ups and downs, its sudden course changes, and its shifting masks, thus forcing the West to constantly ask itself: Is a new policy a change of tactics or a change of paradigm?

Tough Russian policies toward its neighbors earlier this decade, culminating in the 2008 war with Georgia, have given way to a seemingly new approach in the wake of the global financial crisis and the Obama administration’s “reset.” Today, the ruling tandem presents a far more cooperative face to the world. Yet the question remains: Does this new...

There have been not one, but many, “milestone” years in the history of the new Russia. The first and perhaps most familiar, 1991, marked not only the birth of post-communist Russia, but also the stillbirth of its democracy. In 1993, the Boris Yeltsin constitution created the framework for a new “personalized power.” Yeltsin’s victory in the controlled elections of 1996 marked an embryonic form of what would later become Russia’s imitation democracy. In 2003, the destruction of YUKOS signified a turn to bureaucratic capitalism. In 2004, the “orange revolution” in Ukraine hastened Russia’s return to a statist matrix. And finally,...

There is an astonishing historical irony embedded in the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—so astonishing, in fact, that it raises doubts about the global elite’s ability to predict and prepare for the future. For many decades, the West marshaled its finest minds to the task of devising strategies to contain and neutralize its Cold War opponent. However, it was the possibility no one had prepared for—a Soviet collapse—that preoccupied the West’s key leaders at the end of the Cold War.

During the Soviet Union’s dying years, George H. W. Bush, François Mitterrand, Helmut...

From the first days of its existence, the new Russia expected to be embraced and helped by the West. Elite and public attitudes were marked by quite a bit of naïveté, provincialism, and feelings of inadequacy. In 1991–1992, one of the most popular topics for discussion in political and intellectual circles in Russia was the idea of a Marshall Plan.¹ Very few proponents of this plan saw the inherent contradiction between their desire for Russia to be recognized as the inheritor of the Soviet Union’s great-power status and permanent Security Council seat, on the one hand, and its status...

In early 1992, several politicians called on the West to pay attention to Russia. The first was Helmut Kohl, perhaps out of a sense of gratitude for Russia’s agreeing to the unification of Germany. Yeltsin’s advisers recalled that Kohl was the first Western leader who had used the familiar form of address (ty) with Gorbachev to switch to the same (ty) with Yeltsin. He was also the first to address Yeltsin by his first name, Boris, and helped his new friend enter the elite club of world leaders.

The second politician to begin lobbying for Russia’s interests in 1992 was...

In early 1993, there was an unexpected shift in the attitude of the “collective West” toward Russian reforms. That watershed moment was the election of Bill Clinton to the U.S. presidency. “The world cannot afford the strife of the former Yugoslavia replicated in a nation as big as Russia, spanning 11 time zones with an armed arsenal of nuclear weapons that is still very vast,” the president announced in April 1993.¹ Clinton believed that he needed to prevent Russia “from blowing up in our faces” as the former foe began feeling its way forward toward an uncertain political future.² Clinton...

Western donors could grumble and groan about Russia’s failure to follow their advice or fulfill its obligations, but it did not matter. Everyone understood that Washington—the focal point of influence in international financial institutions—had made a decision to support Yeltsin. Clinton would not allow Yeltsin and the reformers to be hurt. The reforms had become a priority for his presidency, and he would not accept defeat. We know, for example, that Clinton pressured international loan organizations to help Yeltsin. There was no talk of the IMF or World Bank dictating terms and conditions to the Kremlin. Any such...

The European Union was another channel of cooperation with Russian reforms. In 1994 it concluded a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Russia. (The agreement was frozen during the Chechen War and went into force in December 1997.) Article 55 of the agreement reads, “Russia shall endeavour to ensure that its legislation will be gradually made compatible with that of the Community.” Russia and Europe developed a program of technical support for Russia (TACIS) on the basis of the agreement that offered aid for market reforms and democracy promotion until 2007.

Now, I may be accused of bias, but I...

From 1993 to 1994, Russia received $1.5 billion per year from the G7 countries. In 1995 (the year of parliamentary elections), Russia borrowed $10 billion from the IMF. In 1996, on the eve of the presidential elections, the Kremlin received an additional $2.4 billion from Germany and France in addition to the IMF loans; some of the money reportedly went to finance Yeltsin’s campaign. By 1996, Russia had received close to $30 billion from other donors. Those were enormous sums in those days. Michel Camdessus, executive director of the IMF, liked to explain the generosity by saying, “We have a...

There were three moments in post-communist history when the West could have at least halted Russia’s return to the past: 1991, 1993, and 1996. In each of those years, Russian leaders not only listened to the opinions flowing out of Western capitals; they actually sought out and heeded that advice. Moreover, Russia depended on Western financial aid, so the West actually had leverage over Yeltsin and his team. In 1991, it could have influenced Russia’s choice of development model. The old system was falling apart and the contours of the new one had not yet been defined. The Russian elite...

The year 1999 was another watershed in the relations between Russia and West. Western governments finally realized that the system that had arisen in Russia was not only undemocratic; there was also no guarantee that it would be friendly toward the West. With the reform process at a standstill, Western leaders began to question whether aid should continue to flow into Russia.

This epiphany was most difficult for the European Union, which was in the process of transmogrifying into a sluggish organization incapable of quick reactions. Brussels was disillusioned with Russia and Yeltsin, but it found that it was harder...

Western law enforcement agencies quickly were becoming very interested in the goings-on in Russia. Their main concern was the fate of Western aid. In August 2000, a Swiss court began investigating Russian officials’ alleged laundering of IMF loans through Swiss banks in 1998. There were also suspicions that portions of other IMF and World Bank loans from the 1990s had ended up in secret foreign bank accounts. Western political circles were finally awakening to the strangeness of the situation: Russia was asking, sometimes even begging, for financial aid at a time when more than $15 billion was flowingoutof...

As we have seen from the foregoing analysis, the West had missed several opportunities to act as a transformational force in Russia’s development. To be sure, it had influenced Russia, first as a model for emulation, but also by means of its attitude toward Russia. That attitude, however, was not always constructive. In the 1990s, the Western community allowed the Russian elite to turn its banks and business structures into a laundromat for dirty money. Western politicians and businessmen understood what was going on. They couldn’t havenotknown; it would be insulting to suggest that they were so naïve....

Putin’s ascent marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of the system that Yeltsin had begun building. Putin stabilized the system by reinforcing its linchpin—personal power—and by strengthening bureaucratic control over property. At first, Putin seemed, like Yeltsin, to hope for partnership and perhaps even greater integration with the West as a means of securing Russia’s modernization. The president was getting a sense of the limits of his new position. A novice in politics, Putin was open to influence, and he sought out contacts with the West.

In March 2000, while still prime minister, Putin...

This was a time of great optimism. Russian analysts were writing about “mutual integration”, supposedly meaning that the West and Russia would adapt to one another. Western analysts had no particular objection to that approach. Some had even begun to recall the Soviet liberals’ old dreams of an East-West convergence. Of course, it was not clear which principles the West would borrow from the East in this arrangement. Personalized power? The merging of power and property, perhaps?

Still, there was hope aplenty for constructive partnership in those years. As Angela Stent and I wrote then: “What appears to be evolving...

Starting in 2004, Moscow began experimenting with the new strategy of using foreign policy to maintain political power. Its domestic foundation was proposed by Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s deputy chief of staff, who called it “sovereign democracy.” Essentially, his idea held that “Russia is a democracy. But we have the right to understand that term as we wish. No one can teach us how to live.” This conceptual innovation gave the Kremlin the justification for pushing away the West and developing its own version of liberal-democratic standards. From that moment forward, those standards would give way to pronouncements about Russia’s “special”...

As long as we’re talking about the aid that the West has provided and continues to provide, it’s worth discussing, at least in broad outlines, what sort of aid we’re talking about. Aid packages have evolved significantly since 1990. In the late 1990s, it had become clear that the old forms of aid to Russia—humanitarian aid, technical assistance, and help in developing market and democratic institutions—were no longer working. In some ways they were even proving counterproductive. When Putin came to power, it became clear that the most contentious kind of aid was that which was directed toward...

In the years since the new Russia began to emerge in 1991, the West has given the country an impressive amount of aid. U.S. government aid to Russia between 1992 and 2007 totaled $15.95 billion. Yearly amounts ranged from $328.42 million (1992) to $1.04 billion (2007). The peak year was 1999, when the United States tried to help Russia weather the economic crisis and avert financial collapse. That year’s total, delivered through a variety of channels, surpassed $2.13 billion. It bears remembering that this was the year that power in the Kremlin changed hands.¹

But what did an average year...

The Putin era introduced new elements to the way society and power are organized in Russia, as well as changing the nature of Russia’s relationship with the West. The principle of imitation democracy became the basis of the political system, and a dual-track policy of partnership with the West and containment of the West formed the basis of Russian-Western relations. This model was exceptionally effective at securing the interests of the Russian elite. It preserved itself by personalizing power and mimicking the process of reform; externally, it sought to give the appearance of cooperation with the West while simultaneously reviving...

Russia’s war with Georgia in August 2008 confirmed that Medvedev continued to pursue the foreign policy doctrine developed by Putin and Lavrov.¹ Moreover, the Caucasus debacle showed Moscow’s readiness to move from anti-American rhetoric to open political confrontation. The Russian elite viewed Georgia as an “American project,” and thus a convenient proxy to show its defiance of the United States. This proves that Moscow still perceived the United States as the leader of a community that was existentially alien to Russia. In fact, Georgia was mainly a pretext for the Kremlin to secure a more assertive Russian role in the...

The global financial tsunami that engulfed Russia came as a complete surprise. The Russian economic “miracle,” supported by petrodollars and cheap Western loans, began to implode before our very eyes. The instability of the Putin petrostate was painfully obvious. As Anders Åslund wrote, “The Russian economy Titanic met its iceberg. Captain Putin could not believe his eyes.” Fall of 2008 sent still more shockwaves across Russia. In September, the stock market fell by about 75 percent. By November, Russian foreign exchange reserves plunged by $36 billion, from $516 billion to $480 billion. Gazprom saw its capitalization fall two-thirds, from $320...

The growing problems between the Kremlin and the West didn’t keep the Russian elite from creatively using the West to promote its corporative and individual interests. The Russian elite has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to survive and adapt, moving from whining about American arrogance and how Russia was “humiliated” and “ignored” to a much more effective psychological approach: namely, forcing the West to justify itself, to explain, apologize for, and remedy its own defects. They not only expanded into Western economic and political space, but also manipulated the West into supporting a system whose principles are alien to it. Such...

The Valdai Club is a format in which Western journalists and experts meet with Russian leaders to hear their explanations of Russian politics. This is yet another example of the Kremlin’s policy of co-optation. My colleague at the Carnegie Moscow Center, Nikolai Petrov, once addressed a question to the participants in the Valdai Club:

How justified from the moral point of view is it for Western analysts to participate in Valdai, a project used as blatant propaganda by the Kremlin? I’m not the only one who has this reaction to the Valdai Club. I hope that many participants in the...

All the events I’ve just described are but minor Kremlin victories achieved at little cost. Indeed, the Kremlin has shown itself to be capable of much more. One such major victory has been the Kremlin’s efforts to play the individual members of the European Union off against one another and to exploit their dependence on Russian energy. By establishing a special relationship with Berlin, Paris, and Rome, Moscow has successfully torpedoed both a unified EU energy policy and a common strategy toward Russia. It has also used other European countries (such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia) as Trojan horses...

How Russian experts and politicians rate relations with the West, especially the sharp cooling of relations between 2004 and 2008, tells us about more than just Russian foreign policy; it gives us a window into the minds of the political elite, its understanding of the present, and its agenda for the future. It also influences Western perceptions of Russia, often inducing Westerners to repeat Russian clichés in the belief that they either reflect the genuine feelings of the Russian public or represent an accurate picture of Russian realities. More often than not, however, they’re merely a reflection of the interests,...

Russian politicians trot out all of the above grievances at almost every opportunity, even when Moscow believes that collaboration with the West is in its best interest. So it makes sense to see how justified these accusations and grievances really are—especially in light of the fact that some of my Western colleagues have seen fit to repeat them to their own audiences.

I don’t wish to idealize Western elites or their attitudes toward Russia. They themselves admit that some of their leaders treated Russia arrogantly, reinforcing the country’s neuroses. Any serious observer of international relations must acknowledge that, at...

The Kremlin thrives on reminding the West about Russia’s humiliation, a song that plays too sweetly for some Western listeners. Sincere and honest Westerners who have sympathy for Russia hear that song and begin to feel guilty. Then they call on their governments to treat Russia with greater understanding, with gentleness and tolerance. In practice, these admonitions usually lead to one thing: a policy of leniency toward the Russian regime.

Russian politicians, joined in chorus by the experts, readily bring up the West’s slights or threats, but they tend to fall strangely silent about the real threats facing Russia: the...

The entire world has “issues” with Americans, and one’s particular issues with America tend to be the most popular topics for discussion of foreign policy. In many of these discussions, America becomes either a model for other countries or an excuse for their failure to solve their own problems. America’s hegemonic impulse is the persistent object of criticism for all of its allies, even the closest ones. More enlightened and influential Americans partake in such criticism, too. The late Samuel Huntington long ago spoke disparagingly of America as the “world sheriff.” He also spoke of America’s increasing isolation as it...

The question “Who is to blame?” is perhaps the most important for Russian political culture. Answering it tends to consume so much time and energy in every venue that there’s nothing left over for answering the more important follow-up question, “What is to be done?” Putting the accent on blame is a national sport that perhaps explains Russia’s place on the civilizational plane.

As soon as the global financial crisis demonstrated that the Russian economic miracle was yet another myth, Russian experts started looking for someone to blame for derailing modernization. In accordance with the rules of the national sport,...

Life is hard for a Russian expert, hard for all of them: the ones who stubbornly criticize the authorities and the ones who must genuflect to official propaganda while trying to retain a semblance of professionalism and dignity. The persistent ones were marginalized long ago, and the latter are forced to do battle against logic. Thus, victory is not always on their side.

One of the smartest Russian experts, Fyodor Lukyanov, has called on Russia to “increase strength” (apparently, militarily) and at the same time worry about how to avoid “unnecessary confrontation” with the United States.¹ Many Russian observers think...

The story of how NATO expansion and the Kosovo crisis affected relations between Russia and the West is the most popular international tale told in Russia. The story itself has become so grubby from overuse that it should have been run through the wash, or perhaps dumped in the recycling bin, long ago. But, the Russian elite continues to repeat its familiar cadences because the fight against NATO is the most effective way of supporting the militaristic syndrome in Russian society, not to mention the best way to heap guilt on the Western political class. Kosovo, too, turned out to...

For the time being, the Russian elite continues to characterize NATO as its main foe. It does so despite the fact that even the Russian military has openly admitted that the alliance presents no real threat to Russia. As retired Major General Vladimir Dvorkin wrote,

Russia in any case—with parity or not in the potential of nuclear restraint with the United States, with any architecture of American ABM and NATO and all potential of conventional high-accuracy weapons—will retain a potential of response that will keep every madman from considering not only a military confrontation with us but even...

Now let’s talk about the other Western “threats” cited by the Kremlin and elite groups close to it. They were most irritated by the George W. Bush administration’s efforts to deploy an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system. What do independent Russian experts have to say about the reality of the anti-ballistic missile threat? I will turn once more to General Vladimir Dvorkin, who explained, “The people who write or speak about the threat of the ABM for Russia’s nuclear forces have no idea about this program. Otherwise they would know about the extremely high effectiveness of Russian systems for overcoming all...

The West couldn’t prevent the Kosovo crisis, and it also failed to offer a less painful ending for it. It is an undeniable fact that the NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999 inflicted a great deal of collateral damage on pro-Western feelings in Russian society. However, the Russian elite cannot pretend that its position on that issue was unimpeachable. Russia would rather forget that Moscow’s support of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime intensified the Kosovo drama, thus weighing them down with some of the responsibility for both the crisis and the mode of its resolution. Of course, very few people in Russia...

The watershed year in the deterioration of relations with Russia, and the year that revealed to all the true reasons for that deterioration, was 2004, the year of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. The mass demonstrations on the Maidan in Kiev shocked the Russian elite into realizing that the same thing could happen to them, especially since they had always thought of Ukraine as a Russian province. Ukraine was therefore the first falling domino that began to set off other long-dormant sources of tension between Russia and the West. The Kremlin’s displeasure with the West during the Orange Revolution seemed...

What does the Russian elite believe it would need to do to create stable relations between Russia and the West? The Russian elite, as Dmitri Trenin has pointed out, expects the West to agree to deal “with Russia on Russia’s terms, reaching for an acceptable balance of reciprocity, and not on the basis of normative principles such as democratic reform.” The Russian elite and its experts assume that “[i]deology is not a good guide in a valueless yet vibrant Russian environment.” In other words, the Russian elite expects the West to build its policy toward Russia on the basis of...

The art of the deal is another national game that the Russian elite enjoys playing. Often, process is more important than results. As it heaps blame on the West for cooling relations, the Russian elite loves to ask, “Where are the deliverables?” Moscow expects a reciprocal gesture from the West for every step it considers a concession or a retreat, even if that step is good for Russia itself. The West, and America most of all, must pay Moscow to shut its bases in Cuba and Vietnam, to allow American bases in Central Asia, to engage in dialogue with NATO,...

The majority of Russian experts view the normalization of relations with America as the basis for constructive relations with the West. This America-centrism reflects the superpower ambitions of the Russian elite, which continues to see the world through the prism of its own relations with America. I must admit that there is a certain logic to this view, for in recent years relations with the United States have suffered most, and America also remains the leader of the Western world.

How did the Russian elite bring relations with America out of crisis mode? By returning to the Russian-American dialogue on...

Does this mean, then, that the contradictions between Russia and the West are exclusively normative in character and foreign policy issues are no longer significant? Of course not. There may be many foreign policy differences between Russia and the West that are not directly tied to standards and values—the differences one might expect to find, for example, between a supplier and a consumer of raw materials. Russia and individual Western states can have varying views on security questions in the world, Europe, and Eurasia, and different approaches to regional conflicts. Even a liberal Russia, should it develop, will be...

I have argued thus far that the Russian political class has finely tuned its antennae to detect even an unintended Western slight or simply a clumsy move. So is the West justified in refusing to take this hypersensitivity into account when it acts? I have mixed feelings about this question.

On the one hand, Western leaders seem to bend over backwards not to annoy the Kremlin, and especially Putin, whom they quite correctly view as the real Russian leader and whose recklessness they clearly fear. This tendency pertains primarily to European leaders, whose obsequiousness Moscow interprets as weakness and an...

Perceptions of Russia and its development path, in both Russia and the West, are complicated by our desire to simplify. Inevitably, we craft stereotypes to get a firm grip on the problem, only to find that those stereotypes have locked us into a warped view of reality. Some of the most popular stereotypes about Russia in Western circles come from short-term thinking, but most have been influenced by Russian political thought. The following four stereotypical lines of thought have strongly influenced Western analysts.

1) “Russia is not ready for democracy.” To be sure, Russia’s political consciousness is still divided on...

Not all Western analysis of Russia is so rife with clichés and stereotypes. Many experts try to think critically about Russia’s trajectory. I will mention just a few by name here. At the outset of Putin’s second term, Alex Pravda saw that the Kremlin’s focus on centralization and Russia’s alienation in the world were interrelated: “The more insulated and inwardlooking Russia becomes, the more likely is it to continue to develop in an authoritarian direction.”¹ Richard Pipes summed up his views on Russia as follows:

Contemporary Russia, the Russia of Putin and Medvedev[,] is a country of amazing contradictions. Its...

The Western-Russian relationship will ultimately be determined by a debate taking place inside the West—the debate about how and to what degree values and interests should influence foreign policy. This debate is of long standing and encompasses a broad spectrum of opinion. Western society’s native inclination toward moderation and deliberation has marginalized more extreme views along this spectrum—those of the neoconservatives and the radical liberal interventionists, who recommend either the imposition of democracy on undemocratic societies or call for the isolation and strict containment of authoritarian regimes. With these extremes having largely been extirpated from responsible debate, the...

Let’s turn now to Europe, and two questions in particular. First, how did united Europe, in spite of its intentions, become collectively “realist” in its relations with Russia? Second, does this realism facilitate Europe’s interests?

United Europe provides a crystal-clear example of what a values-based approach to policy can accomplish. Its postmodern project was built on foundations that rejected the usual policy instruments and traditional understandings of power. It also has the added spur of being geographically closer to Russia than the world’s other great liberal democracies. Furthermore, influencing democratic transformations comes more naturally to Europe than it does to...

Brussels’s conduct has long disappointed Russians working for democratic reform, and the Eurocrats responsible for implementing Europe’s foreign policy have disappointed them most of all. Russian human rights activists openly criticize “Old Europe” and its institutions for, as they put it, their “equivocal” stance on Russia. They frequently note that Russia, too, is a member of the Council of Europe, a body whose principles include “protecting human rights, strengthening parliamentary democracy, and fostering the rule of law.” Russia agreed to these principles when it became a member of the Council of Europe. When one of its member countries fails to...

Up to this point I have largely expressed my doubts and concerns about Western policy toward Russia, but giving a full and honest account demands that I not dwell on these things without also mentioning several hopeful developments. Although “realists” in the West continue to overwhelm the debate with their numbers and influence, they haven’t cleansed the Western intellectual and political scene of their opponents in quite the way that Russia’s “realists” have. There still exist experts who understand the connection between foreign policy and social and political organizations—commonly referred to as “liberal internationalists,” ”democracy advocates,” or sometimes even...

Perhaps they are coming forward already. Several European states are actively trying to find a new balance regarding Russia. The countries of Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, and countries of “new Europe” like Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia are showing that they understand that only the transformation of Russia can guarantee a predictable and constructive partnership between Europe and Russia. Unlike the “old Europeans,” they openly criticize Russian authoritarianism and its bullying of its neighbors. They believe that Russia is not lost for liberal democracy. “If we could transform ourselves,” they say, “then why can’t Russia?” They admit that Russia carries an extremely...

There’s much more to “Europe,” of course, than “old European” politicians ensconced in their capitals. European civil society and nongovernmental organizations are increasingly a force to be reckoned with. It is thanks to pressure from this quarter that Russia was forced to relax the draconian version of its law on nongovernmental organizations.

Ordinary citizens, too, have expressed great concern to their own representatives about both Russia’s internal developments and its foreign policy. Polls taken in 2008 by the German Marshall Center and the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation in Turin showed that 84 percent of surveyed Americans and 72 percent...

In searching for new approaches to Russia, the West has been presented with paradigms advanced by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who have come to be seen as antagonists, at least in terms of their counsel on Russia policy. Kissinger has been warmly embraced by Moscow and has partnered with the Russian powers-that-be in discussing relations with the United States. He has become for the official political community both an icon to be venerated and an authority to be obeyed. Brzezinski, on the other hand, the Kremlin can’t abide. They consider him almost an archenemy, a man whose every utterance...

In the past few years, several American experts simultaneously proposed the creation of an institutional platform for uniting the world’s liberal democracies. Robert Kagan called his version the League of Democratic Countries.¹ Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay’s League of Democracies was a slightly simpler name for what essentially amounts to a similar idea. These suggestions were quickly adopted by Republican politicians in the United States, particularly John McCain. Although enthusiasm for the concept has diminished somewhat today, further setbacks in Russian or Chinese relations might once again bring it back into favor.

While I appreciate the impulse behind creating a...

If we’re to explore new ways for the West to deal with Russia, we need to consider the “Obama factor,” whatever it is and however it has moved the discussion. In the ongoing debate between “realists” and transformationalists, both sides have held out hope that Obama would adopt their case. The “realists” in America and elsewhere expected Obama to cast off all illusions and commit the United States to a pragmatic course toward Russia, unsullied by hectoring about “values.” Their opponents hoped, conversely, that a president elected on the promise of change would take up the Clinton administration’s unrealized dreams...

I have to give the American “realists” their due. They not only managed to formulate their ideas and organize professional discussions, they set to work winning political support for their ideas in both Washington and Moscow. (The “values” camp certainly can’t boast of having taken similar initiative.) Brigades of politicians and experts with proposals to improve relations descended on Moscow for the summit in the spring of 2009. Former senators Gary Hart and Chuck Hagel parachuted in with their own entourage, followed by yet another group of heavyweights, including former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former secretary...

But what about the “scandal” I hinted at earlier? I’m glad you asked. This chapter would not exist if my liberal colleagues and I had not written that July 2009Washington Postpiece in the interest of starting a discussion. Unfortunately, rather than a discussion, we got a sucker punch. Let me give you a few examples of the responses our piece provoked. From Anatol Lieven, senior editor at theNational Interest(a journal published by the Nixon Center):

“Their criticism serves as a mouthpiece for the agendas of the most bitterly anti-Russian and geopolitically aggressive liberal interventionists and neocons...

Considering Obama’s visit to Moscow in July 2009 and the events that followed, there is little need to delve into his intentions. I’ll simply focus on the impression he made on Russians. Sometimes it is important to remember how certain processes began in order to understand how they ended.

TheEconomistwas on target with this simple assessment: “A meeting of pragmatism, not warmth—with potential trouble still ahead.”¹ In the U.S.-Russian negotiations on hard security issues, the sides achieved as much compromise as was possible given the gulf between their views and the previous crisis in relations. By signing...

How did the Russian elite understand the “reset”? You can see something of Moscow’s attitude in its actions regarding the American military base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan. Even as it had begun to work with the Obama administration, the Kremlin still could not resist the petty gesture. Thus former president of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev announced in Moscow the decision to close the base at Manas after Moscow promised some $150 million in aid and a $2 bilion loan. One doesn’t need to be a Latin expert to know that this fits the definition ofquid pro quo. But the Manas affair...

But the question remains why Putin’s blustery attacks even work. To put the question in even broader terms, why are Western governments so intent on a policy of not annoying Moscow? I can tell you what we Russian liberals think the reason is. Now, we may be simplifying the problem. We may be far from the truth. But that should be all the more reason to discuss it.

Western politicians and commentators typically wield two arguments when they attempt to deny their ability to influence Russia’s transformation. Both arguments keep true to the spirit of “realism.”

Here’s the first: “The...

By now I’m sure you’ve noticed that I like to engage in a dialogue with my readers. This is because it is very important to me to know your reaction. Have I found the right arguments? I’m taking a risk with this book by intentionally raising inconvenient arguments and casting doubt on my own position—being my own devil’s advocate. I cite my opponents’ arguments to demonstrate the limits of our present understanding of the problem and our need to re-examine it. I’ve done this because I look around today and see everywhere how the old clichés about Russia have...

It’s been almost twenty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The new generation in Russia doesn’t even remember communism. Yet Russia still has failed to acquire a new national identity that would suit the majority of its people. Nor has it found a new role on the world stage, one that would resolve the conflict between ambitions and resources. In the 1990s under Yeltsin, Russia tried to give up its grand civilizational pretensions and recognize the universality of the principles of liberal democracy. It soon became clear that the Russian elite, alas, was not ready to give up...

As the year 2010 began, Russia continued living in the moment, afraid to peer past its imminent sensations into the far-off future. The fear, even horror, that consumed the elite and the society in early 2009, when Russia stared into the abyss of economic crisis, had abated but not disappeared fully. Society seemed impossibly weary. It continued to support the regime, but the number of Russians who had neither affection nor trust for it was growing.¹ The political class grew increasingly bewildered and annoyed by the ruling team. “I am so sick of them!” was a phrase one heard otherwise...

The time has now come to ask the question, “What next?” What is likely to happen in Russia in the weeks, months, and years after this book goes to press? First of all, in the event that real political competition or an independent judiciary that could guarantee such competition fails to emerge, there is no reason to anticipate substantive changes in the Russian system, even if there is a change in the political regime. Thus there is no reason to hope for a reform of the raw-materials economy or for constructive changes in foreign policy.

Russia’s options in general are...

How will all of the above factors affect Russia’s foreign policy? Keep in mind one incontrovertible fact: As the Russian authorities’ adaptation is possible when it comes to domestic policy, foreign policy becomes the most conservative tool in the Kremlin’s arsenal. Foreign policy also naturally attracts the most traditional, reform-resistant parts of the Russian elite. Consequently, the foreign policy community won’t start thinking new thoughts until the process of the system’s implosion is in a severely advanced state. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian foreign policy, largely due to Mikhail Gorbachev, didn’t block change or provoke an international...