polsic

FRtlM CIILD WAR

Ttl HtlT PEACE

&ffi effiffiffi$ffi&ru &ffiffi&ffiffieffiffiffi

ffiffi ffiffiYffffi,% ffiffiffiffiffie

Michael McFaul

Houghton Mffiin Harcourt

Boston - New York

PR(lL(lGUE

f s Air Force One began its initial descent into Prague on a clear, sunny day in

l{ April 2010, President Obama asked Gary Samore and me to join him in his

office at the front of the plane to run over the final talking points for his meeting

rvith Russian president Dmitry Medvedev later that day. The president was in an

ebullient mood. In the same city ayear earlier, Obama had given what may have

been his most important foreign policy speech to date, calling for a nuclear-free

rvorld. Now, just a year later, he was delivering a major piece of business toward

his Prague Agenda, as we called it. With his Russian partner, he was about to

sign the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), reducing by 30

percent the number of nuclear weapons allowed in the two countries. Samore,

our special assistant to the president for weapons of mass destruction at the Na-

tional Security Council, was our lead at the Whlte House in getting this treaty

done; I was his wingman. So this quick trip to Prague was a day of celebration

for the two of us as well.

On the tarmac, Obama asked Gary and me to ride with him in his limou-

sine - "the Beast" - to the majestic Prague Castle, where the signing ceremony

rrould take place. For a while, we discussed our game plan for pushing Medve-

dev to support sanctions on Iran, but mostly the drive was a victory lap. Obama

rlaved to the crowds on the streets, flashing his broad smile through the tinted

bulletproof glass. We all felt good about getting something concrete done, al-

\1 ays a challenge in government work. We also allowed ourselves that day to

imagine even deeper cooperation between the United States and Russia on is-

vill PRt)L()GUE

sues beyond arms control. Maybe we truly had come to a turning point in the

bumpy road of U.S.-Russia relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a

turn toward genuine strategic cooperation that had eluded previous American

and Russian leaders.

With new young presidents in the White House and in the Kremlin, the Cold

War felt distant. We were signing the first major arms control treaty in decades,

working together to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, joined in efforts

to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and increasing trade and in-

vestment between our two countries. We seemed to have put contentious issues

such as NATO expansion and the Iraq War behind us, and were now digging

deeper into areas of mutual interest. That year, for instance, Russian and Amer-

ican paratroopers were jumping out of airplanes together in Colorado, conduct-

ing joint counterterrorist-training operations, at the same time that American

and Russian entrepreneurs were working together to develop Skolkovo, Russia's

aspirational Silicon Valley. We were even discussing the possibilities of cooper-

ating on missile defense. These were breakthroughs unimaginable just two years

earlier. Medvedev seemed like a pro-Western modernizet albeit a cautious one.

On that celebratory drive through the cobblestone streets of Prague, the Reset

- the bumper sticker for Obamat Russia policy- appeared to be workilfi.- Later that , Medvedev signed the New START treaty,

drank champagne together, and spoke glowingly about possibilities for further

cooperation. At the time, solid majorities in both countries were convinced of

such possibilities. Russia was popular in America, and America was popular

in Russia. I flew home the next day in a great mood, convinced that we were

making history.

Only two years later, on a cold, dark day in ]anuary 2012,I arrived in Moscow

as the new U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation, charged with continuing

the Reset. I had thought about, written about, and worked toward closer rela-

tions with the Soviet Union and then Russia since my high school debating days,

so this new mission should have been a crowning achievement of my career: an

opportunity of a lifetime to further my ideas about American-Russian relations.

It was not. On my first day of work at the embassy, the Russian state-controlled

media accused President Obama of sending me to Russia to foment revolution.

On his evening commentary show, Odnako, broadcast on the most popular tele-

PRt]T(lGUE tx

vision network in Russia, Mikhail Leontiev warned his viewers that I was nei-

ther a Russia expert nor a traditional diplomat, but a professional revolutionary

whose assignment was to finance and organize Russia's political opposition as it plotted to overthrow the Russian government; to finish Russia\ Unfinished Rev-

olution, the title of one of my books written a decade earlier. This portrayal of

my mission to Moscow would haunt me for the rest of my days as ambassador.

A few months later, inMay 2012,I accompanied my former boss at the White

House, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, to his meeting with President-

elect Putin. This was the first meeting between a senior Obama official and

Putin since Putin's reelection in March 20l2.We met at Novo-Ogaryovo, Putin's

country estate, the same place where Obama had enjoyed a cordial, construc-

tive, three-hour breakfast with the then prime minister four years earlier. Putin

listened politely to Tom's arguments for continued cooperation. At some point

in their dialogue, however, he turned away from Tom to stare intensely at me

with his steely blue eyes and stern scowl to accuse me of purposely seeking to

ruin U.S.-Russia relations. Putin seemed genuinely angry with me; I was genu-

inely alarmed. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and sweat covered

my brow as I endured this tongue-lashing from one of the most powerful people

in the world.

In Prague, I had been the author of the Reset, the driver of closer relations

with Russia. In Moscow I was now a revolutionary, a usurper, and Vladimir

Putint personal foe.

What happened? How did we go from toasting the Reset in Prague in 2010 to

Iamenting its end in Moscow just two years later? Nothing fundamental had

changed in our policy toward Russia. Nor had Russia done an1'thing abroad that

might trigger new animosity-that would come later. The one obvious change

between these two meetings was Russia's leadership. Medvedev was president

when we were in Prague to sign New START; Putin was elected president soon

after my arrival in Moscow as U.S. ambassador. Bui that seemed too simple an

explanation. After all, Putin was prime minister during the heyday of the Reset,

and most people thought he was calling the shots during that time.

And then things became even worse. Two years into his third term as Rus-

sian president, in February 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine, annexing Crimea

and supporting separatist militias in the eastern part of the country. Not since

PR()L()GUE 'T ^ -rGh '\r

World War II had a European countryviolated the sovereignty of another coun-

try in this way. Putin's outrageous and shocking actions reaffirmed the end of

the Reset, and with it, three decades of Ainerican and Russian leaders' efforts to

build a more cooperative relationship after the end of the Cold War. The project

of Russian integration into the West - started by Ronald Reagan and sustained

to varying degrees by all post-Cold War presidents - was over.

Sometime between the Obama-Medvedev summit in Prague in 2010 and Pu-

tin's invasion of Ukraine in2014, public opinion in both countries also flipped:

solid majorities in both Russia and the United States now perceived each other

as enemies.

This new era of confrontation did not mark a return to the Cold War, exactly,

but most certainly could be described as a hot peace. Unlike during the Cold

War, the Kremlin today no longer promotes uri1ffitgy r"ith worldwide appeal.

Russian economic and military power is growing, but Russia has not obtained

superpower status like the Soviet Union. And the entire globe is not divided

between red and blue states-the communist bloc yersus the free world-.u,*,^. reinforced by opposing alliance structures. Russia today has very few allies. And "r*)i^

yet, our new era of hot peace has resurrected some features eerily reminiscent of gfi,l| the Cold War, while also adding new dimensions of confrontation. A new ideo- \ro.' Iogical struggle has emerged between Russia and the West, not between com-

munism and capitalism but between democracy and autocracy. Putin also has

championed a new set of populist, nationffit, conservatiffideas antithetical to

4 the liberal, international order anchored by the United States. Putinism now has

admirers in Western democracies, just as communism did during the Cold War.

Europe is divided again between East and West; the line has just moved farther

east. Russia's military, economic, cyber, and informational capabilities to pro-

ject power and ideas have also grown considerably in the last several years. And

sometimes, this hot peace has morphed into hot wars, not directly between the

United States and Russia but between proxies in Ukraine and Syria. And then

there are some acts of Russian aggression that Soviet leaders during the Cold

n War never dared to attempt, including annexing territory in Ukraine and in-

1,66\ i tervening in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Khrushchev and Brezhnev con-

fronted the United States around the world, even at times using military force

as an instrument to fight the Cold War, but never annexed land or audaciously

violated American sovereignty. As Putint Russia has amassed new capabilities

r!

PRt)LtlGUE * xi

and greater intent to challenge the United States and the West more generally,

America's standing as the leader of the free world and anchor of the liberal in-

ternational order has waned. Compared to the Cold War, that's new too. To-

day's hot peace is not as dangerous as the worst moments of the Cold War,

but most certainly is tenser than some of the more cooperative periods of the

Cold War.

What went wrong? Why did the end of the Cold War not produce closer re-

lations between our two countries? Could this new tragic era of confrontation

have been avoided?

And what had I gotten wrong? From my days as a high school debater in

Bozeman, Montana, in 1979 to my years as ambassador to Russia ending in

2Ol4,I had argued that closer relations with Moscow served American national

interests. As a college student, I d been so eager to deepen engagement with the

Russians - or the Soviets, back then - that I enrolled in first-year Russian in

the fall quarter of my freshman year at Stanford University and then traveled to

what Ronald Reagan called "the evil empirel' against the wishes of my mother,

on my first trip abroad, to study in Leningrad in the summer of 1983. When the

Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, I again packed my bags and moved to Russia to

help support market and democratic reforms there, believing that those changes

would help bring our two countries closer together. Beginning on lanuary 21,

2009,Lworked for President Obama at the National Security Council, and in

20L2,I became his ambassador, animated by the belief that a more cooperative

relationship served American national interests. I have spent the greater part of

my life trying to deepen relations between Russia and the United States, But in

2014 all these efforts seemed for naught. Heightening my sense of frustration, I

was banned by Putin from traveling to Russia - the first U.S. ambassador since

George Kennan, inL952, to be barred entry to the country. What had I person-

ally done wrong? Had I pursued the wrong strategies? Or had I embraced the

wrong goals in the first place?

This book seeks to answer these big, hard questions about Russian-Ameri-

can relations over the last thirty years, from my perspective as both analyst and

participant. The story begins with the first reset in U.S.-Soviet relations, in the

Reagan-Gorbachev era, and ends with the last, failed attempt initiated by Pres-

ident Obama. It's a complex story, shaped by Cold War legacies, punctuated by

economic depression and civil wars, and interrupted by popular uprisings and

Xii PR(}T(}GUE

foreign interventions. I will address all ofthese factors as potential causes ofco- operation and confrontation. However, in my account, individuals - their ideas

and their decisions-drive the narrative of U.S.-Russiffifaffi over the last

three decades. Real people made decisions that sometimes produced coopera-

tion and other times led to confrontation. Relations between the United States

and Russia were not determined bythe balance of power between our two coun-

tries, or by innate forces such as economic development, culture, history, or ge-

ography. Where others see destiny, determinism, and inevitabiliry I see choices,

contingency, and opportunities, realized and missed.l In this book, I evaluate

both American and Russian leaders - their ideas, decisions, and behavior - by

how well they succeeded in achieving what in my view were desirable and at-

tainable objectives. I try to evaluate my own work through the same critical lens.

U.S. leaders have certainly pursued policies that by turns nurtured and under-

mined cooperation with Russia. I will discuss how and why. I personally made

some mistakes in both analysis and actions. Those are not glossed over here.

But in my account, d..rcio"r u"d u.tior s - shaped in large

part by their domestic politics - d iu" ref{gs, sometimes in a positive direction, other times in a negative direction.

This book is one participant's recollections, not a dispassionate history of

U.S.-Russian relations over the last thirty years. As I have learned from writ-

ing other scholarly books, memories are imperfect sources for the writing of

history. It is too soon to draft the definitive account ofthese events, especially

those that occurred in the Obama era, because almost none of the important

documents - including ones that I wrote - have been declassified. Few of the

central decision makers, in Russia or the United States, have been interviewed.

Only a handful of the central policymakers in the United States have written

memoirs. The memoir literature from Russian decision makers is even thin- ner. On some big policy issues during the Obama era, such as Iran and Syria, I also recogni ze that I participated in only a portion of the policymaking - that

which had to do with Russia. Others in our government will have to write their

accounts to complete the picture. And as this book goes to press, the role of

Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is a story still unfolding. This book

is an early, interpretative take - my take - on this era in U.S.-Russia relations.2 I

PR0t0GUE . xiii

hope it will stimulate and inform other scholars in the writing of more definitive

studies in the future.

By design, this book is a mix of abstract analysis, historical narrative, and

personal anecdote. I hope that President Obama, my fellow policy wonks in

government, my colleagues at Stanford, and my mother in Montana will all read

it. That's a tall order. My mom will tire when reading about telemetry, and my

academic colleagues may not be that intrigued by the two-step. Therefore, I

give all readers license to skip those passages not of interest to them, which I

trust can be done without losing the arc of the story. Scholars will quickly iden-

tifi, the social science theories that shaped both the analysis in this book and

my thinking about policy while in government. But I deliberately hid, rather

than highlighted, the academic scaffolding and academic references to allow for

better storytelling. I also wrote this book from the sometimes competing per-

spectives of scholar, policymaker, diplomat, and Montanan. Rather than try to

maintain one voice, I deliberately deployed these multiple standpoints because

I am all of these things, and therefore my understanding of and engagement in

Russian-American relations was shaped by these multiple dimensions. These

tensions in the book accurately reflect those tensions in my life.

x4

THE END (lF RESETS (FtlR NOW)

f, t the Munich Security Conference in February 2016, Russian prime minis- ll ter Dmitry Medvedev made a frightening pronouncement. "We are rapidly ',ling into a period of a new cold warl' he stated. "I am sometimes confused:

, ihis 2016 or 1962?"l Medvedev deliberately invoked 1962 because that is when

.-.e Soviet Union and the United States came closest to blowing up the world . a nuclear war. As I listened to his speech, I decided that he was exaggerating

- relations between Russia and the United States were not as bad as 1962 - but :e most certainly had to dig deep back into the Cold War to find an analogous

j :a of confrontation. If it was not a return to the Cold War, it was most certainly

- rew hot peace. U.S.-Russia relations in2016 were not that much different from

-'S.-Soviet relations inl979,when I first started to think about our bilateral ties.

Later that day, in the crowded hallways of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, I ::pped out of the way to let Medvedev and his trailing entourage pass. Catching

::\-eye, he stopped to say hello and catch up. He asked me about life at Stanford,

: :1ace hed visited in 2010, during the glory days of the U.S.-Russia Reset. He ,. as very friendly, no hostile echoes of the Cuban missile crisis. My guess is that :: looks back on the early years of the Reset fondly. Those were my best days in -i-)vernment, and likely his as well.

A senior U.S. government official was standing next to me as Medvedev

:opped to chat. After the Russian prime minister went on his way, my colleague ,.ked me, "Who was that?"

410 FR()M C(ltD WAR T() H(lT PEACE

My Munich encounters with Medvedev- his foreboding speech, his r' . -

chat with me, and his new anonymity-made me wonder what had happ.

to the Reset. Only six years earlier, Obama and Medvedev stood together o: '

world stage, working together to get some big things done, and flow rr€ : :

back to a full-throttle confrontation. Six short years ago, most American. - -

a favorable view of Russia, and most Russians had a positive view of the L :, ,

States. Those numbers had now reversed. Six years ago, Medvedev was ar. - portant partner to President Obama; now he had all but faded to obscurir.

of these changes had happened so fast, within the span of my service in the '-

government.

But it was not only Obama's Reset that was over. Medvedev's allusions : -

Kennedy-Khrushchev standoff underscored that the positive shift in rela:.

initiated by Reagan and Gorbachev was also a thing of the past. Not just c..-

Obama's time at the White House, but for thirty years, American pres:-:'

- Democrats and Republicans alike - had pursued a policy of supportin= :

litical and economic reform inside Russia as well as integrating Russia in:

West. In 2016, that strategy seemed to have failed completely. Those go.:'

internal democracy and external integration now seemed too naive and u::, "

istic to warrant ever pursuing again. Why? What went wrong?

And what did I do wrong? Since an interest in the Soviet Union hac -

been kindled in me as a high school student inl979,I had believed that s:.. engagement with Russians could bring our two countries closer togeti:.:

the 1990s I not only believed, but also actively participated, in helping Ru..

develop democratic institutions and closer relations with the West. I join.: Obama administration in large part to take another run at these grand r : ,

tives. Without question, I had failed to achieve them. Was I at fault for pu:' - '

the wrong strategies for obtaining these outcomes? Or was I wrong for bel:.

in these goals in the first place?

The debate about the failure of the Reset leads in three possible dire;:

the structure of international relations between great powers, our foreign :'

cies, and Russian domestic politics.2 Each explanation has merit. But the:-

- the impact of Russian domestic politics in shaping Russian foreign : toward us - explains the most. Russia's failure to consolidate democrao' - -

tegrate into the West is first and foremost a story about RussiaflS, rlot u: i

THE END (lF RESETS (F(lR N(}W) 41I

it's not solely a story about decisions and politics inside Russia. The other two

factors - balance-of-power politics and American actions - also played a role.

For thousands ofyears, great powers have risen and great powers have fallen.

As they do so, they sometimes brush up against each other, often resulting in

rvar, and in Europe in the twentieth century, in global war.3 As nations rise and

i'all, borders between states also change. In Europe over the last thousand years,

changes in the balance of power between the great powers have altered borders

continuously.

For scholars and politicians focused on the rise and fall of great powers, the

dynamics that we are witnessing today between Russia and the United States,

and Russia and the West more generally, are just normal balance-of-power pol-

itics between great powers. From this line of analysis, Reagan liked Gorbachev

and Clinton liked Yeltsin not because these leaders shared American values or

interests, but because these Russian leaders were weak. They did what we told

them to do, because they had no other choice. They had no power to resist our

hegemony: our expansion of NATO, bombing of Serbia, or invasion of Iraq.

-\s Russia recovered from economic depression and the state collapse of the

1990s, the Kremlin acquired the means to push back. The rise of Russian power

produced "natural" corrections to the temporary imbalances created by the So-

riet Union's implosion. Russia's annexation of Crimea reflects this new distribu-

tion of power. From this anall'tic perspective, Ieaders and their policies within

states do not matter. Nor do interest groups or the kind of institutional arrange-

ments within states. As one of the world's most important realist theorists, John

llearsheimer, has written, "Washington may not like Moscow's position, but

it should understand the logic behind it. This is Geopolitics 1011'a Similarly, as

Stephen Kinzer has argued, Russian "actions in Ukraine do not constitute a rad-

ical departure from international norms. In fact they are quite the opposite: the

re-enacting of a historical pattern that is as old as empiresi"

The distribution of power in the international system - specifically the rise

in Russian power over the last two decades - certainly helps explain in part

.urrent tensions in U.S.-Russian relations. If Russia did not have the capacity

:o impact American interests, or those of our allies, conflict would be negligi-

:1e.6 Russian military power deployed against Ukraine punctuated the end of

x

\^^- (a,ll, L\^ cavr[,Y \ tr"

e,/* 412 ' FRoM ctttu wAR Tlt HllT PEAcE

Obama's Reset and the Western strategy of Russian integration started thir: years ago, Without that power- that military capability- this crisis would r:,:'

have happened. No one is worried about Moldova invading neighbors or G.:-

rupting the international balance of power, because Moldova does not have i:'.

power to do so. Power matters. Russia also has tremendous capabilities regari

ing cyber hacking and theft, international media outreach, and social media r.'

sources. The Kremlin had the means to influence the U.S. presidential electic:

most countries in the world do not have such capabilities'

But was conflict inevitable, just because Russia had become more poweri--

My answer is no.

First, other great powers have risen in the international system and not p: " '

duced conflict with the United States. After the end of World War II, )ap:*-

reemerged as a great power without open hostilities with America. The sa:: ' can be said for Germany's rise again after World War II to become the n:i,"

powerful country in Europe. Spain, Italy, and South Korea also have beco=-'

more powerful in the last several decades, but do not threaten us. Poland :' I

much more powerful country today than thirty years ago, yet few worry abr -' Warsaw ordering troops into neighboring countries.

Second, the most recent downward spiral in relations between the Unl:l:

States and Russia occurred rapidly, within the span of just a few years, well a::: '

Russia had reemerged as a great power. In Prague in 2010, we were clinL'" champagne glasses with Medvedev, celebrating our close ties, and imagin::'i

even deeper cooperation. Only two years later, Putin was calling Obama ":: the United States Russia's greatest enemy. Incremental changes in Russias r:- tary or economic power did not precipitate that radical and rapid change in : - -

relations in just a few years. Other factors - more proximate factors - har'; :

be added to the equation.

A second kind of explanation focuses on the specific foreign policies of s'i:::'

and specifically American foreign policy- and not just the balance of po-'- :''

between states - to explain our new era of confrontation.T Regarding Russ:.:

American relations, this kind of argument comes in two opposite v31's1isi 'rr :

did too much and we did too little.

The most prevalent of these two theories blames the United States for p:i'r

ing too hard on Russia for too long and too close to Russia's core nationa- -

THE ENB (lF RESETS (F()R N(lW) " 413

terests. This line of argument maintains that American presidents and their rbreign policy advisors took advantage of Russian weakness to press for regime

;hange inside Russia and ignore Russian national interests internationally, forc-

ing Moscow to push back.8 This explanation casts the United States as both an

imperial and an ideological power, pushing its normative agenda of democracy

and capitalism. Many Russians, including eventually Vladimir Putin, blamed

ihe United States for the economic chaos and international marginalization

rhat ensued in Russia during these years. The United States forced Russians to

endure the hardships of shock therapy and, according to this line of thinking, exported democracy to a Russian society that did not want it. What the United States really wanted was not a vibrant economy or functioning democracy, but a

',yeak Russia, so this critique contends. With Russia weak, the United States and

rts allies could expand NATO, attack Serbia, build missile defenses, invade Iraq,

and foment revolution against regimes in countries of vital interest to Moscow

rncluding Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

Again, like the balance-of-power theory, some dimensions of this explana-

:ion ring true. The 1990s were a tough decade for Russians. The economy con-

:racted for several years and then collapsed in August 1998.e Democracy did not :ake root and did not deliver on what mattered most to Russian citizens. On the

:nternational stage, Russia was weak in the 1990s and had few means to counter

-\merican actions. Moreover, in the margins, some U.S. actions influenced the

:ourse of Russian internal reforms in the 1990s.

But the phrase "in the margins" is the key one. No American policies or ac-

:ions - be it NDI seminars about party building, technical assistance for privat- :zation, Clinton's support for Yeltsin in 1996, or USAID grants to Russian NGOs

,n the Obama era - determined the outcome of Russian internal reforms. Rus-

.ians themselves did that. Those who blame the United States grossly overstate

.\merican influence. It is the most imperial of claims to argue that we dictated

-he kind and pace of reform inside Russia in the 1990s or at any other time.

3oth at the time and today, I too wish we had done more. Writing as early as the

:ummer of 1990, I believed that a successful transition to democracy and mar- <ets in Russia would make closer, cooperative relations with the United States

rore likely, while economic and social troubles could fuel law-and-order ap-

:eals from nationalist demagogues.l0 lt's a theme i echoed many times for the

lext two decades. More American focus on strengthening democratic and mar-

f

414 FR(lM C()I.D WAR T() H()T PEACE

ket institutions might have made a difference. Other postcommunist countr:;,

which made the transition to democracy and capitalism more quickly and mc:.

successfully, are now some of America's strongest allies in Europe. To argue ti-.-

we did too much to promote internal change in Russia, therefore, strikes me :,

ahistorical.

Some U.S. foreign policy decisions in the 1990s and 2000s also triggert:

tensions in U.S.-Russian relations. Both Yeltsin and Putin reacted negatir:

to NATO expansion (although Putin initially entertained the idea of Rus''"

joining the alliance). Likewise, the NATO military campaign against Seri ' in 1999 and Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 generated new tensions -

Russian-American relations. Putin also berated Bush and his administration : - -

supporting color revolutions in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in2A04, which : ' believed threatened core Russian interests.

Yet, these American foreign policy decisions, both real and perceived, can---

be cited as the source of our current conflict with Russia for one Inajor rear - -

- the successful cooperation between Russia and the United States dur. .

the Reset, from 2009 to 2011. After our alleged meddling in Russian retb:-

in the 1990s, rounds of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, American--' -

interventions in Serbia and Iraq, and these color revolutions, U.S.-Russiar :' iations experienced an extraordinary amount of cooperation during the e --

Obama-Medvedev years. We collaborated on some very big win-win outco:.:''

the New START treaty, new sanctions on Iran, the expansion of the No:---

ern Distribution Network, Russian membership in the WTO, increased tr': '

and investment, a new user-friendly visa regime, no conflicts between our :''

countries in the Caucasus or Central Asia, and Russian support for our mij::'-

intervention in Libya. During this Reset era, earlier contentious issues sutl- "

NATO expansion or missile defense faded. As Medvedev said of the Res<: "

March 2012 after his last presidential bilateral meeting with Obama in S." - "We probably enjoyed the best level of relations between the United States :- "

Russia during those three years than ever during the previous decadesl'1r k- :- vate with Obama, Medvedev was even more effusive, the exact opposite c: -

dire tone at the Munich Security Conference four years later. The effect o: --r

era of cooperation between Obama and Medvedev influenced societal attil::: At the height of the Reset, roughly 60 percent of Russians held a favorable ' .. '

of the United States and vice yersa; the same number of Americans had adc ; : ', '

t

THE EilD (lF RESETS (F(}R I{()W) 415

a new favorable attitude toward Russia. All of these cooperative outcomes for American and Russian foreign policies, as well as this new support for closer ties

between our two societies, occurred after NATO expansion, after the wars in Serbia and lraq, and after the color revolutions. These factors, therefore, cannot

be cited to explain the current era of confrontation. Other factors - factors that came later - must be added to the explanation.

Maybe American actions after 20L2 contributed to the end the Reset? Did the

Obama administration pursue new policies in 2012 that precipitated confron- tation with Russia? I have thought hard about this possible explanation, since

I would have been directly responsible. My answer is mostly no. We did take

some actions that strained relations, such as signing into law the Magnitsky Act, failing to reach a deal on missile defense, and criticizing antidemocratic

behavior by the Kremlin. Likewise our actions in Libya produced unintended

consequences that heightened tensions with Moscow. But none of these actions

were fundamental departures from the Reset. They were all manageable hic- cups, bumps in the road of cooperation, had both countries desired to maintain

the Reset's momentum. But in 2012, one side did not.

Another line of reasoning still focused on U.S. foreign policy decisions as the

cause of conflict also blames the United States for the deterioration in U.S.-

Russia relations, but highlights our weakness, not our aggression. According

to this view, the Reset created the permissive conditions for Putin's invasion of Ukraine: Obama showed weakness, and Putin took advantage. As then Speaker

of the House John Boehner asserted, "When you look at this chaos that's going

on, does anybody think that Vladimir Putin would have gone into Crimea had

George W. Bush been president of the United States? No! Even Putin is smart

enough to know that Bush would have punched him in the nose in about l0 seconds."t2 Other commentators even suggested a direct connection between

Obama's backing down on his threat to use force against Assad after he used

chemical weapons, and Putin's decision to annex Crimea.l3 Obama under- mined American credibility by backing away from his own red line. Because of Obama's weakness, Putin thought he could do what he wanted, where and when he wanted.

I have a different view. Correlation is not causation. Our Reset in relations u.ith Russia occurred before Putin invaded Ukraine, but did not give him the

416 FR(IM Ct,Itl WAR T(l H(lT PEACE

green light to do so. Our relations with Russia soured two years before Put:-

annexed Ukraine. And no American president, Reset or not, would have threa:-

ened to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. At the time of Russian annexatic:

of Crimea, our bilateral relations were already in a downward spiral. T-o r* --

reelection in2012 and his domestic needed t:. United States as an He with us. A: .

result, our administration pivoted to a more confrontational policy after Pres:'

dent Putin had rebuffed our attempts to engage with him. $fowngraded

a:: slow-rolled discussions about missile defense, signed into lavf and then imp..'

mented the Magnitsky Act, canceled the Moscow summit in September 20-:

criticized Putin's growing autocratic tendencies, chastised Russia for bloclu:. United Nations resolutions on Syria, and sent American delegations to:-, Sochi Olympics to convey a message about our support for LBGTQ rights r.

response to Russia's "anti-gay propaganda" law None of these policies sen: -

message of acquiescence to Putin about his repression at home or his more be

ligerent foreign policies abroad. tt \

To be sure, our hew confrontational policy toward the Kremlin did not p:. vent Putin from invading Ukraine, but tragically no president-Democra: -

or Republican-has ever succeeded in deterring Russian intervention in ::' neighborhood, either directly or by proxy, for the last seventy years. Contra:-

to Speaker Boehner's jibe, President Bush did not punch Putin in the nose ai. -

Russia invaded Georgia in August 2008, even though they were sitting in :. ,

stands together just rows apart at the Olympics in Beijing at the time. In ta;

Bush did much less in response to Putint invasion of Georgia than Obama J,, in response to Putin's intervention in Ukraine in2014. The Bush administrat:i .

did deploy the USS McFaul (named in honor of a Nary SEAL of no reiatr. -

to me) off the coast of Georgia and sent massive humanitarian and econor -

assistance to our partners in Tbilisi. But President Bush and his team did i-- -

sanction any Russian officials or companies, did not push for Russia to be e."

pelled from the G-8, did not lobby for new American or NATO troop deplc,

ments in allied countries most threatened by Russia, and decided not to pror':: '

sophisticated lethal weapons to the Georgian military. After deciding to inla:: Iraq in 2003, President Bush cannot be accused of being afraid to use milita: force. But his hawkish reputation did not influence the Kremlin's decision :

invade Georgia in 2008.

THE END ()F RESETS (F(lR N(lW) - 417

Likewise, few would consider President Ronald Reagan as being conciliatory

or weak toward Moscow. But when Polish general ]aruzelski colluded with the

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to impose martial law in 1981, Reagan had no

power to prevent this brutal use of force. And this tragic list goes on: President

Carter failed to deter Brezhnev from invading Afghanistan in 1979, President

|ohnson could not impede Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and

President Eisenhower did not stop Soviet tanks from rolling into Hungary in

1956, even though he embraced a policy of "rollback'of communism. Whether

Democrat or Republican, "strong" or "weakl' American presidents tragically

have been consistent in their inability to deter Russian intervention in that part

of the world.

There was one possible policy not pursued by us that might have deterred

Russia's invasion of Ukraine: NATO membership for Ukraine. Had Ukraine

been a NATO member in 2014,I doubt that Putin would have tried to annex

Crimea or support separatist movements in eastern Ukraine. This outcome,

however, had no chance of being realized while I was in the government. At the

NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, most of our NATO allies made clear their

lack of support for Ukrainian membership. Even the discussion between NATO

leaders at this summit about offering Ukraine (and Georgia) a Membership Ac-

tion Plan sparked what Secretary of State Rice described as 'bne of the most

pointed and contentious debates with our allies that I d ever experienced."la

Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko pushed for MAB but most Ukraini-

ans did not support the idea.15 After Putin's ally Viktor Yanukolych was elected

Ukrainian president in 2010, even the most vehement ProPonents of Ukrainian

membership in NATO understood that the issue was dead.

American foreign policy, whether considered too strong or too weak, was not

the principal cause of changes in Russian foreign policy a{ter 2012.Instead, the

main drivers of these changes were domestic factors, specifically Putint reac-

tions to new domestic challengers. We had little or no influence over these Rus-

sian domestic developments.16

During his first two terms as president, Putin maintained high public approval

ratings, in large measure because of Russia's impressive economic growth during

these eight years. By 2011, however, when he launched his electoral campaign to

rvin a third term as president, his popularity had falle1.l' Putin expected his re-

bo'011. . '

418 FR(}M COtD WAR T(I H(}T PEACE

turn to the Kremlin would be welcome news. But for many Russians, includin. some serving in the Medvedev administration at the time, the initial reactio:.

to his third run at the presidency was indifference. The depth of dissatisfactio:.

among Russia's elite produced massive demonstrations on the streets of Mos'

cow St. Petersburg, and other large cities in response to compelling evidenc.

of falsification in the December 2011 parliamentary election. These protester.

initially focused on electoral irregularities but eventually pivoted to a grande:

indictment of the Russian political system and Putin personally.18 The last tin:t

so many Russians had taken to the streets was 1991, the year the Soviet Unio:.

disintegrated. Fueling anxiety in Russian government circles was the success r -

mobilized crowds in bringing down dictators in the Arab world. The slowdorr-:

in economic growth was also adding to Putin's woes at the time.

The global economic meltdown in 2008 hit Russia hard as demand for i:.

primary export - oil - fell precipitously, and global energy prices collapsed. 1:

2009 the Russian economy contracted by 8 percent, and grew at around 4 pe:-

cent in the three years before Putin's 2012 presidential campaign.le That woui:

be a great growth rate for the American economy, but it was far from the huE:

Russian increases of pre-recession years. Putin had struck an implicit bargai:

with his citizens before: rising wages and economic development in return tc

political passivity. That deal did not seem as attractive in 2011 compared to ti:. previous decade. The growing middle class in Russia's largest cities also rr'a.

making demands beyond bread and butter issues. They wanted accountab.=

government - democracy.

As discussed earlier, Putin bitterly resented these activists. In his mind, l:.

had made them rich, and now they were turning against him. But in a year whe:

crowds in squares were toppling regimes, he also feared them. To be elected :

third time as president of Russia in2012, he needed a new argument. In ti:: face of growing social mobilization and protest, he revived an old Soviet-er.

argument as his new source of legitimacy-defense of the motherland agains:

the evil West, and especially the imperial, conniving, threatening United Statei

Putin, his aides, and his media outlets accused the leaders of Russian demon-

strations of being American agents, traitors from the so-called fiffh 6slumn. u':

were no longer Reset partners, but revolutionary fomenters, usurpers, enemi<.

of the nation.

Putin's assault on the opposition did stop after his election victory. Hlgggt

-? THE END (lF RESETS (F()R Ntlw) 419

ryllj#sIed some demonstrators and held others under house arrest, in-

cluding the leading opposition leader at the time, Alexei Navalny. To add even

more pressure on Navalny to behave, they imprisoned his brother. The Russian

government also increased constraints on nongovernmental organizations and

independent media, forcing some activists and journalists into exile. Eventually,

large protests stopped occurring, in part because of these arrests and in part

because the government introduced substantial fines for participation.

Putin did not have to take these draconian measures against his opponents.

He chose to do so. When faced with similar societal challenges, Gorbachev

chose a different path. Even President Medvedev embarked upon a more coop-

erative strategy for responding to demonstrators in 2011 and 2012.20 Once back

in the Kremlin, Putin interrupted abruptly and decisively Medvedev's concil-

iatory steps, and adopted a more confrontational, repressive approach. In the

short run, it worked.

As part of his strategy for delegitimizing his opponents, Putin and his gov-

ernment described them as American agents - traitors. We were once again

portrayed as the enemy. Putin's pivot against us made sustaining the Reset im-

possible. If we were the enemy, Putin could not appear to be too friendly. But

his anti-American rhetoric was not just for winning votes or disparaging the

opposition. Putin believed that we were out to get him. In his view, we always

sought to overthrow regimes that we didnt like. He believed that we funded

color revolutions in Eastern Europe, supported uprisings in the Middle East,

and now were targeting him. His desire to cooperate with us on most issues,

therefore, waned.

We could not force him to continue with the Reset - to work with us on

Syria, arms control, or Edward Snowden. During these tumultuous two years,

however, we did find common ground on some select issues, including a few

big economic deals like the Rosneft-ExxonMobil joint venture, genuine coun-

terterrorist cooperation while investigating the Boston Marathon bombing per-

petrators, the Syrian chemical weapons deal, and most importantly the P5+1

negotiations with Iran.

Bilateral relations took an even sharper turn for the worse, however, after

President Yanukorych fled Ukraine in February 2014, and Putin in response

invaded Ukraine. |ust as he accused us of supporting Russian revolutionaries

against hirn, Putin blamed the United States again for supporting Ukrainian

/-)/ /(i t(

420 FRtlM C(]LD WAR T(} H()T PEACE

revolutionaries. We tried desperately to mediate a deal between the Ukrainiar:

government and the opposition, but when these talks failed and Yanukoryci:

fled the country, Putin believed that we had double-crossed him. In reaction.

he struck back, first by annexing Crimea and then by intervening in eastern

Ukraine. If the Reset had been interrupted in 2012, it was buried for good ir:

2014. And it was not just our most recent attempt at Reset that was buried, bu:

the decades-long American policy of seeking cooperation with Moscow ani

integrating Russia into the West first started by Ronald Reagan and Mikhai.

Gorbachev in the late 1980s.

To focus on Russian domestic politics and Putin's personal role as the drivers

of new confrontation with the United States does not necessarily exonerate the

Obama administration completely. Maybe we played a role in exacerbating do-

mestic tensions inside Russia? Putin is not the only analyst who has assertec

that we played a direct role in fomenting popular mobilization against his re-

gime. The claim needs to be examined.

Despite Russian government claims to the contrary, the United States playei

no direct role in sparking protests in 2011. Neither Navalny nor Nemtsov were

waiting for Clinton's "signal" before taking action. People did not gather on the

streets that rainy evening of December 5 in response to anlthing we said. The

Obama administration purposely kept its distance from the protests. We be-

lieved that close association with us would only discredit the democratic oppo-

sition movement. As ambassador, I never once attended a political rally in Rus-

sia, and never once met with Navalny. Nor did we fund the political opposition.

This Russian government accusation is bogus propaganda.

But are we guilty of helping to create the conditions for those demonstrations

or the momentum for democratic change in Russia during the three years of the

Reset? That's a harder question. Of course, Russians - nongovernmental actors

from Russian society-drove the drama around democratic change in Russia

in those Reset years. They acted independently. In the margins, though, maybe

our policies played a small role. Putin is mostly wrong, but maybe a little bi:

right, in blaming us for promoting democracy and defending human rights in

Russia.

At the highest levels, Medvedev wanted Obama's respect, and moving in a

democratic direction was part of earning that respect. Medvedev cared deeplr-

THE END ()F RESETS (F(lR N()W) 421

about the Reset. It was one of his greatest achievements. The Russian president

also valued his personal relationship with his American counterpart. Medvedev

rvanted Obama to believe that he, too, was a progressive - a new, young, post-

Cold War leader. Together, he believed, they could change U.S.-Russia relations

rundamentally. Making Russia more democratic was part of the vision. So when

Magnitsky was killed, Medvedev didnt just dig in and defend his government

but initiated reform-partial and incremental, but reform nonetheless. When

Obama pressed Medvedev about the need for greater political openness to spur

postindustrial growth, Medvedev concurred. And when protests erupted in De-

cember 2011, Medvedev engaged opposition leaders and introduced reforms,

such as the reinstatement of gubernatorial elections and an easing of party regis-

tration rules.2r Repression came later, when Putin returned to power. Of course,

Obama's personal relationship with Medvedev was not the main reason Med-

vedev supported political reforms. And Medvedev's efforts regarding democra-

:ization were minimal. He said a lot about freedom, the rule of law, and democ-

racy, but actually did very little to promote these ideas. (Whether he wanted to

Jo more but couldnt, or whether he never intended to do more, is a question

rve often asked among ourselves at the White House. I still dont know the an-

swer.) When he did act, however incrementally, Western reaction - Obama's

:eaction-might have been in the back of his mind, as Medvedev wanted to

re a respected member in good standing in the Western community of states

:nd their clubs, like the G-8. In fact, that's why his conservative critics despised

rim. He cared too much about his image in Washington, and not enough about

ris image in Bryansk. Our common concern for democratic change may have

relped ultimately to weaken Medvedev's reputation with Putin.

We also sought to pull Russia toward the West. That's true. We believed close

:ies between Russia and the West would make both Russia and the West better

-rff. I also personally believed at the time that such policies could - not would

- create a better international environment for internal democratic change.

)uring the first years of the Reset, I believed that coercion or confrontation .*'ith the Kremlin would not facilitate a new era of Russian democratization. For

re, the analogy was Gorbachevt perestroika. During that period, Gorbachev

.elt emboldened to pursue democratic change at home because he faced a more

renign international environment. I hoped that we could do the same with Med- ',.edev. And maybe we did, for a while. Would those massive demonstrations in

422 , FR(IM C()LD WAR T(l H(}T PEACE

20i1 have happened under a more autocratic regime in open confrontation \\'i:--

the United States? Maybe not. Most certainly, our more confrontational era, e:'

pecially after 2014, has not been conducive to democratic change inside Russr:

Philosophically, our administration also supported the ideas and aspira-

tions of Russians seeking a more democratic future. That's also true. Guilfi- a:

charged. We criticized the arrests of peaceful protesters. We lamented Putii..

new laws restricting the activities of nongovernmental organizations. We d.' cried the sentences against Pussy Riot and Navalny, which we believed rve:.

politically motivated. We also provided financial and technical assistance :-

Russian civil society groups dedicated to democratization. In 2011, funding tc:

democracy and election programs in Russia totaled $8.5 million; $9 million --

you add in $500,000 spent bythe National Endowment for Democracy. We or:.,

funded what we believed were nonpartisan groups and nonpartisan activitiei

Putin and his entourage, however, perceived these groups as partisan; if the,

supported free and fair elections, they were anti-Putin.

And yet, even while acknowledging all of these American preferences, p.'

icies, and activities, lett be humble and clear-we were marginal players:-

Russia's internal political dramas. Russians - in and out of government, seekir.

change, and in combat with those seeking change - made their own histor'

Despite the Kremlin's propaganda claims, the Obama administration, includi:-:

me, mostly just watched from the sidelines.

And they did make their history, and were not simply the reflections ,,:

structural forces. Different leaders making different choices could have rai-' cally altered the course of political change inside Russia, which would in tu:.

have altered the fate of U.S.-Russia relations. That was true during times of p.

litical change in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which brought our two countr:='

closer. It was true again during times of attempted political change and reactlt.

to political change in201l-12, which ultimately pushed our two countries apa:-,

Ever since my junior year in high school, debating ways to increase trade rr-:: -

the Soviet Union, I had believed in the possibility of closer cooperation betrve:-

our two countries. During my activist days of working for a democracy-pror .

tion organization at the end of the Soviet Union, I believed in the possibilir'' "

Russian democracy and did what i could to advance its development. As :.-,

author of the Reset while working at the White House in the Obama admin,.

THE END ()F RESETS (F()R N()W) 423

tration, I believed that it was in the American national interest to have Russia

more closely integrated into the West, and therefore recommended and helped

execute polices to achieve that objective. I repeat the verb "believe" deliberately

here, because I was a true believer - not just an analyst - in the possibility of

closer ties between our two nations based on mutual interests and shared values.

Three decades later, most of these efforts have failed. Russia is not a democracy

today and Russia is not integrated into the West as deeply as many of us, both

in Russia and the United States, had hoped. Putin is not interested in pursuing

either democracy or Western integration today. Those projects are over for now

I helped with some achievements along the way, which may have planted

the seeds for success someday in the future. But of course I have enough hu-

mility and analytic perspective to understand that all of my efforts played only

a marginal role in the larger sweep of this dramatic history, for good or for ill.

I did not orchestrate the anticommunist revolution in the late 1980s and early

1990s by translating electoral laws or organizing seminars on budget reform

rvhile working at an American nongovernmental organization in Russia. And I

did not precipitate confrontation between our two countries by tweeting about

Navalny while serving as the U.S. ambassador to Russia. But as I conclude this

book, my life's work of trying to bring our two countries closer, of trying to inte-

grate a democratic Russia as a responsible and important stakeholder in the in-

ternational community of states, seems like a failure. To punctuate the tragedy,

I am now persona non grata in a country I love - a place where I have lived for

years and which I studied for decades. Not since Ambassador George Kennan in

1950 has a U.S. ambassador to Russia been banned from travel to Russia.

I take solace in continuing to believe that the course ofthese events over the

last thirty years was not all predetermined by Russian history and culture, or by

the balance of power in the international system. There were moments when

actors and their unique decisions mattered. There was an alternative outcome

available, and so it was worthwhile to try to engage in the process of change and

push history in another direction. Democracy in Russia was possible; strategic

partnership between the United States and Russia was possible too.

Individuals matter. Gorbachev started the reform process inside the Soviet

Union that produced democratizing changes inside Russia and closer relations

rvith the United States. Reagan enabled those processes. Another president in

the White House at the time might not have been so ready to partner with Com-

424 FR()M C(ILD WAR T(l H(lT PEACE

munist Party General Secretary Gorbachev. Yeltsin continued these trajector-: ' in partnership with Presidents Bush and Clinton. Conversely, Putin, especii in his third term, undermined democracy inside Russia and pursued fore:;:

policies that generated renewed confrontation with the United States. In doi:-.

so, Putin was reacting to another set of individuals-protesters first in Rus'-"

and then in Ukraine. Had Russians not taken to the streets against Putin -:

2}ll-12, U.S.-Russia relations might not have deteriorated as quickly as ti-:

did. Had Ukrainians not taken to the streets against Yanukorych in 2013-'--

our current hot peace with Russia might have been avoided. But it was PUL:-,

specific responses to these demonstrators and their actions that reverbera:t:

so negatively in our bilateral relations. Putin was not forced to crack dorr-n ;

Russian protesters and reinvent the United States as an enemy. Those wet€ i-- :

choices he made. Putin was not compelled to annex Crimea and intervene -:

Eastern Ukraine in response to events in Kyiv. Again, those actions were : choices. Different leaders in the Kremlin at the time might have made differt:'

choices.

Critics of this explanation - and critics of me as an actor in this dra=..

- contend that this analysis is all too convenient. Glorifying Gorbacher- a.-,:

Yeltsin and demonizing Putin - so they say- gives me cover for my inaccu:":.

analysis of Russia as an academic and my poor decisions as a U.S. foreign poli;

maker. My failure to understand deeper structural factors at play-histori;i cultural, and balance-of-power factors-allowed for my misguided belie: -

the possibility of Russian democracy thirty years ago and in the idea of cic=. -

relations between the United States and Russia during the Reset. Gorbac:.

and Yeltsin were not democrats or Westernizers, so these critics contend. T:..

were weak leaders in office at a time of Soviet and Russian state collapse. \r-.:-

Russian power now stronger and the Russian state restored, Putin is a retur: --

the Russian norm. He is an expression of Russian culture and history, and :: ' desires of the vast majority of the Russian people, who we in the West must --,,r

learn to accept.

I take this critique seriously. After all, writing a quarter of a centurr- a-'.

with the structural features and phases of the French and Bolshevik Revolut:;.

guiding my analysis, I predicted the rise of a reactionary autocrat during ::, Thermidor of the Soviet Revolution.22 I did not know his name would be Pu:-.:

but that's exactly the point. Those structural features of these earlier revoiut:: :

THE ENI) (lF RESETS (Ft]R Nt}W) 425

:hat produced the strongmen Napoleon and Stalin also would create the same

;onditions for a strongman in post-revolutionary Russia, or so I argueci at the

:ime. And that he is so popular today suggests a deep societal demand for this

iind of autocratic leader, and this kind of antagonistic relationship with the

United States and the West.

And yet, without denying the power of these innate forces, I still hold on to

:he possibility of the power of individual action. Marx was right; "Men make

:heir own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it un-

Jer self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given

and transmitted from the past."23 But when the conditions are ripe, individuals

;an change the course of history, for better and for ill. Had a leader other than

Gorbachev come to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, the pace and course

of domestic reforms could have been very different. Imagine, for instance, if a

ieader like Putin had been elected general secretary of the Communist Party of ihe Soviet Union. He would not have flirted with democratization as an instru-

ment to stimulate economic growth. That would have been too dangerous for

someone with his conservative proclivities. Even thirty years later, Putin seems

;omfortable with having a large portion of the economy controlled by the state.

He has lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he claims was not inev-

rtable. He would have fought much harder than Gorbachev to preserve it. With a different leader in the Kremlin in 1985, warming of relations with the United

States also could have been delayed or not happened at all. At the time, history,

;ulture, or geostrategic forces did not compel Gorbachev and Reagan to reset

relations. Two men did.

Yeltsin also played a unique role. His ideological commitment to Soviet dis-

solution, anticommunism, and closer ties to the West shaped Russian history

in the 1990s. A more anti-Western nationalist leader easily could have emerged

lo capture opposition sentiment at the time. One such leader -Zhirinovsky- seemed to be on the rise in the early 1990s. Moreover, had the coup attempt in

.\ugust 1991 succeeded - and it could have succeeded - the course of Russian

reform and U.S.-Russia relations would have been very different in the 1990s.

Likewise, Putin's accidental ascendency to power in Russia played a unique

and consequential role in shaping Russia's political system and relations with the

United States. Had Yeltsin selected Boris Nemtsov as his successor, Russian de-

mocracy might have survived, and relations with the United States and the West

426 FROM Ct)LB WAR T() H{)T PEACE

more generally would have deepened. I knew Boris well. He would never ha. .

cracked down on Russiat oppositiou he would never have annexed Crimea.

But could Boris Nemtsov, or someone like him, have been elected in Russ-.

By the time of his tragic assassination on February 27,20L5, Nemtsov had be. -

reduced by Putin and his regime to a marginal opposition figure, helping to c:.

ate the impression that people like him were out of touch with Russian soci.:

In the 1990s, however, Nemtsov was a charismatic and popular leader, lirsi -:

Nizhny Novgorod and later on the national stage as first deputy prime minis:. -

who Yeltsin hinted at times could be his heir. He was not an extreme libe:.

beyond the normative bounds of Russian voters. And remember, it was Yelt.-

not the Russian people, who selected Putin to be the next president of Rus:.-.

Had Yeltsin selected Nemtsov in 1999, he would have won election in 2000, a- -

Russia's internal and external trajectories would have been very different.

The hardest question is whether Putin represents a return to the norr --

Russian and Soviet history. Or is he an interregnum - the last forceful, succi::

ful, but ultimately fading expression of the Soviet regime-in the trajecti: toward a new, more open, democratic order in Russia and a new, closer relati.- -

ship with the West, of which Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Nemtsovwere the (flar'.:

weak, and only partially successful) founders. Only three decades into Rus...

current revolutionary transformation, it remains too early to judge.

When pressed, I remain optimistic about Russiat long-term trajectorr- r-: our future with Russia. I want to believe that data and intuition inform m\-a:

ysis. I fear sometimes that my Montana optimism coupled with my Dorlrlii- :

commitment to democracy might be clouding my judgment. When push cc:, to shove, however, I am more a social scientist than an ideologue. Data m:::.: Comparative historical analysis illuminates.

I find it hard to believe that Russia will defy the odds of modernization. C'' , -

a half century ago, in one of the seminal articles of political science, my tb:-: , '

colleague at Stanford, Seymour Martin Lipset, showed a positive relation;: -r

between economic development and democracy. "The more well-to-do a - "

tionl'he argued, "the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy.":= !.* sia today is a wealthy nation. Russian society is also very educated, urban::. -

industrialized - other attributes of modernization that foster and sustain d. - ocratic development. In Europe, Asia, and Latin America, countries that r:-'- ernized eventually consolidated democratic political systems, though r-:.,

THE END ()F RESETS (Ft}R ilt)W) " 427

smoothly. Many scholars even predict a similar fate for China. Why should Rus-

sia be any different? Over the long haul, it seerns unlikely that Russia will defy

these world historical trends.2s

Moreover, Putin's political system lacks many attributes that have helped sus-

tain autocracies in other countries. Unlike China, Russia has no strong ruling political party. Russia no longer has a monarchy. Some regimes, both old and

neq have relied on religious authority to justify dictatorship. That option is not

available in modern Russia. Russia's current political regime is highly person-

alized, anchored by one charismatic leader. He cannot rule forever. Few viable

candidates have emerged who could replace Putin and maintain this system.

Anecdotally, I have met too many Russians who believe in democracy, believe

that Russia is a European country, and believe that closer relations between our

two countries will make us all better off. I met some of those people as a student

in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s, people who loved Led Zeppelin just as

much as I did, wanted to pursue their own loves in life, not ones dictated by the

state, and did not see me as an enemy, despite what Soviet television preached

at them every night. I then met hundreds of Russians, and marched with tens of thousands of Russians, in the final year of the Soviet Union, who had embraced

democracy as their ideology of opposition to the Soviet regime. We were ideo-

logical allies, not separated by different histories, geographies, or passport col-

ors. Some of these people then joined the first government in a newly indepen-

dent Russia. They faced enormous challenges. They made mistakes. Some sold

out. But some remained true to those ideals that first united us. They still live

in Russia. These veterans from Russia's first civil society awakening were then

joined by tens of thousands of younger, more affiuent, more educated Russians,

who took to the streets in20ll-12 and again in2017 to advocate for basic demo-

cratic rights. Those who resisted the August 1991 coup were idealists, motivated

by beliefs more than anl.thing else. Those who demonstrated in the Putin era

also embraced democratic ideals, but nowhad pragmatic economic motivations

for demanding a more constrained, accountable goyernment. Those preferences

have not changed. These people are quiet now They are demobilized and de-

moralized. Some have emigrated. But most of them remain in Russia, waiting.

A democratic Russia will not automatically seek or obtain closer relations

with the United States. The United States and Russia are two great powers that

have interests all over the world. Sometimes those interests will clash, no matter

428 FR(}M C(ILD WAR T() H()T PEACE

what system governs inside Russia. But I continue to believe that a more den:-

ocratic Russia is more likely to develop closer ties with the West, and with ti::

United States in particular. All of the democracies in the world today enjoy clos=

relations with the United States; many are our closest allies. Conversely, all c:

America's enemies - both past and present - have been autocracies.26

My prediction is that the next reset in relations between the United Stat;'

and Russia will occur, again as a result of political change inside Russia. Whe--,

such change will come is impossible to predict. But it seems impossible to imas'

ine that it will never happen. Which is the more fanciful prediction - that Pu'

tinism will last another fifty years, or that Russiat current political system rr:-,

experience some change in the next half century? I am still convinced that Ru'-

sia will one day consolidate democracy and that the United States and Russi"

will be allies. I just do not know when that 'bne day" will come.

))\,-., \1,\\^(h r.l -4" ,q,

^^,dA \-I

V q w d- L

N0\ ) .&'c 1

,?\b '\\R^ G {.}\