The Folly of Realism
How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
A chilling analysis of how Western indecision and apathy made possible the return of brutal Russian expansionism with catastrophic consequences – “A must-read for anyone who wants to understand what went wrong and how it can be fixed” (Serhii Plokhy, Harvard University)
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six US presidential administrations of both parties pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that emboldened Russia, playing into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.
In The Folly of Realism, leading national security expert and bestselling author Alexander Vindman argues that America’s mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers’ fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. He proposes a new long-term, values-based approach that insists on the fundamentals of liberal democracy and a rules-based world order.
Enlivened by firsthand accounts and behind-the-scenes interviews with leading Washington and international policymakers and culminating in the shocking brutality of Putin’s invasions of Ukraine, the book exposes the follies of western foreign policymaking, sources of the dangerous return of Russian imperialism, and proscribes how it can be contained.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this searching critique of U.S. foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine, Vindman (Here, Right Matters), an ex–National Security Council staffer who testified against President Trump in the 2019 impeachment proceedings, alleges that "realist" geopolitics have sacrificed America's values. He argues that for decades the U.S. has consistently prioritized relations with Russia while neglecting Ukraine—failing to help reform Ukraine's politics or develop its economy, and tacitly accepting Russian attacks against it by withholding military aid. All of this was justified, he contends, by a philosophy of "realism"—promoted by international relations theorists including Henry Kissinger and John Mearsheimer—that holds that America should pursue a policy of cold-blooded national interests, one in which stable relations with a great power like Russia take precedence over the moral claims of weaker countries like Ukraine. In practice, Vindman writes, this "limp realpolitik" amounted to a feckless approach of short-term crisis management as Russian aggression steadily escalated. Instead, he argues, America should have adopted a "neo-idealist" policy that fostered and bolstered a democratic Ukraine committed to Western values and able to defend itself. Vindman combines intricate analysis with personal observations—as a military attaché based at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, he nearly got killed while reconnoitering troop movements on the front lines of Russia's 2014 military incursion into eastern Ukraine—to make a spirited riposte to "realists" who argue America has no vital interests in Ukraine. It's a penetrating take on American foreign relations.
