Getting Russia Right

by Thomas Graham

As US-Russian relations scrape the depths of cold-war antagonism, the promise of partnership that beguiled American administrations during the first post-Soviet decades increasingly appears to have been false from the start. Why did American leaders persist in pursuing it? Was there another path that would have produced more constructive relations or better prepared Washington to face the challenge Russia poses today? With a practitioner's eye honed during decades of work on Russian affairs, Thomas Graham deftly traces the evolution of opposing ideas of national purpose that created an inherent tension in relations. Getting Russia Right identifies the blind spots that prevented Washington from seeing Russia as it really is and crafting a policy to advance American interests without provoking an aggressive Russian response. Distilling the Putin factor to reveal the contours of the Russia challenge facing the United States whenever he departs the scene, Graham lays out a compelling way to deal with it so that the United States can continue to advance its interests in a rapidly changing world.

Genres: Russia, Politics, Nonfiction, International Relations, History

272 pages, Hardcover

Published September 25, 2023

Reviews

[Chad Manske · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Getting Russia Right," veteran diplomat Thomas Graham delivers a timely and sobering assessment of U.S.-Russia relations. He argues that Washington's longstanding pursuit of partnership with a post-Soviet Russia was fundamentally misguided, overlooking ingrained historical and cultural differences. Graham identifies America's blind spots, including misinterpreting Russia's motivations and underestimating its commitment to its great power ambitions. The book's greatest strength lies in Graham's insider perspective. He draws on his extensive experience in U.S.-Russia diplomacy, from managing the White House-Kremlin dialogue to navigating Cold War tensions, to offer a nuanced understanding of the dynamics shaping the relationship. He dissects the Putin factor, highlighting how the Russian leader's personality and worldview have shaped the country's trajectory. Graham doesn't shy away from critiquing U.S. policies, pointing out the pitfalls of "democratization evangelism" and the dangers of escalating tensions through military interventions. Instead, he advocates for a pragmatic approach based on mutual respect and acknowledgement of core interests. He outlines a series of concrete steps, including arms control measures, confidence-building initiatives, and strategic dialogues, to navigate the challenges and opportunities in the current landscape. While "Getting Russia Right" might not offer radical solutions, its value lies in its reality check. It compels readers to abandon outdated assumptions and engage with Russia as it is, not as they wish it to be. The book is a valuable resource for policymakers, academics, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of this complex and often volatile relationship.

[Tommie Whitener · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading books about Russian history and politics for more than fifty years and this is the absolute best. Each of its seven chapters is concise, reflects brilliant scholarship, assumes no particular expertise about Russia and is extremely thought-provoking. Their titles are:
1. The Foundations of America's Russia Policy
2. The Clash of World Views
3. The Paradox of Russian Power
4. Russian National Interest and Grand Strategy
5. The Putin Factor
6. Washington's Blind Spots and Missteps
7. What is to be Done
The last chapter's title is a clever use of the phrase often attributed to Lenin (Что делать?). The bottom line: treat Russia like a great power (whether it qualifies or not), strive for constructive great-power competition and prepare for many years of large and small clashes as our two countries with such different essences and long-term zeitgeists struggle to advance what each of the separately sees as its best interests.

[Ted Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of 2024. Definitely a must-read for folks who desire a behind the curtain view on U.S.-Russia relations after the Cold War. Written by Thomas Graham, the senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration, the reader is invited to think through why a post-Cold War relationship by Washington and Moscow never materialized. Much of Graham's book concerns the Clinton administration, the Bush administration, and the Obama administration, focusing on how things went south: actions take by U.S. presidents and by Russian policymakers that helped and hurt the relationship.

While the book speaks to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, the brunt of the text considers the larger relationship and the long-term potential for the world's two nuclear superpowers (possessing 90 percent of the world's stockpile between them). Ultimately, Graham ponders how comfortable Washington will have to be with Russian power and status, while he sees Russia having to eventually inhabit a post-Putin world. He sees geography, geopolitics, and historical memory as being the source of so many clashes. The strength of the book is its analysis and seeking to correct historical blindspots. I loved the comparisons and the contrasts between how the United States and Russia both rose to become great powers: their geographies being totally different and conducive to distinct grand strategies (clearing out a continental landmass of European powers and native Americans vs. maintaining strategic depth to oppose intruders from Western Europe and the steppes).

What was unsatisfying? Graham's conclusion was a bit tough to follow, and I don't see lots of immediate, viable ways forward for Moscow and Washington to maintain even a veneer of a constructive relationship until Putin has died away. The incursions into Georgia, Syria, Latin America, and the African continent might have been awkwardly done away with, but I think the multi-year was in Ukraine with all the associated economic damage, death, trauma, and suffering will requires decades before a new generation of policymakers in both countries will want to move forward.

[Bruce Bean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Getting Russia Right by Thomas Graham

Thomas Graham's Getting Russia Right (2023) offers a practitioner's analysis of three decades of failed U.S.-Russia policy, written by a former senior director for Russia on the National Security Council. Graham's central argument is straightforward but contentious: the United States must treat Russia as a great power, and the "integration model"—the assumption that Russia could join the West as a liberal democracy—failed because it was fundamentally incompatible with the national aspirations and policy imperatives of both countries.

The Integration Model's Failure

Graham traces the integration project through five administrations, beginning with George H.W. Bush's 1992 Camp David meeting with Yeltsin, where the two leaders issued a declaration that their countries "no longer view each other as potential adversaries." Bush's goal was clear: include Russia and other former Soviet states in the Euro-Atlantic community as free-market democracies. The Freedom Support Act backed democratic and economic reform, while START II banned ICBMs with multiple reentry vehicles (MIRVs), signaling deep cooperation on strategic arms control.
Yet Graham notes a puzzling passivity: "Oddly, however, the Bush administration did not put too much effort into building relations with the new Russia" as Bush turned attention to his reelection campaign. This pattern of ambitious rhetoric followed by inadequate implementation would recur.
Clinton elevated the stakes, making "creating a democratic Russia his top foreign policy priority." Believing Yeltsin was the right leader—"and in any case there was no other leader capable of replacing him"—Clinton focused on economic transformation. An April 1993 multilateral assistance package totaled $43 billion, and "the administration subsequently flooded Russia with aid workers, technical advisors, and volunteers to instruct Russians in the ways of free markets and, to a lesser degree, democratic politics."

Graham claims the results were disastrous (others will differ). The ruble collapse of August 1998 derailed economic progress. When Primakov became Prime Minister with communist backing, "he selected a former head of Soviet economic planning from Gosplan to serve as his first deputy in charge of the economy—so much for Clinton's grand ambition to turn Russia into a free-market democracy." Graham's assessment is blunt: "When Clinton left office, Russia was less democratic and relations with Russia worse than when he found them."

The Freedom Agenda and Its Contradictions

George W. Bush initially abandoned large-scale direct intervention, but after 9/11 his "Freedom Agenda"—commitment to spreading democratic values—became "not only the guide for prosecuting the war on terror, but also the core of the administration's entire foreign policy." This created inherent tensions with Russia policy, particularly as Bush simultaneously pursued NATO expansion aggressively.

Graham identifies NATO expansion as particularly corrosive. At the 2008 Bucharest Summit, Bush pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to receive membership action plans. Putin warned explicitly that "if Ukraine were to join NATO, it would do so without Crimea and its eastern provinces"—a prophecy realized six years later. Graham argues Bush was "a fierce believer in NATO" who wanted expansion to be a "big bang," viewing it not just as a defensive alliance but as "a mechanism for reconciling former foes and promoting European integration."

The contradictions multiplied. After 9/11, Bush moved "aggressively to diminish the Russian presence in Eurasia, fostering development of energy resources in the Caspian and pipelines that would circumvent Russia to deliver oil to European markets." Putin interpreted the Orange Revolution in Ukraine as American-orchestrated regime change—"a rehearsal for regime change in Russia and a flagrant attempt to rip Ukraine out of Moscow's orbit."

Obama attempted a "reset," engaging Russia "on matters where interests overlap such as security, arms control, strategic stability, non-proliferation, and counterterrorism while continuing to criticize and push back on such things as Georgia's territorial integrity and human rights." Crucially, Obama "did not repeat Clinton's extensive direct intervention in Russian domestic affairs to push reform along."

Yet Obama publicly favored Medvedev over Putin (never asking why the U.S. should have a position on another sovereign’s domestic elections). When Putin announced in September 2011 he would run for president again, it was "much to Obama's chagrin." Vice President Biden told an opposition leader he opposed Putin seeking a second term, a remark that "immediately leaked to the press." This could not have been a surprise to Biden. The relationship deteriorated steadily: Putin accused the U.S. of organizing Duma protests, then granted asylum to Edward Snowden. Graham's verdict: "Like his predecessor, Obama left office with relations worse than when he started, but he also brought an end to the U.S. post-Cold War effort to integrate Russia into the Euro-Atlantic community."

Why the Persistence?

Graham poses the crucial question: why did three administrations fail, and why did Bush and Obama continue policies despite their predecessors' obvious failures? His answer points to post-Cold War triumphalism. The wave of democratic revolutions in Greece, Portugal, and Spain in the 1970s, followed by transitions in Latin America and Eastern Europe, created "enthusiasm, exuberance, and hubris for the victory of liberal democracy." Bush thought he had "a reasonable chance of convincing Putin to take a democratic path"; for Obama, Medvedev "was a leader in the right mold."

Domestic politics also played a role. "Each administration had to build support for its Russia policy" by framing it in terms of democratic values that resonated with American audiences. This created a gap between private realism and public rhetoric that Russians found duplicitous.
Graham identifies specific policy errors beyond the integration framework itself. U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 ABM treaty was "a severe problem." NATO expansion functioned as "a hedge against backsliding from democracy" in Russia but simultaneously fed Russian threat perceptions. The contradiction was never resolved: how could you integrate Russia while hedging against it?

Russia as Great Power

Graham's core prescription—that the U.S. must treat Russia as a great power—rests on an assessment of Russia's enduring characteristics. "Russia's insistence that it is, and must be respected as, a great power" means it "will reject any interference in its domestic affairs (can this be an surprise or objectionable?); it will always be tough in negotiations, presenting its own unique views on global issues; and it will be tenacious in defending its interests in the former Soviet space, where it views its preeminence as critical to its security and prosperity."

This formulation raises troubling questions Graham doesn't adequately address. Does treating Russia as a great power mean accepting spheres of influence? Does Russian "preeminence" in the former Soviet space justify the 2008 Georgia invasion or the 2014 seizure of Crimea? Graham notes that "the Ukraine war is more Putin's war than Russia's because few leaders would have concluded that this war made sense," yet his framework seems to legitimate precisely the kind of great power politics that led to Ukraine.

Graham's historical analysis includes the assertion that Russia "missed the Renaissance, the Reformation, and Roman law and had superficial engagement with the Enlightenment." This implies Russia is somehow constitutionally incapable of liberal democracy—a claim that ignores the agency of Russian reformers and dissidents while providing intellectual cover for authoritarian consolidation.

Trump and Biden

Perhaps the book needs a current update. The treatment of recent administrations is notably thin. Trump "praised Putin at the Helsinki summit in 2018 and disagreed with the intelligence services" regarding Russian election interference, which Graham earlier described as "flagrant intervention in the 2016 U.S. election." Congress passed the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, "compelling Trump to maintain sanctions against Russia," while "Trump's senior officials had little respect for Russian power."

Biden "came to office determined to provide clarity and consistency, acknowledged Russia was a rival, his goals were minimal"—and there the discussion essentially ends, despite the book's 2023 publication date occurring well into the Ukraine war.

Critical Assessment

Getting Russia Right offers valuable insider perspective on policy formulation and the gap between ambitious goals and implementation. Graham's observation that "policy is always made in a situation of imperfect knowledge" and Kissinger's insight about "an inverse relationship between influence and certainty" frame the genuine dilemmas policymakers face. His critique of the integration model's contradictions—attempting to include Russia while simultaneously hedging against it through NATO expansion—identifies a real strategic incoherence.
Yet the book suffers from significant weaknesses. Graham's prescription to treat Russia as a great power lacks specificity about what this means in practice. Does it require accepting Russian vetoes over neighboring countries' foreign policy choices? If so, this abandons principles of sovereignty and self-determination that form the foundation of the post-World War II international order. Graham never grapples with this tension.

The book also exhibits a troubling "view from nowhere" quality regarding Russian domestic politics. Graham's assertion that "whether [Russia] was democratic or authoritarian was of little intrinsic interest" to U.S. policymakers focused on great power status reveals a profoundly amoral realism. This might work analytically if authoritarianism were incidental to Russian foreign policy, but the book provides no evidence for such a claim. Indeed, Putin's threat perception regarding the Orange Revolution and his broader view of U.S. democracy promotion as regime change suggests domestic political systems and foreign policy are inextricably linked.

Graham's discussion of the Ukraine war as "more Putin's war than Russia's" because "few leaders would have concluded that war made sense" contradicts his earlier argument. If the war reflects Putin's individual pathology rather than Russian great power logic, then the problem isn't that we failed to treat Russia as a great power—it's that we failed to recognize an authoritarian leader's capacity for catastrophic miscalculation. This tension runs throughout the book without resolution.

Conclusion

Getting Russia Right succeeds as a practitioner's critique of post-Cold War integration policy and a catalog of missed opportunities and strategic contradictions. Graham demonstrates convincingly that the assumption Russia would inevitably become a liberal democracy compatible with Western institutions was both historically naive and strategically counterproductive. His emphasis on Kissinger’s "problem of conjecture"—that policymakers must act when knowledge is incomplete—provides useful context for understanding why errors persisted across administrations.
Yet the book fails to articulate a workable alternative framework. "Treating Russia as a great power" sounds reasonable until we asks what that means concretely. If it means accepting spheres of influence, it contradicts stated American commitments to sovereignty and self-determination. If it doesn't mean that, what does it mean? Graham does not tell us.

Graham has always been clear-thinking about Russia. The book is best read as a diagnosis rather than a prescription—a useful account of what went wrong from someone who witnessed it firsthand, but not a reliable guide to what should come next. Graham's insider perspective illuminates decision-making processes and the gap between rhetoric and reality, but his apparent comfort with amoral realism and his reluctance to engage seriously with the Ukraine war limit the book's value for understanding Russia policy's future rather than its past.
For readers seeking to understand how three decades of U.S.-Russia policy produced consistent failure despite changing administrations and approaches, Getting Russia Right offers genuine insights. For those seeking a roadmap forward that reconciles respect for Russian power with commitment to international law and smaller nations' sovereignty, the book provides mainly questions without answers.

[Hunter Marston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Graham, who served on the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration, brings considerable expertise to the fraught relationship between the United States and Russia. The book usefully adds complexity and nuance based on his keen understanding of Russian history, culture, and the views of Russian leaders. While the book provides a masterful account for the reasons behind the deterioration in US-Russia relations, Graham is perhaps overly sympathetic to Russia and asks too much of US policymakers when he insists that Washington treat Moscow as a great power (in spite of Putin's violations of international law and Russia's declining material power).

Graham argues that we could have averted the current crisis (a new Cold War) if we had “taken Russia seriously as a great power.” And he suggests that excessive U.S. hedging, fueled by uncertainty with regard to Moscow's longterm intentions, led to Russia's invasion of Crimea, without sufficient supporting evidence. Graham is on firmer ground when he explains that Washington has viewed Russia as a declining power, a nuisance and a regional power, rather than a peer competitor on par with China. However, U.S. policies like sanctions and isolation have only pushed Russia into closer alignment with China.

For all the utility of his policy recommendations, his criticism of existing US policy is a bit simplistic and rests on a strawman argument: that Washington doesn’t have a Russia strategy aside from containment. It seems clear that containment is the strategy which Washington has settled on, yet Graham discounts this as a strategy per se because it will not encourage Russia to play a more positive global role in the future. Moreover, some of his recommendations are divorced from reality: e.g., “working with Russia to constrain China.” He provides virtually no evidence that Moscow would be willing to play such a role, and recent pledges by Putin and Xi for a partnership without limits signal that there is little hope that Washington can drive a wedge between the two in a repeat of Kissinger/Nixon's success in exploiting Moscow and Beijing in the 1970s.

In the end, the book was only partly successful in convincing this reader that the United States is equally to blame for the current low point in US-Russia relations - and, by extension, Putin's invasion of Ukraine and alignment with China.

[Dmitry]

Короткой обзор международной политики Российской Федерации, включая исторический период. У меня возникло ощущение, что автор своими словами пересказал многочисленные передовицы из СМИ за разные годы (в основном за время правления Путина). В любом случаи, читать это очень скучно.

Автор очень неконкретен и я так и не понял, что он хотел сказать, т.е. какова была его ключевая мысль. Такое ощущение, что автор предлагал США начать слушать Россию, особенно касаемо её сферы интересов, т.е. постсоветских стран.

It's a short overview of the international policy of the Russian Federation, including (very briefly) the historical period. I had a feeling that the author retold numerous editorials from the media for different years (mostly during Putin's reign). In any case, it is very boring to read.

The author is very unspecific, so I never understood what he wanted to say, i.e., what was his key point. The author seemed to suggest that the US should start listening to Russia, especially with regard to its sphere of interest, i.e., post-Soviet countries.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice overview of Russian and U.S. relations, especially concerning the Clinton administrations onward. Some of the chapters were a little too broad and surface level; oftentimes I found myself reading something good, but wondering when the next step of analysis would happen. For instance, the Partnership for Peace relied on some fundamental misunderstandings between Russia and the U.S., that was glossed over in 2 sentences. However, chapters 2 and 6 were very good and offered very clear criticisms and alternatives without proclaiming to know everything or have a silver bullet for Russia. This type of understanding of Russia and pragmatic approach to relations, acknowledging the fundamental differences between Russia and the U.S., is what's needed going forward.

[Frank Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Graham, in a brief 200-plus pages, brilliantly encapsulates post-Soviet Russia. US-Russia relations during that time, and how it all went so wrong. He then lays out scenarios of the US and other democracies can and must deal with Putin’s Russia. A must read to understand the world we live in today with an aggressive, aggrieved, and diminished Russia.

[Alex Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

Getting Russia Right offers a refreshingly nuanced and pragmatic approach to understanding U.S.–Russia relations, grounded in deep expertise and clear-eyed analysis. Graham does a fantastic job in arguing that Washington should reevaluate the goals and limits of its power and frame its rivalry with Moscow in terms of geopolitical competition rather than simply a battle between good and evil.

[Robert D · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this was a difficult read, as it was certainly full of information and thoughts, I found it fascinating and very well thought out and informative. I feel much more understanding of Russia and it’s leaders as a result of reading. I highly recommend it!

[Daphne Dluzniewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinda dense but super interesting analyses and practical policy suggestions. Better than Sullivan’s imo