McFaul2018ColdWarHotPeace.html

From Cold War to Hot Peace

An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia

McFaul2018ColdWarHotPeace.pdf [353-pages, 12.0 MB]

CONTENTS
Title Page    [pdf-2]
Contents    [pdf-3]
Copyright    [pdf-4]
Prologue    [pdf-5]

REVOLUTION
1. The First Reset    [pdf-9]
2. Democrats of the World, Unite!    [pdf-21]
3. Yeltsin’s Partial Revolution    [pdf-30]
4. Putin’s Thermidor    [pdf-40]

RESET
5. Change We Can Believe In    [pdf-51]
6. Launching the Reset    [pdf-56]
7. Universal Values    [pdf-69]
8. The First (and Last) Moscow Summit    [pdf-75]
9. New START    [pdf-86]
10. Denying Iran the Bomb    [pdf-96]
11. Hard Accounts: Russia’sNeighborhood and Missile Defense    [pdf-106]
12. Burgers and Spies    [pdf-116]
13. The Arab Spring, Libya, and the Beginning of the End of the Reset    [pdf-122]
14. Becoming “His Excellency”    [pdf-135]

REACTION
15. Putin Needs an Enemy -- America, Obama, and Me    [pdf-141]
xx. Photos    [pdf-155]
16. Getting Physical    [pdf-170]
17. Pushback    [pdf-179]
18. Twitter and the Two-Step    [pdf-189]
19. It Takes Two to Tango    [pdf-199]
20. Chasing Russians, Failing Syrians    [pdf-207]
21. Dueling on Human Rights    [pdf-223]
22. Going Home    [pdf-234]
23. Annexation and War in Ukraine    [pdf-242]
24. The End of Resets (for Now)    [pdf-251]

Epilogue: Trump and Putin    [pdf-262]
Acknowledgments    [pdf-273]
Notes    [pdf-275]
Index    [pdf-321]
About the Author    [pdf-352]
Connect with HMH    [pdf-353]

Book Review by Will Zuzak:
McFaul2018ColdWarHotPeace.pdf [353-pages, 12.0 MB]

(1) Michael McFaul presents a very personal, detailed and readable account of his career as a government employee and, esapecially, his stint as the American Ambassador in Mocow. For people wishing to understand U.S. politics during this period this book is must reading.
- Strangely, McFaul claims (pdf-35) that he proposed that Russia become a member of NATO, but that this was not accepted by the West and by Russia; whereas I was of the opinion that the West did, indeed, made overtures to have Russia join NATO.

(2) The Ctrl-F search function for "Ukrain" yields 253 hits -- most of which are in Ch. 23 Annexation and War in Ukraine (94), Ch. 24 (28), Ch. 11 (18), Epilogue (18), Ch. 4 (8), with the rest scattered amongst the other chapters (23) and in the Notes and Index (64).

pdf-6 -- Two years into his third term as Russian president, in February 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine, annexing Crimea and supporting separatist militias in the eastern part of the country.

pdf-46 -- The following year, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine represented an even bigger setback for Putin. ... Putin asserted later that Ukraine was "a made-up country" that should not exist, let alone pose a threat to his rule by trying to build democracy on Russia’s border.

pdf-107 -- Regarding Ukraine, there was neither push nor pull for membership. Even under President Yushchenko, the leader of the Orange Revolution in 2004, a majority of Ukrainians opposed NATO membership.

pdf-109 -- Soon after Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Putin said publicly that Russia had no legitimate claims on the peninsula: "The Crimea is not a disputed territory . . . Russia has long recognized the borders of today’s Ukraine."

pdf-242 -- Putin first annexed Crimea on March 14, 2014, then doubled down in support of the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine.

pdf-243 -- We [had] also suggested that Ukraine could become more prosperous through closer association with EU members (even without EU membership), which would create more opportunities for Russian investment and trade with Ukraine.
- But Putin was having none of it. ... The battle for Ukraine was a zero-sum contest, with winners and losers, and Putin was determined to win.

pdf-244-245 -- ... on February 21 ... . Specifically, after meeting overnight with European officials, the president had agreed to an accord to resolve the political crisis with three opposition leaders: Vitali Klitschko, Oleh Tyahnybok, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk. These signatories agreed to “refrain from the use of violence" ... Three European foreign ministers -- Radek Sikorski from Poland, Frank-Walter Steinmeier from Germany, and Laurent Fabius from France -- also signed the agreement, in an effort to bolster its legitimacy. Vladimir Lukin, Putin’s ombudsman for human rights, represented Russia at the mediation efforts. ... When Lukin didn’t sign the agreement like the other foreign ministers, however, I became worried. Maybe Putin was not going to support the accord because he had other plans?

pdf-245 -- On February 23, 2014, National Security Advisor Susan Rice decided to publicly discourage Russian intervention, warning that “it would be a grave mistake” for Putin to send soldiers into Ukraine.

pdf-247 -- As Putin stated in 2008, “Crimea is not a disputed territory . . . Russia has long recognized the borders of modern-day Ukraine.”
- In 1994 the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom had signed the Budapest Memorandum, which committed signatories to respect Ukrainian territorial integrity in return for Ukraine’s denuclear ization.

pdf-248 -- Pleased with the results in Crimea, Putin decided to green-light a complex plan to seize Novorossiya, or New Russia, a vast region from eastern Ukraine to Odessa on the Black Sea. ... The Kremlin provided money, weapons, commanders, and even soldiers to separatist proxies in eastern Ukraine.

pdf-249 -- On July 17, 2014, the conflict internationalized even further. Russian-supported separatists or Russian soldiers -- the details remain murky -- shot down Kuala Lumpur-bound Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
- The shooting down of MH17 focused greater world attention on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, prompting the West to react with greater vigor, including new sanctions.
- If there were a Ten Commandments of international behavior, “Thou shalt not annex the territory of thy neighbor” would be at the top of the list.

pdf-252 -- Russian military power deployed against Ukraine punctuated the end of Obama’s Reset and the Western strategy of Russian integration started thirty years ago.

pdf-255-- 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.

(3) In the Epilogue, McFaul analyzes the situation with Trump regime at the Whitehouse.

pdf-272 -- My own view is that American democratic institutions remain resilient and will survive Trump.
- The hot peace, tragically but perhaps necessarily, seems here to stay.

[END]