Why do Americans fail to understand Russia? Why do presidents regardless of their party affiliation constantly misread the stooges in the Kremlin? This persistent inability to appreciate the thinking exposed by another great power is especially striking given that Russia’s policies have not changed at all since the days of Ivan the Terrible or even earlier.
Many countries have changed. Some moved from a foe to a friend. Some moved in the opposite direction. Some became peaceful and some war-like. Russia, on the other hand, has always been, is and will likely remain the same.
Russia, first under the Tzars, later under the Bolsheviks and now under Vladimir Putin, has had a very simple and clearly defined main strategic goal: territorial expansion driven by the insecurity bordering on schizophrenia. That mania of suspicion is rooted in Russia’s internal political reality, the absolute failure of successive regimes to govern effectively.
Russia has never hidden its ambitions and intentions. The world history of the last few hundred years is, in part, the story of Russia doing what it claims it wants to do. One does not need to read lengthy volumes of history to understand what Russia is up to. One just needs to pay attention to current events.
So why is it so difficult for Americans to pick up on those obvious and historically self-evident objectives? The main problem with Russia is that Russia is literally a big problem. Solving it requires strategy spanning multiple presidencies, the discipline utterly absent. It requires attention to detail and understanding that the problem not addressed today will inevitably become a lethal threat tomorrow.
Very few presidents have recognized or had the courage to publicly call Russia what it is: the dangerous enemy. Unfortunately, democracies are inherently terrible at planning. The failure to sustain a single policy spanning multiple administrations across both parties has frustrated the decision-makers and has led to some unfortunate shortcuts impersonating a real policy.
That situation has created many euphemisms that for decades have defined U.S. policy on Russia: engagement, containment and reset. This nomenclature allows Washington to address Russia as a crisis of temporal nature.
These pseudo policies have, short of never addressing the issue in earnest, bred ignorance and complete misunderstanding of the subject among the American elites who have lost all institutional knowledge of why those pseudo-solutions were invented in the first place.
The U.S.’s handling of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the recent speech by Vice President JD Vance in Munich, addressing the leaders of Europe have underscored how deep the denial of the Russian problem has gone in Washington, how both parties have created, and feel very comfortable inside, the parallel realities of the world beyond the country’s borders.
Joe Biden recognized Russia as an adversary and Vladimir Putin as a bad guy. Yet he did not believe Russia was a strategic threat or that its attempt to take over Ukraine was also a threat to America directly and to Pax Americana as the world order.
The initial American reaction to the aggression was to send “Uber” to evacuate the government in Kyiv and hope the Kremlin tantrum would thus be over. Russia’s potential victory was not considered to be a geopolitical earthquake. It was just Russia behaving badly.
When Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government refused to surrender, Joe Biden and his administration were forced to support Ukraine’s efforts to stand up to Russia. The U.S. was dragged into the effort against its original intentions but with no desire to allow Ukraine to win. Russia was to be managed as if the current conflict was not part of the centuries-long policy but a chance and unfortunate terrible behavior by a stooge of which the world has plenty.
Soon after, the White House with the support of its European allies came up with a brilliant strategy. It was not a strategy per se, but a way not to address the crux of the problem, yet looking as if working hard on the solution: maintain the war of attrition against Russia to the last Ukrainian. The end result would satisfy everyone: Russia would be exhausted and Ukraine, as a friction spot between the West and Russia, would cease to exist.
Again understanding history would help to know that one does not exhaust Russia with a war of attrition. The prospect of an emboldened Russia and a conquered Ukraine became ever more possible. Even with those alarming signs Washington did not believe the approach was wrong. However, the Europeans started to become concerned.
And here arrives Donald Trump and his new MAGA approach to foreign policy and Russia in particular. President Trump, contrary to what his detractors claim, does not think Vladimir Putin is a good guy. However, Trump is somewhat unique in his thinking. He is the first truly pacifist post-Christian president of the United States: he does not believe in the perpetual struggle of the good against the evil. There is no God and there is no Devil, but there are random human interactions. They all, like business transactions, have solutions based on negotiations, because ultimately there is no good or bad side.
President Trump, similarly to his Democratic counterparts, views Vladimir Putin outside of historical context. In his view, the genesis of the current crisis is a few decades old and includes the wrong American negotiating approach. Vance’s speech was a projection of that view of Russia.
The concerns, almost without exception, expressed by the vice president were valid and timely. Without the necessary context, absent from the speech, they sounded like the excerpts borrowed from Vladimir Putin’s musings. Claiming Russia is not the most dangerous threat to Europe made Vance look dangerously naive and made his speech, otherwise touching upon very important issues, look grotesque and unnecessarily aggressive.
It will take another crisis with Russia, one directly threatening the United States, to change American thinking about its former, present and future foe. As with school kids, only a failing grade sends them back to the library.
One should also advise the “experts” to read less of Russian classics. Those pages are great works of art. Also, they are the best propaganda Russia has ever produced. They picture universal human struggles and trepidations masking the country malevolently ready to use those to its advantage.
Lev Stesin is a founding member of San Francisco Voices for Israel.
