Review: The Folly of Realism, by Alexander Vindman
by
Stuart Holland
This book charts the journey of Ukraine from the disolution of the Soviet Union through to Russia’s war to conquer it of today. It’s a remarkably frank look at how many well-meaning but misinformed actors, particularly in the US, (along with several not-well-meaning at all) had the opportunity to prevent such a tragedy, but instead ended up hastening it.
It’s also an interesting contrast to what I read in The Situation Room, where I called out that book painting a surprisingly positive picture of George Bush Sr. This book does the opposite, painting him as the beginning of a Russia-centric foreign policy for the US that was at the core of their missteps in the following decades. (If I had to choose who I found more convincing, I’d say Vindman makes his case better.)
I’m obviously no diplomat, but a core moral tenet of this book also cuts deep into something that I think is missing from a lot of modern diplomacy. There’s a lot of “we have to work with who we have” and “better the devil we know” which leads to terrible long term outcomes and encourages autocrats to act more autocratically, not less. It’s easy to say that and sound like some kind of idealist who doesn’t get anything done (though honestly to me, that line of thinking just seems like a framing that assumes the former’s point of view to already be true), but that aside, Vindman also clearly doesn’t endorse a direct idealism in foreign policy. He makes a great case for values-driven diplomacy, that foreign policy objectives only matter if they support your values, because otherwise why are you doing anything? Transactionalism is a trap - maybe you make more money now, but does that matter when there’s no freedom to use that money 30 years later?
Well worth reading, it puts a lot into perspective.
