The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine

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. (Feb.)