In a March 17th 2014 Washington Post article, Henry Kissinger famously wrote that “the demonization of Putin is not a policy. it's an alibi for not having a policy.”
In the very same month Princeton University's renowned Russian scholar Steven F. Cohen published an article in The Nation (March 3, 2014) decrying “media malpractice" in regard to coverage of Russia which he saw as “less objective, less balanced, more conformist, and scarcely less ideological” than it had been during the Cold War. In a subsequent interview Cohen echoed Kissinger's critique in stating that the demonization of Putin was an “obstacle to thinking rationally, having a rational discourse or debate about American national security.”
Now, more than a decade later, these viewpoints of Kissinger and Cohen—derided at the time by media and foreign policy elites—have about them an aura of prophecy. They are deserving of reconsideration as America approaches a vital crossroads in its relations with Russia and the world.
With the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022 and the swift decision of the Biden Administration and its NATO allies to use that event as a pretext for launching an all-out proxy war against Russia, the absence of a definable Russia policy or rational discourse about the same was suddenly transformed into a high virtue.
Thus was United States foreign policy reduced to nonsensical slogans—"In It to Win It” and “As Long As It Takes”—and the American people, already agonizing over the disastrous conclusion of a 20-year war in Afghanistan—were committed to a new conflict without explainable parameters or limitations or any clear idea of what it would take to inflict defeat upon a major nuclear power.
Furthermore, it was made very clear by government and media alike that “rational debate” about this new forever war was not only superfluous but very likely “subversive." Even reputable academics like Kissinger, Cohen, and others who raised questions about this new orthodoxy learned how quickly they could be labeled as "Putin apologists," or worse, “Russian assets.”
From a geo-strategic perspective, the most dangerous outcome of these developments was that by our designating Russia as an outcast pariah among nations, Vladimir Putin was driven to warmly embrace communist China—America's greatest global adversary, which had long sought allies in its quest to overthrow what it viewed as America's “oppressive hegemony.”
Compounding these grave errors of American statesmanship was the fact that the regime of sanctions imposed by the Biden Administration to “bring the Russian economy to its knees” backfired by doing more damage to the poorer countries of the Global South, than to Russia itself, which demonstrated unexpected skill in evading these restrictions, particularly through astute management of its vast energy resources.
The end result of these circumstances has been a profound realignment of the world's geopolitical balance of power in which the world's authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian nations – e. g., Iran, North Korea, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Mexico—chose through varying de facto measures to side with the Sino-Russian axis rather than the United States, which was increasingly viewed as a divided and declining nation with an alarming penchant for abandoning allies whenever political winds in Washington shifted.
Over the years, voices of caution weren’t lacking. In 1998 George Kennan—America's greatest 20th-century authority on Russia—warned that expansion of NATO was the United States’ most disastrous foreign policy decision since the end of the Cold War.
In 2008 German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy confronted President George W. Bush at the NATO Summit in Bucharest and denounced his proposal to consider Georgia and Ukraine as members of the alliance as a “dangerous provocation of Russia.”
In 2021 distinguished academic experts John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs testified before Congress that proposing Ukraine for NATO membership “crossed a red line that no Russian leader of any stripe” could accept. Yet all were ignored, and the March of Folly continued to its tragic conclusion.
The toll of war—soldiers and civilians—is now nearly a million dead and wounded. Ukraine is a shattered state—a quarter of its pre-war population has fled the country—that is sustained on life support only by Western money.
The present U.S. administration under Biden was “in it” but didn't “win it.” Whereas the incoming U.S. administration under Trump has no inclination for "as long as it takes” in another “forever war.” Though tragically overdue, the time has come for that “rational discourse and debate” about America's national security. However difficult, those conversations must inevitably include a new approach to Russian-American relations.
William Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his Doctorate from Harvard University. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.