The West Doesn't Understand Russia

In 1939 Winston Churchill described Russia as a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”  His famous dictum reflected the West’s perpetual misunderstanding of what drives Russia’s actions in the international system, and how to respond to them. Since the mid-twentieth century U.S. presidents have launched various efforts to build a working cooperative relationship with Russia, only to realize that in the end the only option was to adopt policies that checked Moscow’s expansionism. FDR’s wartime alliance with the Soviet Union gave way to containment, while Nixon/Kissinger’s “détente” ultimately yielded Ronald Reagan’s military buildup and the attendant confrontation with Moscow. Most recently, President Trump has attempted to reset U.S. relations with Russia, and – so far – like his predecessors, his efforts have come up dry. As in the past, the reason for such failures lies in a fundamental misreading of what Russia is and what drives its geopolitical choices. Again and again, our tendency to mirror-image and project onto Russia American assumptions about what induces governments to action has clashed with Russia’s sui generis civilizational drivers and its imperial objectives.

Today the Trump administration is trying once more to solve the “Churchillian riddle.” It will soon learn – if it has not already – that Moscow is only interested in restoring the empire to its former glory, and that any concessions – including the unlikely peace deal in Ukraine that Washington has sought – are always a means to that end. No price – human or monetary – is too big for Vladimir Putin to pay to regain the status and influence the empire lost when the Soviet Union disintegrated – an event Putin once called the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”  The war in Ukraine continues to grind on not because President Zelensky is unwilling to negotiate an end to it but because Russia’s overarching strategic objective is nothing less than the complete subjugation and – ultimately the eradication – of the Ukrainian state. This is not a war over territory or the rights of the Russian minority in Ukraine; rather, it is Russia’s civilizational struggle against the West.

There is little chance of reaching a lasting “deal” with Russia for the simple reason that Moscow understands the role of the state not in terms of economic calculus but according to the logic of empire. What the Trump administration has failed to grasp is that Moscow’s imperial expansion can only be checked, contained, or appeased. To believe that a lasting, mutually beneficial reset in U.S.-Russian relations is attainable is to fundamentally misread Russian strategic culture and the ways in which the country’s history has shaped Putin’s enduring ideological foundations. In a nutshell, Russia will work economic agreements only if they serve its larger geopolitical objectives, with the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines to Germany but the most glaring examples of this dynamic. There is no “business deal” with Russia without this geopolitical undertow, just as there is no “concert of great powers” when the state contesting the post-Cold War status quo in Europe, i.e., Russia, is inherently expansionist.

Neither the Trump administration nor European governments will solve the “Churchillian riddle” until they finally understand that the imperialist drive at the center of the modern Russian state cannot be “solved” but must be dismantled. In other words, as long as the revisionist narrative remains foundational to what Russia is, Europe will know no peace for Moscow will insist on subjugating and controlling its periphery and having a decisive voice among the world’s greatest powers. And so, the United States and its allies in Europe face a binary: Either follow the path of appeasement that has defined the last two decades of the West’s relations with Russia, thereby inviting more Russian expansionism, or commit yet again to resourcing and building structures that can contain Russia, including genuine rearmament to deter Russia from invading. 

In his 1946 “Long Telegram,” George Kennan famously observed that Russian leaders only respond to the “logic of force.”  He posited that Russia should be managed not through appeasement but firm pressure. He also argued that the Soviet system of that era was inherently unstable and, if contained, would eventually collapse. Kennan’s logic is just as applicable today as it was back then when he crafted the fundamentals of the U.S. containment strategy. And yet, the Trump administration’s approach to Russia has been marked by the precise reversal of his logic, marked by repeated efforts to offer inducements that Moscow will only pocket and ask for more. Putin is not negotiating in good faith because from Moscow’s perspective this is not a negotiation for equitable terms for Ukraine, but a negotiation that must equate ultimately with Kyiv’s surrender. There is no reset with Russia to be had unless the United States is willing to depart from Europe altogether and return to the status of a regional hemispheric power, conceding the global ocean to Russia and China. Until the Trump administration accepts this reality, the process will drag on, yielding more fissures within the NATO alliance and greater instability in Europe.

Andrew A. Michta is Professor of Strategic Studes at the Hamilton School at the University of Florida. Views expressed here are his own.