From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia

As ambassador to Russia, McFaul charts the history of recent Russo-US relations from Obama era Great Reset to the "hot peace" characterized by Russian militaristic imperialism: Ukraine (Crimea), Georgia, etc. McFaul makes an interesting comparison between Obama's mute response to the unrebuffed Little Green Men takeover of Crimea to Dubya's tepid response to the Russian invasion of Georgia. Another interesting thing to me is it seems McFaul was convinced Medvedev was an honest broken in improving relations at a time when such things as Russia in NATO and Russia protecting Ukraine from Iranian hostilities(!) were soberly discussed. Now, in glimpses on media he comes across to me as a belligerent, small-minded drunk. What is his tragic arc?

I suppose you don't rise to the top of your profession as an academic/foreign policy expert without some level of talent for self-promotion, so I shouldn't have been terribly surprised that this book focuses almost as much on McFaul the person as McFaul the ambassador. In his defense, he is straightforward at the beginning of the book that what you are about to read is a blend of memoir and analysis, but I came away wishing I had gotten more of the latter than the former. Don't get me wrong, he's an interesting guy with an engaging narrative voice, but I really picked this book up to better understand the complicated American/Russian relationship, and I wound up feeling like this book didn't get me there.

This book provides a detailed and insightful window into the past and current political and diplomatic affairs between the U.S. and Post Cold War Russia. McFaul tells the story from his very well informed (although somewhat opinionated) position as a senior government official throughout the book, and details his diplomatic accolades between him and the Russians from his time in the Obama administration during the second 'reset' era.

4 1/2 stars.

Some of the policy wonk years before ambassadorship are kind of a slog to read -- and were probably a slog to live through -- but I found everything on location in Russia totally worth the book as a whole. It's also a solid policy-centric background primer for understanding how US-Russia relations got to the state they're in now.

Not a light summary.

A good read for anyone who is interested in understanding more about what is going on in Russia and why Putin hates America and Ukraine so much.