The Folly and the Glory

Under Putin no less than Stalin, Russia represents America's greatest threat, according to this unnervingly insightful history by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. After 1945, unwilling to risk nuclear Armageddon, the U.S. and Soviet Union confined themselves to political warfare, meaning, as George Kennan wrote, "employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives." This is not the same as nonviolence. As illustrated in Weiner's National Book Award-winning history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes (2007), America's first decades after the war featured elaborate, covert military actions, most of which flopped. After the news got out in the 1970s, the CIA dialed them back, but it was always true that CIA money and propaganda achieved far more than dirty tricks. To this point, the author's account breaks little new ground; not so after the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union. Weiner's uncomfortably convincing opinion is that the U.S. screwed up royally, rubbing Russia's nose in their failures and proclaiming that democracy had demonstrated its superiority. Aware that expanding NATO to the east would infuriate Russia's new leaders, in 1990, Secretary of State James Baker promised never to do so--and then broke that promise. Ironically, Stalin's paranoid vision of the West conspiring to surround his nation with enemies became true. Putin took power in 2000 with the aim of making Russian great again. Unable to match America's massive military, he created an immense intelligence and cyberwarfare establishment that, after flexing its muscles by crippling nearby nations, has concentrated on the U.S. Weiner then delivers a dismaying account of the avalanche of hacking, disinformation, and social media manipulation that began in 2014 with the object of sowing dissention. The author astutely observes that this strategy involves keeping Trump in office, and there's no doubt of Trump's fervent and frightening subservience to the Russian leader. A gripping history of 75 years of Russian-American conflict with the dismal conclusion that we seem outmatched.

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April 20, 2020
In this colorful and richly detailed account, journalist Weiner (One Man Against the World) charts 75 years of Russia-U.S. antagonisms, beginning at the end of WWII and culminating with present-day Kremlin stratagems to “subvert the United States, undermine its power, poison its political discourse.” Weiner credits American diplomat George F. Kennan with recognizing Joseph Stalin’s imperialistic intentions after WWII, and details Cold War clashes in Cuba, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Afghanistan. Weiner also profiles CIA agent Larry Devlin, who resisted an order to assassinate recently ousted Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba with poison toothpaste in 1960, and describes U.S. influence campaigns behind the Iron Curtain, including Voice of America radio broadcasts and support for the pro-democracy Solidarity movement in 1980s Poland. Meanwhile, Weiner writes, Kremlin leaders capitalized on the Iran-contra affair to spread disinformation in the U.S., including rumors that the Pentagon originally developed AIDS as a bioweapon. Motivated by Cold War hard feelings and emboldened by new technologies, Russian leader Vladimir Putin (Stalin’s “true heir,” according to Weiner) “plung democracy into danger” by helping elect Donald Trump. Weiner briskly relates a treasure trove of declassified material from the Cold War and draws on insider accounts to present a plausible portrait of the current state of affairs. Newshounds and espionage fans will be enthralled.

Starred review from August 1, 2020
Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning journalist Weiner brings heft to this account of U.S.-Russian political warfare, dating from the end of WWII through the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, and the emergence of Vladimir Putin from the ranks of the KGB, to Russia's devastating, multipronged cyberattack on the 2016 U.S. election. Weiner focuses less on breaking news than on walking readers through pivotal events in this 75-year-long narrative. For example, he covers damage wreaked through the decades by Russian spies working inside the U.S. security apparatus. During the Cold War, the surprisingly influential Radio Free Europe won over millions of hearts and minds through . . . American jazz. President Reagan made assurances to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not further threaten Russia by expanding eastward?assurances contradicted by President Clinton's aggressive efforts to expand NATO to include a united Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. (Putin would never forget.) Significantly, Weiner uncovers Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's refusal, in September 2016, to make public Russia's interference with America's presidential campaign. In this fraught, globally consequential 2020 campaign season, one could hardly ask for a better explanation of how we landed here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

August 28, 2020

In this latest work, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Weiner (Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA) writes a fast-paced narrative of U.S.-Russia relations since 1945. The emphasis on "political warfare," however, is selective; the account unfolds episodically at the outset of the Cold War and broadens to encompass the core of recent relations. There is only passing mention of the Middle East before 9/11 or of Yugoslavia before its collapse. Some insights emerge from recently declassified documents. Weiner explains the persistent policy influence of George F. Kennan. He notes, however, that President Harry Truman, not Dwight Eisenhower's secretary of state John Foster Dulles, originated the concept of "rollback" against communist Eastern Europe. Weiner also exposes a little-known, botched effort to overthrow Indonesia's Sukarno, and sheds the long-lasting effects that NATO membership provided former communist states. The most passionate writing is reserved for criticizing Donald Trump, among the "coarsest public figures in America." Weiner shows how the Trump administration willfully ignores Vladimir Putin's mastery of cyber warfare on American domestic politics. VERDICT Weiner offers a significant contribution to the literature of U.S.-Russia relations with a book that emphasizes the asymmetry of American capacity for political warfare, currently consisting of effective cyber counterespionage. Highly Recommended.--Zachary Irwin, formerly with Penn State Behrend

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2020

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Book Award winner for Legacy of Ashes, Weiner looks hard at political conflict between the United States and the USSR/Russia, showing that Russia has returned to Cold War-style operations while America has not and how this development has contributed to the rise of Donald Trump.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.