The State Department has been receiving lots of press and media coverage lately. Many career diplomats have been requested by Congress to answer questions related to their positions in the Foreign Service, some were ambassadors, some were in high administrative posts, and some were long serving professionals who had been engaged with various politicians who had questions about performance in distant capitols.
Michael McFaul is a former ambassador to Russya where he served at the behest of former President Barack Obama from 2014-2014. As a young college student, he began studying Russya, its history, and its post war actions leading up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was well acquainted with the fledgling movement toward representative democracy. He listened to those advocates who wanted to emulate the politics and policies of western Europe and of course, America. He went on to study politics and especially democracy and its components. After receiving his PhD., he joined the Stanford University faculty to teach and write about political science. In 2008, he was offered a position on the campaign staff of candidate Obama. After some discussion, he decided he could help this man become the president of the USA. After Obama's election, McFaul was asked to join the NSC as anadvisor on the questions surrounding the politics of the new Russyan Federation. He was able to meet many of his former friends from his college days, and learn about the new movements going on inside Russya.
While not meeting personally with Vladimir Putin, he did meet Boris Yeltsin and many of his supporters and his detractors. He also had opportunities to meet with then Prime Minister Medvedev, who worked under Putin. In time, the roles were reversed when Putin decided to allow Medvedev to assume(elected) the office of President. Then Pres. Obama asked McFaul to take over the position of Ambassador to the Russyan Federation. He accepted and began a 2 year service representing American interests in the new democracy.
His book is both history and memoir related to that time, and before and afterwards. It is the guidebook for those who wish to understand how Putin thinks and how his archaic vision for the future of Russya mixes in today's world of geopolitics. As a student of post war Russya and its geography, I have found this book to be a guide for observers of the current state of the relationship between the US and Russya. Donald Trump notwithstanding, the state of affairs betwen these two superpowers is fraught with difficulty and misunderstanding, whether over Syria, Iraq, Israel, or the Baltics and NATO.
This book is a must read if one is to understand what is happening in Russya today, as Mr. Putin grasps more power and maintains pressure on all opponents within Russya's borders.
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