Our Wicked Russia Problem

• Published in: The National interest no. 163; pp. 17 - 30
• Main Author: Beebe, George
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Center for the National Interest 01.09.2019; The National Interest, Inc; The National Interest Inc
• Subjects: Aggressiveness; British history; Cold War; Competition; Disparaging; Intelligence gathering; Military aspects; Peace; Political alliances; Politics; Russian foreign relations; Social networks; United States foreign relations; World War II; United States; Russia; United Kingdom > UK; Hungary; Europe; Austria-Hungary; Ukraine; France; Germany
• ISSN: 0884-9382; 1938-1573

A little over a century ago, Pres Theodore Roosevelt got an early glimpse into the makings of history's greatest manmade catastrophe. The case's denouement proved not so funny. As Europe stumbled unawares toward disaster some ten years later, the British and Germans had attempted to assure each other that they had no aggressive intent. But because each government knew that its own intentions were defensive, it could not grasp why the other would claim to feel threatened. Few people in Washington today believe that their tense relations with Russia pose this type of challenge. Rather, the dominant paradigm for understanding and responding to the Russian threat is the World War II problem. American editorials and op-ed columns about Russia abound with disparaging references to Munich, where British prime minister Neville Chamberlain made his tragic bid to appease Hitler's territorial ambitions in 1938 and achieved his ill-fated peace in our time.