McFaul's World

1 day ago | michaelmcfaul.substack.com | Michael A. McFaul

For more than three decades, the United States has supported democratic Ukraine. That was true in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union; in 2004 during Ukraine’s Orange Revolution; in 2013-14 during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity and Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea; and again in 2022, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

3 days ago | michaelmcfaul.substack.com | Michael A. McFaul

Secretary of State called the leaked memo about the State Department’s restructuring ‘fake news.’ I hope that’s true because the ideas outlined in that memo would be disastrous for American national interests. We cannot compete effectively with China worldwide without an effective State Department that is present in as many places as feasible.

2 weeks ago | michaelmcfaul.substack.com | Michael A. McFaul

Many American foreign-policy makers dream of being the next Henry Kissinger. Whether they admit it or not, they look to him as the model of shrewd calculation of national interests, geopolitical acumen, and devotion to diplomacy. He was a leader who struck grand bargains with global effects. And no diplomatic maneuver is more quintessentially Kissinger than the U.S. opening to China in 1972.

2 weeks ago | michaelmcfaul.substack.com | Michael A. McFaul

I just mailed off the final chapter of my new book on competition between autocratic and democratic great powers in the twenty-first century, focused on China, Russia, and the United States. It draws on lessons from the cold war to argue that the world’s democratic camp, anchored by the United States, has not just more collective economic and military power than its autocratic camp, anchored by China and Russia, but better ideas about how to govern.

1 month ago | michaelmcfaul.substack.com | Michael A. McFaul

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (the institute I direct). She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. Didi is fantastic, so listen to the podcast below, or on your favorite platform, and consider reading her latest book, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t.