Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law Stanford University


CDDRL News



September 21, 1998 - Op-ed

A Russia Still Redeemable

Appeared in Washington Post, September 21, 1998

By Michael A. McFaul

From both the right and the left, critics of U.S. policy toward Russia have had a heyday in recent weeks asserting that the Clinton administration got Russia wrong. The refrains are by now familiar: "Clinton became too close to Yeltsin." "The IMF was naive." "The West funded crony capitalism." "Russians are not culturally predisposed to markets," etc. The policy conclusion from these observations is that the United States neither can nor should do anything more to aid Russia but instead should reconstruct a firewall around this basket case of a country and try once again to contain the Russian threat to markets and democracy around the world.