Alexander Vindman — The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself about Russia and Betrayed Ukraine - with Sharon L. Davies

This event is in partnership with the Kettering Foundation.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six US presidential administrations of both parties pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that emboldened Russia, playing into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.In The Folly of Realism, leading national security expert and bestselling author Alexander Vindman argues that America's mistakes in Eastern Europe result from policymakers' fixation on immediate, short-term problem-solving and misplaced hopes and fears. He proposes a new long-term, values-based approach that insists on the fundamentals of liberal democracy and a rules-based world order.Enlivened by firsthand accounts and behind-the-scenes interviews with leading Washington and international policymakers and culminating in the shocking brutality of Putin's invasions of Ukraine, the book exposes the follies of western foreign policymaking, sources of the dangerous return of Russian imperialism, and proscribes how it can be contained.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781541705043?ic_referral=RTMv91vYYecM4_m7aUxhFhXiRSVH74LycjGXDSTI6xIwMygtzYpAxU_YXmSmZ6pI4GkhDNBFo8l-YMmLaLmnmAPtbUX0HNC1txLF6J1DBGoDDb16XLhP0fj4oBdLVyx08tLYxAAlexander Vindman, lieutenant colonel US Army (retired), was the director for European Affairs on the White House's National Security Council, former Political-Military Affairs Officer for Russia, and diplomat at the American Embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. He is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute and Kettering Foundation, the author of the New York Times-bestselling memoir Here, Right Matters, and leads the Here Right Matters Foundation organization which focuses on helping Ukraine win the war against Russia. He lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.Vindman is in conversation with Sharon L. Davies, the president and chief executive officer of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Davies’ career experiences span both academic and nonacademic fields. From 2017-2021, she was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Spelman College. She joined Spelman from The Ohio State University, where she was vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer. Davies was also a member of OSU’s Moritz College of Law faculty for 22 years, serving as the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In addition, she directed the university’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity. Davies has an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a law degree from Columbia University School of Law. Davies is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of the Campaign to Create the Julius Rosenwald & Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park, and a commissioner of the Council on Higher Education as a Strategic Asset. She was included among the Dayton Business Journal’s Bizwomen Power50 2023.*recorded 3/3/2025