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Michael McFaul

Michael McFaul Quotes

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Famous Michael McFaul Quotes

“Russian military is a quintessential reflection of the state that created it. Autocratic, security-obsessed, and teeming with hyper centralized decision making, dysfunctional relations between civilian and military authorities, inefficiency, corruption and brutality. [Professor Zoltan Barany, January 2023]”

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Book:Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder – The Former Ambassador's Bold Vision for Confronting Authoritarian Threats
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“In the United States, the dominant analytic framework for explaining international relations today is realism. ... Those deploying this model to explain Russia’s behavior today...offer several prescriptions for how to defuse the current Russia-Ukraine crisis: Freeze NATO expansion and Russia will be content. Offer face-saving concessions that give Russia tangible gains and the threat of war will subside. Don’t arm Ukraine because that will fuel escalation and trigger a Russian invasion. If Putin thought like us, maybe some of these proposals might work. But Putin does not think like us. He has his own analytic framework, his own ideas and his own ideology — only some of which comport with Western rational realism.”

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Author:Michael McFaul
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“As long as the United States remains a democracy, I want to be in the ideological fight against illiberal nationalism and continue to make the case for why a return to internationalism, multilateralism, and support for democracy and human rights worldwide best serves American national interests.”

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Book:Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder – The Former Ambassador's Bold Vision for Confronting Authoritarian Threats
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“I think Russia is dangerous, not a superpower. I know what the president is trying to say. I worked for him for five years, not just two.He doesn't want us to overreact. He doesn't want to go back to the Cold War and some superpower competition. But my own view, and I think General Mattis stated something similar today, is that Russia is a challenge for the United States. It is a threat to some of our allies.”

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Author:Michael McFaul
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