Registration REQUIRED by 11:30am on October 6, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations at the Harriman Institute for a book talk by Alexander Vindman. Elise Giuliano will introduce the event, and Victoria Nuland will serve as discussant.
While retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has gained wide notoriety for exposing President Trump’s misconduct and for testimony in Congress that resulted in the president’s first impeachment, Vindman is regarded professionally as a leading policymaker and the preeminent national security strategist on Russia and Ukraine. His latest work, “The Folly of Realism: How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine” (PublicAffairs, 2025) is informed by decades of service in U.S. Embassies in Ukraine and Russia, on the White House’s National Security Council, and at the Pentagon, where he authored the Russia strategy, as well as by his dedication to navigating the most pressing global challenges. Timed to coincide with the third anniversary of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, “The Folly of Realism” explores the successes and failures of American foreign policy in the region: an unsparing critique of where U.S. policymakers went wrong and, most importantly, lessons to be learned to avoid further catastrophe around the world.
Beginning with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vindman reveals how American and Western missteps, from the post-Soviet period to the present day, enabled the current crisis. Six U.S. presidential administrations, representing both parties, pursued policies for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia that bolstered a Russia-first philosophy, enabling Russia’s imperial pathology. A short-term problem-solving approach taken throughout the last 30 years has cost the U.S. a strong relationship with a strategically critical and Western-aligned Ukraine and invited Russian military aggression. Enlivened by first-hand 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 Folly of Realism” exposes the errors of Western foreign policymaking and proposes a new values-based approach that insists on guiding tenets for an enduring rulesbased world order. The conflict in Ukraine has directly contributed to recent developments in the Middle East, and Vindman offers a case study not just for Europe but U.S. foreign policy in all regions. Vindman has thus provided a guidebook, with a scope far beyond the current Russia-Ukraine crisis, for navigating the persistent threats of a tumultuous Middle East and the looming menace of an increasingly aggressive China, and for meeting unforeseen challenges while setting the conditions for long-term U.S. prosperity.
Dr. Alexander Vindman, a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, was the director for European Affairs on the National Security Council. Before that, he served as the Political-Military Affairs Officer for Russia for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as an attaché at the US Embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. While on the Joint Staff, he authored the National Military Strategy for Russia. He earned a Master’s from Harvard University, where he served as a Hauser Leader, and a Master’s and Doctorate from Johns Hopkins, where he is a senior fellow. Dr. Vindman leads the national security think tank Institute for Informed American Leadership, is the president of the non-profit Here Right Matters Foundation, an executive board member for the Renew Democracy Initiative, a senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation, and a senior advisor to VoteVets. Dr. Vindman is the author of the Why It Matters Substack and the New York Times bestselling books Here, Right Matters and The Folly of Realism.
Ambassador Victoria Nuland is Shelby Cullom Davis Professor in the Practice of International Diplomacy and Director of the International Fellows Program at SIPA. She is also affiliated with SIPA’s Institute for Global Politics and the Harriman Institute, and is Member of the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). A U.S. diplomat for 35 years, she served six U.S. Presidents and 10 Secretaries of State of both political parties and holds the rank of Career Ambassador. She was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from April 2021 until March 2024, and served concurrently as Acting Deputy Secretary of State from July 2023 until March 2024. Prior to that, Nuland was Senior Counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm based in Washington, DC. She was also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Distinguished Practitioner in Grand Strategy at Yale University, and a NED board member.
