Listen to an audio sample

By Alexander Vindman

Read by Jacques Roy

Read by Alexander Vindman

On Sale: Feb 25, 2025
Publisher: Hachette Audio
ISBN-13: 9781668647578

$24.99

Format

Format:

Audiobook Download (Unabridged) $24.99
ebook $18.99 $24.99 CAD
Hardcover $30.00 $40.00 CAD

Buy from Other Retailers:

A bestselling national security expert delivers a chilling analysis of how Western indecision and apathy made possible the return of brutal Russian expansionism – with catastrophic consequences.

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.

Genre:

Alexander 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, 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.

"Alex Vindman combines decades of experience in the U.S. military and government with academic insight to explain how successive American administrations misjudged Russia and emboldened the Kremlin to start the largest conventional war in Europe since 1945. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand what went wrong and how it can be fixed"

Serhii Plokhy, the author of The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History

Video Book Trailer

Alexander Vindman

About the Author

Alexander 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, 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.

Learn more about this author

By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

×

Listen to an audio sample

Contributors

Formats and Prices

Price

Format

Format:

Buy from Other Retailers:

Description

Genre:

Praise

You May Also Like

Video Book Trailer

Alexander Vindman

About the Author

Newsletter Signup