Neo-Idealism After “Russia First”

A Follow-Up to My Earlier Piece in Foreign Affairs

Earlier this spring, I published an article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Perils of ‘Russia First’” detailing how decades of short-term, transactional decision making by several presidential administrations has compromised American interests in Eastern Europe and Eurasia and inadvertently advanced Moscow’s agenda. By making excessive accommodations towards Russian interests and accepting Russian sabre-rattling and nuclear threats at face-value, the United States has unintentionally advanced a “Russia First” policy agenda. The following piece explores the ideological framework of “Neo-Idealism” as a potential counterweight to the short-sighted transactional approach incorporated across multiple administrations and argues the necessity of a theory of victory for Ukraine.