This essay is the second in a two-part series.
For part one, see: Growing Cracks in Putin’s Dictatorship.

When Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many observers believed that time was on his side. The size of Russia’s army, combined with Moscow’s massive military-industrial complex, would surely give it the advantage on the battlefield. Over time, that advantage would have a decisive effect—or so many believed.

The re-election of US President Donald Trump reinforced this assumption. Trump himself stated repeatedly that Ukraine had “no cards,” suggesting it was time for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to capitulate. In the first year of his second term, Trump cut direct military assistance to Ukraine to almost zero (but did allow American military companies to profit by selling their weapons to NATO allies, which then transferred these weapons to Ukraine). Worse yet, Trump then tried to pressure Zelenskyy to capitulate to Putin, urging him to give up parts of the Donbas still held by Ukrainian soldiers. This past winter, the Russian military launched a massive campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a desperately cruel attempt to break Ukrainian morale once and for all.

But winter gave way to spring, and Ukraine did not break. Now, in the fifth year of Putin’s barbaric invasion, the assumption that time is on Russia’s side seems to be increasingly inaccurate. The longer this war drags on, the more likely it is that time may, instead, be on Ukraine’s side.

Losing Some Battles but Winning the War

Over the first four years of the war, Ukraine has scored major offensive successes, especially in 2022, but has also lost many individual battles for cities and villages. However, even while losing control of some territory since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainians have prevented Putin from achieving any of his core war aims.

First, Putin aimed to unite Russians and Ukrainians, whom he considers to be “one people.” Ukrainians, in his view, are just Russians with accents. Regarding this war objective, Putin has failed miserably. Ukrainians did not welcome his invading army as liberators. Just 0.3% of respondents of a 2023 poll conducted in non-occupied Ukraine said that they wanted their country to unite with Russia, according to the Kyiv International Institute for Sociology. At the same time, support for joining Western political and security institutions has grown. A 2026 poll by the Kyiv Security Forum found that 83% of respondents wanted Ukraine to join the European Union (EU), while 73% supported its accession to NATO. Just a few months before Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, these figures stood at 55% and 48%, respectively. Maybe more than any other historical event, Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2002 has solidified Ukrainian national identity.

Second, Putin did not achieve his second war objective—regime change or what he oddly calls “denazification.” (Nazis do not rule Ukraine.) Zelenskyy, his security detail, and all Ukrainian warriors have prevented Putin from overthrowing the democratically elected president and parliament. In the first days of the full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy evaded multiple assassination attempts. Putin’s original dream of installing a pro-Kremlin puppet to rule Ukraine seems more fantastical today than ever before.

Not only have Ukrainians thwarted Putin’s plan to kill Zelenskyy and install a Kremlin-friendly puppet, but they have also succeeded in practicing democracy throughout the duration of the Russian invasion. New elections have not been held, but their postponement under martial law has been carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Ukrainian Constitution. Furthermore, independent media, civil society, and anti-corruption government organs have continued to hold Zelenskyy, his government, and the parliament accountable. How else can you explain the resignation and indictments for corruption of some of Zelenskyy’s closest advisors? Independent media face constraints that should be lifted, but democracy is still Ukraine’s form of government. Putin’s dream of regime change has failed.

Third, after more than four years of fighting, Ukrainians have continued to deny Putin his revised, more limited war aim of annexing major chunks of Ukrainian territory. Recall that when launching his full-scale invasion in 2022, Putin aimed to conquer all of Ukraine, sending his tanks and special forces to Kyiv, not Donetsk. When that operation failed, he adjusted his war aims to more modestly focus on annexing eastern regions of Ukraine that Putin’s refers to as “Novorossiya.” In pursuit of this objective, Russian forces have made some gains, bringing the total percentage of occupied territory to roughly 20% since 2014, when Putin first seized control of Crimea and parts of Donbas. But Russia’s advance has gradually slowed. Over the last year, Russian soldiers seized control of roughly 1,427 square miles—only 0.6 percent of Ukraine’s territory. (For the details, see the impressive work of the Institute for the Study of War.) Importantly, Russia’s 2026 spring offensive was a complete disaster. Putin has not even conquered Donbas, the territory consisting of two regions—Donetsk and Luhansk— that he has been seeking to acquire since first invading Ukraine twelve years ago. In an indirect admission of his military failure, Putin even asked Trump to pressure Zelenskyy into handing over this territory to Russia. That request, allegedly agreed to by Trump during his meeting with Putin in Alaska last summer, has been rejected by Zelenskyy.

This spring, Ukraine has made incremental and localized gains along the frontline. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said his soldiers had reclaimed roughly 600 square km of land in 2026, including 100 square km in May alone. DeepState, the open-source project partly funded by the Ukrainian government, reported that in the four weeks from May 12 to June 9, Russia suffered a net loss of 1 square mile of territory, compared with the previous four-week period, when Russian soldiers secured a net gain of 41 square miles. Independently verifying such claims is difficult, given how dangerous the front line is right now. And offsetting some Ukrainian gains are new losses. One such place is Kostyantynivka, a city in the strategically significant “Fortress Belt”, where Russia has made recent gains. However, in its 10 June 10th report, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed that although it expected Russia to make further local gains there this summer, it was “unlikely to make operational gains against the Fortress Belt writ large.” Few analysts believe that momentum is still on Russia’s side. In fact, independent analysts, Russian military bloggers, and Kremlin propagandists all agree that Ukrainian soldiers have gained the upper hand on the frontline.

Fourth, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are gaining the upper hand on the front line because of another victory—the establishment and development of increasingly innovative drone companies. (To learn more about the development of Ukraine’s defense tech sector, check out Snake Island Institute.) Dozens of Ukrainian drone companies now work directly with Ukrainian commanders to provide new drones on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. These companies then gain battle-tested experience for their products and innovate, update, and improve accordingly. The scale has also expanded enormously: in 2026, Ukrainian drone companies plan to produce 7 million drones.

The world first witnessed Ukraine’s new defense tech prowess in 2022-2023, when Magura sea drones in the Black Sea effectively eliminated Russia’s navy from the war. But at the front, too, Ukrainian drone makers have continued innovating to penetrate deeper into Russian-occupied territory, making it nearly impossible for any Russian soldier to move within a kill zone of an estimated 20- 30 km on the frontline. This year, the Ukrainian deployment of mid-range drones, and especially the American-made, AI-enhanced Hornet drones (thank you, Eric Schmidt and Perennial Autonomy!), have crippled Russian supply lines, especially along the so-called Novorossiya highway, deep into occupied territories. Russia has yet to deploy a counter to these new weapons systems, making the road connecting occupied Ukrainian territories to Crimea nearly impossible to use. Once this horrific war is over, Ukrainian drone companies will emerge as some of, if not the, best in the business and eventually become a key component of the European defense industrial base. For instance, the Ukrainian drone company UFORCE has already attracted sufficient Western investment to become a Ukrainian unicorn, valued at $1.5 billion. Others will follow.

In addition to the success of its drones on the frontline, Ukraine has developed the capability to deploy drones and missiles deep inside Russian territory. In June 2025, Ukraine launched Operation Spider’s Web, targeting dozens of aircraft in Russia’s long-range bomber fleet. Ukrainian drones, smuggled into and launched inside Russia, struck more than 40 aircraft as they sat stationary at airbases as far afield as eastern Siberia and the Arctic Circle. Ukrainian companies have also designed and now deploy their own long-range missiles, including, most impressively, the Flamingo FP-5, with ranges over 1,000 kilometers. Every day now, military targets deep inside Russia are being hit. Putin was so paranoid about Ukrainian drones hitting Moscow during the May 9th celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany that he called for a temporary ceasefire. During the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin’s version of the World Economic Forum, Ukrainian armed forces struck fuel facilities in the region, creating lasting images of black smoke in the distance as delegates arrived at the event. Celebrations of Russia’s National Day on June 12th were dramatically scaled back out of fear that Ukrainian strikes might disrupt them. Over time, Ukraine’s ability to strike targets deep inside Russia will expand. Fire Point, the Ukrainian company that makes Flamingos, is expected to deploy ballistic missiles (the FP7 and FP9) with even longer ranges this fall.

A fifth indicator that Russia is losing this war is the shocking number of casualties. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an estimated 1.2 million Russian soldiers have been killed, wounded or reported missing; NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte said on 3 June that more than 30,000 Russian soldiers were dying each month in Ukraine. “This means losing more men in one month than the Soviet Union did in 10 years in the 1980s in Afghanistan,” he said. Of course, Ukrainian soldiers are dying at tragic rates, too. And obviously, Russia’s larger population gives Putin an advantage in this kind of attritional contest. At the same time, for every Ukrainian soldier lost on the battlefield, Russia is losing at least two more, according to CSIS estimates. Speaking in April, Finnish President Alexander Stubb claimed that this ratio was as much as 1:5. Putin cannot sustain that rate of death without instituting a highly unpopular draft. Regarding this aspect of the war, time is no longer on Putin’s side.

A sixth metric of Ukraine’s growing advantage in this war is how well Zelenskyy, his government, and his armed forces have managed Trump’s abandonment of their cause. When Trump was first reelected, many of my friends in Ukraine quietly cheered. They had high (and it turned out, false) hopes that the alleged master dealmaker in the White House would negotiate an end to the war. After all, as a presidential candidate, he had pledged to do so. I sensed that many Ukrainians were prepared to accept huge sacrifices, including acquiescing to Russian occupation of large swaths of Ukrainian territory, if Trump could leverage that sacrifice for peace. (I wrote about such scenarios in this Foreign Affairs article, “How Trump Can End the War in Ukraine.” But Trump did not even really try. Instead, Trump and his negotiators gave up their best cards—ending military assistance to Ukraine and publicly denying Ukrainian membership into NATO—without getting anything in return from Putin. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and businessman Jared Kushner were not neutral mediators. They seemed more focused on future economic deals for Americans in Russia than peace in Ukraine. (Witkoff has visited Moscow several times but has never once been to Kyiv. Hardly “shuttle diplomacy.”) That their efforts have withered has disappointed few in Kyiv.

Amazingly, Zelenskyy and his team have survived Trump’s initial pro-Putin pivot. When Trump refused to approve any new military and economic assistance to Ukraine beyond what Biden and the U.S. Congress had previously approved, many predicted disasters for Ukraine’s army and its economy. As journalist and historian Anne Applebaum rightly recalled: “When the Trump administration stopped sending military and financial aid to Kyiv in 2025, some in Washington expected (and maybe wanted) the end to come quickly.” That did not happen, in part because of European support, and in part because of Ukrainian military innovations. Despite the personal attacks by Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance, during a White House meeting in February 2025, Zelenskyy has avoided a complete breakdown in ties between Kyiv and Washington, while also abandoning false hopes that Trump and his team might help Ukraine end the war on honorable terms. For maintaining this delicate balancing act, credit is due to Zelenskyy, Ukrainian government officials (the channel between Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko has been particularly important), and diplomats, including Ukraine’s talented ambassador in Washington, Olga Stefanyshyna, who have played an important role in maintaining cordial ties between the US and Ukraine under challenging circumstances.

Seventh, Ukraine has scored another win in Europe. Zelenskyy and his team have succeeded in maintaining and even expanding European support, despite Putin’s best efforts to divide Europe. Most importantly, European democracies have continued to provide military and economic assistance to Ukraine, which became especially critical after Trump wound down such aid from the United States. The change of government in Hungary was another victory for Ukraine (and a blow for Putin), unlocking 90 billion euros in aid that had been blocked by Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and boosting Ukrainian hopes of one day joining the EU. Furthermore, Ukrainian diplomacy has facilitated the maintenance and incremental expansion of European sanctions against Russia over the years, hampering Putin’s ability to fund his war against Ukraine.

Finally, albeit anecdotally, I can report a new sense of optimism among the Ukrainians with whom I interact almost daily. Last winter was very hard for my Ukrainian friends, most of whom live in Kyiv. The coming winter will be hard too; they know that. But this spring has been the most optimistic moment for my Ukrainian colleagues since the fall of 2022. They sense that momentum is on their side. They see no prospects at all that Putin’s invading army can move forward. Many praise their new Minister of Defense, Mikhailo Fedorov, as the perfect person for this job at this crucial moment in Ukraine: young, tech-savvy, close to Zelenskyy, and focused on metrics and data. This sense of optimism among Ukrainians contrasts starkly with the opposite in Russia, about which I wrote previously here.

Is the End Game Near?

Unless something dramatic changes the dynamics of this conflict, the Ukrainian people, its warriors, and its leaders will continue to deny Putin his core war objectives. Putin will not subjugate Ukraine to Russia; he will not impose regime change, and he will not demilitarize a country that is today a pioneer of modern warfare. Ukraine will survive this war as a pro-European independent democracy, with most of its territory governed from Kyiv rather than Moscow. That will be a giant victory.

Sadly, however, the final contours of the end of this barbaric, tragic war are still not yet defined. On the battlefield, Ukraine’s advantage remains only slight. Ukraine today does not have the capacity to liberate its occupied territories. It may never develop that capacity. The shortages of Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline and interceptors for Patriot missile defense systems (PAC3s) to defend Ukrainian cities are real. (The latter deficit, however, might soon be diminished by the production of new Ukrainian interceptors.) And Ukrainian sacrifices in thwarting Putin’s invasion have been substantial and cannot continue forever.

At the same time, momentum on the battlefield has swung clearly to Ukrainian warriors and against Russian soldiers this spring. When victory is clearly not attainable—when the reason for fighting becomes increasingly ill-defined—unexpected things happen on the battlefield. Putin should be studying dynamics on the eastern front in World War I in 1917. To avoid a similar disaster for his regime, he should negotiate a ceasefire and declare victory now, before it’s too late. Time is no longer on his side.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thirteen years ago, on May 9, 2013, I was seated on Red Square alongside dozens of other diplomats at a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, or what they call the Great Patriotic War. As U.S. ambassador to Russia, I was proud to represent my country in honoring the enormous sacrifices made by all Soviet citizens in defeating fascism.

Over the years, however, Victory Day has evolved into something very different. Under Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the commemoration has increasingly become a ritual of state propaganda, designed to reinforce nationalism and legitimize his rule through appeals to past military glory. It has become customary to see columns of tanks, military hardware, and even intercontinental ballistic missiles rumble down Tverskaya Street and across Red Square—a clear projection of Russian military might to the world. A few years ago on Substack, I wrote an essay on why I no longer celebrate this holiday. (Read it here.)

This year, however, something was different. For the first time in decades, tanks and other heavy military hardware did not roll through Red Square. It is difficult to celebrate military victories of the past when your army is performing so poorly in the present.

It was against this backdrop that I published my Substack essay, Growing Cracks in Putin’s Dictatorship. In the piece, I examine how the mounting economic, social, and political costs of Putin’s war in Ukraine are generating increasingly visible signs of strain inside Russia’s authoritarian system. This does not mean that Putin’s regime is about to collapse; repression still works, and the Russian state remains highly centralized and deeply coercive. Political change in autocracies is also notoriously difficult to predict. But compared to even four years ago, there are now more visible signs of dissatisfaction among elites, pro-Kremlin commentators, military bloggers, economists, and ordinary citizens. It is something I will be watching closely in the coming months.

Watch a video discussion of the ideas in that piece here.

Trump in China

In 2025, when Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, more than a dozen world leaders joined Putin on Red Square. Among them was Xi Jinping, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, who was seated prominently at Putin’s right-hand side. The image was carefully choreographed: a public display of solidarity between the two leaders and a signal to the West about the deepening alignment between Moscow and Beijing.

This year, Xi was absent from Red Square, though Putin did travel to China on May 19–20 for talks with the Chinese leader. Notably—and not coincidentally—the meeting came just four days after U.S. President Donald Trump’s own visit to Beijing concluded.

Ahead of Trump’s trip, I wrote a Substack essay titled Détente 2.0: Hoping for a Boring Summit in Beijing, in which I argued that Trump would arrive in China in a much weaker position than when he first visited Beijing as president in 2017. Some of the shifts in the balance of power in China’s favor can be put down to Xi’s policies and China’s continued economic and military growth. But Trump’s own actions have also contributed to America’s relative decline.

In the essay, I argued that the best realistic outcome for the United States at this moment may be a new détente with China—one that buys America time to recover, rebuild, and renew. I also outlined a series of policy prescriptions that future American leaders will need to pursue if the United States is to compete more effectively with China over the long run. Read more on that here.

In the end, the Trump-Xi summit was heavy on pageantry and light on substance. Sometimes, in diplomacy—and especially in relations between leaders of great powers—feel-good pomp and circumstance can yield concrete outcomes that advance American national interests. But that did not happen in Beijing. As I wrote in my piece some economic and trade deals were reportedly agreed—but there was anticipation that they would be greater.

On a more worrisome note was Trump’s comments on Taiwan, in which he fueled doubt about US commitment to defending the island. Asked whether he would follow through on new arms sales to Taiwan, Trump demurred, explaining that he had not yet made that decision and that the arms package is “a very good negotiating chip for us.” That’s a disastrous policy change. Those weapons enhance deterrence and help to keep that peace. Treating those commitments as bargaining chips to secure unrelated concessions from Beijing would set a deeply troubling precedent, as I wrote in my piece Happy Talk in Beijing, but Few Gains for America (Yet).

If Trump was hoping to secure Xi’s help on his increasingly difficult foreign-policy agenda—most urgently the war in Iran and the disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz—he did not get it. Although Trump told Fox News that Xi had promised to do “whatever he could to help,” Beijing offered no concrete public commitments following the summit. More broadly, the episode underscored America’s weakened position. As I told Jen Psaki on MS Now, the very fact that the U.S. is now asking China to help reopen a strait that was functioning normally before Trump launched his war with Iran makes us look weak, not strong. I was also critical of Trump’s relentless praise of Xi, whom he kept calling a “friend” and “a great leader”. This was not reciprocated by XI. Again, as I told Ana Cabrera on MS Now, this asymmetry made Trump appear in a weakened position.

My visit to China

It wasn’t just Trump and Putin who visited China in May—I was also in Beijing to speak at a conference hosted by the Stanford Center at Peking University.

As I usually do when traveling to China, I also spoke at several universities and participated in a roundtable with Chinese and American business leaders. In my latest Substack essay, I reflect on those conversations with academics, students, and businesspeople across the Chinese capital, as well as my broader impressions of the country. From AI and electric vehicles to Taiwan and great-power competition, the trip challenged some of my assumptions and sharpened others. Read more in my Beijing Trip Report.

World events this month on great-power relations replayed many of the themes I covered in my most recent book, Autocrats vs. Democrats. Major summits between Xi, Trump, and Putin this month in Beijing underscored that great-power relations will remain a major driver of international politics for decades to come. For my ideas on how the United States should deal with China and Russia more effectively than we are now, read the last three chapters of the book. I continue to give talks on the book, including at a fantastic book festival in Annapolis, Maryland, earlier this month. CSPAN Books filmed the event. You can watch it here.

That’s all for this month. I am, of course, watching developments around Iran as well as in Ukraine, and hope to write something on both soon.

As always, thank you for your continued engagement!

Mike

Last week, I was in Beijing. My primary reason for traveling to China was to speak at a conference hosted by the Stanford Center at Peking University. But, as I usually do when traveling to China, I also spoke at several other universities --- including other parts of Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, and Foreign Affairs University. I also attended roundtables with American and Chinese businesspeople, and checked in, as I traditionally do, with colleagues at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Ukrainian embassy. This time around, I did not have time to make it down to the US embassy, which is very far from Peking University’s campus. Still, I heard readouts of the Trump-Xi meeting from American and European journalists, as well as from Chinese academics who had attended post-summit briefings organized by the Chinese government. I also heard the same from various sources about the Xi-Putin summit, which happened just a few days after President Trump left.

Impressions, interviews, and data gathered on this trip will feed into more formal writings I will do in the future. In this piece, I am sharing a few general impressions, recognizing that these are just anecdotes and hot takes rather than digested academic research.

I am not an expert on China. I do not speak Mandarin or Cantonese. I am a consumer of knowledge about China, not a producer. However, because China is such an important country for anyone claiming expertise in international relations (remember, the endowed chair I have in political science at Stanford is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor in International Studies!) I have tried to learn as much as I can about the country and firmly believe that you cannot understand a country without seeing it. Since my first trips to the People’s Republic of China in the late 1980s, including spending summers at Peking University in 2015 and 2019 conducting research, I have tried to go as often as I can, usually about once a year. Since the 1990s, China, as a “case study,” has also featured prominently in my courses on the political economy of post-communism, revolutions, comparative foreign policy decision-making, and great power competition, which I’m teaching now.

I do get nervous when crossing the border in and out of China. I do worry that there will come a time when I will not be allowed to travel to the PRC. Other American academics have been denied visas. The US government has also refused visas to dozens of Chinese scholars, according to colleagues in Beijing. This tit-for-tat game is imprudent. So too is the expulsion of journalists, which tragically the Chinese government just did again by canceling the visa of New York Times correspondent Vivian Wang. Of course, the United States government should not give visas to Chinese spies, and vice versa. But I do believe that both countries benefit from understanding each other, and that’s why Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders should want American experts on China to travel to their country, and Washington should want Americanists from China to be as well-informed as possible. At the same time, to keep my visa, I never self-censor what I write or say about China even when I am there. Last week, I talked about democracy and human rights generally, wrongly detained persons (including mentioning Jimmy Lai by name), persecutions in Xinjiang, and other sensitive topics. My last book is titled Autocrats vs Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder, and you don’t have to read very deeply into the book to figure out which side I consider the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, to be on. But last week, I got in and out without any drama.

And I hope that continues because even just a week in China always leaves a big impression.

Regarding US-China relations, I spoke with many Chinese professors and analysts who echoed the confidence Xi displayed during his meeting with Trump. The assessment of the United States as a declining power and China as a rising power is held by many. I do not share that view; the epilogue of my last book is titled “Don’t Bet Against America Yet.” And some of China’s best specialists on the United States also do not subscribe to the conventional wisdom in Beijing that the United States is a declining power. I talked to some of them on this trip. But I came back from Beijing less confident in my assessments than before. During the Trump-Xi summit, the United States appeared weak, and that may be because it is weaker today than it was when Trump last visited Beijing in 2017. Tensions with allies, trade disputes with nearly the entire world, an unnecessary war against Iran, and deep polarization at home put Trump in a much weaker position for this summit than the last time he met with Xi. (For more on this topic, see this essay.) But it was also the optics of the summit that signaled a changing balance of power. Trump constantly praised Xi as a close friend and great leader. Xi did not reciprocate. I was told that this lack of praise for Trump was intentional, in part because Xi remembered that tariffs and confrontational policies soon followed the final summit they held in Beijing in 2017. Xi did not want to get burned again.

Behind closed doors, or so I heard multiple times last week from Chinese colleagues, Xi pressed Trump hard on American and Japanese support for Taiwan. Xi felt emboldened to do so in part because of Trump’s weak position internationally, but also because Xi did not back down when Trump tried to impose expansive tariffs against China, but instead pushed back by threatening to cut off rare earth exports. In that game of chicken last year, Xi held firm, and Trump backed down. So, Xi was feeling confident during the summit and emboldened to push harder on Taiwan than in previous meetings. The consensus among scholars I met last week in Beijing is that Xi got what he wanted on Taiwan. Judging by Trump’s subsequent comments, including his decision to delay arms shipments in Taiwan, maybe my Chinese colleagues were right. Strikingly, Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth gave a speech in Singapore this week in which he did not mention Taiwan once in his prepared remarks.

Xi wanted to foster a positive atmosphere in his meeting with Trump but was in no mood to give the American president big gifts. I heard from many people last week that Chinese commitments to buy Boeing aircraft and American agricultural goods were more modest than hoped. In talking to American businesspeople in Beijing, some of whom had been working in China for decades, I found they feared tougher days ahead regarding trade deals and even harder times to come regarding investment.

At the same time, most people I met in Beijing last week celebrated the summit as a win-win outcome for US-China relations. Most of my interlocutors were in better spirits about America and Trump than they were during my last visit to Beijing last spring. Many celebrated Trump’s willingness to accept the new Chinese framing of bilateral relations as “constructive strategic stability.” By the end of my stay, that phrase was rolling off the tongues of everyone as if it had been around for years or decades. Message discipline among officials and academics connected to the Chinese government is striking. For some Chinese observers, Trump’s acceptance of the Chinese phrase was also seen as another sign of China’s rise and America’s decline.

“Constructive strategic stability” reminded me of other catchy phrases in great-power relations, such as “détente” between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s or “reset” between the U.S. and Russia in the 2010s, when I was working in the Obama administration. In my talks around town (I gave seven altogether, including one in Russian!), I began my remarks by celebrating this new détente as well, but then reminded my audiences why détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s eventually failed. My lecture at Renmin University was on the record, so if you read Chinese, you can see how the press covered it here. I don’t read Mandarin, so I’m not sure what these stories say. However, I can tell you that the audience reaction to my caution about future US-China relations was disappointment. I was told many times that I was too pessimistic. Most controversially, I explained that Soviet overreach in Afghanistan ended détente, subtly warning that Beijing overreach regarding Taiwan would lead to a similar backlash and end of détente 2.0 in US-China relations. Once they understood the analogy, my Chinese colleagues assured me that Xi had no intention of invading Taiwan now and was more focused on peaceful means of reunification.

As a side note, having visited Taiwan twice in the last few years, I always get the sense when in the PRC that Beijing does not understand how much Taiwan has changed. It reminds me of Putin’s misreading of Ukrainian society. Peaceful reunification is not going to be as easy as many in Beijing assume. But I’ll come back to this topic in a separate essay.

Putin was also in Beijing when I was there. (He did not invite me over to the Russian embassy for tea.) Both the similarities and differences with the Trump-Xi summit are worth noting. Regarding differences, the two governments issued two joint statements and announced over twenty agreements. The United States and China issued no joint statements. Putin and Xi are obviously closer than Trump and Xi, and that was on display too, both in their language and their mannerisms. At the same time, I was struck by some similarities. First, the Chinese press emphasized Putin’s praise of Xi and China, not the other way around. The headline of the China Daily story on the summit was “Putin hails ‘unprecedented level’ of ties.” The headline was not “Xi hails ‘unprecedented level’ of ties.” The symbolism of all world leaders coming to pay their respects to the great leader of the Middle Kingdom was one that many of my Chinese colleagues emphasized. Several European leaders had also been recently to Beijing. After a century of humiliation, China had returned to its rightful status as a great power in the world, or so I was told. Second, like Trump, Putin did not leave Beijing with big deliverables to bring home. Above all else, he did not get Xi to agree to build the Power of Siberia II pipeline. Chinese experts on Russia told me that Xi does not feel the need to commit to this expensive project when China can import Russian hydrocarbons at a discounted price because of Western sanctions. I also asked many Chinese experts on Russia – I have gotten to know this crowd well over the many years of interaction with them -- why Xi continues to allow Chinese components to find their way to Ukraine via third countries that are then used to build Ukrainian drones. I was told that Putin wants China to stop this trade, but Xi does not feel the need to do so. Russia-China relations are closer than ever before. Putin and Xi are also very tight. But these bilateral relations are not without limits.

Every time I travel to China, there is always some new economic development that catches my eye. On this trip, I was struck by the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on the roads, and very fancy ones at that. I rode from the airport to Peking University in an EV van fully loaded with all sorts of AI-enhanced features, including the ability to open and close doors with voice commands. Since I spent a summer in Beijing in 2015, the city’s air quality has also improved tremendously. In addition, like at home (I live in Silicon Valley), almost every conversation with economists and businesspeople focused on AI and robots. The race is on. I heard many stories about amazing breakthroughs soon to come. Many of my Chinese colleagues in these conversations, however, stressed that this competition need not be zero-sum, and that our governments needed to cooperate to establish guardrails against the most pernicious uses of AI (i.e., the development of bioweapons). On this point, I agree.

When discussing the Chinese economy with professional economists – i.e, professors in departments of economics at Peking or Tsinghua universities – the story of China’s booming success became more sober. Growing economic inequality, cutthroat competition leading to too much production, demographic challenges, and bad policy decisions by the Chinese Communist Party were recurrent themes.

Another impression I want to share came from a session I had with students from Stanford and Peking University. In that meeting, we eventually got around to the topic of my last book, and one student very eloquently argued that the glory days of democratic systems of government are over, and China’s system of government created more permissive conditions for sustained economic growth, including for entrepreneurs. I pushed back. I asked how well the Chinese system was working for Jack Ma, the Chinese entrepreneur who lost control of the multi-billion dollar company and now, according to press reports, lives in Japan. The student pushed back, saying Ma was just “one case.” I rebutted that claim by citing other instances of the ”grabbing hand” of the Chinese state – not Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” -- destroying or weakening other private Chinese companies. I then fell back on the correlation over hundreds of years between democratic institutions and economic growth. (When I got home, I even pulled off the shelf the classic by Doug North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance to refresh my memory of these arguments!) I must admit, however, that I spent the next hour in transit to my next meeting downtown – Beijing is a big city! – wondering whether the Chinese autocratic model is sui generis and capable of sustaining economic development, including even entrepreneurship, in ways never seen before in world history. Dan Wang’s important book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, came to mind, in which he argues that those governing China are mostly engineers and those governing the United States are mostly lawyers, and that gives China an edge. I’m still not convinced. In the long run, I still think China’s model of economic development will face difficulties, just as other autocracies in Asia did when they tried to move from middle-income to high-income economies. But it’s a hypothesis that constantly needs to be revisited as more data becomes available. That one conversation/debate alone made the trip to Beijing worthwhile.

Relatedly, I also left Beijing more convinced than ever that the free world needs to be united to engage with and compete more effectively with China and its autocratic allies. If we continue to go it alone, as Trump seems to prefer, we have no chance.

Travel, especially to complex and important places like China, is always stimulating. I got back to campus more motivated to read many of the books on China that I have bought over the last few years! If you get the chance, do more travel this summer! I have trips planned to both Europe and Asia. I’ll report back again.

It was the honor of a lifetime to appear on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Following his sign-off last night, I thought I’d revisit those appearances— the first in July 2018, shortly after the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki, and again in March 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The 2018 Helsinki summit will forever be remembered for Trump siding with Putin over his own intelligence community when he said he saw no reason to believe Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.

That wasn’t all. At a joint press conference, Putin proposed that U.S. investigators be allowed to question 12 Russians suspected of involvement in election interference if Russian investigators were permitted to interrogate 11 Americans—me included—for unspecified “illegal actions” in Russia.

That the proposal was even considered by President Trump was deeply disturbing; it took nearly a full day for the White House to distance itself from the idea. In the meantime, the U.S. Senate unanimously rejected making American officials available for questioning by Putin’s government (a rare 98-0 vote!)

Watch that clip below:

In March 2022, I was back on the sofa to discuss Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which was launched just two weeks earlier. Watch all three parts below!

See also: The Growing Cracks in Putin’s Dictatorship

Last week, President Donald Trump concluded the biggest foreign-policy summit of his second term when meeting Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping in Beijing. The meeting was long on pageantry and short on substance. Sometimes, in diplomacy—and especially in relations between leaders of great powers—feel-good pomp and circumstance can yield concrete outcomes that advance American national interests. That didn’t happen in Beijing.

President Trump landed in Beijing in a much weaker position than he was on his last visit as president, nine years ago. (For the details, see my previous Substack essay here.) Over the past decade, Chinese economic and military power has grown substantially. China’s international reach has also expanded dramatically through bilateral trade and investment agreements around the world, as well as the maturation of several multilateral projects, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Conversely, Trump’s initiatives have weakened America’s power and influence around the world. Trump has alienated allies by threatening to invade Greenland, joking about making Canada the 51^st state, and stopping aid to Ukraine. He has disrupted economic relations with most of the world through his erratic tariff policies. And he has diminished American global influence by destroying the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Voice of America, and other instruments of American soft power. Most detrimentally, Trump went to war with Iran, inflating energy prices globally and making the United States look like an irresponsible stakeholder in the international order compared to China.

Arriving in Beijing, Trump could have used some help from Xi on his increasingly challenging foreign policy agenda. He got none. On Iran, Trump and other administration officials hinted before the meeting that they hoped to persuade Xi to pressure Iranian leaders to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. After their meeting, Trump claimed that Xi wanted to help. Maybe some secret deal on Iran was concluded, and we will see the results later. But, in public at least, Xi offered Trump nothing concrete. Nor did Xi commit to pressuring Putin to end his war in Ukraine. It’s not even clear if that topic, once at the top of the list of all U.S.-China meetings, even came up.

Given the presence of American CEOs on Air Force One, there were high expectations that Xi and Trump might sign major economic deals to increase trade and even investment between their two countries. That did not materialize either. In a fact sheet released after the summit, the Trump administration took credit for Beijing agreeing to purchase 200 planes from Boeing and at least $17 billion in U.S. agricultural products. While these would be notable achievements if realized, they fall well short of the 500 planes Boeing had hoped to sell and do not compensate American farmers for the soaring fuel and fertilizer costs hitting them because of the conflict with Iran. Judging by the readouts, there was also little progress on regulating AI and no discussion of arms control at all. The hope before the summit that Trump might convince Xi to release jailed media owner Jimmy Lai, expressed by some human rights activists and members of Congress, proved misplaced.

And regarding one big issue—Taiwan—there was a major setback. From the Chinese readout of the bilateral meeting, we know that Xi issued his standard warning on Taiwan. (Taiwan was not even mentioned in the White House readout.) During interviews after his meeting with Xi, Trump fueled doubt about America’s commitment to defend Taiwan. Most worrisome, when asked whether he would follow through on new arms sales to Taiwan, Trump demurred, explaining that he had not yet made that decision and that the arms package is “a very good negotiating chip for us.” That’s a disastrous policy change. Those weapons enhance deterrence and help to keep that peace. Offering the chairman of the Communist Party of China the opportunity to block them by giving Trump something else, like new purchases of soybeans or chips, would set a terrible precedent.

We Don’t Have to Be Friends to Cooperate on Interests of Mutual Benefit

If the concrete outcomes—in State Department parlance, “deliverables”—that benefit the American people were thin, the pageantry was elegant and friendly. The Chinese government put on a good show that obviously pleased Trump. He likes such things. And of course, it’s better for Trump and Xi to be talking than not. Sometimes in foreign policy, especially regarding relations between great powers, changing the mood music can be an important goal in itself.

But some of the rhetoric went too far and instead made America look weak. Multiple times, Trump called the Chinese autocrat his “friend” and even said that it was an “honor” to be so. He effusively praised the head of the Communist Party of China as a “great leader,” something Trump also says about Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, but never says about leaders of our democratic allies. In describing Xi as a powerful leader, Trump even mentioned his physical characteristics! Xi did not reciprocate. Such asymmetries make the United States look weak.

That’s most certainly what Xi thinks. In fact, in one of his remarks, Xi said the quiet part out loud. The Chinese leader referred to Thucydides’ Trap, a metaphor made famous by Harvard professor Graham Allison, which posits that the rise of a new power and the fall of an old one can often lead to war. To explain how the United States and China need to avoid this trap, Xi was obviously characterizing the United States as a declining power. Standing next to Xi, Trump did not push back.

In reflecting on the summit’s tangible achievements, Trump reported that the most important outcome was the deepening of his personal relationship with Xi. That answer was consistent with how Trump generally thinks about diplomacy; it’s all very personal for him. If Trump personally feels good about the meeting, then it is a success for him. Whether that over-personalization of American foreign policy advances the interests of the American people is unclear. Maybe the friendly strolls and carefully managed optics in Beijing will produce outcomes meaningful for U.S. security and prosperity in the future. But this summit, at least in its immediate outcomes, did not.

Since the first Obama administration, American presidents from both parties have identified the rise of China as a paramount national security challenge. In 2011, the Obama administration called for a pivot to Asia to counteract Beijing’s growing influence in the region. The first Trump administration went further, labeling the People’s Republic of China in the 2017 National Security Strategy a “revisionist power”—one that, according to then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, “is working to take down freedom all across the world.” President Biden’s administration signaled continuity, describing China in its 2022 National Security Strategy as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order, and increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do so.” And in 2024, just months before becoming Secretary of State, Senator Rubio upped the ante on the Chinese threat, declaring, “Communist China is the most powerful adversary the United States has faced in living memory. We sometimes forget that past enemies, including Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, had smaller economies than we did.”

Many analysts concur, comparing the U.S.-China rivalry in the 21^st century to the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 20^th century. I recently wrote an entire book on this subject. In Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, I outlined a more nuanced perspective, tracing both similarities and differences between the old Cold War and U.S.-China relations today. But I agreed with others that managing relations with China is the most important American foreign policy issue in the 21^st century.

Later this week, the next major chapter of this superpower competition will unfold when President Trump attends a two-day summit in the People’s Republic of China with Chairman Xi Jinping. When he lands in Beijing, Trump will be in a much weaker position than he was when he first visited the Chinese capital as president in 2017. Some changes in the balance of power in favor of China have resulted from Xi’s policies, but Trump’s actions have also contributed to this shift. If we do not begin correcting these errors, we will lose out to China in this new era of great-power competition in the 21^st century.

China’s Continued Rise

Since Trump and Xi last met nearly a decade ago in Beijing, the Chinese economy has continued to grow, narrowing the GDP gap with the United States and surpassing it when measured on purchasing power parity (PPP). China’s global advantage in manufacturing is particularly striking, and now accounts for roughly 30% of global output compared to only 15% for the United States. Today, China’s success is no longer limited to low-value industries. The Hamilton Index, produced by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), tracks performance across 10 advanced sectors, including IT and related services, machinery and equipment, and pharmaceuticals. According to its 2026 report, China has been the global leader in aggregate advanced-industry output since 2013 and has continued to expand its market share since then, too. By contrast, the report said, the U.S. global market share has declined in seven of the 10 advanced industries tracked by the index since 1995. In the last decade, China has also made huge advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotech.

Over the long term, China’s economy faces big challenges, including the difficulties of moving from a middle-income to a high-income country, growing inequality, major demographic challenges, and policies implemented by Xi that are less friendly to the private sector. And while China’s economy continues to grow at a rapid pace, the American economy is growing too. Over the long run, I’m still betting that the U.S. economy will outperform the Chinese economy. But we have to get to the long run. In the short run, since the last Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, China’s economy has become much bigger and stronger.

China’s economic growth has enabled a major expansion of Chinese military might. Since the last Trump-Xi summit in 2017, Beijing has heavily invested in the production of ships, short-range and medium-range missiles, drones, and nuclear weapons. In my assessment, the United States remains ahead in military power, but the gap is rapidly closing, especially in Asia, where conflict is most likely. (For the detailed data, see Chapter Five of Autocrats vs. Democrats.)

In addition to bolstering China’s economic and military power, Xi and his comrades have pursued a systematic strategy to expand Chinese influence worldwide since the last Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing. Xi has actively maintained his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and investments by his Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB); expanded the activities and memberships in many of his multilateral organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa); and increased China’s influence in United Nations bodies. Beijing has also invested in international media, embassies, educational exchanges, and other forms of soft-power influence. Also important is what Xi has not done. Unlike both Putin and Trump, Xi has not started a major war in the last decade.

America’s Relative (and Hopefully, Short-Lived) Decline

If the story of China under Xi is one of economic growth, military restraint, greater participation and interaction with multilateral institutions, and investment in soft power, then the story of America under President Trump has been almost the exact opposite. The United States’ position in the world is weaker now than it was at the start of the president’s second term in January 2025.

Most detrimentally, Trump’s decision to launch a major war against Iran in February 2026 has dragged the United States back into the Middle East at precisely the moment in history when we should be directing more of our military and economic resources to Asia. Not only has Trump’s Iran war resulted in tragic losses of life—both military and civilian—it has cost tens of billions of dollars already, and the long-term costs, as University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers recently explained, will be much more. It has also drained American stockpiles of weapons, especially missile defense interceptors, which are urgently needed in Asia to deter a war with China over Taiwan. In addition, the negative consequences of the Iran war for the global economy continue to grow, with rising energy prices affecting people in nearly every country, and that makes the United States increasingly unpopular around the world. Compared with Trump’s America, Xi’s China looks today like the responsible stakeholder in the rules-based international system. A global Gallup opinion poll showed, tragically, that more people (36%) now approve of Chinese leadership than of American leadership (31%). As Bob Kagan wrote recently in The Atlantic: “Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure.”

In addition, Trump, in his second term, has initiated major fights with our democratic allies, further diminishing U.S. power and influence. By threatening to invade Denmark, joking about making Canada the 51^st state, and cutting to near-zero U.S. economic and military aid to Ukraine, Trump has exacerbated tensions within NATO to historic highs. Allied relations in Asia are more stable, but Trump’s refusal to defend Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi when Beijing attacked her for making a supportive statement about Taiwan deeply troubled America’s Asian allies and partners, especially in Taiwan.

Third, Trump has introduced radical uncertainty in trade relations with most of the world. His irrational application of tariffs, especially on allies, has strained relations with American economic partners, with many now declaring that the international economic order the United States established at the end of World War II is over. If it finally collapses, American power in the world will be further diminished.

Fourth, even as Trump exercises aggressive unilateral force in Venezuela and Iran, he has not abandoned the isolationist tendencies on display during his first term. Trump does not like international institutions or multilateral organizations. To date, he has pulled out of (1) the Transpacific Partnership (TPP); (2) the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal), which many forget was between Iran and six countries, including China, not just a bilateral agreement between the United States and China; (3) the Paris Climate Accords, and (4) numerous UN bodies, including the World Health Organization, UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, and the UN Democracy Fund. Trump is also threatening to withdraw from the World Trade Organization and even NATO. Xi is doing the exact opposite, growing Chinese influence in multilateral organizations originally created by the United States (e.g., the United Nations) and expanding those international institutions anchored in Beijing (e.g., the SCO, BRICS, BRI, AIIB).

While China has been expanding its instruments of soft power over the last decade, Trump tried to destroy many of them in the first year of his second term, including most dramatically the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Trump also fired some of our most experienced ambassadors and reduced the number of diplomats at the State Department. Xi is doing the exact opposite, making China now the country with the most diplomatic posts (274) in the world.

Trump also has shown no interest in supporting democratic ideas, leaders, or movements worldwide. In the ideological struggle between autocracy and democracy in the 21^st century, Trump’s indifference—if not outright hostility— to democracy promotion amounts to unilateral disarmament. Public opinion polls show that most people worldwide prefer democracy to dictatorship. But the United States cannot leverage this ideological advantage now unless we signal our continued support for democracy, freedom, and liberty.

Negotiating Temporarily from Weakness

Beijing understands this shift in the global balance of power since Trump and Xi last met in 2017. CCP leaders seem confident (in my assessment, overconfident) in predicting America’s decline and China’s rise. When Trump tried to impose new tariffs on China last year, Xi—unlike most other world leaders—did not acquiesce, but fought back, threatening to disrupt supplies of critical minerals to the United States. Trump backed off. In fact, Trump travels to Beijing this week with few coercive instruments left in his arsenal. He most certainly has no leverage to compel Xi to implement structural economic reforms (an aspiration of Trump’s first administration) I suspect the tough talk of Trump 1.0—of seeking to contain the spread of Chinese power and influence around the world—will be replaced this week by statements about “peaceful coexistence.” In another sign of weakness, Trump administration officials have been calling on Xi to pressure Iran to capitulate to the United States, asking Chinese diplomats to do what the American military has failed to accomplish so far.

This moment reminds me of détente in the 1970s between the United States and the Soviet Union. Back then, the Soviet Union was the rising power, and the United States was the declining power—or so it was perceived at the time. For now, détente might be the best that can be hoped for. As in the 1970s, a good outcome from this summit might be superpower agreements to cooperate on shared security and economic goals, such as controlling artificial intelligence from its most dire uses, like making biological weapons, or expanding bilateral trade commitments incrementally. Hoping for more is unrealistic. Xi feels little pressure to offer the United States concessions right now. The worst outcome would be Trump being too eager to announce “a big economic deal,” and thus signaling publicly less support for Taiwan than previous presidents. Trump lifting more export controls in pursuit of an ambiguously defined, hard-to-implement “big economic deal” would also be imprudent. At this moment in history, a boring summit will be a good outcome.

The Long Game

Détente, as historian Niall Ferguson argues, bought time for the United States during the Cold War. After containment overreach in Vietnam and polarization at home, the United States needed to recover, rebuild, and renew. The same must be done now. Over the long run, future American leaders must strive for more than just détente or stalemate with China and devise a new, more effective strategy to compete with China than Trump is doing today. Détente 2.0 must also be accompanied by Competition 2.0. We did both during the Cold War. We can do so again.

Such a strategy must first and foremost include deeper cooperation with allies. America alone does not compare favorably with China regarding the bilateral balance of economic or military power. However, when democratic allies are added to the question, the free world has significantly more military might and economic capability than China and its autocratic partners.

A second part of a new strategy for American renewal must more tightly bring together the economies of the free world, just as the United States did after World War II. Of course, failures of past international institutions, like the WTO, must be addressed—but by reform, not abandonment. Trying to compete economically with China alone, and without any rules or multilateral organizations at all, is sure to fail. In this domain, Trump’s Pax Silica is a notable achievement but far too modest to meet the Chinese challenge.

Third, when deepening economic engagement with democracies around the world, future American leaders must also stimulate economic innovation and growth at home through greater investments in research and development and education, and new immigration policies that attract once again the best and brightest from around the world. To compete with China in the 21^st century, we cannot just try to trip up their companies. We must also run faster.

Fourth, future American leaders must recommit to the basic principles of the rules-based international system, even when that means abiding by constraints on the unilateral use of American power. We cannot do what we want one day and then expect others to adhere to international rules the next day. Sustained unilateralism will accelerate American decline. Reengaging with multilateral institutions—both existing ones and new clubs anchored by the United States—will stimulate the renewal of American global leadership.

Finally, future American leaders must again appreciate the value of supporting the ideas of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, and devise new strategies for doing so with other democratic countries more effectively. It’s one of our most competitive advantages.

Reversing the damage done by President Trump will not be quick or easy. Devising and implementing a comprehensive strategy for American global leadership will take decades. Therefore, a new détente with China may be the best we can hope for right now. That’s why I’ll be hoping for a boring summit this week.

Earlier this week, I published an essay titled Growing Cracks in Putin’s Dictatorship, examining signs of strain inside Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian system after more than a quarter century in power.

The central argument was not that Putin’s collapse is imminent. Predictions of regime change in Russia have often been wrong, and anyone who studies authoritarian politics learns humility very quickly. Repression remains powerful. The Russian state is still highly coercive and highly capable.

But it is also true that systems built on war, propaganda, and fear can appear stronger than they really are—until suddenly they are not.

In the essay, I explored several developments that deserve closer attention: Russia’s mounting military and economic problems; rising criticism from voices that were previously loyal or silent; growing unease within the elite; expanding censorship and internet controls; and signs that even the Kremlin is increasingly worried about instability.

After publishing the piece, I sat down for a longer conversation digging deeper into some of these themes.

You can watch the full conversation above. And of course, if you haven’t already, read the full piece here!

See also: A Conversation on the Growing Cracks in Putin’s Dictatorship (Video)

Since coming to power in 2000, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has built one of the most repressive and effective dictatorships in the world. That process accelerated sharply after his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when, increasingly paranoid about his society’s reaction to the wisdom of that war, Putin cracked down on all internal dissent. He chased out the last remnants of independent media, shut down civil society organizations that were even mildly critical of his war, and had Russia’s most popular opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, killed. He accompanied this destruction of independent organizations and leaders with a comprehensive propaganda campaign to maintain support for his war and his regime. Tragically, Putin’s strategy for strengthening dictatorship after launching his full-scale invasion has worked—at least so far. But lately, there are some signs that cracks in the autocratic regime may be emerging.

Political change is difficult to predict. As I once wrote (maybe my most famous quote!): “In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.” Political science is not that good at predicting autocratic collapse. Nor, as I learned working five years at first at the National Security Council and then as U.S. ambassador in Russia, is the U.S. intelligence community. During my time in the Obama administration, we were surprised by the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009, the Arab Spring in the Middle East in 2011, the anti-government protests in Russia in 2011-2012, and the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014. We should all remain humble about our ability to forecast regime stability or regime change in Russia. If pressed, my base case assessment leans towards stability—at least until Putin is no longer ruling the country. Even after he departs from power, I predict that the first post-Putin phase will also show signs of more continuity than change. Putin has erected a powerful dictatorship. He has brainwashed millions, and those not infected with his propaganda have left the country. (On this tragic story, read Andrei Kolesnikov’s excellent new book, The Closing of the Russian Mind: How Putin’s Ideology Took the Nation Hostage.)

Legacies of a quarter century of dictatorship will take years to overcome, if they are ever overcome. At the same time, this 26th year of Putin’s rule has revealed some signs of autocratic erosion. The cracks in Russia’s dictatorship are small and are unlikely to create permissive conditions for genuine political change. But the number and kind of hints of autocratic decay should not be ignored.

Putin’s Failures: War and the Economy

Putin is failing to achieve his important objectives. When dictators fail, they create opportunities for change. We know from studies of past collapses of autocratic rule that losing wars and poorly performing economies are often precipitants of political change. Even in Russian history, these two factors have triggered revolutionary change. The Russian Empire crumbled in 1917 in part as a result of an unpopular and unsuccessful war, World War I. The Soviet Union fell apart in part because of a stagnant economy. In Putin’s Russia, there are parallels to both.

First, Putin’s biggest failure is his war in Ukraine. More than four years after launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin has failed to achieve any of the military objectives that he himself articulated back in 2022. Despite waging a war that has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s war with Nazi Germany, Putin has not conquered or subjugated all of Ukraine. He has not achieved “de-Nazification”, his grotesque euphemism for regime change. The democratically elected president and parliament of Ukraine remain in power. He has failed dramatically at “demilitarizing” Ukraine, which is today more militarized than ever in its history. And he has failed to stop NATO expansion, with two powerful countries, Finland and Sweden, joining the alliance because of his war, and NATO ties to Ukraine are now deeper than ever before.

It is hard to say how much knowledge Russian citizens have about these failures. But the scale of Russian casualties means that everyone knows someone who has lost a loved one in this war. And without question, elites know about the absence of success on the battlefield. Splits within the ruling elite are often the first move in the transition from autocratic rule. (For more on these dynamics, read the classic study by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies.) Increasingly, even the war’s cheerleaders are openly discussing these failures in the Russian media. The lack of success on the battlefield has undermined Putin’s aura of invincibility. Like autocrats in other countries, including Soviet leaders during their war in Afghanistan, Putin’s overreach in Ukraine is eroding political stability back home.

Second, the human cost of achieving Putin’s very limited war objectives has been extremely high. Accurate reporting on Russian casualties in this war is hard to find, but exiled outlet Mediazona and BBC Russian have managed to confirm the deaths of 216,205 Russian soldiers since 2022, including more than 8,600 in April alone. The true death toll is almost certainly higher. A CSIS report from January 2026 estimates that 325,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, with a further 875,000 wounded or missing. “No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” authors Seth Jones and Riley McGabe assessed in their CSIS report. According to Kyiv, Ukrainian warriors have killed or wounded 35,000 Russians per month in 2026. Ukrainian drones, not American or European weapons, were responsible for most of these casualties, meaning that Ukraine can continue fighting effectively for a long time without American military assistance. The longer this war drags on, the higher the human cost—and the harder it becomes for the Kremlin to shield Russian society from its consequences.

Third, the Russian economy is stagnating, adding to mounting pressure at home. Economist Vladimir Milov warned earlier this year of an “unholy trinity” of recession, inflation, and budgetary crisis coming together in 2026, predicting that this year would be the hardest for Russia since the war began. Rising oil and gas prices, driven by Trump’s war against Iran, have provided a temporary economic lifeline for the Kremlin. In March 2026, Russian companies earned $19 billion from oil exports, nearly double what they took in the month before. But few expect these short-term windfalls to offset Russia’s long-term economic structural challenges. Russia’s military-industrial complex is eating up too many resources. The private sector is dying, in part because of international sanctions. Hundreds of thousands of Russia’s best and brightest have left the country. And Russia’s long-term demographic challenges, already acute before the 2022 full-scale invasion, have become even more dire because so many young lives are being lost on the battlefield.

More audaciously than ever before, prominent economists inside Russia now speak openly about these ills. On stage at the International Economic Forum in Moscow last month, economist Robert Nigmatulin asked pointedly: “How long can this go on? Under the Soviet Union, we were poorer, but we were building the country, space exploration, and nuclear energy. We were ahead! And now? We’ve lost everything, and we’re still the poorest.” Nigmatulin is not the only one. At the same forum, Vladimir Boglayev, director of the Cherepovets Foundry and Mechanical Plant, declared: “The atmosphere in society is becoming very tense. I haven’t seen the authorities so actively discredit themselves since the 1990s.” He continued: “One can conclude that the ruling elite has completely lost touch with the real situation on the ground in the country’s economy.” Such open criticism is new. This didn’t happen in 2022.

More Repression Means Less Stability

Perhaps to control criticism of these military failures and economic challenges, Putin recently has introduced even more draconian measures to reduce the flow of information inside Russia. Among the most notable targets is Telegram, Russia’s most popular social media platform. It also happens to be the preferred platform of Russia’s military bloggers, who often post more candid accounts of the war in Ukraine than those found in state media. In February, the media regulator confirmed it was restricting access to Telegram, citing its alleged failure to curb fraud, extremism, and other illegal content. The regulator has also been trying to clamp down on the usage of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which many Russians rely on to access the thousands of banned websites and platforms. More generally, mobile internet connectivity has become very spotty not just in rural areas, but also in major cities. The cumulative effect is a steadily narrowing information space inside Russia, as the state moves to insulate society from criticism of the war and its consequences. At the same time, these measures have significantly affected the digital lives of ordinary Russians, even those broadly supportive of Putin: mobile banking, taxi ordering, and other important online services have all been disrupted.

The indiscriminate nature of the internet crackdown has prompted criticism from across the political spectrum. Even those in positions of power appear concerned by the online restrictions. “The crackdown on the internet is causing noticeable discontent not only among ordinary Russians but also among officials—including senior ones—and large businesses,” independent journalist Farida Rustamova reported in April, citing her sources. That same month, a video by Monaco-based Russian blogger Victoria Bonya, highlighting several issues she said were being mishandled by the authorities, including internet restrictions, went viral. She claimed that a “wall” had been built between Russians and the president, which she attributed to officials around him withholding information because they were “scared” of him. “There’s a feeling that we’re no longer living in a free country,” she said. The video, which racked up 30 million views, prompted a rare response from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said work was underway on the issues raised. The video also drew a response from Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who cited her criticism in a speech to parliament. Zyuganov—who, like other leaders of the other state-sanctioned political parties in Russia, is broadly loyal to the Kremlin—warned that the country could be facing a 1917-style revolution, unless it adopted measures to address the challenges that the country is facing! Such statements are new.

These growing signs of unease also extend beyond the information space. In what is perhaps another mark of waning confidence, Putin has downgraded Russia’s annual Victory Day parade, which commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. In recent years, the Victory Day celebrations have become an important ritual of state, coopted by Putin to bolster nationalist propaganda through appeals to past military glories. However, this year, for the first time in decades, tanks will not roll through Red Square on May 9. Independent press reporting revealed that the Russian government was removing 9,000 seats from the viewing area. It’s hard to celebrate military victories of the past when your army is performing so poorly in the present.

Russia’s poor performance on the battlefield might not be the only reason for the scaling back of the Victory Day parade. According to exiled investigative news outlet Important Stories (IStories), Putin is increasingly concerned by the possibility of an assassination or coup attempt against him. “In particular, he fears the use of drones for a possible assassination attempt by members of the Russian political elite,” IStories said, referencing an intelligence report from an unidentified European agency, as well as its own sources. According to the report, Putin has sharply reduced his travel, avoided visits to military infrastructure this year despite making frequent trips in 2025, and tightened security measures around the Kremlin. The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War reported that it had “observed corroborating evidence of enhanced security measures for Putin and high-ranking Russian officials,” lending additional weight to claims of growing unease inside the Kremlin.

I remain skeptical that genuine coup plans are being drafted, especially, as has been speculated, by Putin’s former Defense Minister and Security Council head, Sergey Shoigu. But the mere fact that speculations are swirling suggests uncertainty and instability in Putin’s regime. And just like the old days of Sovietology during the Cold War, everyone will be watching the 9 May parade to see where Shoigu will be standing on Lenin’s Tomb! And if he does not show up at all, that will fuel even more theories about divisions within the Kremlin.

The all-encompassing nature of Putin’s dictatorship (maybe we should start using the term “totalitarian dictatorship” again, as we once used to describe the Soviet political system) makes it hard for analysts to know how Russian society is interpreting the economic, military, and political trends described above. If you live in the Russian Far East and a stranger from a Moscow-based polling company calls you for your opinion on Putin, there is only one rational answer: “I support our great leader.” Even with these limitations, polling data show that Putin and his war are losing popularity. Russia’s most prominent state-owned pollster, VTsIOM, reported in April that Putin’s approval rating had fallen to 65.6 percent—the lowest it had reported since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On 1 May, another Russian state-affiliated pollster, the Public Opinion Foundation, put its approval rating for Putin at 73%—also the lowest it had reported since the start of the war. And in a recent poll by Russian Field, a more independent polling organization, when Russian respondents were asked which political party they thought offered the best answers to questions about the future of Russia, only 16% answered United Russia—the party affiliated with Vladimir Putin. An amazing 27% said they did not think any party had a vision for the future, while 31% said it was difficult to answer such a question. In an election year, this is significant.

Russia holds its State Duma (lower house) elections in September. Putin’s party, United Russia, will get the largest share of the vote, whether through genuine support, administrative mobilization, or manipulation of the final tally. The elections will not be free and fair, and all the parties on the ballot are loyal to Putin anyway. Yet there are signs that the machinery used to deliver Kremlin-friendly results is coming under strain. In a recent essay for the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, journalist Andrey Pertsev argued that Russia’s system of “corporate mobilization”, which relies on employers and state-linked institutions to pressure voters to turn out, is beginning to erode. Economic pressures, including layoffs and delayed wages, are weakening incentives to vote, while the government’s own crackdown on digital communications is undermining the tools used to coordinate turnout. Pertsev concludes that this leaves the Kremlin with two options: “to lower the intentionally inflated KPIs… or to drastically increase the volume of outright falsifications to deliver Putin the promised figures.” With VTsIOM data showing that only 27.7% of respondents would vote for United Russia today, significantly falsifying the election results is risky and could spark unrest, as in the 2011–2012 protests.

Elections, even in dictatorships, are often a useful moment for identifying new leadership. Yet so far, United Russia has not seemed to attract any new charismatic faces to its ranks. If this election passes without any speculation about a new generation of pro-Putin leaders who might eventually replace him, that too will be another signal of political stagnation.

Putin’s regime is still strong. Repression works. But history suggests that the appearance of strength in autocracies can be misleading, especially when sustained by war, fear, and isolation. The signs of strain visible in Russia today are limited and fragmented, and on their own, they are unlikely to produce change. Yet taken together, they hint at a system that is no longer as stable as it once seemed. If these emerging cracks are not closed, they could widen over time.

As my friend Rachel Maddow likes to say, watch this space.

My Stanford colleague Ruth Gibson, alongside several co-authors, today published a report on the economic impact of extending U.S. waivers on Russian oil.

Ruth and two of her co-authors, Professor Francisco Rodriguez (Center for Economic and Policy Research) and Katya Pavlevych (Razom for Ukraine), will be discussing the report in more detail during an online webinar on Weds May 13, 2026 at 9:00 am PDT.

For more information and to register for the webinar, visit Ruth’s Substack page here!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Just a few weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump was threatening to destroy an entire civilization unless Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz—a critical waterway that had remained open until he launched his war against Iran.

That threat reflected growing frustration, perhaps even desperation, that the conflict has not been the “quick and easy” victory Trump anticipated. Yet with a ceasefire now in place and talks ongoing between the United States and Iran, Trump’s impatience risks undermining his own side’s negotiating position. As I noted in an interview with Chris Jansing on MS Now, Trump appears intent on striking a “big deal” immediately —an “all-or-nothing” approach that is unlikely to succeed. A more effective approach would be incremental: engaging technical experts on Iran’s nuclear program in lower-level talks to build momentum, rather than pushing for a rushed agreement from the outset. As I write this, Trump seems to be on the verge of launching a new round of bombing attacks—again driven by impatience. The end of this war is not in sight.

That same impatience was on display when Trump threatened this month to withdraw from NATO. He appeared particularly aggrieved that some allies—Spain, in particular—refused to allow the United States to launch attacks on Iran from bases on their territory. His reaction points to a fundamental misunderstanding of NATO’s purpose. It is a defensive alliance, designed to deter conflict rather than initiate it—an idea best captured in Article 5: “an attack on one is an attack on all.” The only time Article 5 has been invoked was after the September 11 attacks against the United States, leading to operations in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda.

If Trump were to follow through on his threat to withdraw from NATO, it would be a catastrophic mistake for American security interests in Europe and beyond. One of the United States’ key advantages during the Cold War was the strength of its alliances. To compete effectively in today’s era of great-power competition, the U.S. still needs NATO. Trump’s criticism of the alliance has undoubtedly been welcomed in Moscow in Beijing. Pragmatic leadership should focus on reforming and strengthening NATO—not undermining it—as I argued in my Substack piece, The United States Needs NATO: Reform It, Don’t Destroy It.

GOOD NEWS FROM HUNGARY!

In my book Autocrats vs. Democrats, I argue that a defining feature of today’s era of great-power competition—unlike during the Cold War—is that ideological competition increasingly plays out within states, not just between them.

That dynamic was on clear display this month, as U.S. Vice President JD Vance travelled to Hungary to endorse right-wing populist Viktor Orbán ahead of parliamentary elections there. This is the same Vikor Orban who, for years, has obstructed EU consensus and backed positions more closely aligned with Moscow than with his European partners. This led to a striking and unusual alignment: the leaders of the United States and Russia were both backing the same man in Hungary.

What followed, however, showed that Hungary is still a democracy. Voters delivered a huge two-thirds majority to the opposition Tisza Party, bringing a decisive end to Orbán’s 16-year rule. Orbán defeat may yet mark a high-water point for illiberal nationalist movements in Europe, and perhaps even in the United States. His loss is also welcome news for Ukraine. Among the measures Orbán has blocked in recent years was a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine, since approved by the European Council.

Read more in my Substack piece, Viktor Orbán’s Loss Is Democracy’s Gain.

OTHER NEWS

I’ve been back in the classroom this month, teaching my course at Stanford on great power competition. You can view the syllabus here! I’m also planning a special online session at the end of the quarter for anyone interested in asking questions. The final virtual session will take place in June—stay tuned for details.

The course is anchored by my book, Autocrats vs. Democrats, and I continue to talk about this book to audiences beyond the Stanford classroom—including this month three talks in southern California at Claremont McKenna College, UCAL, an UC Irvine. I love talking at college campuses, especially when students show up! I’ll be making another stop this weekend at the Annapolis Book Festival in Maryland. If you’ve read the book, send me your feedback that I can use before the paperback comes out.

I’ve also been engaging directly with Substack readers, hosting two community events this month: an Ask Me Anything with paid subscribers and a Q&A for all subscribers. You can watch both at the links provided.

Thank you for reading—and for your continued engagement.

It was a real pleasure having the opportunity to discuss the ideas from my latest book, Autocrats vs. Democrats, at the Annapolis Book Festival this weekend. There was a terrific crowd and some great questions!

My thanks to all the organizers, as well as former Senior Foreign Service Officer John Beed for moderating.

If you weren’t able to attend, you can watch the full recording by C-SPAN below.

Yesterday, I held an “Ask Me Anything” session with my Substack subscribers.

As always, there were some great questions—from the war in Iran to recent elections in Hungary and the future of NATO.

Some of you weren’t able to join this time and asked if we could record the session. Here it is. Hope to see you at the next one!

As many of you know, I’m teaching a seminar this quarter on great power competition. I’ve been thinking about ways to broadcast the course on YouTube (Timothy Snyder did this for his class on Ukraine at Yale University a while back, and it was a huge success; I’m inspired by his example). I couldn’t quite make it work for this course, in part because it’s a seminar rather than a lecture, but I’m considering it for the future. In the meantime, you can still follow along: I’m posting the syllabus here.

I welcome suggestions for new readings to add for future years. At the end of the quarter, I’ll also host a special online session for anyone interested in asking questions about the course. As you’ll see, my latest book, Autocrats vs. Democrats, anchors the syllabus, so that’s an easy place to start. Our final virtual session will take place sometime in June—stay tuned!

This op-ed first appeared in MS NOW.

Sometimes, the good guys finish first. That’s what happened this past weekend in Hungary, where voters turned out in record numbers to deliver a two-thirds majority to the center-right opposition party, Tisza. Péter Magyar, its leader, will become prime minister, bringing an end to the 16-year rule of right-wing populist and would-be dictator Viktor Orbán.

The implications of this democratic breakthrough will reverberate throughout Ukraine, Europe and maybe even globally. In the 21st-century struggle between autocrats and democrats, these election results in Hungary rank among the most significant outcomes in the past 20 years.

Orbán, who was prime minister from 1998 to 2002 before returning to power in 2010, did not try to undermine Hungary’s democratic institutions overnight. Instead, his process was incremental as he chipped away at the independence of the courts, civil society and the media; constrained academia; and nurtured ties with what The Atlantic called “a group of oligarchic companies that in turn controlled a good chunk of the economy.”

This democratic backsliding gradually eroded the conditions necessary for conducting free and fair elections. Corruption served as Orbán’s primary tool for undermining democratic institutions. He was so successful that analysts and emulators referred to his tactics as “Orbán’s playbook.” Those tactics seemed to take inspiration from the playbook of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who a decade earlier had weakened constraints on Kremlin power. Some even assessed that Orbán had matched Putin’s success in destroying democracy and erecting a new dictatorship in the heart of Europe.

That assessment was wrong. Dictators do not lose elections. Orbán’s defeat underscores that he failed to consolidate a full-blown dictatorship in Hungary, unlike what Putin has done in Russia. Moreover, because Orbán’s loss was so decisive, he had no viable options to try to falsify the election results. Unlike Putin in 2011, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in 2020 or U.S. President Donald Trump in 2021, Orbán recognized the electoral results quickly and conceded.

Magyar’s party is center-right, and he was once a member of Orbán’s party, Fidesz, so this electoral outcome is not a wholesale rejection of conservative policies per se. But the policies that the new government decides to pursue are of secondary importance. What matters most is that the precedent for changing government through elections has been reaffirmed in Hungary. That is the essence of democracy. Hungary is clearly a democracy today.

One area where policy change is likely to be most pronounced is within the European Union. For years, Orbán has blocked consensus within the EU, often supporting policies that were more beneficial to Putin than to other Europeans. To a lesser extent, that was also true within NATO. These dynamics are poised to change. Europe is set to become more unified at a time when unity is desperately needed to deal with Putin and with Trump. On some EU votes, Orbán had a partner in Slovakian leader Robert Fico. But few expect Fico to stand up to the entire EU leadership alone.

The biggest beneficiary of a more unified EU will be Ukraine. For years, Orbán tried to slow EU aid to Ukraine and to impede new EU sanctions on Russia. Those dramas are over. This year, Orbán has been blocking delivery of a 90 billion euro ($106 billion) loan to Ukraine. With Magyar in charge, this loan can be transferred to Kyiv, which desperately needs financial assistance. Magyar has also pledged to reduce Hungarian imports of Russian energy, albeit gradually. That’s a win for Ukraine too.

More broadly, Orbán’s defeat could signal the peak of power for illiberal populist nationalists in Europe and perhaps also the United States. For more than two decades, populists with authoritarian proclivities have been gaining larger shares of votes in Western democracies. Those who came to power include not just Orbán in Hungary but also Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic, Fico in Slovakia and, most dramatically of all, Trump in the United States.

These leaders and their movements shared a transnational ideology of illiberal populism that Putin also embraces. And they have been helping one another. Consider, for instance, Vice President JD Vance’s scathing speech berating European liberal democrats at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025. That day, he met with the leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party. Last week, Vance returned to Europe, this time to campaign for Orbán. (Clearly, his presence did not help.)

Time will tell whether Hungary’s election results mark a turning point for illiberal nationalism, including its MAGA variant in the United States. It’s already clear, however, that the results are a significant data point. In the past two decades, victories for democracy have been few and far between. Let’s celebrate this one and hope that it’s the beginning of a global trend.

I’ll continue hosting live Q&As with paid subscribers via Zoom, but I’m experimenting with Substack and would really value your feedback on how you think it went.

Note: I’ll be hosting a Substack Live this Friday, April 10 at 11am PDT / 2pm EDT to dive into the core arguments from this latest piece. Paid subscribers are encouraged to leave questions (on NATO or anything else) in the comments below. I’ll prioritize those and try to take additional questions live during the event. More details to follow!

President Donald Trump has never liked NATO. In his first term, he frequently berated allies and threatened to leave this most enduring alliance in the history of the world. His hostility towards NATO is even more overt in his second term. Shortly after taking office, Trump cut U.S. bilateral assistance to Ukraine, leaving our allies to fend for themselves in stopping Putin’s army in Ukraine so that it does not march further east (though Trump did allow NATO allies to buy some American weapons to give the Ukrainians). Shockingly, at the United Nations, his administration has stopped voting with our NATO allies on resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, instead aligning with Russia and a handful of other autocratic states. Trump and his team, most notably Vice President J.D. Vance at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, have lectured our NATO allies about their alleged imperfections in practicing democracy. Trump even threatened to invade Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and to make another NATO ally, Canada, our “51^st state”. The alliance was under severe duress before Trump invaded Iran. But now things have gotten a lot worse.

Buoyed by the successful removal of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Trump decided in late February to attack Iran without consulting our NATO allies. Perhaps he thought his war would be quick and easy, and therefore that the United States would need only one ally, Israel. Trump and his team probably also reasoned that they would not get a unanimous vote within NATO to support his war of choice—the United States, after all, had not been attacked by Iran. This did not, initially, seem to bother Trump. Amid reports that the UK was mulling sending an aircraft carrier to the Middle East a week into the conflict, Trump said on Truth Social that the U.S. didn’t need it. “We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won,” he added. When it soon became clear that the U.S. had not, in fact, “won”, Trump changed course and called on NATO allies for help, especially with reopening the Strait of Hormuz. That has yet to materialize. On 6 April, Trump said Nato had “actually gone out of their way not to help.”

Trump seemed especially frustrated by some allies, Spain in particular, for not allowing the United States to attack Iran from bases located in their countries, although many NATO allies are allowing such access. In response, he has threatened to withdraw the United States from the alliance. Doing so without Congressional support would be difficult, but not impossible. In formulating foreign policy, the U.S. Constitution gives the President considerable authority. (On the details for how Trump could radically diminish US participation in the alliance without formally withdrawing, read James Goldgeier and Elizabeth Saunders here.)

U.S. withdrawal from NATO as a consequence of Trump’s war in Iran would be a catastrophic mistake for American security interests in Europe and the world. Trump needs to end his brinkmanship towards the alliance. And NATO members in Europe need to find other ways to express their displeasure with Trump’s war in Iran besides denying American access to bases in NATO countries.

The NATO Origins Story

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and 10 European countries, after it became clear that the UN Security Council could not live up to its aspiration of providing collective security. In an echo of our debates about the organization’s expansion today, some American strategists—most notably George Kennan—worried that the creation of NATO would provoke the Kremlin. Others bristled at the idea of signing treaties with former enemies (Italy in 1949; West Germany in 1955). At times, alliance cohesion proved difficult. There was a major dispute between NATO allies during the Suez Canal crisis in 1956; France withdrew from NATO’s integrated military structure in the 1960s; and tensions emerged between Washington and European societies in the 1980s, when US President Ronald Reagan pushed for the deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe. Throughout the Cold War, our European allies were worried whether the United States would come to their defense if the Soviets invaded. In the long run, though, NATO endured and played a vital role in keeping the peace in Europe. The Soviet Union never attacked a NATO country, and NATO never attacked the Soviet Union.

Throughout the Cold War, NATO was also an essential organization in maintaining unity between democracies even if some members only made the transition to democracy after joining the alliance (i.e. Greece, Portugal, Turkey). In the ideological struggle that defined the Cold War, NATO helped to unite the free world. The alliance was anchored in values, not just security.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO continued to play a similar stabilizing role in Europe. Russia has never attacked a NATO ally, and NATO has never attacked Russia. Putin has only invaded European countries in the gray zone between NATO and Russia—Georgia and Ukraine. The only time that a NATO country was attacked—the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001—the alliance voted to defend their American ally. NATO armies joined the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. Soldiers from NATO countries in Europe and Canada fought, and died, alongside American soldiers.

NATO’s central mission has always been defensive, represented in Article 5, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all. The alliance collectively supported the war in Afghanistan because the United States had been attacked on September 11, 2001. But in 2003, when U.S. President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq, there had been no such attack. In many NATO capitals, Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was thus seen as a war of choice, not a war in defense of an attacked NATO ally. The alliance as a whole did not support the Iraq war, leading to tensions within NATO. For a time, cafeterias in the U.S. Congress served only “freedom fries,” not French fries, because France did not support this war. (Germany also did not endorse Bush’s war, but there was no shunning of German cars or beers!) Nevertheless, the alliance’s leaders rationally and calmly recognized that the long-term benefits of NATO outweighed these short-term differences. In 2004, the alliance even grew—the largest single moment of expansion in NATO’s history.

Why the US Still Benefits from NATO Membership Today

This short history of NATO underscores four past benefits for the United States that still advance American security, prosperity, and values today.

First, NATO still plays an essential role in keeping the peace in Europe. Obviously, NATO did not deter Russian ruler Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. One must wonder if the alliance could have invited Ukraine to join earlier. Nonetheless, even after more than four years of fighting in Ukraine, Putin has not attacked a NATO country, even when NATO allies are providing military assistance to Ukraine. That peace serves American security interests. We do not want to get dragged into a war in Europe. That tragically has happened twice before in the twentieth century; we cannot let it happen again this century. By maintaining and strengthening NATO’s deterrence posture against Russia, NATO helps to keep the peace. This is “peace through strength,” to quote Reagan. If Trump decides to withdraw from NATO, conflict between Russia and NATO allies, especially in the Baltic states, would be more likely. And eventually, the United States could still get dragged into a wider European war. Better to enhance deterrence now and avoid war than to have to make decisions about joining a war against Russia later.

Second, Europe remains one of America’s most important trading and investment partners. In 2024, based on the latest figures from the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU, European investment in the U.S. reached $3.4 trillion, while American investment in Europe totaled $4 trillion. Total trade in goods and services between the United States and Europe was $2.3 trillion, according to AmCham EU. As the American and Chinese continues to decouple this century, trade and investment between democracies will become an even more important driver of American prosperity. By keeping the peace, NATO creates the permissive conditions for this economic transatlantic activity.

Third, if the United States were ever attacked again, we would want our NATO allies by our side again. To be sure, American military assets outpace European capabilities. But European militaries and weapons are not trivial and hopefully will now grow significantly in the coming years. As UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” Strong, loyal allies were our greatest advantages during the Cold War. In dealing with China and Russia in this century, we must maintain that advantage.

Fourth, in our new era of great power competition between autocrats and democrats, NATO can still help maintain unity among democracies, as it did during the Cold War. NATO was never just about security. Values played a central role in the founding of the alliance as the preamble of the founding treaty made clear:

“The Parties to this Treaty … are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage,and civilization of their peoples, founded on principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.”

Article 2 of the treaty also affirmed:

“The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions.”

After the end of the Cold War, NATO directly facilitated the expansion and consolidation of democracy in Eastern Europe. (For more on NATO’s role in expanding democratic values, see my article with Rob Person in the Journal of Democracy here.) As I explain in detail in Autocrats vs Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder, our new era of great power rivalry also has an ideological component. In competing with China and Russia, our democratic ideas constitute one of our greatest comparative advances. Again, to quote Churchill: “democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”. Opinion polls show that most people in the world agree with Churchill. The 2025 Democracy Perception Index, which surveyed more than 111,000 people across 100 countries, found that that two-thirds of respondents thought it was very important to have democracy in their country. Maintaining—maybe even strengthening solidarity between countries in the free world—will help. The United States prevail against autocratic China and Russia. The United States cannot throw away this invaluable multilateral institution over a short-term dispute regarding Trump’s war in Iran.

Putin understands the value of NATO to the free world. That’s why he has devoted so many resources to trying to divide the alliance from within. The Kremlin has courted illiberal, anti-NATO populists in Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Italy, France, Germany, and the United States. Putin wants the alliance to dissolve and is trying to sow seeds of doubt among allies about one another’s credibility. The current crisis within NATO is only helping Putin. It must stop.

Reforming and Strengthening NATO

Just preserving NATO is not enough. NATO must also become more effective, and not just for American national interests but for those of our allies, too. Reforms can enhance the security and prosperity of all members of the NATO alliance.

First, Trump and other NATO leaders must continue to pressure all NATO allies to meet their pledge commitments to spend 5% of their GDP on defense. (Trump, like Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden before him, has rightfully pushed for higher levels of defense spending by all NATO countries. Trump supporters conveniently forget that it was Obama who pushed for the 2% of GDP spending target within NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. It was during the Biden administration, not Trump’s first term, that most NATO allies achieved this goal, spurred, of course, by Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.)

Second, Washington must push for greater interoperability among allied armed forces. Mobility bottlenecks degrade the alliance’s military capacity, especially in railway infrastructure and airlift capacity. With Finland and Sweden joining as new members, fortifying the northernmost borders of the alliance merits greater attention and resources, especially in the Baltic Sea, where Russian ships have sabotaged undersea cables.

Third, permanently stationing combat forces in all allied countries bordering Russia would signal that acts of aggression against any member of the alliance would trigger a unified response. Such a move is unlikely during the Trump administration but should be embraced by future American leaders.

Fourth, NATO allies in Europe must commit to joint defense production of tanks, long-range fires, drones, air defense systems, and ammunition. (Think of the Airbus model of ownership.) Maintaining production lines of a dozen types of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and howitzers is economically inefficient and inhibits military interoperability. As former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi argued in a study on EU competitiveness, fragmentation “means that the [defense] industry lacks scale, which is essential in a capital-intensive sector with long investment cycles…” and “leads to serious issues related to a lack of standardisation and the interoperability of equipment…”

Fifth, the militaries of all NATO countries must innovate collectively to address new security challenges from AI, cyber weapons, quantum computing, and synthetic biology. Existing programs such as the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) and NATO’s Defense Innovation Fund for the North Atlantic (DIANA) should be expanded to support these lines of effort.

Sixth, U.S. leaders should also support intra-European security initiatives, like Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and the European Defense Fund (EDF). Independent European security initiatives that don’t include the United States also help us in our shared mission.

Seventh, NATO must also expand integration with Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are now one of the best-trained, best-armed fighting forces in Europe. If better integrated with NATO defenses, these soldiers could dramatically enhance European security after the Russian war in Ukraine ends. Ukrainian defense companies make some of the best drones in the world. European governments should be contracting with these Ukrainian companies now. Defense companies in NATO—European, American, and Canadian alike— should be seeking ways to create joint ventures and joint production factors with these Ukrainian defense makers. After the war ends, Ukrainian soldiers armed with their sophisticated drones, sensor systems, and other new weapons systems, could be stationed in other NATO countries bordering Russia, and someday maybe even replace American soldiers in these countries. Eventually, Ukraine must become a member of NATO.

The last time the NATO treaty was amended occurred in 1951. That’s a long time ago. To reaffirm a credible commitment from all members, NATO might consider a package of two amendments together. Borrowing from Article One of the UN Charter, the first amendment should state explicitly that no member will ever attack another member. Decades ago, such a treaty obligation would have been self-evident; after Trump’s threats to Denmark, it is necessary. A second amendment could codify more explicitly the rules of access and use of bases within the NATO alliance on a multilateral basis and not only through bilateral agreements.

Back to Basics

NATO’s essence is a defensive alliance. The alliance was designed to prevent wars, not to go to war. When created in 1949, deterring a Soviet attack against European allies was the paramount priority. After the Cold War ended, NATO experimented with adding more to the mission beyond defense. And the only time NATO invoked Article 5 was to launch a war in Afghanistan in response to an attack on the United States by Al Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan at the time. The communique from the 2024 NATO summit even added language about getting more involved in deterring the People’s Republic of China in Asia. (Strikingly after Trump’s reelection, the 2025 Hague Summit Declaration dropped this language.)

However, in the age of Trump, now is the time to pivot back to NATO’s original core objective of defense and not expand NATO’s ambitions. It’s worth remembering the defensive spirit of Article 5:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Note that Article 5 is invoked when a NATO ally is attacked and not doing the attacking. That’s why NATO has never voted to support wars launched by individual members, such as the French war in Algeria, the American war in Vietnam, the Portuguese wars in Angola and Mozambique, or the US-led war in Iraq. Note also that Article 5 refers to attacks against allies “in Europe or North America,” and thereby does not obligate the alliance to defend allies outside of these territorial domains. The United States obviously did not support France and Great Britain during the Suez crisis in 1956. When Argentina attacked Great Britain in the Falklands War in 1982, the United States did aid its British ally, but the NATO alliance as a whole did not. Returning to this core function—as a defensive alliance for members in Europe and North America—is prudent today. In fact, it may be the only way to save NATO.

To compete effectively in our new era of great power competition, the US needs NATO. Pragmatic leaders must lead the way in reforming and strengthening NATO, not breaking it.

(Parts of this essay was adapted from chapter thirteen of Autocrats vs Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder.)

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We are now more than four weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Despite President Trump’s claims that the U.S. has “won” and achieved “regime change” in Tehran, the war continues and the theocratic regime remains in place.

As I said in my last newsletter, I do not support this war. We faced no imminent threat from Iran and had not exhausted all other non-military means to achieve our objectives. President Trump has yet to clearly explain to the American people why he has taken us into a war with Iran, and why now. As I wrote in A War Still in Search of a Mission, the administration has floated various justifications in the hope that one will stick. These include: pursuing regime change; destroying Iran’s nuclear program (which we were told last June had been “obliterated”); eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal (in effect, conventional disarmament); stopping Tehran from funding terrorist groups; responding to decades of Iranian attacks against Americans; and finally—according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio—that Israel made us do it.

Iran’s response to U.S.-Israeli strikes has included strikes against our allies throughout the region, as well as effectively deploying Shahed attack drones alongside missiles to shutter the Strait of Hormuz. The threat posed by these drones appears to have taken the U.S. by surprise—but it shouldn’t have. Russia’s war against Ukraine has provided four years of data on the utility of unmanned systems; nothing moves on the battlefield in Ukraine without being attacked by drones. Yet when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered to share Ukraine’s hard-earned anti-drone expertise with the United States (including battling Shahed drones), President Trump said he was “the last person we need help from.” As I argued in What the U.S. and the Free World Could Learn from Ukraine on Drone Warfare, this response was both arrogant and short-sighted.

Just as Trump seems willing to belittle Zelenskyy at every opportunity he gets, he continues to show striking deference to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. This was evidenced by his indifferent response to reports that Russia is providing targeting data to Iran that could be used against U.S. military assets. Rather than expressing concern or outrage, Trump administration officials shrugged it off: U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said the Russians had assured him they weren’t doing this and that the U.S. can “take them at their word.” Trump himself dismissed a question on the matter as “stupid.” If Putin is aiding an adversary in attacking U.S. forces, there should be consequences for this—as I argued in my essay on this topic (read it here.)

More broadly, Putin is emerging as a clear beneficiary of this war (read more in The Real Winner of Trump’s Iran War So Far? Vladimir Putin). Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have driven up oil prices, generating billions in extra revenue for Russia and bolstering its war chest. The U.S. decision to temporarily ease sanctions on Russian oil is another boost for Putin and has drawn criticism from allies, including Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Meanwhile, U.S. involvement in the Middle East is depleting key munitions stockpiles, including weapons Ukraine had hoped to acquire. Finally, global attention shifting to Iran is pushing the war in Ukraine down the agenda and delaying diplomatic efforts to end it. Taken together, these developments represent a series of strategic wins for Putin. Trump is now even threatening to leave NATO because of its members’ lack of support for his war against Iran. That would be most tragic outcome of this war of choice. I will remain deeply engaged in this public policy debate, hoping that our most important alliance can endure.

The highest cost of Trump’s war in Iran is pulling our attention away from the more major security challenges of China and Russia. As I wrote in Autocrats vs Democrats, we have entered a new era of great power competition in the 21st century. This era includes many challenges that are even greater than those faced during the Cold War. Of the many prescriptions I proposed in the last three chapters of that book that constitute a new American grand strategy, Trump is doing the opposite. On the details, you can get the book here.

As you can see, much of my work this month has focused on Iran (including my discussion on the war with journalist Chris Mathews on Substack Live)! I did, however, get the chance to discuss more of the ideas in my book with Peter Robinson on the Hoover Institution’s Uncommon Knowledge show. We explored how today’s autocrats think differently from democrats—and how misunderstanding this has contributed to some of America’s biggest foreign‑policy mistakes. I really enjoyed this conversation!

Back to the Classroom

On March 30^th, I taught my first seminar on my course on great power competition. You can check out the syllabus here. This academic year is my 30^th year of teaching at Stanford! Hard to believe. But I feel very grateful for the privilege of working and learning at such a fantastic place. I’ll tell more about how the seminar goes next month!

Thank you for reading—and for your continued engagement.

Early in President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, one of my tweets got a lot of engagement on X—but perhaps for the wrong reasons. This is what I wrote:

Once our presidents make a decision to go war, even when I disagree with the decision and process as is the case with our current war with Iran, I still want our armed forces to win. To date, however, I have no idea what the definition of winning in this war is.

Reaction from Russian speakers was particularly voluminous and mostly critical. Many accused me of double standards. They said I sounded just like a Russian supporting Putin’s war, with some users substituting the word “Ukraine” for “Iran.” The line about wanting our armed forces to win, even if I disagreed with the president’s decision to go to war, seemed especially offensive to many. I regret that phrasing. I was trying—albeit clumsily—to distinguish between supporting soldiers in their tactical operations and not supporting a president’s strategic decision to go to war in the first place. I realize that, for some, this may be a distinction without a difference, but it still matters to me. I do not want American soldiers to die, nor do I want them to kill any more civilians. I hope that their commander-in-chief, President Trump, ends this war soon.

What I also failed to make clear in my tweet was the limits of this principle. I would not support U.S. troops in a war of annexation against a democracy, such as the one Trump has previously threatened against Denmark, or the one Putin is executing right now in Ukraine. Nor is my position one of unqualified support for our warriors. If American soldiers were to commit war crimes in Iran, as Russian soldiers have in Ukraine—and as U.S. soldiers have sometimes done in previous wars—I would not defend such actions, but demand accountability. I am still waiting for the Trump administration to take greater accountability for the killing of Iranian schoolchildren in Minab.

At the same time, where I disagree with critics of my tweet is that the word “Iran” can simply be substituted for the word “Ukraine.” That is a false comparison. Some of the goals of Trump’s war (however ambiguous, as I write about here) advance legitimate American security interests, even though I still believe that non-military instruments of American power could have achieved them more successfully and without the loss of life, and I am not sure that Trump’s war is achieving them. And that is how Trump’s war against is fundamentally different from Putin’s war in Ukraine.

First, Ukraine has never posed a security threat to Russia. Never. By contrast, Iran’s regime has threatened the United States and our allies and partners in the region for decades. The theocrats who seized power in Iran in 1979 kidnapped American diplomats and other embassy officials. Ukrainian leaders never did anything remotely similar to Russians. Iran’s autocrats have supported terrorist groups and militias that have killed American soldiers (for instance, in Beirut in 1983 and throughout the Iraq war) and Israeli civilians. The Hamas terrorists who killed innocent Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, were Iranian proxies. To the best of my knowledge, Ukrainian leaders have never funded jihadist terrorists to attack Russian soldiers or civilians. Alongside its expanding missile arsenal, Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program. (The expansion of Iran’s nuclear program occurred after Trump pulled out of the The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018.) Though most likely intended for deterrence and not for use against American targets, Israeli officials still assessed the risk of an Iranian nuclear strike against their country as real. The government in Kyiv was never developing a nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, Ukrainian leaders agreed to give up their nuclear weapons in the 1990s in return for a security guarantee from us that we failed to honor.

Second, Trump’s war aims, while still fluid, do not include annexing Iranian territory. Putin’s war in Ukraine does. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, then on paper in 2022 the Donbas region, along with Kherson and Zaporizhzhia (even though Russia does not occupy all these territories) and now seeks to subjugate the rest of the country to be under Russia’s control.

Third, the way American armed forces are fighting against Iran is different from the way Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine. Trump and his military commanders are not targeting civilians. Trump also has not kidnapped Iranian children. American soldiers have not raped Iranian women and children. And so far, the number of casualties from Trump’s war is significantly lower than those killed and wounded in Putin’s war. Every lost soldier is a tragedy. As General Stanley McChrystal rightly observed, “we’ve fortunately suffered few casualties today, but every casualty has a family and carries a loss, and we need to remember that.” But to date, the scale of killing in Trump’s war is not comparable to Putin’s war.

Fourth, for all its faults, the United States is still a democracy, and Iran is a dictatorship. The theocracy ruling Iran is very repressive, and just this year, it has killed thousands of peaceful protestors. In the war in Ukraine, Russia is the dictatorship, and Ukraine is the democracy. Like those ruling in Iran, Putin’s regime is a repressive dictatorship that kills and arrests its political opponents. Regime type matters, at least to me. If Trump launched an unprovoked war of annexation against democratic Denmark and tried to annex Greenland or tried to use military force to make Canada the 51st state, as he tragically has sometimes joked about, then the parallels to Putin’s war in Ukraine would be tighter. But an American war to weaken an autocratic adversary is different.

Acknowledging the Similarities—and Their Risks for America

While the differences between Trump’s war in Iran and Putin’s war in Ukraine are major, I want to acknowledge—in response to comments about my original tweet—that there are some similarities between these wars. And these parallels, in my view, are detrimental to American national interests.

First, both Putin and Trump went to war without any authorization from the UN Security Council or any other international organization. When NATO and Middle East partners bombed Libya in 2011, they did so after obtaining UN Security Council approval (UNSC resolutions 1970 and 1973). When President George H.W. Bush led the invasion of Iraq to liberate Kuwait, he also had the blessing of the United Nations Security Council. So too did his son, George W. Bush, when he launched his war against Afghanistan in 2001. Even before invading Iraq in 2003, President Bush and his administration tried to gain approval from the UN Security Council. While they failed there, they succeeded in the U.S. Senate, where a vast majority of the senators (77) voted in favor of war. At the beginning, most Americans also supported the war. Trump and Putin had no support from the United Nations for their wars of choice. Trump did not even bother to try to convince Congress or the American people of the wisdom of his war. Even Putin went through the charade of getting parliamentary approval for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (It was a charade because the Russian parliament is completely subservient to Putin.)

Second, Putin’s war and Trump’s war have both killed innocent civilians. Putin is doing so on purpose. He seeks to terrorize the Ukrainian population as a strategy for pressuring them to capitulate. Trump thankfully had not adopted such a strategy in Iran. But, through an egregious intelligence failure, Trump seems to have destroyed an Iranian school, killing 168 Iranian children and their teachers. Shamefully, he has still expressed no remorse for this tragedy. American and Israeli attacks have also killed other civilians inside Iran. So, too, have Iranian attacks on Middle Eastern countries. But the indifference that Trump and his administration have shown regarding these civilian casualties draws comparisons to Putin’s cruelty.

Third, both Putin and Trump have tried to pretend that these military conflicts are not actual wars, but lesser operations. Putin calls his war in Ukraine a “special military operation.” If you accurately call it a war inside Russia, you can go to jail. Similarly, Trump frequently refers to his war as an “excursion.” (I think he means incursion, but none of his advisors dares to tell him about his mistake.) Both leaders and their teams also use Orwellian disinformation to frame their wars. Putin’s propagandists called their special military operation a crusade against Nazis and NATO. Trump and his spin doctors describe their war as an example of “peace through strength.”

Fourth, both Trump and Putin have claimed at times that they should have the authority to choose the leaders of Iran and Ukraine, respectively. Putin calls his project to determine Ukrainian leaders “denazification.” Comparing Iran to Venezuela, Trump stated very explicitly that “I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela.” Tragically, Trump did not say that the Iranian people should be given the ability to select their new leader. That’s a very Putin-esque approach, since the Russian autocrat also does not want the Ukrainian people to elect their leaders.

These parallels deeply damage America’s image in the world. We look like a great power doing what we want because we can, ignoring international rules, laws, and procedures for why we started this war and how we are fighting it. In the eyes of many worldwide, especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, that makes us look just like Russia today or any great (imperial) power of previous centuries. On this point, I agree with my critics on X. Conversely, China today appears to look like the more law-abiding stakeholder in the international system. Unlike Russia and the United States, China has not invaded any country for several decades. And as both the United States and Russia ignore or withdraw from international institutions, China is expanding its presence in them. As I wrote about in Autocrats vs Democrats even before this war against Iran, that’s not good for American long-term national interests.

I did not support Trump’s decision to go to war. A month later, I still don’t. I speak critically about the war in the media daily. At the same time, I still assess that the differences between the wars in Iran and Ukraine outweigh their similarities.

All wars are hell. Rarely are they justified, and they should always be avoided if possible. But not all wars are equally bad—they fall on a scale. Trump’s war against Iran is bad, but not nearly as bad as Putin’s war against Ukraine.

As a result of President Trump’s war against Iran, American leaders, soldiers, and observing citizens are learning the hard way the effectiveness of drones in modern warfare. Iran’s Shahed drones cost a fraction of the price of a US battleship, and yet these drones, combined with Iranian missiles, have kept the Strait of Hormuz closed. Their effectiveness seems to have taken many in the US by surprise.

And yet, it shouldn’t have. Russia’s war against Ukraine has given us four years of data on the utility of unmanned vehicles. Nothing can move on the battlefield in Ukraine—­ not ships, tanks, artillery, or even soldiers on motorcycles—­ without being attacked by drones.

Ukrainian companies have emerged as world leaders in drone production and innovation. One Ukrainian company, Swarmer, just launched its initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq a few weeks ago. U-Force, another major Ukrainian drone company, just raised new resources through venture capital firms that produced a valuation for the company at over a billion dollars—Ukraine’s first “unicorn.” SkyFall, General Cherry, Quantum Systems, and The Fourth Law are just a few of several dozen other Ukrainian drone companies that, through tragic daily testing of their products, have much to offer the United States and our Middle East partners about fighting drone warfare. To track the development of this industry, sign up for the newsletter by Snake Island Institute. It’s really first-rate.

While Russia has taken and upgraded Iran’s Shahed drones (and is now sharing these modifications with Iran for use against US forces), Ukraine has successfully developed interceptor drones— “drone-killers” —to take them out, as well as developing its own unmanned attack vehicles for use in the air and at sea. Officials in the Department of Defense (I still prefer to call it that) should be learning more quickly from their Ukrainian counterparts about how to use drones most effectively. And American companies and investors should be partnering more aggressively with Ukrainian drones and AI companies to produce weapons that can enhance the security of both our countries and our allies and partners around the world, including in the Middle East, but also Asia and Europe.

As I wrote in Autocrats vs. Democrats, published last year:

“The Pentagon must spend more on small, cheap, maneuverable weapons platforms, most of which should eventually be unmanned aircraft, sea vessels, and land vehicles. The development of mixed systems—­ partly operated by humans, partly unmanned—­ should be an interim step, as the air force is doing with its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. In the air, on the land, and at sea, we have witnessed the advantages of small, inexpensive swarms of precision weapons in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Nothing can move on the battlefield in Ukraine—­ not ships, tanks, artillery, or even soldiers on motorcycles—­ without being attacked by drones. Today, the United States relies on large, expensive unmanned vehicles when we should be focused on acquiring low-­cost, first-­person-­view drones. In the not-­so-­ distant future, we should even buy from or form joint ventures with Ukrainian drone companies. In Asia, the more fast, small, swarming unmanned vehicles we have to use, the better.”

And yet, when Zelenskyy offered to share Ukraine’s anti-drone expertise with the US recently, Trump said that the Ukrainian president was “the last person we need help from”. The United States, Trump said, knows “more about drones than anybody“ and has “the best drones in the world”. Trumps assessment was arrogant and naïve.

There were, however, others who were interested in what Ukraine had to say—not least the Gulf States, who have come under attack from Iran’s Shahed drones as the regime targets regional allies of the United States. “Countries in the Middle East have reached out to us, asking to share our expertise in intercepting Iranian ‘shahed’ drones during massive strikes. That is why we have already sent expert teams to three countries. We are ready to help,” Zelenskyy said on X on 13 March. Less than two weeks later, Zelenskyy landed in Saudi Arabia to hold what he described as “important meetings”. “We appreciate the support and support those who are ready to work with us to ensure security,” he said on X. The Pentagon should be arranging similar meetings to exploit Ukrainian drone expertise as soon as possible.

As I also noted in Autocrats vs Democrats, “I am scared to death of wars fought with unmanned, AI-­powered autonomous drones. A better strategy would be for great power leaders to sign treaties limiting the use cases of these weapons. However, those diplomatic opportunities are not available at this moment, so the United States must keep investing in its deterrent in every dimension of warfare. During the Cold War, we avoided World War III by maintaining the best military in the world. We must do so again.”

Tragically but necessarily, that assessment I wrote a year ago is still true today. To help us maintain the best military in the world, enhance deterrence, and avoid World War III with China and Russia, American national security leaders should recognize the value of partnering with Ukraine to develop and build effective drones. It’s a win-win for America and Ukraine, as well as a benefit for our allies and partners around the world.

To read more about how to modernize our military, as well as the militaries of NATO and Taiwan, as a strategy for enhancing deterrence and thereby keeping the peace between great powers, read chapter 13 of Autocrats vs Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder available here.