McFaul's March and April 2024 Newsletter

My most recent projects and publications

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Since I left the government in 2014, I have been writing a monthly newsletter sharing my activities and publications. Here is the one I wrote for March and April 2024! As always, I welcome your feedback!

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This spring has been so busy that I failed to publish a March newsletter. So, this one covers both March and April. (Maybe I should move to this interval and not bombard your Inbox every month? Eager for your feedback.)

In March, I finished teaching a fantastic, highly selective seminar at Stanford University on the great power competition in the 21^st century between the United States, China, and Russia. Learning from top students at Stanford was a real honor and privilege! You can find the syllabus here. In April, I also taught a mini-course on U.S.-China relations at the new Stanford Center at Peking University to students from both Stanford and Peking.

As I wrote on Substack, this was my first time in China since 2019. If a few years ago there would have been nothing special about such a trip, 2024 is a different era in U.S.-China relations. In my many meetings with Chinese scholars, officials, and students, I was struck by how little they knew about basic dynamics in American politics and foreign policy. I also was struck by some of my misconceptions about China after a five-year absence. The reason is obvious: we have not had any direct interactions with each other in some time. We need more engagement, not isolation, to better understand each other. In our new era of great power competition, we will have many disagreements with China that will not be solved by more talk or diplomacy. But especially in this new more confrontational era, we cannot allow disagreements, conflict, and of course, war, due to misperceptions and bad information. 

In April, the U.S. House of Representatives finally voted on and approved a new aid package to Ukraine! As you know by now, this is a project that I have been working on for months. This is a huge victory for Ukraine, the U.S., and global democracy. A few weeks prior, to help get it passed, I wrote Congress Must Let Ukraine Win and Speaker Johnson Must Allow a Vote on a Standalone Ukraine Bill Now.

Together with Robert Person, I wrote a chapter on “Why Putin Invaded Ukraine” for Hal Brands’s terrific volume, titled War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World. In my travels both abroad and in the United States, I am surprised by how sticky some of the myths regarding the causes of this horrific war are. Blaming “NATO expansions” as the reason is the worst of them all. My main motivation for writing this chapter with Rob was to offer what we believe is a comprehensive explanation for the start of this war, complete with a serious engagement of alternative hypotheses. For those teaching, we think our piece will be a fantastic addition to your syllabi!   

On Substack, I also reflected on Ukraine’s first Oscars for Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol,” and held a fantastic Q&A session with subscribers. Please join me on Substack and join these Zoom calls. I also joined Katie Couric’s YouTube channel to discuss the stalled Ukraine aid bill and future developments of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Rob Person and I also published an article in the Journal of Democracy on Why NATO Is More Than Democracy’s Best Defense in light of NATO’s 75^th anniversary. Lastly, I joined the Kyiv Security Forum to discuss the prospects of Ukraine’s recovery and advancements toward EU and NATO memberships.

Over the last two months, I also spent a lot of time commenting on recent events in Russia, including its presidential “election” and the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall. Regarding the election, I wrote “The Real Winner of Russia’s “Election” Today – Yulia Navalnaya” and “Imagining a Russia without Putin” on Substack and joined TV Rain and Washington Post Live for an interview. On MSNBC, I commented on the Moscow shooting attack and ISIS’s involvement in this terrorist act. I also discussed the impact of Trump’s actions on American democracy. A few weeks ago, I had the honor of being on a panel together with Dasha Navalnaya and the Oscar-winning director Daniel Roher, after the heavy screening of “Navalny.”  You can read about that event here.

I continue to coordinate the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions and remain in close contact with my Ukrainian colleagues. Read our latest paper: Energy Sanctions: Four Key Steps to Constrain Russia in 2024 and Beyond. As always, we are looking for new ideas, so if you have any, please share!

At FSI, we have a ton of activity going on this spring, especially regarding the Middle East. To stay updated on events, opportunities, and policy recommendations by scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, please sign up for FSI email blasts and follow us on LinkedIn. As always, feel free to share your comments on the content below and any suggestions for improving this newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter, please click here. I hope you join us here at FSI and Stanford for our amazing events!

Sincerely,

Mike