Why Subscribe to McFaul's World

Analyzing great power competition at a pivotal and dangerous moment in international politics.

Welcome to McFaul’s World

The year I finished my Ph.D. dissertation at Oxford – 1991 – was the same year that the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Cold War ended. For me, living in Moscow as a Fulbright Scholar at Moscow State University in 1991 was one of the most exhilarating years of my life. Conventional wisdom claims that “we” won the Cold War. Part of that narrative is true. But the real heroes who ended the Cold War were the courageous demonstrators in eastern Europe in 1989 and in the Soviet Union in 1991 – Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Georgians, etc. – who revolted against tyranny and demanded independence, democracy, and becoming part of Europe again. I got to watch them in action, sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands on Manezh Square in downtown Moscow. Their final victory that year, the collapse of the USSR and the birth of Russian democracy, as well as the emergence of 14 other newly independent states, felt like a common victory. To anyone who believed in democracy, 1991 was a euphoric moment.   

The end of the Cold War was also a great moment for the United States of America. The U.S. was the world’s only superpower, democracy seemed to be a universal value, and the rules-based international system – the liberal international order created and anchored by the United States – appeared to be the only game in town.

Three decades later, everything has changed. The United States is no longer the world’s sole superpower. Other great powers – China first and foremost, but also Russia and some others — are now challenging American power and aspiring to create a multipolar world. Democracy is no longer the only legitimate form of government in the world. Over the last three decades, many emerging democracies have collapsed, autocratic China and Russia offer alternative models and ideas for how to govern and what to value, and many of the oldest democracies in the world, including the United States, are threatened from within by populist leaders and nationalist movements. And the “liberal international order” no longer seems very liberal, orderly, or global. Many actions, including some American actions, have chipped away at this order over the last three decades. But Putin’s barbaric war of annexation and recolonization in Ukraine represents the greatest challenge to this international system since its creation in 1945 at the end of World War II. And Putin’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons also violate what was thought to be a global taboo. We are living in scary, uncertain times.

What happened? Will these trendlines continue, or can they be interrupted? What does this new era of great power competition mean for American national interests, small d democrats around the world, and the future of the international system? 

McFaul’s World will wrestle with these big questions about the nature of international politics today, especially America’s place in this world. I’ve been an academic for most of my professional life – I joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 – so first and foremost, I aim to engage these questions through hypothesis testing and data. I’m a proud nerd working at “NerdNation.” But second, I have opinions, beliefs, and normative commitments. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, I believe that democracy is a horrible system of government, but better than the alternatives. I also believe in the universality of individual human rights. Iranian, Chinese, Saudi, Zimbabwean, and Russian citizens should have the same human rights as Americans or Europeans. Third, the older I get, the less I feel I know. So on this platform, I want to learn through meaningful dialogue with anyone who wants to join the conversation in a respectful way. No name-calling here. No propagating obvious disinformation. But if you too like to learn through interaction, updated assumptions, logical reasoning, exposure to new evidence, and argumentation, then you’ll have fun here.

I already use lots of platforms for publishing and dialogue. I write books, academic articles, policy articles, a Washington Post column, and social media posts.  You can find my published work here:

https://michaelmcfaul.com/

I speak on and at NBC/MSNBC, radio shows, podcasts, universities, and numerous other venues. And I teach in the classroom at Stanford University. But I joined Substack to try to do three things that I can’t really do effectively on these other media and platforms.

First, at McFaul’s World, I want to publish the first drafts of analytical pieces that don’t fit neatly on either an op-ed page or in an academic journal. I will try to post one of these each week. Because they will be first drafts, not finished products, I want to get your feedback. At times, I will use these kinds of pieces to test out arguments from my new book, tentatively titled, Autocrats versus Democrats: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia today. At other times, I will use these analytic essays to step out of my comfort zone and test new ideas on new topics, while always reserving the right to rethink my arguments and even delete articles that completely fail.

Second, I also want to publish more personal, reflective essays that will be tied to my own historical experiences. I want to discuss takeaways, impressions, and lessons learned from (1) attending the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad – that’s a lesson in empathy; (2) marching with South African students in Johannesburg protesting apartheid – that’s a lesson in inspiration; (3) hearing for the first time President Barack Obama drop an F-bomb – that’s a lesson in our common humanity; or (4) getting beat up as a kid on the streets of Butte, Montana – that’s a lesson in deterrence and self-defense. This kind of storytelling doesn’t work on MSNBC or Twitter. Maybe it won’t work here – but I want to try.

Third, I want to interact with you in a structured, meaningful dialogue. In 2011, my then-new boss – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – instructed me to open a Twitter account as I headed out to Moscow to take up my new assignment as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia. Until I landed in Russia in January 2012, I had never seen a tweet. I was one of the first U.S. ambassadors to use the platform actively. And it was fantastic! I met some amazing people, learned a ton, and had some deeply meaningful interactions with Russians, from deputy prime ministers in Moscow to high school students in Vladivostok. Yes, I made some mistakes. (More on that later). And yes, there were trolls and bots even back then. But their distractive antics were easily eclipsed by the many more positive engagements and interactions. I especially liked our “tweet chats” when I would tell the entire country that I’d be answering any and all questions for an hour. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, showed up. I want to try to replicate that experience here.

Finally, I also want to experiment. That’s also harder to do on other media. Maybe the content on McFaul’s World will include mostly 2-minute videos. Maybe I’ll use this space to post conversations with small d democrats from around the world. Maybe I will publish whole books here in serial form. Or maybe I will also write other things on my mind besides international politics like Stanford football or the best songs to run the Stanford Dish loop with. I don’t know. And that’s what makes it exciting. I do know that I will be looking for advice and guidance on both topics and form. So sign up now! Help me create, develop, and shape McFaul’s World.