The two events that turned Putin against the U.S.

The first was widespread protests against Putin in early 2012, which the Kremlin accused McFaul himself of organizing. “But that was not the end of the story, because Putin is a great compartmentalist,” McFaul said. “He’d say, ‘I understand you’re trying to overthrow regimes in Syria and Iran and here,'” but still see ways to work on business deals or the chemical-weapons deal with America.

The second event came during negotiations for a peaceful exit for Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych this winter. The American government was deeply involved in trying to broker a handover; Vice President Biden was on the phone with Yanukovych. Then the Ukrainian leader suddenly fled the country. “Putin thought that yet again the Americans had duped him. That’s when he said, ‘I’m done worrying about what they think about me.'” In short, Putin had adopted a structuralist view. Believing that American grand strategy was geared toward undermining him at every turn, he rejected any attempt to reckon with Obama as an agent of policy. But that was an emotional decision—hence McFaul’s allegiance to agency.

“We tend to assign a lot of rationale and logic to individuals and states, and my experience in government suggests … they’re people with emotions, with worldviews, and that different people in that job will behave differently,” McFaul said. “The good news is that this is not part of a grand strategy where first they take Crimea, then eastern Ukraine, then Moldova, and then a piece of Estonia. This was a response to the collapse of the government in Kiev.”