Draft:Hubris (Haslam book)

Jonathan Haslam's book Hubris: The American Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine presents a fundamental critique of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Its central thesis is that the war in Ukraine is not solely the result of Russian imperialism or Putin's ideology, but has deeper structural causes that lie essentially in the decisions made by the United States after 1991. Haslam blames American hubris following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Central statement

According to Haslam, the current (2022) confrontation with Russia was no accident, but the result of a long chain of American misjudgments, strategic shortsightedness, and cultural ignorance. The US's hubris in seeing itself as a moral victor and global shaper after the Cold War, left no room for cooperative security models. The consequences of this hubris are visible today in the form of war, the division of Europe, and the loss of any strategic planning vis-à-vis Russia. The real tragedy, according to Haslam, lies in the fact that this escalation could have been avoided, had the West, especially Washington, been willing to take Russia's security needs and historical narratives seriously. The price, in Haslam's view, was the strategic destruction of the European peace order.

Contents

Immediately after the end of the Cold War, there was a historic opportunity to create a new, inclusive European security system, a security architecture for Europe, in which Russia could have been included. However, according to Haslam, this opportunity was systematically squandered. It was primarily the United States that was not interested in a common European solution after its victory in the Cold War. Instead, they pursued a hegemonic model: Europe was to remain under American leadership and NATO was not only maintained, but even expanded - contrary to previous signals to Moscow.

In Haslam's view, this eastward expansion of NATO is the central strategic mistake. The decision to expand was not based on a comprehensive geopolitical strategy, but on short-term domestic political motives. President Bill Clinton, who had no real foreign policy concept at the beginning of his term of office, allowed himself to be pressurised by advisors such as Madeleine Albright and former ‘Cold Warriors’ such as Zbigniew Brzeziński to develop a symbolic foreign policy in order to appear capable of acting against domestic political opponents such as the Republicans. NATO enlargement was instrumentalised as a political project - it was useful in terms of domestic policy, but destructive in terms of foreign policy.

Added to this, according to Haslam, there is also the blatant double standard and diplomatic dishonesty towards Russia. While Clinton repeatedly assured President Yeltsin in public that there would be no NATO expansion ‘against Russia’, concrete preparations for the accession of Eastern European states had long been underway in the background. This dual strategy permanently undermined the confidence of the Russian leadership. In Haslam's view, Yeltsin was systematically deceived, as were many European allies, who repeatedly warned that an expansion of NATO to Russia's borders would have to act as a provocation in the long term.

Haslam sees the Kosovo crisis in 1999 as another decisive moment, when NATO launched a war of aggression against Yugoslavia without a UN mandate - an intervention to protect human rights, but de facto to save its own credibility. For Moscow, this was the final proof that NATO had become an expansive, militarily active alliance under US leadership, which also intervenes without international legitimisation. The result was a complete loss of trust in the West and a radical change in Russian perception: confrontation rather than co-operation became the strategic guideline.

Russia also paid a price for this development domestically. The reformers of the 1990s lost support, and Boris Yeltsin chose Vladimir Putin as his successor—in Haslam's view, a deliberate act of distrust toward the West, almost a form of revenge. Putin was the response to what he perceived as humiliating behavior by the United States. Instead of creating stability through inclusion and mutual recognition, Washington had created the conditions for a policy of revenge that ultimately erupted in aggression against Ukraine.

In 2013/14, under Barack Obama's presidency, Western interference in internal Ukrainian processes intensified; the previously fragile geopolitical balance finally collapsed. At that time, Ukraine was deeply divided, both economically and culturally. The incumbent president, Viktor Yanukovych, like many of his predecessors, was embedded in a corrupt power structure that permitted neither clear ties to the West nor full integration with Russia. In 2013, the EU offered Ukraine an Association Agreement structured along neoliberal and technocratic lines and effectively amounted to forced economic adjustment – ​​comparable to the conditionalities of the International Monetary Fund. This agreement implied far-reaching structural interventions in the country's sovereignty without simultaneously offering any credible economic safeguards or security guarantees. During this period of geopolitical pressure, Russia intervened forcefully: President Putin declared unequivocally that Ukraine's accession to the Western sphere—be it the EU or NATO—would pose an unacceptable strategic threat to Moscow. This warning was interpreted in the West as a mere show of force, without taking into account the historical and security context.

Following Yanukovych's refusal to sign the EU agreement, a dynamic process unfolded within a few weeks, culminating in the escalation on the Maidan. Professor Haslam points out that, starting in the fall of 2013, new anti-government media outlets suddenly emerged, massive funding from US organizations such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy began, and Western foundations, including those of George Soros, directly influenced political processes. All of these activities culminated in a change of government, benevolently supported by the West, which Haslam describes as a covert operation by the "deep state" – a mixture of intelligence agencies, the diplomatic apparatus, and globally active NGOs . The speed and precision of the Russian response underscores that these destabilizing measures were not an isolated development but part of a larger strategy for Ukraine's western integration: the annexation of Crimea by highly professional, pre-deployed special forces – the so-called "little green men" – shows that Russia had been preparing for such a scenario for years.

The EU, especially Germany and France, acted incredibly weakly during this crucial phase. Despite their participation in a compromise plan with Yanukovych in February 2014, which called for new elections and de-escalation, they idly allowed the opposition forces, supported by radical nationalist groups, to thwart this plan by seizing power. This broke the Western promise of an orderly and inclusive solution, which from the Russian perspective amounted to a breach of treaty. Barack Obama, on the other hand, largely left foreign policy to his ministries, showed blatant disinterest in Eastern Europe, and allowed a dangerous power vacuum to develop. His lack of strategic leadership led to Russia, after Crimea, also claiming parts of the Donbas as a sphere of influence. Western responses to this were inconsistent and largely symbolic – there was no military aid, and substantial diplomatic offers were lacking. At the same time, the new rulers in Kyiv, under pressure from nationalist forces, pursued a policy of cultural exclusion of Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Linguistic rights were curtailed and local autonomy was suppressed in Russian-dominated areas, leading to growing alienation in eastern Ukraine. Haslam emphasizes that these people were by no means automatically pro-Russian, but rather were driven into the conflict by the behavior of the central government.

Particularly dramatic is the complete ignorance with which Western decision-makers treated Ukraine's historical and strategic significance for Russia. For Moscow, Ukraine represents not only a geopolitical buffer territory , but also a cultural and identity-forming core – its separation was perceived in the collective Russian memory as an amputation. At the same time, Ukraine played a critical role in NATO's Cold War war planning as an axis of attack into Russia's heartland via the Black Sea and the Volga corridor. The fact that these facts were overlooked or deliberately ignored in the West demonstrates a dangerous mixture of ideological hubris and geopolitical illiteracy. Even experienced diplomats like Michael McFaul behaved in Moscow with missionary zeal rather than empathy or strategic sensitivity – a mistake that reinforced Putin's confrontational course. In addition, even experienced US politicians like George W. Bush publicly declared that “civilized nations do not simply invade other countries” – a statement he himself corrected in a Freudian slip by accidentally mentioning Iraq instead of Ukraine.

Conclusion

The United States is viewed as a key political actor whose short-sighted and arrogant foreign policy has contributed significantly to the current escalation. NATO expansion was neither necessary nor strategically without alternatives, but rather the product of domestic political calculations, ideological blinkers, and a disregard for Russian security interests. Especially in the 1990s, when Russia was weakened and dependent on cooperation, the United States could have established a viable European order through diplomatic foresight. Instead, a line of confrontation was established, the consequences of which are visible today in Ukraine. Through a mixture of strategic arrogance, moral imperialism, institutional incompetence, and cultural ignorance, the United States and the EU have contributed significantly to Russia's reliance on escalation in its policy toward Ukraine. The systematic misunderstanding of Russian interests, the illusion of a smooth integration of Ukraine into the West, the ideological penetration of supposedly independent civil societies by US foundations, and the lack of autonomy of European foreign policy have fostered a development whose consequences are now evident in the form of a ruinous war. Europe failed to emancipate itself strategically, and the US consistently underestimated the dynamics it had unleashed. The price for this is not only the war in Ukraine, but a tectonic shift in the global balance of power and the collapse of the post-war order in Europe.

Reviews

Favorable reviews came from James Tarmy Bloomberg, Francis P. Sempa (New York Journal of Books), Geoffrey Roberts (Political Quarterly), Kirkus Reviews, Jeffrey Sachs, S. Neil MacFarlane, Charles Coutinho, and the author of Provoked, Scott Horton.

Ada Wordsworth

In The Telegraph Ada Wordsworth criticises that maps in the book erroneously depict Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova as part of Russia in 1994 and mislabel Crimea in modern borders. Mariupol and Bucha’s pre-war populations as “villagers” (rather than city dwellers) seem to minimize the scale of Russian atrocities. She finds it questionable to claim that Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution was “not a mass uprising” and implying Soros Foundation funding for protesters, relying on insinuation over evidence. The hoistorical scope is too narrow, the book begins in 1991, ignoring 300 years of Russian imperialism that shaped its sense of entitlement over Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Haslam seems to lack critically analysis of why Russia believes it should dictate Ukraine’s sovereignty or why Eastern European nations sought NATO protection. He omissed Central and Eastern European states’ historical trauma under Russian rule and their proactive pursuit of NATO membership are sidelined. Their distrust of Russia is validated by its actions, yet Haslam prioritizes Western diplomatic missteps over their perspectives. She concludes that Hubris offers a detailed account of U.S.-Russia tensions post-1991, but argues it is too limited to explain the war’s origins. By neglecting Russia’s imperial legacy and Eastern Europe’s agency, Haslam’s analysis risks legitimizing Russian grievances without addressing their pathological roots. The book is a seen as a useful primer on NATO’s role but falls short as a comprehensive history of the conflict.

Mary Elise Sarotte

In her review of Haslam's work, published on April 9, 2025, Sarotte first presents the current events of February 2025, when President Trump received President Zelenskyy at the White House. She argues that Trump blamed Zelenskyy for the Russian invasion. She then compares Trump's view with Haslam's, who also places the blame far away from Russia, but, unlike Trump, does not blame Ukraine, but rather the United States. Sarotte sees parallels to earlier studies, such as those by John Mearsheimer. Like Haslam, he sees NATO expansion as the root of the problem. According to Mearsheimer, it is the "central element of a broader strategy to extricate Ukraine from Russia's sphere of influence and integrate it into the West." The question of blame is central to conflict resolution, i.e., to the future, and a weakening of NATO could strengthen the Russian position.

An unenforceable peace agreement based on false assumptions about history could pave the way for a potential return to Moscow's power. With so much at stake, it is crucial to understand this history correctly.

Haslam's account of the facts is unconvincing, she argues, because no Western commitments were made. According to Baker's personal written summary, he put out feelers in the form of a hypothetical question to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: "Would you be in favor of a united Germany outside NATO, independent and without US troops, or would you be in favor of a united Germany within NATO with the assurance that NATO's jurisdiction would not shift an inch to the east?" Haslam sees this and similar statements as promises of non-expansion. Hans-Dietrich Genscher's famous statement on NATO's scope was not made to Gorbachev, but to Baker. According to an American archival note, "Genscher reiterated the need to assure the Soviets that NATO would not expand its territorial scope to include the territory of the GDR or any other area in Eastern Europe." Sarotte sees little likelihood of these words being repeated to Gorbachev, especially since he could not speak with authority and make a final decision. Haslam's sources are not at the "top of the historical evidence hierarchy," and Hubris contains "numerous errors regarding chronology, geography, and electoral details, and even misidentifies NATO's founding members." Haslam ignores scientific findings and relevant evidence. "For example, Haslam fails to mention that shortly after Baker raised the hypothetical idea of ​​non-expansion of NATO in his conversation with Gorbachev in February 1990, he retracted the idea."

The US Secretary of State had informed Genscher in writing to avoid discussions about NATO's jurisdiction, as President George H. W. Bush had decided against limiting NATO's authority because approval for reunification could also be achieved through financial means. Genscher continued to promote his NATO ideas until Kohl prohibited him from doing so in writing.

Hubris, Sarotte argues, fails to mention that the 2+4 Treaty allowed NATO to extend its jurisdiction to cover all of Germany. Sarotte sees this as a "precedent." Haslam's conclusion that Washington and NATO share responsibility for the Ukraine war because they broke their non-expansion pledge is also incorrect, according to Sarotte.

Haslam, she continues, underestimated the willingness of Central and Eastern Europeans to break away from Moscow, which was evident in polls and fears about the future in 1993 and 1994. Russia also agreed to NATO membership for countries like Poland.

Haslam is criticised for overlooking the key factor for the annexation of Crimea: "...Ukraine's burning hope for closer trade relations with the EU." Yanukovych "vastly underestimated" the popularity of the Association Agreement in Ukraine.

Haslam also does not address why Ukrainians took to the streets in the depths of winter in the hope of closer relations with the EU and why some even died.

Haslam alleges that US foreign policy, from the era of President George H.W. Bush to that of his son, George W. Bush, was based on a plan and the goal of "using NATO as an instrument to enforce a Pax Americana that extended far beyond the borders of Europe." In this respect, Haslam sees hubris as the reason and comes closer to Trump's view, which merely shifts the blame onto Ukraine. Yet, for Sarotte, there is neither evidence nor a meaningful justification for a planned approach. Clinton and Tony Lake had merely expressed speculation in 1994, but were dissuaded from this by events: Ukraine and other potential NATO members should first join an interim group, and later NATO. Due to the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine "abruptly" lost importance for Washington. "The timing was tragic for Kyiv." Host countries and Republicans had urged him to proceed more quickly, to accept or reject NATO instead of interim solutions. Bucharest in 2008 also did not follow a master plan. "Rather, these were belated, poorly implemented efforts to address Ukraine's vulnerabilities in the face of rising tensions with Russia.

The lack of a legally binding ban on NATO expansion is seen as the Soviet Union's diplomatic failure. Even if there were a written agreement, neither the United States nor Ukraine would be responsible for the war on February 24, 2022, and Putin's decision to bomb a Ukrainian maternity ward, explains Sarotte.

Putin is seen as instrumentalizing history as a weapon, cherry-picking evidence for his use. This is unacceptable in science. Sarotte claims there can be no peace without evidence-based historiography.

Internet sources

• Hubris: the Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine’. Jonathan Haslam talks about his new book. Centre for Geopolitics, December, 9 2024

Literature

• Jonathan Haslam: Hubris. The Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024, ISBN 978-1-80454-822-6 (English).
• Hubris. The American Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine. Harvard University Press, January 28, 2025 ISBN 9780674299078, 0674299078 (English)

External links

• Discussion with Dr. Donatas Kupčiūnas, University of Cambridge

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• 2024 non-fiction books