Thomas Graham’s Oct. 26 essay in The National Interest on US-Russia policy Russia, “Containment or Competitive Coexistence?” revives an old – and arguably discredited – line of reasoning that has shadowed Western policy circles for decades. His call for “competitive coexistence” sounds moderate, even pragmatic, yet beneath its calm tone lies a logic that is, sadly, historically ungrounded, strategically incoherent, and politically a bit naïve.
Let’s begin with the author himself. Graham has been a well-respected political strategist for years. Unfortunately, he signed the infamous 2020 “Russia letter,” a document urging the US to “engage Russia in a serious and sustained strategic dialogue that addresses the deeper sources of mistrust.” That plea for understanding, dressed up as sophisticated diplomacy, was in truth a veiled appeal for appeasement. We know how Russia responded to such overtures: they were regarded – if noticed at all in Moscow – as confirmations of American feebleness.
His current piece continues in that spirit: a polished defense of yielding to Moscow’s aggression dressed as “realism.” Graham’s diagnosis of Russia’s behavior as something to be managed, not confronted, reflects the same wishful thinking that led earlier generations of policymakers to “understand” authoritarian regimes. To him, containment – echoing George Kennan’s Cold War logic – should somehow yield to a strategy of “competitive coexistence.” But this is where his argument collapses. Kennan’s idea of containment in the 1940s did not rest on illusions of moral convergence; it was a hard-edged recognition that the Soviet system could not be reformed through empathy. It withstood Moscow’s expansionism precisely because it drew clear moral and strategic boundaries.
America’s record has never been one of divine command but of ambition, error, self-correction, and renewal. Its influence was imperfect, often turbulent, but never absent.
Graham’s own version is far softer. His proposal effectively calls for Ukraine’s capitulation and the West’s acceptance of Russia’s territorial theft – disguised under euphemisms like “armed neutrality,” “self-determination,” and “local democratic process.” Let us be clear: such “local self-determination” under Russian occupation is neither democratic nor legitimate. It would formalize Moscow’s gains and signal to every aggressor on earth that invasion pays if one has enough patience and propaganda.
Moreover, Graham’s logic assumes that appeasing Russian demands would yield stability. Yet the opposite has been repeatedly proven true. Every concession to the Kremlin – from Georgia in 2008 to Crimea in 2014 – has only emboldened it further. The proposed “reciprocal arrangement” of limiting arms along the border is laughably asymmetrical: one side faces existential invasion; the other faces Western sanctions.
Then comes Graham’s grand pronouncement: “The world in which the United States could dictate outcomes has long since passed.” One wonders – when exactly could the United States ever dictate outcomes? During the Bay of Pigs in 1961? In Vietnam? Angola in 1975? Afghanistan two decades ago? America’s record has never been one of divine command but of ambition, error, self-correction, and renewal. Its influence was imperfect, often turbulent, but never absent. And irony abounds: today’s world shows that Washington still shapes outcomes – whether in Ukraine, through NATO’s expansion; in Europe’s energy realignment; in restraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions; or in recalibrating the balance of power in the Middle East. It does so not through omnipotence, but through the resilience of an open economy, moral conviction, and a persistent, if imperfect, striving for peace – forms of leadership Moscow can neither emulate nor extinguish.
Moral clarity is what works, because it for some time anchors Western unity and prevents the slow corrosion of democratic will.
To dismiss containment as “morally satisfying but unrealistic” is to misread both history and psychology. Containment does not require today utopian expectations of Russian democratization; it requires strategic patience and moral clarity. It recognizes that authoritarian systems can be constrained, even if they do not reform. Graham’s dichotomy between “moral clarity” and “what works” is false – moral clarity is what works, because it for some time anchors Western unity and prevents the slow corrosion of democratic will.
In essence, Graham’s article reads less like a sober assessment of multipolarity and more like a lament from an old-school realist unable to adjust to the fluid dimension of modern geopolitics. His argument cloaks resignation as wisdom and equates compromise with defeat. The West does not need to “understand” Russia’s imperial nostalgia; it needs to contain it and deter it. Diplomacy without deterrence is surrender in slow motion. Graham’s “competitive coexistence” is neither competitive nor coexistence – it is capitulation with a guilty face.
This is not 1986 anymore, and Putin is not Gorbachev. The latter sought to open his country to the world and reform a failing system; the former thrives on isolation, repression, and mythmaking, clinging to imperial nostalgia.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.