Stephen Kotkin
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Trump’s sensitivity to any mention o Russian interference and his bi-
zarre public statements accepting Putin’s denials, the report refers to
Trump’s insecurities over how his election could be seen as illegitimate,
as well as to his wish to build a windfall Trump Tower in Moscow. The
report contains no section analyzing Trump’s long-standing envy o
strongman rulers. Nor does the report address the mutual failures o the
U.S.-Russian relationship. The three presidents who preceded Trump, all
o whom served two terms, could not Ãgure out how to manage U.S.-
Russian relations over the long run. Each tried engagement, or a “reset,”
followed by some version o attempted isolation, culminating in sanctions
and no visible way forward. In important ways, Russian interference in
U.S. domestic politics stemmed directly from those failures; so, in part,
have Trump’s conciliatory gestures. But Trump did not even get his reset:
despite his over-the-top expressions o admiration for Putin, his admin-
istration went straight to the phase o sanctions and recriminations.
In this light, the Russian attack on American democracy cannot be
viewed as even a tactical success. Instead o getting his dismemberment
o Ukraine legally recognized or sanctions lifted, Putin got slapped with
additional sanctions. The cyber-intrusions and special operations to
disseminate stolen e-mails were a technical success, but their contribu-
tion to Trump’s victory was at most marginal. The Kremlin did get
Washington to obsess about Russia in unhealthy ways, and Moscow’s
actions did play a part in launching a fury-raising investigation o a U.S.
president. But the United States has resilient institutions (as opposed
to Russia’s corrupt ones), a gigantic economy (as opposed to Russia’s
medium-sized one), and a powerfully self-organized civil society (as
opposed to Russia’s persecuted one). That is why highly educated, en-
trepreneurial Russians continue to immigrate to the United States.
This is also why, notwithstanding the unmet, unrealistic expectations
o the Mueller report, the Trumpian moment is an opportunity. The
best o the United States is there to be rediscovered, reinvented, and
repositioned for the challenges the country faces: the dilemmas posed
by bioengineering, rising seas and extreme weather, the overconcentra-
tion o economic power, and the geopolitical rivalry with China. Above
all, what the country needs is massive domestic investment in human
capital, infrastructure, and good governance. Trump’s instinctive exploi-
tation oÊ Washington’s recent failures oers an emphatic reminder that
the country must attend to those elements o American greatness. At a
high cost, Trump could nonetheless be a gift, i properly understood.∂