Evil Empire 105that came in 2014. The United States also has its reasons for supporting
Ukraine, but its presence there is vividly provocative to Russians—and
not just to Putin and to the Kremlin.
And yet Reagan’s rhetoric still hampers us today. A country that is
autocratically ruled, that invaded its neighbor (Ukraine), that intervened
in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, that supports antidemocratic
movements worldwide, and that hacked the U.S. election of 2016 can
only be evil. The temptation to think in these terms is immense, and the
accusation of Russian evil haunts contemporary U.S. popular culture,
media, and political discourse. But the concept of an “evil Russian em-
pire” should be abandoned. Russia is more rational than evil; it works
from its own logic and assumptions, which we are in desperate need
of understanding. To reject these assumptions of evil is not to declare
Russia right or unworthy of opposition. Rather, it is to make Russia
legible so that a suitable response can be formulated. The United States
can do more good by doing less to rid the world of evil.