From Left to Right: Condoleezza Rice and Michael McFaul are United in our Country’s Support of Ukraine

April 13, 2022

By Sophia Wilder

In our country’s politics, it can be rare to find moments where Democrats and Republicans nod their heads together across the aisles of our Senate. The current crisis in Ukraine, however disastrous, seems to be providing our nation one of these moments of unity. Although opinions of how exactly the U.S. should support Kyiv and Zelensky varies, major political figures Condoleezza Rice and Michael McFaul are both speaking in support of Ukraine.  

In expressing her approval of U.S. action in the crisis, Rice reports: “After the Crimea invasion in 2014… (t)hat's when the arming of the Ukrainian forces should have started.” In line with Rice, McFaul has stated: “The Biden administration and NATO allies must deepen military-to-military ties with Kyiv…” 

In exploring this sentiment of bipartisanship during the war in Ukraine, we follow Rice and McFaul in their political history with Russia and their recommendations for U.S. policy in the conflict.  

To start, Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and current fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, has always been focused on reconciliation between the U.S. and Russia. During his tenure (2012-2014) as Ambassador to the former Soviet Union, McFaul emphasized the importance of sincere dialogue in good U.S.-Russia relations. 

“I had this theory back then—that if we just got to know these people better, that would help to reduce tension between our two countries,” McFaul said in a 2017 article in The Atlantic. McFaul is notable for using social media, especially Twitter, to reach the larger Russian population — just one example of his belief in open conversation in politics. Laudably, Democrat McFaul’s drive to reach the Russian people motivated his work as Ambassador and drove his years of dogged democracy with the Kremlin.

“Cooperate when we can, manage the differences where we have differences and not let the differences bleed into affecting cooperation in other spheres,” McFaul said during his tenure as Ambassador in 2014. Yet, despite McFaul’s earnest dedication to positive U.S.- Russian relations, he was continuously stymied by negative Russian press: “[I] couldn't change the cartoonish way that I was portrayed [in Russian media]—as a poster boy for supporting the opposition in Russia.”

By the end of his two-year term in Russia in 2014, McFaul had become more jaded about U.S.-Russia relations—and of Putin’s leadership. The lasting impression of the diplomat’s work in the country, including his take on Putin, is recorded in a 2015 interview with the Cornell Chronicle: “the Russian leader has “resurrected” the United States…as the enemy.”

Comparatively, Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State and current director of the Hoover Institution, has also strived for good U.S.- Russia relations in an often-perilous political climate. Referencing the 2015 spike in tensions during the Crimea conflict, Rice is quoted in an interview with Fox on the countries’ relations: “It is a big, complicated relationship, but it is not one that is anything like the implacable hostility.” Rice has had her share of experience with the Kremlin, as a Republican working under the Bush administration as a National Security Advisor in 2001-2005. In her time in government, Rice has espoused the Russian people (and not just legislature) as the main audience for diplomacy. In a 2007 conference with human rights leaders in Moscow, Rice emphasized the role of Russian citizens in the country’s future: “If Russia is to emerge as a democratic country that can fully protect the rights of its people, it is going to emerge over years, and you have to be a part of helping the emergence of that Russia.” 

As with McFaul, Rice has questioned Putin’s role in leading the country towards an entrenched view of Russia pitted against the West, particularly against the United States. Speaking on Putin’s divisive rhetoric and his grandiose plans for the country, Rice states in a 2022 New York Times Article The Making of Vladimir Putin: “He was always obsessed with the 25 million Russians trapped outside Mother Russia by the breakup of the Soviet Union. Again and again he raised this. That is why, for him, the end of the Soviet empire was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century.” Continuing along this vein, in the same Atlantic article from McFaul in 2017, Rice states: “I’ve seen Putin go from a little shy, to pretty shy, to arrogant, and now megalomaniacal.”  

Given the Russian president’s perpetual aggressive attitude towards the U.S., it makes sense that both McFaul and Rice have come to the same conclusion about Russia’s acts in Ukraine: It must stop here. 

Reaching across the Democratic and Republican lines in our country, Rice and McFaul are speaking decisively regarding U.S. policy in the Ukrainian crisis. As McFaul wrote in an op-ed with the Washington Post: “Biden’s team, together with European allies, must articulate a more sophisticated, comprehensive, and long-term strategy for consolidating democracy and spurring economic growth… including more creative policies for protecting Ukraine’s energy, infrastructure, finance and media spheres from Russian influence.”  

This pro-Ukrainian sentiment is echoed by Rice: “We have to deter Putin from any belief or calculation that he might be able to extend what he is doing beyond Ukraine. The only way to do that is to stop him in Ukraine.” Given this support from both sides of the aisle, the U.S. is in a good place to act by invoking policy speaking to McFaul and Rice’s support of Zelensky and his country.  

How the U.S. will proceed with protecting Ukraine may vary. For McFaul, this crisis can be seen as an opportunity for the U.S. to engage with Russian president Putin in a more assertive manner. McFaul has embraced the idea of stricter sanctions as part of his recommendations for U.S. action, as he believes: “The current sanctions regime will not change Kremlin behavior.” For him “a new model — cascade sanctions — should be adopted” and “Biden’s team must double down on strengthening Ukraine’s still-fragile democratic experiment. Nothing would please Putin more than democratic breakdown in Ukraine.” For Rice, policy regarding Russia (according to a 2022 interview with NPR) includes the U.S. doing everything short of direct aggression given the high stakes: “I think we have to throw everything at [Ukraine] that we can that the administration believes will not widen the war and do it as quickly as we can.”  

While Rice and McFaul both believe Ukraine should be armed, the delicacies of supplying the country with aircraft or weaponry is very risky now that combat has started. The question therefore lies in how the U.S. can support Ukraine without risking, as Rice put it, a “wider war.”  

As the Biden administration strives to answer this question, both Democrats and Republicans can agree to the extent of McFaul’s statement in December: “A more effective U.S. policy toward Russia begins with a more stable, predictable, robust and effective policy toward Ukraine.”  

Register here to hear more from Rice and McFaul on democracy in Ukraine and at home during the 2022 Mansfield Lecture, Monday, April 18, at 11:30 a.m. MDT. 

Sophia Wilder is a sophomore at the University of Montana pursuing a degree in Environmental Studies and Business Administration. She currently works for the Mansfield Center as a Communications and Marketing intern.