Michael McFaul

Michael McFaul’s latest book, From Cold War to Hot Peace (2018), is told from the perspective of a diplomat President Putin wants to interrogate yet has banned from Russia. It is a revelatory, inside account of U.S.-Russia relations from 1989 to the present, and each chapter works as a Matryoshka doll that nests intricate details of how Putin conducts foreign relations.

McFaul is a leading expert on international relations, Russian politics, American foreign policy, and democratic development around the world. He is currently a professor of political science at Stanford University, the director of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He also works as a news analyst for NBC. From January 2012 to February 2014, he served as the U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation. Before becoming ambassador, he served for three years as a special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council.