The Russia Hand by Strobe Talbott

I just finished reading “The Russia Hand” by Strobe Talbott. That’s a memoir about Talbott’s experiences in Russian diplomacy, mainly under Clinton. Talbott was a classmate of mine at Yale (a “big guy on campus” who I would have recognized from a distance, but never spoke to). He was a Russian major and scholar of the house. He got a Rhodes Scholarship the same year Clinton did and was Clinton’s roommate at Oxford. After 3 years at Oxford, he got a job with Time Magazine, and almost immediately was assigned the task of translating Khrushchev’s memoirs. Under Clinton, he was a deputy secretary of state, and focused on the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The book’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. It reads like “The Red Badge of Courage” of diplomacy — a first-person, front-line account of day-to-day diplomatic action. It’s vivid and engaging. It gives you sense of what it might be like to be a diplomat dealing with US relations with Russia, at a crucial period of Russia’s history. But at the same time it does not provide a context, doesn’t give a sense of the overall meaning of what is happening.

Since the subject is Russia, I can’t help but think of Tolstoy’s criticism, in “War and Peace”, of personality-focused history books. He found it absurd that historians write as if what Napoleon had for breakfast one day or the fact that he had a cold on another made a major difference in the outcome of battles and the destiny of nations. He took the extreme position that individuals have no significant effect on history, and that we should focus our attention instead on the broader picture — for instance that millions of men marched from one end of Europe to another and back again.
I’m also reminded of the Emperor in the Star Wars movies. He doesn’t fret over day-to-day events. He doesn’t even seem concerned about which side wins which battle. Destabilization of any kind will help create the conditions necessary to make the Republic obsolete and to put him in control.

And, of course, I’m reminded of Asimov’s early Foundation novels, where Hari Seldon and his psychohistory focus on broad changes, not just on a single planet, but throughout the galaxy, and over the course of thousands of years.

Take the case of the US invasion of Iraq (which happened after what is described in “Russia Hand”). To try to determine the “cause” and the possible “meaning” of events, you could focus on the personalities and ambitions of Saddam Hussein and Bush and Putin and Tony Blair. Or you could focus on the effect of actions in the Middle East on the price of oil, and the profits of the companies involved in the “rebuilding”. Or you could step back still further and see that the main results were 1) destabilization of the Middle East, creating a situation in which divisions between countries and within countries were intensified and in which coordinated action became unimaginable for a generation or even longer; and 2) Europe, which had been on the brink of full union, became divided, with a new emphasis on differing national interests, postponing full union for at least a decade, and perhaps much longer. If there were an “Emperor” or a Hari Seldon in the background, those are the kinds of developments that would matter. And regardless of the immediate “causes”, you’d want to sort out who benefits from such developments and how.

As it stands today, “Russia Hand” is a very good book that illuminates events you read and heard about as they unfolded. But Talbott could elevate this work to a classic by adding a final chapter that puts the events he describes so well into a much broader context and considers the long-term trends and consequences, and weighs if and how the actions of individuals, like himself, can matter.

You can buy this book at Amazon.com, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
Other book reviews by Richard Seltzer

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