Winter Is Coming

August 24, 2015
This unpersuasive political screed from Kasparov, world chess champion from 1985 to 2005 and now a human rights activist, lays part of the blame for Vladimir Putin’s repressive Russian dictatorship at the feet of the U.S. and other world powers. After admitting that “Putin is no Hitler,” the author repeatedly compares the two. In his eyes, Putin sought “adulation and validation” at the Sochi Olympic Games just as Hitler did at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Kasparov also accuses the United States of “cowardice” for allowing Putin to annex the Crimea in 2014, tantamount to Neville Chamberlain’s “eager capitulation” to the Nazi annexation of the Sudentenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938. The author’s apocalyptic warnings about the dangers posed to the international community by Putin may find sympathetic ears at international human rights conferences, but he is unlikely to convince many Americans that they have a “moral responsibility” to provide military aid to Ukraine and return to Cold War “principles and policies.” Even Kasparov admits that “in the end, Putin is a Russian problem... and Russians must deal with how to remove him.”

August 1, 2015
Though still best known as a master chess player, Kasparov (How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom, 2007, etc.) continues his campaign as an anti-Putin warrior. By his own admission, "I've made well over a thousand media appearances in the last ten years, nearly all of them to discuss Russia and Putin," writes the author, so much of his argument will be familiar to those who have seen him with Bill Maher or read his op-ed columns in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. "Avoiding a new Cold War sounds like an admirable goal, but what if we are already in one?" asks Kasparov. He maintains that any sort of illusion of a thaw should have ended with the ascent of Putin, who followed the corruption of the Yeltsin regime with a dictatorial ruthlessness. He alternates between convincing analysis of Putin's malfeasance and hard-line assessments of American foreign policy, which he believes has suffered from a rudderless lack of leadership since Ronald Reagan. He can barely bring himself to name Bill Clinton, "a man with no foreign policy experience, a man whose slogan, 'It's the economy, stupid, ' efficiently discarded foreign policy and the Cold War from the campaign." The author thinks the country and the world would have been much better served by John McCain or Mitt Romney presidencies. His disparaging references to Hillary Clinton leave no doubt where he stands on the campaign to come, which a book like this is an attempt to influence. "If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, compromises on principles are the street lights," he writes, in a book that finds compromise synonymous with appeasement and consistently finds parallels between Putin and Hitler, because, early on, "Hitler was no Hitler either!" American readers might not be as eager as Kasparov to return to Cold War policies or commit the troops that might heat it up.

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Starred review from November 15, 2015

Kasparov's principled and consistent opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin is as distinguished as his years as the world's top-rated chess champion, a status of particular value in Russia. His book blends themes that are certain to engage readers disturbed by Putin's foreign and domestic policies. The author offers an analysis of Russia's political evolution since the Soviet collapse, an indictment of the West's weakness in confronting Putin's increasingly brazen challenges, and an account of his own political experience in Russia. After the revelations of such books as Karen Dawisha's Putin's Kleptocracy, Kasparov's description of the motivations of Putin seems credible, if not consistently intelligible. Central to the book's purpose is exposing the regime's successful deflection of Western criticism of its murderous repression and foreign aggression through commercial blandishments and alleged antiterrorism. Kasparov's indictment of American policy toward Russia judges President Barack Obama's wish for a "reset" in relations to have been especially ill-funded. More revealing are accounts of opposition figures, such as the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the activist Alexei Navalny. VERDICT Kasparov blends analysis and polemic in a clear and ironic style, appealing both to political specialists and general readers.--Zachary Irwin, Behrend Coll., Pennsylvania State Erie

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