The story of Russia’s historic opening to the West (1992-2022), where it succeeded and why it has failed, the impact of war and sanctions, and the prospects for Russia’s future.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought a tragic close to a thirty-year period of history that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reopening of Russia to the West after six decades of Soviet isolation. The opening lasted for three tumultuous decades and ended with a new closing, driven by the Ukrainian war, the imposition of Western sanctions, and the Russian responses to them.

Thane Gustafson, a professor at Georgetown University, interprets in Perfect Storm, the story of Russia’s failed opening to the West, focusing on its economic, technological and social aspects, and the role they played in its ultimate failure. These parallel events are essential for understanding what happened and what went wrong. Yet they have received much less attention than the military and geopolitical aspects of the current conflict. Gustafson tells the story of the West’s entry into Russia, the arrival of Russians into the West, and the conflicting emotions and responses these aroused on both sides, contributing to the ultimate breakdown of relations and the unprecedented hurricane of Western sanctions. The book also concludes with an examination of possible futures under a new generation of leaders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and  resilience to western economic pressure, instead of returning to empty shelves in the branch of Auchan, the French hypermarket chain, the availability of broad assortment of  goods from other western multinational at very low prices makes a mockery of sanctions as most western goods were widely available. Russia’s oil exports fund the Kremlin’s splurge on defence and trickle into ordinary Russian pocketbooks. The technocrats who led Russia’s efforts to integrate its economy with the west are now the vanguard of the Kremlin’s fightback against sanctions.

Today’s economic warfare is rooted in three decades of failed attempts to draw Russia closer to the west, Gustafson, argues instead of drawing cold war adversaries together, efforts to integrate Russian into a capitalist system gave each side powerful weapons against the other. While Russia’s tanks rolled into Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv’s allies responded by expelling Moscow from global markets and supply chains. Russia cut Europe off from cheap gas supplies and crowed that the continent would soon freeze.

Gustafson, traces how the euphoria that greeted American-style capitalism’s arrival in Russia masked  a brooding resentment at Soviet Empires defeat. Russians stood in line for hours  at Moscow’s first McDonald’s when it opened in 1990, but were less excited about swallowing triumphalist, often condescending advice from their western betters – or “spinach”, as former US diplomat Victoria Nuland put it. “ I know you guys would like to come here and teach us heathens how to eat with a fork and knife and just to make sure we brush our teeth the right way,” the Russo-Georgian tycoon Kakha Bendukidze quipped.

As western companies leapt to get their hands on Russia’s riches, those who had already made it in biznes headed the other way. Inflows into Russia totalled over $630billion  from 1992 to 2020 but were dwarfed by $800billion going out, creating vulnerability that western sanctions have sought to exploit, limiting Russia’s ability to sell commodities abroad and import irreplaceable goods for its war machine with the proceeds. Gustafson finds the sanctions have been too incremental, often laxy enforced, and rarely with clear goal in mind. The most successful have constrained Russia’s financial flows. “The Russian dependence on the western financial system became its greatest source of vulnerability” write Gustafson. Russia have proved skilful at evading those, too – as evidence by the western components found in missiles that strike Ukraine, often smuggled through its ally China.

Putin’s imperialism accepts its goals in Ukraine are unattainable, and rejects its dependence on Beijing.

Power and wealth are in the hands of a venal elite in the security services, as sanctions have fuelled resentment even among an elite that once looked to the west. No western companies have made an effort to return to Russia. And those who have profited in their absence are in no rush to welcome them back.

Perfect Storm: Russia’s failed Economic Opening, The Hurricane of War and Sanctions, and the Uncertain Future by Thane Gustafson, Oxford £22.99, 328 pages.