Stephen Kinzer’s revisionist history of the Ukraine war

Kinzer traces this alleged long-term conspiracy back to 1949, citing the clandestine operations of CIA official Frank Wisner. According to the author, Wisner was driven by the trauma of witnessing communist takeovers in Eastern Europe, setting a precedent for future policy. The book identifies a lineage of influential figures—including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, and Victoria Nuland—as architects of this anti-Russian agenda. Kinzer contends that these officials, motivated by their ancestral backgrounds, transformed the U.S. government into a cudgel against the Kremlin. By framing the invasion of Ukraine as an avoidable consequence of these personal grudges, Kinzer presents a provocative, albeit highly contentious, reading of modern geopolitical history.