Reading @strobetalbott's memoir, The Russia Hand, which just never gets old. Here's his account of Evgenii Primakov's take on world politics. Well, what do you say to this? Hard to disagree. It's not Primakov even. It's classical realism, which isn't Russia's invention. 
In Talbott's implicit criticism of Primakov's worldview, we see a kind of intellectual positioning that is also characteristic of the debate between liberal internationalism and realism in IR.
Just as this debate has not been resolved adequately in IR (or has been won hands down by the Realists, Realists would claim), so it is difficult to find fault with Primakov's pragmatism and his cynicism, when we review the ups and downs of Russo-American relations in the 1990s.
It becomes difficult to attach value-based judgements that would pin the blame for the mess we are in on either of the two parties.
