Missed Chance

Newly declassified documents show George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin sought to avert a New Cold War.

Vladimir Putin:...Of course certain differences exist between us. We know about them, but it’s important to cement the positive achievements. This is the way to go…

It is clear that withdrawing from any kind of controls on nuclear warheads is a dangerous thing to do.

George W. Bush: We need to work on that. I’m concerned about transparency on what looks like a nuclear launch and everyone panics. We need to work this out. Let me just say I understand your concerns.

Putin:…A missile launch from a submarine in Northern Europe will only take six minutes to reach Moscow

Bush: I understand.

Putin: And we have established a set of response measures—there’s nothing good about it. Within a few minutes our entire nuclear response capability will be in the sky.

Bush: I know.

Thus began the final meeting between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia on April 6, 2008.

Last week, the National Security Archive at George Washington University published newly declassified verbatim transcripts of three conversations between Presidents George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin and their top national security advisers in 2001, 2005, and 2008. The transcripts contain a number of surprises and have significant historical implications, particularly for the rather tarnished reputation of George W. Bush, who emerges as both surprisingly well-informed and well-intentioned (Bush also seemed keenly aware of the danger a John McCain or Hillary Clinton administration would have posed to US-Russia relations, remarking in April 2008, that, “What I’m concerned about is US-Russia relations won’t get any better than what you and I have. History will show it’s very good. I’m not sure about the next group—not Medvedev, but who follows me.”)

For his part, Putin repeatedly expressed his willingness to cooperate with Bush on issues ranging from nuclear weapons, China, North Korea and Iran. It is clear that the current shape of world politics, in which Russia is now strongly aligned with both China and Iran, was in no way inevitable. One example: In order to pressure the hardline Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from pursuing a nuclear weapons program, Putin put on hold a sale of S-300 missiles to Tehran. Bush expressed his appreciation, and Putin went on to note that with regard to the sale, “We have a contract with them signed four years ago but not being implemented.”

Bush: I appreciate that. They’re nutty.

Putin: They’re quite nuts.

Bush: Hopefully rational people will start showing up. You talk to them, we don’t. We hope to have more rational people show up; we’d like to have a better relationship.

Putin: What surprised me when I was there, they may be crazy in their ideology but they’re intellectuals. They are educated in university, come from an academic environment- including Amadinejad, his entourage, the Speaker of the parliament. They are not primitive people. It was quite a surprise to me.

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The latest round of Ukraine peace talks took place over the final weekend of 2025 in Miami. Despite claims by Trump and Zelensky of great progress, there is little evidence of it. The calculus of the Kremlin has likely hardened in light of the assassination attempt on Putin the day after the Zelensky jetted off from Florida.

The failed negotiations ought to remind of us of two things. First, that President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan never seriously considered pursuing a diplomatic off-ramp with the Russians—instead, the record now amply shows they quite consciously provoked the February 24, 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (The recent inadvertent acknowledgement by former NSC and State Department staffer Amanda Sloat provides more evidence for this conclusion.) Secondly, the newly declassified Memorandums of Conversation between Bush and Putin provide more evidence for what a number of informed analysts have been saying (without much effect) for years: That the New Cold War between Russia and the United States is both dangerous and unnecessary. It was brought about by specific policy choices made by neoconservatives in Congress and their fellow travelers among liberal hawks in the Obama and Biden administrations. Things didn’t have to be this way.

It has become an article of faith among the most rabid American advocates (Michael McFaul, Timothy Snyder, Anne Applebaum, et al.) of the Ukrainian cause that Putin’s decision to invade had nothing whatever to do with NATO expansion. Putin, so the framing goes, is a dyed-in-the-wool Russian imperialist—a génocidaire even, who wishes to extinguish the Ukrainian population once and for all. The new Bush-Putin documents should (but of course will not) put an end to that line of thinking.

In their final meeting, Putin went on at length as to the reasons he was opposed to Ukraine’s membership in NATO.

Putin: Okay. Now I’d like to repeat to you what I said to Condi and Gates in Moscow on NATO enlargement…I’d like to emphasize accession to NATO of a country like Ukraine will create for the long-term a field of conflict for you and us, long-term confrontation.

Bush: Why?

Putin: Seventeen million Russians live in Ukraine, a third of the population . Ukraine is a very complex state. This is not a nation built in a natural manner. It’s an artificial country created back in Soviet times . Following World War II Ukraine obtained territory from Poland, Romania and Hungary - that’s pretty much all of western Ukraine. In the 1920s and 1930s Ukraine obtained territory from Russia -- that’s the eastern part of the country. In 1956, the Crimean peninsula was transferred to Ukraine. It’s a rather large European country built with a population of 45 million. It’s populated by people with very different mindsets. If you go to western Ukraine you’ll see villages where the only spoken language is Hungarian and people wear those bonnets. In the east, people are wearing suits, ties and big hats. NATO is perceived by a large part of the Ukrainian population as a hostile organization.

This creates the following problems for Russia. This creates the threat of military bases and new military systems being deployed in the proximity of Russia. It created uncertainties and threats for us. And relying on the anti-NATO forces in Ukraine, Russia would be working on stripping NATO of the possibility of enlarging. Russia would be creating problems there all the time. What for? What is the meaning of Ukrainian membership in NATO? What benefit is there for NATO and the US? There can be only one reason for it and that would be to cement Ukraine’s status as in the Western world and that would be the logic.

I don’t think it’s the right logic; I’m trying to comprehend. And given the divergent views of areas of the population on NATO membership, the country could just split apart. I always said there’s a certain pro-Western part, and a certain pro-Russia part. Now the power there is held by the pro-Western leaders. As soon as they came to power they split within themselves. The political activity there fully reflects the attitudes of the population. The issue there is not accession to NATO, but to ensure the self-sufficiency of Ukraine , Also, their economy should be strengthened.

Seventy percent of the population is against NATO. Condi told me in Slovakia and Croatia the population was opposed at first and they’re now in favor. What we are against is Ukraine’s accession to NATO, but in any case we should wait until a majority of the population is in favor, then let them accede, not vice versa.

Bush: One of the things I admire about you is you weren’t afraid to say it to NATO. People listened carefully and had no doubt about your position…

Putin: I would add another thing now. I do not rule out that Russia-NATO relations could improve in the future, along with US-Russia relations.

James W. Carden is the editor of TRR and senior adviser to the American Committee for US-Russia Accord.