Robert Kagan is a smart man. Of Paradise and Power was a smart, insightful book. This is a smart, insightful essay proceeding along the same lines of argument.

The supranational, legalistic E.U. spirit is a response to the conflicts of the 20th century, when nationalism and power politics twice destroyed the continent. But Vladimir Putin’s Russia, as Ivan Krastev has noted, is driven in part by the perceived failure of “post-national politics” after the Soviet collapse. Europe’s nightmares are the 1930s; Russia’s nightmares are the 1990s. Europe sees the answer to its problems in transcending the nation-state and power. For Russians, the solution is in restoring them.

Kagan is frequently lumped in with the neoconservatives—and rightly so. But it’s important to note that his argument here boils down to a gritty realist essence. Russia is a rational actor on the world stage trying to maximize its influence in its “near-abroad”. The Europeans need to wake up to the fact that soft power is not terribly effective in such circumstances. And the Americans need to come up with a catalogue of which countries are absolutely critical to their interests and which they can afford to give up to growing Russian influence.