Abstract
 
In the late 1990s, as Russia’s economy descended into a death spiral— eventually culminating in the August 1998 crash of the ruble and the government’s default on its international loan commitments—a series of books and articles appeared asking, “Who Lost Russia?”1 Fingers pointed in many directions, but almost all to the West: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), NATO, President Bill Clinton, and then later in the next decade, President George W. Bush. Arguments came in many varieties, but divided into two polar opposite views: the West did too much, and the West did too little.
 
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