David Satter is one of the world's leading commentators on Russia. The two-volume book series Never Speak to Strangers is a collection of his articles and essays. Volume two includes articles about the Russia-Ukraine war and argues that this tragic conflict was preventable. David Satter's writings and interviews describe the psychological roots of the conflict. Picking up where the first volume left off, the second volume of Never Speak to Strangers includes material on the historical and psychological roots of Russian aggression, the Yeltsin and Putin regimes, and, in particular, Russia's war against Ukraine. David Satter shows that change could come to Russia in the wake of a defeat in Ukraine, but external events will not be enough to divert Russia permanently from foreingn aggression and internal repression. For that, what is required is something more fundamental, a recognition that world order must be based on universal moral values and a rejection once and for all of Russia's "special way".
For Satter, as for Solzhenitsyn, Russia's key problem was not economic, as American and Russian reformers imagined, but spiritual and moral. He repeatedly warned of the situation we see unfolding in Ukraine today. -Gary Saul Morson, First Things
"The truth the reader will glean from the pieces on dissidents is the truth that Satter spent much of his career emphasizing: namely, that Communism's ultimate failure was not economic or political, but spiritual. [...] If David Satter's career has shown anything, it is that even in times when it seems impossible, a true understanding of what is happening in Russia is within reach, provided one has the right moral framework and the courage to see reality as it is. If not for these qualities and the people who live by them, Russia would be destined to remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."-Nat Brown, National Review, 29. October 2020"Many experts claim to have gotten Russia "right." Never Speak To Strangers openly lays out decades of Satter's writings, composed as events unfolded, allowing readers to evaluate whether the author did indeed get things right. Did he identify the major trends? Did he see the end coming? [...]My take on this massive collection of essays is that David Satter got things right. Taken together, his essays give us a much-needed framework for understanding Russia under Putin: where it came from, what it is like now, and-the most difficult question of all-where it is headed."- Paul R. Gregory, defining ideas, a Hoover Institution Journal