Editor’s note: Big Tent Ideas always aims to provide balancing perspectives on the hottest issues of the day. Below is part two of a column series from Chuck DeVore presenting his analysis of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. You can find a counterpoint here, which was originally republished from IM—1776, where Erik Prince presents his analysis of U.S. foreign policy in that era.

There’s a lot to unpack in Erik Prince’s sprawling 4,600-word May 2 opinion piece in the Daily Caller entitled, “Neocons Almost Killed America. Here’s How Patriots Can Fix It.”–so much so that it required two responses to adequately discuss. Part one discussed Prince’s largely correct critique of America’s post-Cold War foreign policy failures and the Pentagon’s myriad inefficiencies. Part 2 looks at Prince’s contention that U.S. foreign-policy missteps pushed Russia into China’s arms. (RELATED: CHUCK DEVORE: Neocons Can’t Be Totally Blamed For America’s Foreign Policy Failures)

Unfortunately, while Prince makes some good points with his analysis of America’s hyper-interventionist foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union, he goes on to engage in a bit of wishful thinking reminiscent of the foreign policy “experts” he criticized by claiming that “… the opportunity to positively engage with Russia after 1991 was rejected by the dominant neoconservative faction and their military-industrial complex allies in Washington.”

Prince claims that NATO’s post-Cold War expansion drove Russia away. This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Russian history and culture at best and is likely merely revisionist history in service of an argument against interventionism and nation building that he already adequately made elsewhere in his essay.

My on-the-ground experience in post-Soviet Russia provides a personal perspective. From 1992 to 1994, I was part of a startup in Russia, a Western-managed air cargo refueling service on the Kamchatka Peninsula. I flew into the Russian Far East on Oct. 4, 1993, to take up station for a month’s rotation to relieve our on-site operations manager. That was the day Russian President Boris Yeltsin moved to crush the Communist holdouts in the House of Soviets in Moscow.

Even then, the corruption displayed by the Russians was astounding. To this was added a complete lack of any understanding or respect for........

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