For a long time I had been hoping against hope that somehow relations with Russia would finally earn a spot on the list of debate topics for U.S. politics (it is quite difficult to contend with Iraq and Afghanistan in the exceptionally narrow bandwidth American media reserves for foreign policy). But now that the question of how Washington should respond to the “resurgence of Russia,” or whichever narrative we want to use here, is most certainly going to be the foreign policy topic du jour in the presidential debates, I am reminded that I should always be careful what I wish for. Case in point, this ruminative column by James Traub in the New York Times reminds us of all the Cold War hangovers, memories of passive vs. active anti-communism, and basically of how Russia continues to have the unique ability to be nearly incomprehensible in the context of left vs. right U.S. partisan politics. Traub writes about experiencing the déjà vu effect of his one-time position on U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union, both in periods of harmless decline and other moments of renewed aggression (Afghanistan). Having once been an anti-anti-communist myself in my previous life, I understand why so many liberal-leaning people in the West are having trouble reconciling and understanding the Russia problem in the context of the invasion of Georgia.