There is a growing chorus of voices that argues that the United States and her closest allies are principally to blame for unfortunate revival of not-so-velvet authoritarianism in Russia. I agree wholeheartedly with some of these arguments – Washington has been particularly disrespectful toward Russia since the end of the Cold War, and squandered numerous opportunities to build upon positive areas of cooperation in terms of security, anti-terrorism, nuclear proliferation and trade. In general, Washington and commentators in the U.S. media should show a greater amount of respect for Russia’s renewed great power status and its important role in global affairs (which is not the same as ignoring problems like human rights). However I am not a subscriber to the emerging “Russia Guilt Complex” put forward in the last issue of Foreign Affairs by the Nixon Center’s Dimitri K. Simes, and other similar calls to bury all values in pursuit of “critical objectives.” The guilt complex depends upon false trade-offs, which in the end will leave the U.S.-Russia partnership in worse condition than it is today. Case in point, today the Economist takes on the Simes et al. approach: “This argument has strong points, but many weak ones. Mr Simes is right to say that Russia was not a defeated adversary. But who said it was? He overlooks the main point, which is that the Soviet system (a Russian empire clothed in totalitarian ideology) had indeed been utterly defeated at home and abroad.”