David J. Kramer

In his first book, “Back to Containment: Dealing with Putin’s Regime,” David J. Kramer traces the rise of Vladimir Putin and the U.S.-Russia relationship over the course of the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He argues that the Putin regime is a serious threat to the United States and the Western world and that the United States needs to develop a tougher policy of containment and pushback. Indeed, he writes very nature of Putin’s regime makes real cooperation between Russia and the United States virtually impossible, except perhaps on arms control and non-proliferation, though even there cooperation is far from automatic. Putin’s aggressive, bloody responses to perceived threats, internal and external, make him an unsavory interlocutor, to say the least. Under his rule, Russia does not fulfill the agreements it signs and frequently violates international norms. Putin and his regime perpetuate the narrative of an enemy from outside to justify his way of ruling at home, and they seek to discredit the West even as they exploit its openness and financial systems. Accordingly, Putin bears the bulk of the blame for the current state of affairs in U.S.-Russian relations.

Kramer is the former Senior Director for Human Rights and Democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, and was previously President of Freedom House, and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. He is currently a Senior Fellow in the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy at Florida International University’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs.

About the Author: 

David J. Kramer joined Florida International University’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs as a Senior Fellow in the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy in May 2017. Before moving to Miami, Kramer had worked in Washington, DC for 24 years, most recently with The McCain Institute for International Leadership as Senior Director for Human Rights and Democracy. Before that, he served for four years as President of Freedom House. Prior to that, he was a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Kramer served eight years in the U.S. Department of State, including as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus affairs as well as regional non-proliferation issues); Professional Staff Member in the Secretary’s Office of Policy Planning; and Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary for Global Affairs. He also was Executive Director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy in Washington.

Before joining the U.S. Government, Kramer was a Senior Fellow at the Project for the New American Century; Associate Director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Assistant Director of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, all in Washington. Kramer has been an Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School for International Affairs at The George Washington University. He also is a member of the board of directors of the Halifax International Security Forum and a Member of the Advisory Council for the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s Human Freedom Project.

A native of Massachusetts, Kramer received his M.A. in Soviet studies from Harvard University and his B.A. in Soviet Studies and Political Science from Tufts University.

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