Even though “Russia” is in its title, Ryan C. Maness and Brandon Valeriano describe their book as one that is less about Russian foreign policy than one that uses Russia as its empirical evidence—“not so much an examination of Russia but a social science application of our theory to the Russian region” (p. 27). They call their theory “situational coercive diplomacy” and intend it “to be generalizable to most middle powers,” states that “are vying for regional dominance and usually looking no further” (p. 43). As developed in Chapter 2, the main explanatory variables contained in their theory are the issues at stake and the existence of an enduring rivalry with a third party. Their goal is to explain when states take the path of coercive diplomacy and power politics as opposed to that of accommodation. In addition, Maness and Valeriano’s larger purpose is to convince scholars and policymakers that coercion and power politics are ineffective and even counterproductive. “Threats, uses of force, and demands are not the best way to achieve foreign policy ends,” the authors declare from the start. “Where power is used to coerce, the aggressor state often fails to achieve its ends” (p. 29). They advocate instead an “accommodationist-world order path” based on reciprocity and compromise (pp. 31–32).

Chapter 3 sets the stage for their ensuing empirical analyses by applying both existing and original theorizing about interstate rivalry to the U.S.–Soviet/Russian relationship. Revitalized by high commodity prices and a booming economy and driven by a fundamental incongruity of goals with the United States (p. 53), Russia perpetuates a conflictual relationship to this day. However, the authors also contend that the current U.S.–Russian rivalry is different from what it was during the Cold War since now it is geographically limited to the post-Soviet space. The authors then advance the proposition that pressure from the mass public can keep a rivalry alive even after leaders have taken steps to terminate it. Their attempt to demonstrate this claim on the basis of public opinion polls, however, is rather superficial and unconvincing. Rather than constituting a driver of Kremlin policy, it is much more likely that public opinion has been either reflecting current events or (as many, including this author, would argue) following elite signals. Moreover, Maness and Valeriano's view is invalidated by their own analysis of public opinion regarding Syria. Since only 29% of Russians in 2012 favored a policy of support for the Assad regime, they predict that Russia will not become more diplomatically or militarily engaged in that country (i.e., the opposite of what has occurred since the chapter was written).

In the next three chapters, the authors explore Russia’s use of two unconventional power resources—cyber weaponry and energy exports—in conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The primary goal behind Moscow’s coercive diplomacy in the region, the authors correctly assert, is “to rebuild a sphere of influence in Eurasia to counter the United States and the West’s growing activities in what Russia considers its exclusive political and historic territory” (p. 117). Their elucidation of how Russia strives to achieve “assets-for-debt” swaps and uses the prices at which it sells natural gas to other post-Soviet states to reward cooperation and punish noncooperation is competently executed and largely convincing (albeit also very familiar to anyone who has followed this issue in even a cursory manner over the last decade). Moreover, their chapter on Russia’s cyber capabilities and past use of this arsenal is timely in light of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and of fears recently expressed by leading American intelligence officials about potential interventions in the future.

Specifically, Maness and Valeriano provide extensive discussion of nine “cyber incidents involving Russia,” eight of them offensive and one of them defensive, between 2001 and 2013. One of Russia’s offensive operations was directed against Estonia in 2007 (the “Bronze Soldier” dispute); three were directed against Georgia in 2008; and four (all acts of “infiltration” of networks) were directed against the United States. Their analysis of these incidents leads them to many interesting observations and noteworthy conclusions. On the one hand, they point out that Russia's attacks on Georgian websites during the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 “were the first of their kind; no state had used cyber tactics when implementing a military campaign” (p. 86). In addition, they assert that largely due to its army of “hactivists,” “Russia is the most ‘dangerous’ state in cyber space” (p. 92). On the other hand, the authors also point out that “Russia could have done a lot worse to Estonian networks” (p. 99) and that cyber tactics “were not used to shut down Georgian radar, confuse Georgian troops, or take control of Georgian missile defenses” (p. 102). Their overarching conclusion is that “Russia does not use its capabilities in cyberspace often, nor does it use them gregariously and to their full potential. Rather . . . Russia uses its cyber technology against other states almost exclusively in post-Soviet space . . . and it is constrained from using cyber tactics elsewhere by the fear of retaliation” (p. 86).

An interesting question to ask about their analysis, written as it was in 2014 or earlier, is whether Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign team would have been more vigilant against cyber intrusions (John Podesta did not even utilize two-step verification on his Gmail account) if they had read this chapter beforehand. However, it seems that Maness and Valeriano’s findings would only have reinforced their false sense of complacency.

Overall, Russia’s Coercive Diplomacy possesses both notable strengths and major weaknesses. In regard to its strengths, the authors are very knowledgeable about Russian foreign policy and make few or no factual mistakes. And second, both their chapter on cyber warfare and a chapter on the complicated multilateral diplomacy surrounding ownership of the Arctic contain a vast amount of useful information and represent good places to start for those seeking a quick education on either subject. In regard to its weaknesses, even though the book opens with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine that began in February 2014, and even though it was published in 2015, the bulk of the text was written before those watershed events occurred. As a result, many of its conclusions regarding how Moscow uses its cyber and energy arsenals might already be outdated. More significant is that the theoretical framework applied throughout this book (“situational coercive diplomacy”) is of secondary importance relative to the theorizing about the efficacy of coercion that truly interests Maness and Valeriano, yet the latter subject matter never receives any sustained empirical attention. That is, whereas the book repeatedly seeks to explain why coercive diplomacy was or was not attempted in a given situation, it never subjects its authors’ belief that power politics inevitably backfires and produces undesired results to any serious testing.

I would be remiss not to note, however, that the authors do assert, on the basis of cursory narratives of recent history, that Russia’s coercive diplomacy toward Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine has failed in all three cases. “[T]he more Russia utilizes coercive energy diplomacy against a post-Soviet country,” they write, “the more that state slips from Russia’s sphere of influence and towards the influence of the West” (p. 136). This judgment is certainly plausible, yet Maness and Valeriano provide no basis for assessing the marginal impact of Moscow’s coercive diplomacy on the policies and orientation of those states. After all, the gravitational pull of the West is strong; hence, perhaps a more accommodationist approach would have induced Moldova, Ukraine, and/or Georgia to pursue NATO and European Union membership even sooner and/or more resolutely (or even led other former Soviet republics to follow suit).

The final weakness of this book is a practical one. While its chapters on cyberspace and the Arctic will be useful to students, scholars, and policymakers alike, it is also hard to see where this work could be assigned. On the one hand, it delves into the Putin leadership’s worldview and Kremlin decision making with insufficient depth to be a sound choice for an area-studies course. And on the other, it probably contains too much discussion of Eurasian geopolitics to be assigned in a general international relations course. Russia’s Coercive Diplomacy is an impressive piece of social science in many ways, but it is also a work that falls between two stools.