Russia's isolation from Europe since it renewed its aggression on Ukraine in February 2022 has refocused attention on the Russia-China relationship and Russia's latest pivot to the East. Vladimir Putin's Russia, in fact, has garnered diplomatic backing from Beijing and at least quiet acquiescence from India and other countries. This makes Chris Miller's latest book, We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin, particularly timely. Miller provides a broad historical analysis of Russian engagement with the “East,” focusing on the creation of commercial ties, territorial enlargement, and the expansion of the Russian Empire. It is a process that took place in fits and starts with the Russian state—czarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet—pivoting between the desire for intense engagement with Asia (and beyond) and imperial retrenchment from the region, as policymakers struggled to populate its distant territories in the east with ethnic Russians, create essential supply lines, and develop viable economies to support Russian expansion. The book underscores the long-standing ambitions of rulers in Saint Petersburg and Moscow to become an Asian power and the difficult realities of realizing that goal.

Russian rulers saw Asia primarily as a venue where Russia could highlight itself as an imperial European power. As European powers and the United States gradually expanded and built empires, Russia, too, wanted to follow, aware that competition with its rivals often played out far beyond Europe. Asia therefore served more as a vehicle that Saint Petersburg or Moscow could use to highlight its rising clout in a shifting international system. Yet, Asian policy throughout centuries of Russian history took a back seat to more pressing issues of the day, with Russian rulers frequently losing interest, either because of the logistical difficulties of supporting an empire, the economic realities of supporting a large and sparsely populated space, the departure of advocates for engaging Asia from government, or military and diplomatic defeats.

Miller is an engaging writer and historian. This makes We Shall Be Masters not only an informative and astute analysis of Russia's engagement with the East across four centuries, but a thoroughly enjoyable read, filled with unique anecdotes, descriptions from diaries and memoirs of key players, and thorough archival research. The book comes alive, not just for academic historians but also for contemporary policy makers who struggle with how to manage the increasingly complex relationship between Putin's Russia and modern-day China under President Xi Jinping. It provides a unique view of Russian history from the East all the way across the Pacific to Alaska, California, and Hawai‘i—Russia's efforts to build and support an American empire. While Russia's presence in Alaska is well known, its outpost in California and efforts to build a colony in Hawai‘i to support trade between North America, the Russian Far East, and China are far less understood, making this an important book.

By highlighting Russia's attempt at an American empire, Miller underscores the broad definition of “the East” (Vostok) in the Russian language and mindset. This book is not just about Asia, but Russian efforts to engage with the non-European world, from Central Asia to Japan, Afghanistan to India, China to Southeast Asia (Vietnam), and Indigenous Peoples of the East. This broad definition of the East makes this book unique, even though much of Miller's analysis is not earth-shattering and has been covered by others. What Miller excels at is bringing together historiography, policies, and events from multiple centuries and multiple regions in a comparative framework that shows Russia's often overly optimistic efforts to gain power and influence in Asia rarely met expectations, stymied by unrealistic ambitions, inadequate financing, harsh climates, or racist attitudes that underestimated the agency or capabilities of local populations. Miller displays how many of Russia's pivots were driven by individual Russian rulers or their advisors, leading to swift pivots away from Russia once that person left power. This highlights the supremacy of Europe in Russian policy thinking on economic, military, and political power, despite the political shifts across the czarist, Soviet and post-Soviet eras. Miller shows that Asia throughout Russian history has been unimportant in comparison to Europe, despite all the rhetoric. This includes Soviet times when the USSR pushed for revolution in the Global South and became a world power.

Against this backdrop is the question of Russia's Asia policy under current president Vladimir Putin. His government again has underperformed in the East. Beyond China, Putin's “pivot” to Asia over the past decade has struggled, particularly with Asian powerhouses like Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Its engagement with Beijing is increasingly lopsided and not in Moscow's favor. Since the book was published before Moscow's most recent war against Ukraine, Miller never had the opportunity to address how these latest events will impact Putin's Asia pivot. Western efforts to isolate Russia economically may lead to a more definitive shift to the east, although history suggests its chances of success are limited. Given Russia's growing dependency on China in light of Western sanctions, its long-standing goal of being “the master” of Asia, as the books title suggests, is even more uncertain. I would have loved to get Miller's take on recent events, but perhaps that can be his next book.