This book was difficult to read, although the author's prose was itself easy and approachable, the subject is tough. He succeeded in destroying any faith I had left in how media in the USA reports on foreign policy. The book begins with Operation Cyclone, a haunting semi covert operation that began the funding and arming of extremist terrorist in an effort to "transition democracies". It ends with an afterward summarizing nicely the brief post cold war history of Russia and how Russiagate and the neocons around it created a new cold war.