A former CIA officer and the creator of the hit TV series The Americans makes the case that America's policy towards Russia is failing-and we'll never fix it until we rethink our relationship.

Coming of age in America in the 1970s and 80s, Joe Weisberg was a Cold Warrior. After a few years studying Russian in Leningrad, he joined the CIA in 1990-just in time to watch the Soviet Union collapse.

But less than a decade after the first Cold War ended, a new one broke out. Russia changed in many of the ways that America hoped it might-more capitalist, more religious, more open to Western ideas. But US sanctions have crippled Russia's economy; and Russia's interventions have exacerbated political problems in America. The old paradigm-America, the free capitalist good guys, fighting Russia, the repressive communist bad guys-simply doesn't apply anymore. But we've continued to act as if it does.

In this bold and...