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Russo-Ukrainian War

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Vladimir Putin's eyes revealed from behind torn paper.

How America Wasted Its Most Powerful Economic Weapon

If world leaders had been clearer about the sanctions Putin would face, they might have deterred his invasion of Ukraine.
by Edward Fishman via The Atlantic on February 24, 2025
President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

The First Draft of the Ukraine War’s History

Washington’s policy-makers showed themselves more wicked and feckless than their Vietnam- and Iraq-era predecessors.
by Scott McConnell via The American Conservative on February 19, 2025
A digital composite images shows troops landing at Anzac Cove in Turkey during the Gallipoli campaign in World War I.

Ukraine’s War Is Like World War I, Not World War II

The West is using the wrong analogy for Russia’s invasion—and worsening the outcome.
by Anatol Lieven via Foreign Policy on October 27, 2022
Town council leader and lawyer Khalid Salman by the graves of his sister and her children, who were among the twenty-four Iraqi civilians killed by US Marines in the 2005 Haditha massacre, Haditha, Iraq, 2011.

Our Hypocrisy on War Crimes

The US’s history of evasiveness around wartime atrocities undermines the very institution that could bring Putin to justice: the International Criminal Court.
by Fintan O’Toole via New York Review of Books on May 5, 2022
Illustration of an angel symbolizing peace with her hand on the shoulder of a man symbolizing war, titled "The Messenger"
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Ukraine Shows We Need to Learn the History of Peace Movements to Break The Habit of War

When the war in Ukraine finally ends, will we take peace organizations and peace movements more seriously?
by Charles F. Howlett via HNN on March 13, 2022
Military facility destroyed by shelling near Kyiv, Ukraine

Was it Inevitable? A Short History of Russia’s War on Ukraine

To understand the tragedy of this war, it is worth going back beyond the last few weeks and months, and even beyond Vladimir Putin.
by Keith Gessen via The Guardian on March 11, 2022
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US secretary of state James Baker in the Kremlin, Moscow, February 9, 1990.

‘A Bridge Too Far’

Even the most ardent advocates of NATO expansion after the implosion of the USSR realized that it had limits—and one of those limits was Ukraine.
by Fred Kaplan via New York Review of Books on March 11, 2022
A magnifying glass and Francis Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man."

Francis Fukuyama Was Right About Liberal Democracy

For all of its faults and weaknesses, no serious competitor has emerged to capture people’s imagination or seriously challenge it.
by Michael A. Cohen via The New Republic on February 18, 2025
Korean War U.S Army helicopter and soldiers about to board.

The Korean War and Mismanaging Protracted Conflict

History can make the U.S. better prepared for the specter of protracted large-scale ground combat, which has grown more real in the wake of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
by Andrew J. Forney via Texas National Security Review on October 14, 2024
NATO leaders in the 1950s sitting together at a conference.

Ill-Suited to Reality: NATO’s Delusions

It has suddenly become popular to cast NATO as the first benign military alliance in history, without concealed politics.
by Tom Stevenson via London Review of Books on July 25, 2024
Joe Biden lifting finger.

Hey Man, We’re Out of Runway

On three histories of the Biden White House, and the 2024 election.
by Christian Lorentzen via London Review of Books on July 8, 2024
Illustration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt among tanks.

The ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ Once More

In sending military aid to Ukraine, America’s values and security interests are aligned.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Bulwark+ on February 20, 2024
Robet Kagan resting his head in his hands in a contemplative position, with a dark red background

Robert Kagan and Interventionism’s Big Reboot

He fell from favor after the disaster of the Iraq War. But he was always biding his time.
by Samuel Moyn via The New Republic on February 14, 2023
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at the Group of 20 summit.
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Diplomacy Defused Cold War Crises. It Can Help Again Today.

The type of quiet, personal, informed diplomacy advocated by George Kennan can reduce tensions with China and Russia.
by Frank Costigliola via Made By History on February 10, 2023
An image of George Kennan with some of his letters superimposed over his face.

Kennan’s Warning on Ukraine

Ambition, insecurity, and the perils of independence.
by Frank Costigliola via Foreign Affairs on January 28, 2023
Demonstrators in front of the U.S. capital, supporting Ukraine.

Small Nations, Big Feelings

In the 1930s, Americans fell in love with Czechoslovakia and Spain; today, it’s Ukraine. What happens when one finds a “second mother country”?
by Madelyn Lugli via Public Books on October 27, 2022
Delegates from 34 tribes in front of Creek Council House, Indian Territory, in 1880.

We Have Always Been Global: Tribal Nations in the Democratic Slide

In the 19th century, Native American nations were early pioneers in constitutional democracy.
by Noah Ramage via Perspectives on History on June 21, 2022
Noam Chomsky

“Every Time We Build Up Our Military Budget, We’re Attacking Ourselves”

Noam Chomsky discusses the hypocrisies of US empire and why if we really wanted to build a decent society, we’d immediately slash the massive military budget.
by David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky via Jacobin on June 17, 2022
A line of people holding each others' shoulders as they walk with their eyes closed on a sidewalk in front of a building.

Ukraine Yesterday & Tomorrow

Ukraine didn’t become an epicenter of world history all of a sudden; it became an epicenter again.
by Oksana Forostyna via European Review Of Books on June 13, 2022
Mushroom cloud of nuclear bomb.

Forgetting the Apocalypse

Why our nuclear fears faded – and why that’s dangerous.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The Guardian on May 12, 2022
Drawing depicting different groups of refugees. Above, a white woman carries an infant and holds the hand of a young child. They are wearing yellow and blue--the colors of Ukraine. They are standing on a red carpet, and it is being rolled out for them--an easy entrance amidst barbed wire. Meanwhile, at bottom right, other refugees are obscured in shadow, and covered by a thick red line (potentially another carpet). They are non-white refugees, and their faces are turned away from the viewer.

United States to Refugees: Don't Give us Your Tired, Your Poor!

Putting out the welcome mat for white Christians—while slamming the door in the faces of other migrants—is an American tradition.
by David Nasaw via The Nation on May 9, 2022
MLK giving his Vietnam speech

“Somehow This Madness Must Cease.”

Revisiting MLK Jr.’s sermon against the Vietnam War.
by Christopher Lydon via Literary Hub on April 8, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, paying a visit to a hospital with wounded soldiers.

How Propaganda Became Entertaining

Ukraine’s wartime communications strategies have roots in World War II.
by Kathryn Cramer Brownell via The Atlantic on March 27, 2022
Portrait illustration of Volodymyr Zelensky with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

The Zelensky Myth

Why we should resist hero-worshipping Ukraine’s president.
by David A. Bell via New Statesman on March 24, 2022
Farmers harvest wheat near the village of Tbilisskaya, Russia, July 21, 2021. That nation’s farmers produce nearly a fifth of world wheat exports.

How High Energy Prices Emboldened Putin

Rupert Russell’s new book shows how the financialization of commodity prices worsens volatility and destabilizes geopolitics. It couldn’t be more timely.
by Tim Sahay via The American Prospect on March 22, 2022
Image of typewriter overlaid onto news articles about fascism

A Century Ago, American Reporters Foresaw the Rise of Authoritarianism in Europe

A new book tells the stories of four interwar writers who laid the groundwork for modern journalism.
by Deborah Cohen, Karin Wulf via Smithsonian on March 14, 2022
Drapery of a soldier displayed in a barren field.

The Economic Weapon

The fate of the League of Nations provides a stark warning about using sanctions as a tool of modern warfare.
by Nicholas Mulder via New Statesman on March 3, 2022
Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, president of the U.N. Security Council for February and permanent representative of the Russian Federation, at the U.N. headquarters on Feb. 28.

The ‘Rules-Based International Order’ Doesn’t Constrain Russia — or the United States

American pundits say Putin is undermining the international order. But the ability of great powers to ignore the rules is a lamentable part of the system.
by Samuel Moyn via Washington Post on March 1, 2022
Vladimir Putin sitting with three Russian military officials.

Ignored Warnings: How NATO Expansion Led to the Current Ukraine Tragedy

NATO expansion - the trigger for Russia's attack on Ukraine?
by Ted Carpenter via 1945 on February 24, 2022

History’s True Warning

How our misunderstanding of the Holocaust offers moral cover for the geopolitical disasters of our time.
by Timothy Snyder via Slate on September 23, 2015
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