Tag Archives: Ukraine

War Comes to Kyiv | The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa Interesting article that showed up in my inbox. This is a copy and paste ot it with minor editing. If you follow the link, there are other short articles to be read. I believe the takeaway from this article is the courage of Zelensky. The Ukraine will fall apart without him. Can the Russians be this bad militarily? The road into Kyiv is lined with military checkpoints, many of which are manned by...

Yesterday Russia moved to consolidate its control over eastern separatist regions of Ukraine. People bickered over whether this constituted an invasion, at which point Noah Smith won Twitter for the day: If it’s not from the Invasion region of southern France, then it’s not an invasion, it’s just a sparkling annexation — Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 (@Noahpinion) February 22, 2022 I’m only medium-good at tweets, and I don’t have much experience at all with Russia or Ukraine. But what I can do is parse...

Here’s a thought experiment I think it’s useful to perform. Start by assuming that Ukrainians and NATO could make invasion painful for Russia, but that Russia has the military forces to overwhelm Ukraine, the foreign reserves to survive sanctions, and the resolve to invade despite these costs and risks, should Putin not get what he wants. If you take these assumptions as true, then I think you’re forced to conclude that there will be peace if Ukraine and NATO more or less capitulates, and...

A few weeks ago I explained why I thought a Russian invasion of Ukraine was unlikely. Last week I said rumors of another American civil war are exaggerated. That’s when my colleague Konstantin Sonin tweeted something unexpected, connecting the two: My @HarrisPolicy colleague @cblatts has an excellent piece on prospects of a new civil war in the U.S. I wish Kremlin had read this some time ago – you wouldn’t believe to what extent they rely on the idea that the U.S. is on the brink of a civil...

Can Ukraine Become A New Austria?  In this Sunday’s Washington Post, columnist David von Drehle suggests that a way out of the difficult Russia/Ukraine situation would be for Ukraine to become like what happened with Austria in 1955 and since; it formally became officially neutral, not joining either NATO or the Warsaw Pact, and has remained so since.   For Ukraine, this would in effect grant Putin his demand that Ukraine not join NATO, although...

Russia is a strategic petrostate in a double sense. It is too big a part of global energy markets to permit Iran-style sanctions against Russian energy sales. Russia accounts for about 40 percent of Europe’s gas imports. Comprehensive sanctions would be too destabilizing to global energy markets and that would blow back on the United States in a significant way. China could not stand by and allow it to happen. Furthermore, Moscow, unlike some major oil and gas exporters, has proven capable...

If more U.S.-Russia talks are to happen, what should be on the table? Thomas Graham and Rajan Menon, writing in Politico Magazine, attempt to thread the needle of Russia’s Ukraine demands by considering a moratorium on the country’s future NATO membership amid a larger security compromise. “Now is the time to think big and imagine a new, more durable order, one that can encompass Russia,” they write. Others go further, with Anatol Lieven, writing in the Quincy Institute for Responsible...

Dare I Disagree With David Ignatius?  In today’s Washington Post (Dec. 31 ), intel columnist David Ignatius had a ten question multiple choice quiz about what will happen in 2022. He provided his own answers at the end, effectively forecasting.  Many I agree with and some, speculative about tech developments and such like, I have no opinion on.  However, on two very important ones, I think I disagree with him, if not overwhelmingly so. One of...