Putin’s War in Ukraine Archive

Beyond its immediate implications for European security, the current crisis at the Ukraine-Russia border highlights the enduring importance of state sovereignty as an ordering principle in world politics, notwithstanding frequent claims that globalization has rendered it obsolete. It also exposes the tendency of governments to invoke, dismiss or reinterpret this bedrock principle to suit their situational needs. In fact, global stability now depends on whether the United States and European Union are able to reaffirm and defend the centrality of state sovereignty against a Russian attempt to dismiss it. On one level, the Ukraine situation would seem to have turned […]

The United States and NATO have delivered written responses to  Russian demands for security guarantees, rejecting Moscow’s insistence on a withdrawal of NATO forces from Eastern Europe and an assurance that Ukraine will never be granted membership in the alliance. That firmly puts the ball back in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s court, while doing nothing to reduce the prospects of a Russian military invasion. Now European governments must consider the practical realities of what a war in Ukraine would mean, particularly in neighboring EU member states. Following a meeting of the NATO security council on Tuesday, Slovakian Defense Minister Jaroslav […]

Amid the looming threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western nations continue to use a wide-ranging toolkit of policy options, including diplomacy and security assistance, to avert the risk of a full-blown war in Eastern Europe. The U.K. is supplying short-range anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Canada is deploying a unit of special operations forces. And a delegation of U.S. senators met Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, followed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken today.  But while Western countries have reacted vocally to the buildup of 100,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, China has mostly kept silent. Speaking in […]

There is something clarifying about the fact that the opening of high-level U.S.-Russian talks this week to discuss the crisis Moscow has provoked over Ukraine comes just days after the one-year anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Capitol. The two events are not directly related, but they both make up parts of a difficult challenge facing U.S. policymakers: how to preserve Washington’s global leadership role at a time when its model of governance, both domestically and internationally, is increasingly called into question. That dual-pronged challenge has come into sharper focus in the past five years, as the U.S. foreign […]

When the Soviet Union collapsed three decades ago, the European security architecture suddenly became uncertain, its future put in play. After all, much of the postwar balance of power in Europe—and the world—had rested on the icy pillars of the Cold War, pillars that in 1991 abruptly melted. It didn’t take long, however, before the euphoria of freedom in the former Soviet bloc was translated into a series of diplomatic agreements enshrining a vision of cooperation, democracy and respect for independent states.  Those same agreements now lie in ruins, trampled by Russia’s anti-democratic turn and President Vladimir Putin’s determination to […]

The “Christmas surprise” invasion of Ukraine that some in Europe were expecting from Moscow did not eventually materialize, but Russian troops amassed near the two countries’ border have still not dispersed. This week, European capitals are trying to figure out what Russia’s intentions are.  Senior officials from Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia are today discussing the continued military buildup. Tomorrow, NATO foreign ministers will meet by video ahead of a summit between U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva next week. Given the continued standoff, the biggest question for Brussels remains whether to use a carrot or stick approach to convince […]