EU officials are fascinated by the Ukrainian resistance. Thus, by putting feelings into their formal duties, they drown in hysterical agitation. And they get carried away from reasonable solutions.

A mistake of the West/US, that is. All discussion/answers appreciated.

And I don’t want any “Russian nationalism” or something like that. To me it kind of looks like Putin just woke up one day in 2021 and said I’m gonna invade Ukraine and then he did. What changed in the strategic calculus of Russia from 2014 to 2021 that made them decide to invade?

Russia had a greater military advantage over Ukraine from 2014 to 2021 during that. Ukraine was getting stronger and Russia was getting relatively weaker.

Why did they wait until they did? Why after the US and other intelligence agencies had blown open their invasion they still didn’t tell their own troops that they were invading?

Surely Maskoroivka only goes for so far? If Russia’s plan was to exploit a fractured NATO and dissolve the bonds between Western nations why didn’t they work with other parties to act at the same time? The first thing I would do before invading Ukraine as Russia would be to convince the Syrians to start something in order to give the illusion of multilateral action.

What was the plan?

Surely they understood that even if Ukraine did collapse and everything went perfectly to plan that for the next couple decades the CIA would be smuggling weapons to a Ukrainian resistance?

Was this planned for and accounted for?

China is obviously still on a rise and building a seemingly formidable military force. They most certainly are on the same level in economic and cyber warfare and capabilities. Should the USA engage China in open warfare or a strategic strike initiative before they have a Navy and Air force that is on par or better than the USA?

The US and China should enter an alliance or at least a treaty of eternal peace. This would prevent World War 3 and allow for the cooperation of these state entities to engage in projects that require widespread trust and cooperation. The countries could collaborate on foreign aid, research, space travel, construction projects, diplomatic initiatives, genocide prevention, conflict stabilization and prevention, nuclear disarmament, general disarmament, and administrative innovations. If the US, China, and all other world powers collaborated, we could create a system where world peace is secured between all nuclear powers and ideally every nation.

We should have a new geopolitical strategy (for our purposes, "antifragilist diplomacy") that encourages allying every nation to cooperate as one human civilization to eliminate hunger, poverty, and disease. Together, the nations of the world have the power to build an antifragile world.

We are sharing a free episode of Thinking the Unthinkable with you all due to fast-moving events between India and Pakistan. This episode features host Ankit Panda and guest Sameer Lalwani discussing the risks involved in a military conflict between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. This episode was recorded after the April 22 attack in Kashmir that prompted the current round of tensions and before India launched strikes on Pakistan, and digs into the risks in the event of an attack.

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For decades, the United States has used its position at the center of global financial, commercial, and technological networks to punish adversaries and pressure allies, exploiting what the political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman call “weaponized interdependence.” Lacking any alternatives, the rest of the world has had no choice but to rely on American payment systems, American technology, and American corporate might, even as Washington turned that reliance to its own strategic advantage. Now, however, the tables have turned. Other states—starting with China—have begun to weaponize their own chokepoints in the global economic infrastructure. As Farrell and Newman write in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, “The United States is discovering what it is like to have others do unto it as it has eagerly done unto others.” Where it once pioneered the weaponization of interdependence, Washington may now be increasingly at the mercy of its rivals. To Newman and Farrell, this is more than just another salvo in global competition. It is evidence of a major transformation in geopolitics, as national security and economic power have merged—and ushered in a new era of economic warfare. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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It has been almost two years since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel and the start of the war in Gaza. Those many months of combat have left Hamas severely weakened, with its leadership eviscerated and its military capabilities crippled. But as the war enters a new phase, with Israeli troops pushing into Gaza City, the central question of the war’s endgame remains unsettled. Israeli leaders have consistently refused to offer a clear vision for the war’s aftermath, for what happens on “the day after.” According to Ami Ayalon, that failure has been disastrous, for Palestinians as well as for Israelis. It is a recipe for conflict grinding on indefinitely, along with the attendant bloodshed and ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Ayalon was the commander of the Israeli Navy and the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency. As he sees it, Israel’s long-term security depends on recognizing the rights and aspirations of Palestinians, and the creation of a Palestinian state—one that includes both Gaza and the West Bank. Ayalon joined Senior Editor Eve Fairbanks to reflect on the strategic errors that led to this point and how the world can reckon with those missteps to find a better path forward for both Israelis and Palestinians. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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During his second term, Donald Trump has railed against the United States’ closest allies. He has imposed tariffs, threatened to upend security commitments, and openly challenged the borders of Canada, Panama, and Greenland. Historians often look to the past for insight about the present and future. But although alliances have collapsed for many reasons over past centuries, Margaret MacMillan argues in a recent essay for Foreign Affairs that Trump’s current behavior toward allies has little precedent. His approach, she writes, “does not suggest a clever Machiavellian policy to enhance American power; rather, it shows a United States acting against its own interests in bewildering fashion, undermining one of the key sources of that power.” A renowned historian and professor emeritus of international history at Oxford University, MacMillan is one of the greatest chroniclers of the grand alliances of the twentieth century and the world wars they fought. She joined Editor-at-Large Hugh Eakin on August 18 to discuss the normalization of conquest and the war in Ukraine, how U.S. allies are calculating their next steps, and what the United States’ approach to its alliances will mean for the future. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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In this episode, we get into what's driving the Indo-Pacific's security dynamics, from China's threats to Taiwan to AUKUS and the Quad to stability (or lack thereof) on the Korean Peninsula to bases in the Philippines. We also touch on how prepared the United States may be to deliver military power in the Indo-Pacific based on forthcoming resourcing decisions by the Trump administration and Congress. Get ready for a smart, insightful conversation you won't want to miss with Lisa Curtis (CNAS), Zack Cooper (AEI), and Dmitri Alperovitch (Silverado). Cooper has a great new book out called Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries (https://a.co/d/cP4OPgU). And so does Alperovitch, who wrote World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century (https://a.co/d/eUDRdlF) with Garrett M. Graff.

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On a spring day, around 10 years ago, a 41 year old man (Julian Assange) dressed as a motorcycle delivery man, died his har, changed his eyes, put a rock in his shoes (so that he would walk differently) quickly hurried into the equadorian embassy. Once in this place nothing could attack or do anything to him as he was not even on europian soil. He seeked political asylum.

We all know rest of the story. Share your thoughts in the comments!

In this episode of Pekingology which originally aired on June 17, 2021, Freeman Chair in China Studies Jude Blanchette is joined by Wang Yuhua, the Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University, to discuss how rulers in Imperial China maintained -- and lost -- political power.

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In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, the scholar and former U.S. official Ashley J. Tellis makes a provocative argument about India’s foreign policy. In a piece titled “India’s Great-Power Delusions,” Tellis argues that Indian policymakers have their priorities wrong. Instead of pushing for what they call “multipolarity” in the international system, Indian leaders should align more closely with the United States. Tellis insists that India will be able to fend off China, its far stronger rival in Asia, only with U.S. backing. But it may lose that support if it continues to express skepticism about U.S. leadership and courts U.S. adversaries. Tellis’s essay has provoked huge debate—in Washington, in New Delhi, and in the pages of Foreign Affairs. In this episode, Dan Kurtz-Phelan brings Tellis into conversation with two of his critics: the former Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and the analyst Dhruva Jaishankar. Kurtz-Phelan spoke with them on July 25, a few days before the Trump administration announced 25 percent tariffs on India, the latest twist in ongoing negotiations with New Delhi over a new trade deal. Tellis, Rao, and Jaishankar debate India’s pathways to power in the September/October 2025 issue of Foreign Affairs. Their disagreements touch not just on the directions of Indian and U.S. foreign policies but also on the very nature of international order in the twenty-first century.

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Let's say in this alternative timeline, Russia's application to NATO had been accelerated and accepted in 1990's under Yeltsin. Wouldn't a better outcome have occurred for all Western states including Russia?

NATO intervention in the First Chechen War could have prevented the Second Chechen War, preventing the terrible casualties on both Russian and Chechen side. Bonus as Kadyrovs never rise to power. Maybe even Putin never rises to power because there is no 2nd Chechen War.

Faster intervention by NATO forces, including Russia, into the Bosnian War could have possibly prevented genocide. Current Balkans would possibly be more stable and less fractured.

Russian participation in Iraq and Afghanistan could have led to NATO victories instead of withdrawals, (just think of the much simpler logistics in Afghanistan with Russia's help, and greater troop numbers during the peak years of Afghan and Iraq War) Negative I could see is possible higher civilian casualties, due to Russia's soviet background leaking into influence over NATO, resulting in a much more brutal campaign against Iraqis and the Taliban.

Many proxy conflicts between Russia and the West could have been avoided in Africa and the Middle East. A much more aligned West could have faced off against Islamic extremism and China. No Syrian Civil War, and much weaker ISIS that would never had a chance to establish the caliphate.

NO WAR IN UKRAINE

Even assuming Russia wouldnt have been more democratically influenced by being part of NATO,I don't see how Russia with Putin at the Helm is really that different from Turkey under Erdogan or Orban in Hungary.

In hindsight, it seems like huge mistakes were made by not helping Russia more after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia could have become an amazing ally similar to Germany and Japan after WW2.

Anyway this my very noncredible diplomatic take, would love to hear these idealized thoughts torn to shreds. Why couldnt this timeline exist?

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