Send us a textBackground to the Ukraine War.  Observations from February 24, 2022This war will not end with the defeat of the Russian army or with Vladimir Putin in the Hague for a war crimes trial.  There will have to be a settlement.  This podcast offers some thoughts on the nature of the conflict.  Back in 2008 there was a crisis in Ukraine.  It led to the separation of two regions from Ukraine, and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula.  I convened a Faculty Forum on the event, asking my knowledgeable colleagues to help us understand the issues.  I delivered some thoughts of my own on the American role and the American interests.  This talk is based on my comments at the time, and how they relate to what is happening now.  There is also updating to the current situation.  I wrote this podcast on February 23, 2022 in the afternoon.  My plan was to record and post it later that evening, but events intervened. By the time I was ready to follow through, the Russian military had initiated its attack.   I added a few supplementary comments the morning of February 24 as the world was trying to figure out what was going on.  I posted on Facebook a simple statement:  “Now we understand how the world felt when we invaded Iraq.”  Two glitchesFirst, there was a lack of clarity at the point when I explained that NATO was founded with an anti-Russian clause in it but this clause had now been removed.  It sounded as if I had said “Not removed.” Second,  twice I mention the wonderful journal Foreign Affairs, but called it Foreign Policy.  Foreign Policy is also a good journal but it is not the same as Foreign Affairs.  When this war began, we thought the Russian army would be in Kiev within a week.  We saw massive convoys of Russian tanks heading west.   We thought President Zelinskyy would probably be dead or in exile.  And yet the Ukrainian army is holding on, and Zelinskyy is an international hero.   And this war seems to have taken on characteristics that we could never have predicted.  Year II seems equally ominous. Note that my analysis may not be what you expect.  Some names:               Adam Rapacki              Yanukovich              Zelinski              Samuel Huntington              George F. Kennan              General Giap              John Mearsheimer  Some Terms or places              Maiden Square              Donets, Luhansk, Donbas              Abkhazia and South Osettia              Kiev Curious Factoid:  Maiden Square in Kiev uses a borrowed word from Arabic.  Maiden is the same as Medina, the important pilgrimage site in western Saudi Arabia.  Medina means city. 

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