Why the Russians are losing their military gambit in Ukraine
They likely ignored intel on the ground from the start, oblivious to centuries of sound war strategy.
Anatol Lieven is senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College London. He is a member of the advisory committee of the South Asia Department of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He holds a BA and PhD from Cambridge University in England.
From 1985 to 1998, Anatol Lieven worked as a British journalist in South Asia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and covered the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya and the southern Caucasus. From 2000 to 2007 he worked at think tanks in Washington DC.
Lieven is author of several books on Russia and its neighbors including “The Baltic Revolutions: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence” and “Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry.” His book “Pakistan: A Hard Country” is on the official reading lists for U.S. and British diplomats serving in that country. His latest book, “Climate Change and the Nation State,” was published in March 2020 by Penguin in the UK and Oxford University Press in the USA, and is to appear in an updated paperback edition in Fall 2021.
They likely ignored intel on the ground from the start, oblivious to centuries of sound war strategy.
America’s 20th century intelligentsia seemed better equipped to teach us about humility and restraint in war, at home and abroad.
It is no exaggeration to say that through his own hubris, Putin has created a united Ukrainian nation. Not quite what he was aiming for.
Don’t repeat the shameful history of Georgia in 2008, where Washington made quasi-promises of military aid it had no intention of fulfilling.