Debating the War in Ukraine discusses whether the war could have been avoided, and, if so, how? In this dialogical book, the authors discuss nodal points of history in terms of counterfactuals and ...contrastive explanations, concluding by considering future possibilities. They start in the 1990s where several causal elements of the war originate involving Russia’s economic developments and Europe’s security arrangements. Moving on to the next decade, they focus on the Iraq war, colour revolutions, and NATO’s 2008 announcement that Ukraine and Georgia will become members. Finally, they explore the past decade including the Ukrainian crisis of 2013–2014, the annexation of Crimea, and the consecutive war in east Ukraine. The current war can also be seen as a continuum of that war. The authors agree that NATO’s 2008 announcement on Ukraine’s and Georgia’s NATO membership was an unnecessary provocation, and that the implementation of the Minsk agreement could have prevented the current war, but otherwise their analysis of counterfactual possibilities differs, especially when it comes to the action-possibilities of the West (including diverse actors). These differences are not just dependent on different readings of relevant evidence but, importantly, stem from dissimilar contrast spaces and divergent theoretical understandings of the nature of states and mechanisms of international relations and political economy. This short, highly accessible book will be of great interest to all those studying and working in international relations and its various subfields such as peace and conflict studies and security studies, as well as all those wishing to understand more about the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. The Open Access version of this book was funded by University of Helsinki Library.
This book provides a systematic analysis of the Russian-Ukraine war, using the concept of resilient fighting power to assess the operational performance of both sides during the first year of the ...full-scale invasion. The Russian war in Ukraine began in 2014 and continued for eight years, before the full-scale invasion of 24 February 2022. It is not a new war, but the intensity of the warfighting revived many discussions about the conduct of inter-state warfare, which has not been seen in Europe for decades. This book does not aim to offer an exhaustive operational analysis of the war, but rather provides a preliminary systematic analysis across various domains of warfare using the concept of fighting power to assess the operational performance of both sides. First, the book discusses the conceptual component and the post-Cold War adaptations of the Soviet strategic tradition by both the Ukrainian and the Russian Armed Forces. Following that, it gives an evaluation of the various aspects of warfighting in the land, air, maritime and cyber domains. Then, the book examines the role of international allied assistance, sanctions and weapons delivery in strengthening the resilience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The book concludes with some comments on the role of inter-state warfare in the current strategic environment and future warfare. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, defence studies, foreign policy, Russian studies and international relations.
Aside from the near-complete devastation of a sovereign state and reversal of the global balance of power, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is leading to a radical transformation in the ...Eastern European and Eurasian regions – including Russia itself. The 12 chapters in this volume examine the main geopolitical consequences of the resurgent imperialist aspirations of the Russian Federation. They examine the ideological tools of history falsification as an integral part of hybrid warfare. Turning to the economy, the book discusses how the war and economic sanctions imposed on Russia are redrawing the geopolitical map and how economic relations would change following a regime transformation. The book discusses the reactions of members of the international community to the invasion, whether threatened or neutral parties or allies. The collection therefore offers a comprehensive picture of the main consequences of the resurgent imperialist aspirations of the Russian Federation. Equipped with the conceptual tools of the analysis with a focus on the patronal features of the political-economic system, the book considers the aftermath of the war. This collection complements the book entitled Ukraine. Patronal Democracy and the Russian Invasion.
Everyday War Uehling, Greta Lynn
2023, 2023-02-15, 2023-01-15
eBook
Everyday War provides an accessible lens through which to understand what noncombatant civilians go through in a country at war. What goes through the mind of a mother who must send her child to ...school across a minefield or the men who belong to groups of volunteer body collectors? In Ukraine, such questions have been part of the daily calculus of life. Greta Uehling engages with the lives of ordinary people living in and around the armed conflict over Donbas that began in 2014 and shows how conventional understandings of war are incomplete. In Ukraine, landscapes filled with death and destruction prompted attentiveness to human vulnerabilities and the cultivation of everyday, interpersonal peace. Uehling explores a constellation of social practices where ethics of care were in operation. People were also drawn into the conflict in an everyday form of war that included provisioning fighters with military equipment they purchased themselves, smuggling insulin, and cutting ties to former friends. Each chapter considers a different site where care can produce interpersonal peace or its antipode, everyday war. Bridging the fields of political geography, international relations, peace and conflict studies, and anthropology, Everyday War considers where peace can be cultivated at an everyday level.
This volume examines Russia’s war on Ukraine. Scholars who have lived through the Russian invasion or who have conducted ethnographic research in the region for decades provide timely analysis of a ...war that will leave a lasting mark on the twenty-first century. Using the concept of dispossession, this volume showcases some of the novel ways violence operates in the Russian-Ukrainian war and the multiple means by which civilians, within the conflict zone and beyond, have become active participants in the war effort. Anthropological perspectives on war provide on-the-ground insight, historically informed analysis, and theoretical engagement to depict the experiences of dispossession by war and the motivations that drive the responses of the dispossessed. Such perspectives humanize the victims even as they depict the very inhumanity of war. Dispossession is geared towards upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, and the general reader who seeks to have a deeper understanding of the Russian-Ukrainian war as it continues to impact geopolitics more broadly.
Ukraine is again—since its annexation of Crimea in February 2014 and the ongoing war in the Donbass—the stage of the largest crisis in Europe since the end of the Cold War. When it comes to ...understanding the resolution and prevention of complex hybrid conflicts, theories in international relations are trapped in their state-centered perspectives. Meanwhile, the role of the individual actor, alone or organized, often remains underestimated as political and moral agent. In this book, Marc Raphael Dietrich sheds light on a critical yet politically practicable notion of cosmopolitanism which centers on the individual and is framed by a set of universal principles, thus providing valuable alternative insights on the Crimea and Donbas conflict.
An in-depth look at Ukraine's attempts to shape how it is perceived by the rest of the world.During times of crisis, competing narratives are often advanced to define what is happening, and the ...stakes of information management by nations are high. In this timely book, Göran Bolin and Per Ståhlberg examine the fraught intersection of state politics, corporate business, and civil activism to understand the dynamics and importance of meaning management in Ukraine. Drawing on fieldwork inside the country, the authors discuss the forms, agents, and platforms within the complex political and communicative situation and how each articulated and acted upon perceptions of the propaganda threat.Bolin and Ståhlberg focus their analysis on the period between 2013 and 2022, when political tensions, commercial dynamics, and new communication technologies bred novel forms of information management. As they show, entities from governments and governmental administration to commercial actors, entrepreneurs, and activists formed new alliances in order to claim a stake in information policy. Bolin and Ståhlberg also explore how the various agents engaged in information management and strove to manage meaning in communication practice; the communicative tools they took advantage of; and the subsequent consequences for narrative constructions.
Should we punish wrongdoers? Should we take care of the ones who suffered from wrongdoings? Although we may believe answers to these questions are obvious, they become less so when similar questions ...are asked under exceptional circumstances, such as armed conflicts. These answers may decide about the continuation of hostilities or their end. The stakes are high, while we can hardly ignore the need to deal with the consequences of violence generated by a conflict. This book discusses the dilemmas and challenges associated with the provision of justice in the context of the armed conflict in Ukrainian Donbas in 2014–2019.
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that dominated headlines around the world. Millions of Ukrainians would flee the country, and a third of the population would be ...displaced. In the days following the invasion, Swedish migration expert Gregg Bucken-Knapp sent text messages to his Ukrainian colleagues, offering support and assistance. These were their responses. In a series of graphic vignettes, Messages from Ukraine takes the words of Ukrainian migration professionals and transforms them into snapshots of how war affects the lives of everyday people: those who are forced to flee home and seek safety elsewhere, those who choose to stay and volunteer or fight, those who witness events unfolding from afar, and those who find themselves trapped in cities under siege. Messages from Ukraine captures a moment in time to tell a timeless story about war, displacement, determination, and resilience. Proceeds from the sale of Messages from Ukraine will go to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, a national charitable foundation that provides humanitarian aid to the people of Ukraine.
