With the war in Ukraine having entered its third week, the initial euphoric triumphalism that I warned against last week over the West’s surprisingly cohesive and robust response to the Russian invasion seems to be giving way to a grim resignation. Despite the Russian military’s initial ineptness, it seems to have regrouped, with its inexorable advance now marked by the indiscriminate targeting of Ukraine’s civilian population. And although Europe and the U.S. have mobilized to impose punishing economic sanctions on Russia and deliver military assistance to Ukraine, they have drawn a clear line against participating directly in the conflict. War [...]
As the war in Ukraine enters its third week and the refugee crisis in neighboring countries intensifies, among the many heartbreaking stories in the international spotlight is the separation at the border of Ukrainian families fleeing the fighting. As The New York Times’ Daily podcast reported, fathers, brothers, boyfriends and husbands as well as single men between the ages of 18 and 60 are being forced to stay and enlist in Ukraine’s military, while women of all ages are not only being allowed over borders but actively encouraged to flee. This denial of the right to flee on the basis of age and [...]
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the reaction it has drawn from the United States and the European Union, has been described by many observers as having “revitalized the liberal international order,” as Kori Schake of the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute wrote in The Atlantic. Ivo Daalder, the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, tweeted that “the West isn’t weak, divided or declining after all.” Other commentators have drawn similar conclusions following the stronger-than-expected response on both sides of the Atlantic to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. But many observers outside the core countries of the [...]
