Analysis

How did the United States rise from a fragile collection of colonies to the dominant power in the international system, and what does that history reveal about today’s great-power competition with China and Russia?

In this conversation hosted by the University of Chicago Graham School, Prof. John J. Mearsheimer – one of the world’s leading scholars of international relations theory and author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics – examines 250 years of American foreign policy. Beginning with the founding, he contrasts the United States’ liberal language of natural rights with the hard nationalism of a new state determined to secure its independence, expand across the continent, and keep rival powers out of the Western Hemisphere.

A joint interview with scholar Pascal Lottaz.

What is happening to the ‘rules-based international order’ despairingly invoked by bewildered European leaders?

Rather than a simple alignment, what may be at stake is the emergence of an illiberal European political consciousness, a “Europe of nations” that is ideologically convergent with Trumpism and Putinism yet unwilling to subordinate itself to either. Many fear such a development.

The war reflects the clash of competing logics and is deeply rooted in contesting conceptions of post–Cold War international politics, says Sakwa in his forthcoming book.

The authors finds that countries that lose wars backslide “bigly” on the democracy front. Since the US has nearly always lost wars since World War II (and we fail to acknowledge that that was much more a Russian win than ours) save the dubious success in the Iraq War, our accelerating slide into authoritarianism is consistent with their findings.

Western travelers to Moscow often remark, with complete justification, on the sense of normalcy that the government has been able to sustain four years into the most dangerous, destructive war in Europe since 1945.

It has been several weeks since the subject was raised regarding the possibility of a new hard Russian line in the on-going talks to end the catastrophic NATO-Russia Ukrainian War.

Does the West bear no responsibility for a war lasting years, with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, dead or injured on both sides, and much of Ukraine’s economy in ruins?

A Labour minister who claimed to be “surprised” and “furious” at a PR agency’s work to investigate journalists on his behalf had been personally involved in naming them to British intelligence officials and falsely linking them to pro-Russian propaganda, the Guardian can reveal.

Josh Simons, who was running the thinktank Labour Together at the time, was also involved in telling security officials that another journalist was “living with” the daughter of a former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn. Officials were told by Simons’ team that the former adviser was “suspected of links to Russian intelligence”.

The extraordinary disclosures are contained in emails that Simons and his chief of staff at Labour Together sent to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a division of the spy agency GCHQ, in 2024. A spokesperson for Simons, a Cabinet Office minister, said: “These claims are untrue.”

Last week, NATO launched “Arctic Sentry,” a new “multi-domain activity” that, for the first time, places Allied operations in the Arctic under a single command structure. The move marks a significant scaling-up of NATO’s footprint in the Arctic. But unfortunately, as NATO’s regional military presence increases, the mechanisms for preventing that footprint from generating a crisis are not keeping pace.

Prof. Petro discusses the wishful thinking and strategic vacuum in Europe as it cannot find a place in the multipolar world.

Fintan O’Toole misunderstands Spain’s history and the grim realities of the Russo-Ukrainian war (“For Sinn Féin, Tiocfaidh ár lá is being replaced by Turn the Other Cheek”, Opinion, February 17th).

It was the internationalisation of Spain’s civil war that turned a tragedy into a catastrophe. The problem with the Anglo-French policy of non-intervention was that it failed and led to a proxy war in Spain between Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. Soviet Russia was republican Spain’s main international backer; some 2,000 Soviet military “volunteers” fought the fascists, more than 150 of whom were killed. Higher still were the casualty rates of the 40,000-strong communist-led International Brigades. But, diplomatically, Moscow strove for implementation of the non-intervention agreement – because that was in Spain’s best interest. By the time foreign intervention in the civil war ended, it was too late. Franco’s victory was assured and four decades of dictatorship followed. [Read more…] about Geoffrey Roberts: A letter to the Irish Times

Former Conservative MP Jack Lopresti has joined the far-Right Ukrainian Azov Brigade. Announcing the news on X this morning, he said: “I am honoured to begin my service with the 12th Special Forces Brigade “Azov” of the National Guard of Ukraine, a unit that has become a symbol of resilience and uncompromising principle.”

It is with sadness the American Committee for US-Russia Accord marks the fourth anniversary of the war in Ukraine. At the opening of hostilities in February 2022, ACURA issued a statement in which we expressed our “utter condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” We went on to call for “an immediate halt to military actions; the withdrawal of Russian troops; and the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty.”

None of this has come to pass, and the war continues with no end in sight.

To mark the occasion, we are highlighting some of the best work done by members of the Committee over the past four years:

ACURA board member Jack Matlock on “Ukraine: Tragedy of a Nation Divided” from November 2022.

ACURA’s president Katrina vanden Heuvel on “Ukraine and the End of Magical Thinking” from the Nation in December 2023.

ACURA board member Benjamin Schwarz and his colleague Christopher Layne published a widely discussed cover story for Harper’s titled “Why Are We in Ukraine?” in June 2023.

ACURA board member Nicolai N. Petro published a groundbreaking book on the tragedy of it all, with his superb “The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Tech Us About Conflict Resolution.” A discussion about his book can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVwtFUnzO8g.

ACURA board member Anatol Lieven has just published a new analysis on the evolution of military tactics for Responsible Statecraft titled “Ukraine marks biggest evolution in military tactics since WWII.”

ACURA board members Katrina vanden Heuvel and James Carden marked the tenth anniversary of the Maidan Revolution by asking if it was really worth it?

ACURA board member James Carden’s in depth interview with the eminent scholar Richard Sakwa from March 2025.

Drawing insights from past wars, such as the Peloponnesian Wars, the analysis focuses on the possibility of a protracted conflict characterized by intermittent peace settlements, the role of internal Ukrainian divisions, and the external influences shaping the conflict.