M.L.R. Smith and Niall McCrae

In April 2022, M.L.R. Smith and Niall McCrae drew on their extensive Cold War knowledge to offer provisional analysis of the Russian war in Ukraine. Eighteen months later they look back at how their conclusions held up.

The story of the war in Ukraine is not just one of Russian bellicosity and irredentism, but also the hubris of the West at the end of the Cold War. We thought history had ended, but history had other ideas.