Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Thomas Donnelly: For Putin, Eastern Europe is still up for grabs
One of the first rules of sound strategy-making is “don’t fight for the same ground twice unless forced to.”
If this sounds more “19th-century” than “21st-century,” it’s because human affairs and international politics have yet to transcend geography in the way that Secretary of State John Kerry would have it. Ceding bits of the former Tsarist empire back to Vlad the Impaler is the very worst sort of weakness, and the “West”—even the languid reflection of a once-muscular liberal civilization—could easily freeze this Russian revanche in its tracks if it could summon the will to do so.