You're reading: Why the West’s Diplomacy With Russia Keeps Failing

Distinguished author and commentator Anne Applebaum writes in The Atlantic: “Now we are on the brink of what could be a catastrophic conflict. American, British, and European embassies in Ukraine are evacuating; citizens have been warned to leave.

But this terrible moment represents not just a failure of diplomacy, it also reflects a failure of the Western imagination; a generation-long refusal, on the part of diplomats, politicians, journalists, and intellectuals, to understand what kind of state Russia was becoming and to prepare accordingly.

We have refused to see the representatives of this state for what they are. We have refused to speak to them in a way that might have mattered. Now it might be too late.”     Read her commentary here