We are not your buffer zone
Every Western analysis of this war has a protagonist problem. The expansion critics star the United States. The revanchism analysts star Putin. The structural camp stars the system. In all three versions, Ukraine is the terrain the story happens on....
The cable they read and ignored
Burns sent it February 1, 2008. Four pages, classified. He did not hedge. Ukrainian NATO membership is the brightest of all redlines for the entire Russian political class. Not a Putin problem. A Russia problem....
The cable that read like a weather forecast
In February 2008, the American ambassador to Russia sent a cable to Washington titled "Nyet Means Nyet." William Burns — one of the most carefully calibrated diplomats in the foreign service — wrote that Ukrainian entry into NATO was...