Welcome to Foreign Affairs Summer Reads. For the next ten weeks, we’ll be looking back at pivotal events that took place over the course of the magazine’s 100-year history. We’ll explore how, in the pages of Foreign Affairs, leading thinkers and historical figures discussed and debated global developments as they happened—and how their ideas shaped the world today. We begin with the precursor to the current war in Ukraine: Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. Foreign Affairs writers offered a range of explanations for the incursion, from NATO’s eastward enlargement and the United States’ and Europe’s growing influence in Kyiv to President Vladimir Putin’s rash response to domestic political pressures or his aim of “reestablishing Russia as a resurrected great power.” They predicted more trouble ahead—including a sharp decline in Russia’s relationship with the West and Moscow’s continued “pursuit of a Eurasian sphere of influence.” All were concerned that the broader conflict would not end with the crisis in Crimea. And on that score, at least, they were correct. |
