Kissinger's Column

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is once again making headlines. It's not for anything he said recently, but for something he wrote eight years ago. In a 2014 column in the Washington Post, Kissinger warned against exactly the very scenario we are witnessing in Ukraine today. 

He wrote that the West could make a major miscalculation if we don't understand how Russia thinks of Ukraine. It's worth quoting a key excerpt:

"The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then.

"Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom . . . were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet . . . is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia."

The reason I'm bringing up this Kissinger analysis is because his warning was correct. Over the years, Putin has given at least three major speeches where he has said exactly what Kissinger wrote. 

Kissinger's concerns were echoed by Russian historian Robert Service, who points to an agreement signed in November by the Biden Administration that practically guaranteed Ukraine's admittance into NATO. That was the fatal trigger for war.

I'm not making excuses for Putin's invasion or his conduct of this war. But it is always wise to understand your adversary, and I seriously doubt this administration, which has been stumbling from one foreign policy disaster to another, has that capacity.