After the end of the Cold War, hopes were high for an era of U.S.-Russian cooperation and peace and harmony in Europe. In a vitally important new book, The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (Yale University Press November 2023), Dr. Richard Sakwa explores the reasons for the collapse of those hopes in the thirty years that followed. Understanding this history is vital not only to understanding the roots of the present disastrous war in Ukraine, but to formulating ways out of that conflict; and as the war sinks into a bloody stalemate and U.S. challenges elsewhere mount, finding such paths is among the greatest tasks facing U.S. diplomacy. Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, discussed the book with the author.
Donald Trump Should Not Repeat Woodrow Wilson’s Failure
April 30th is an important date in American politics. This is the day 100 for the American President in the White House, and all attention will be on the reports of his achievements and failures. But nothing can be more critical than Peace…
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A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
Russia’s invasion has made ordinarily outspoken critics of antisemitism wary of criticizing Ukrainian Nazi collaborators
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Qi Book Talk: The Culture of the Second Cold War by Richard Sakwa
Richard Sakwa has for many years been one of the most distinguished and insightful observers of relations between the West and Russia, and one of the leading critics of Western policy. In this talk with Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, Sakwa discusses his book, The Culture of the Second Cold War (Anthem 2025). The book examines the cultural-political trends and inheritances that underlie the new version of a struggle that we thought we had put behind us in 1989. Sakwa describes both the continuities from the first Cold War and the ways in which new technologies have reshaped strategies and attitudes.