A monument in the shape of the letter “Z” is unveiled in Yekaterinburg. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. “War,” said the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, “is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force. Each side, therefore, compels its opponent to
Continue readingTag: Europe, War Zones
Canadian Dimension: The rockets of summer
US Soldiers assigned to the 65th Field Artillery Brigade fire a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) during a joint live-fire exercise with the Kuwait Land Forces, January 8, 2019, near Camp Buehring, Kuwait. Photo courtesy US Department of Defence/Flickr. The United States and Britain have now given Ukraine M142
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Status anxiety and the war in Ukraine
A defaced mural of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Serbian capital Belgrade. Photo by Ana Simic. Years ago, I was an exchange student in the Soviet Union. Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of Britain, and Ronald Reagan president of the United States. The Soviets were fighting a war in
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: NATO: the most dangerous military alliance on the planet
“Together We Are Wrong.” Illustration by Mr. Fish. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the arms industry that depends on it for billions in profits, has become the most aggressive and dangerous military alliance on the planet. Created in 1949 to thwart Soviet expansion into eastern and central Europe,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The causes and consequences of the Ukraine war
“No Putin. No War.” Street art by Plan B. Photo by rajatonvimma/Flickr. This is the full text of a speech given on June 16 by John J. Mearsheimer at the European Union Institute (EUI) and published by The National Interest under the headline “The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ukraine’s ‘servant of the people’ is a Western fiction
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy walks under a camouflage net in a trench as he visits the war-hit Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, December 6, 2021. Image by manhhai/Flickr. From the outset of Russia’s invasion in February of this year, Western elites have bestowed upon Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a level
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: West at inflection point in Ukraine war
A Ukrainian soldier walks past a destroyed Russian tank north of Kharkiv, June 2020. Photo courtesy the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine/Twitter. Henry Kissinger predicted some three weeks ago that the Ukraine war was dangerously close to becoming a war against Russia. That was a prescient remark. The NATO Secretary-General
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Europe: the return to the periphery of the world
“The Congress of Vienna,” watercolour etching by August Friedrich Andreas Campe (1777-1846), in the collection of the State Borodino War and History Museum, Moscow. One hundred years after the First World War, Europe’s leaders are sleepwalking toward a new, all-out war. As in 1914, they believe that the war in
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Letters from Ukraine
The following interviews are part of a weekly series conducted in French by Tous Dehors with “A,” a Ukrainian student from Kharkiv. They have been translated and published in English by Endnotes, a communist theoretical journal produced by a discussion group of the same name based in Britain and the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How the issue of Ukraine is playing out on the left
Mural in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine. Photo by spoilt.exile/Flickr. A significant issue that has generated much heated discussion on the left is not over whether Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine is justifiable. Few, that is very few, say it is. Rather the key question is whether raising the issue
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: A realist take on the Ukraine war
A Ukrainian servicemen stands by a burned military vehicle near Sytniaky, Ukraine, March 3, 2022. Photo courtesy General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Facebook. Realism is a theory and approach to the study of international relations. Its main assumptions are that all nation states seek security within a generally
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Guns n’ gas: the German government’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
A Ukrainian tank during in a drill in the Dnipropetrovsk region, February 8, 2022. Photo courtesy the Press Service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As Russian President Vladimir Putin amassed troops near the Ukraine border, US President Joe Biden pressured German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Stop this imperialist war
Protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Washington, DC, February 27, 2022. Photo by Amaury Laporte/Flickr. I would encourage many online “leftists” to try a lot harder not to come off as Vladimir Putin bootlickers indifferent to the plight of ordinary Ukrainians (and for that matter of everyday Russians who are
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ukraine: How to avoid escalation and end the war
Ukrainian servicemen taking part in combat training, February 12, 2022. Photo courtesy the Press Service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine As Russian tanks roll across Ukrainian soil, Vladimir Putin’s seemingly ill-advised full-scale invasion of his neighbour now threatens to drag on for months or even
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Fifteen bad Ukraine narratives
Photo by Artem Kniaz/Unsplash Especially when deepened by the fog of war, idiocy comes in many mutually reinforcing forms. Let’s examine and get past some problematic thinking on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But first, let’s proclaim some basic principles. The Ukraine crisis is a good focus for practising the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The greatest evil is war
Ukrainian firefighters stand beneath a television broadcast tower in the Jewish cemetery located in Kyiv’s Babi Yar Holocaust memorial site on March 1, 2022. Photo courtesy State Emergency Service of Ukraine. Preemptive war, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, is a war crime. It does not matter if the war is
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Everyone loses in the conflict over Ukraine
Firefighters inspecting the damage at a building following a rocket attack on the city of Kyiv during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, February 2022. Photo courtesy Ukrainian Police Department Press Service. When two scorpions are in a bottle, they both lose. This is the preventable danger that is growing daily, with
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The Russia-Ukraine War: Why the hawks prevailed
Ukrainian tanks advance in an unknown location in Ukraine. Photo courtesy Ukrainian Naval Forces Press Service. On February 24, following several days of intense shelling in the Donbas region and Russia’s recognition of the independence of two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin began its “special military operation” against
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Against Putin’s imperial war in Ukraine
The Brandenburg Gate lit up in the colours of the Ukrainian flag during a solidarity protest in Berlin, February 24, 2022. Photo by Leonhard Lenz/Wikimedia Commons. The following article has been reprinted from the website of LeftEast, a platform for progressive voices focused on contemporary eastern Europe. Follow them on
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: NATO, Russia and Ukraine: False pretexts for war
Ukrainian soldiers march in preparation for a parade to celebrate the 26th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, August 8, 2017. Photo courtesy Ukrainian Ministry of Defence/Flickr. At the time of writing, Western media outlets continue to push hard on the “imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine” narrative, claiming that this has happened
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