A collaboration with The New School & the European Democracy Institute
 
Category: <span>Dispatches</span>

Dispatches

Category: Dispatches

Might Ukraine Become the Last of Last Stands for Freedom and Democracy?

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Jeffrey Isaac’s essay on “Volodymyr Zelenskyy, The Hero We Now Need” (Democracy Seminar, February 27, 2022) helps to provide perspective on the specifics at stake in Ukraine.  It weaves key points into a coherent whole. Ukraine’s Zelenskyy is a hero to all “who stand for freedom and liberal democracy.” In the face of Putin’s bombs, tanks, and threats to execute him, Zelenskyy displays political and physical courage. Should …

Neighbors Respond to the Russian Attack on Ukraine I

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Perspectives from Romania, Lithuania ans Slovakia During a regular meeting of Democracy Seminar, the worldwide committee of democratic correspondence, last Thursday morning, (February 24th), we discussed the unfolding crisis in Ukraine and agreed to write up and share our quick responses from our different locations. In this post, perspectives from Romania, Lithuania, and Slovakia, sent to us soon after the meeting. Jeffrey C. Goldfarb   Maria Bucur: Romania …

Neighbors Respond to the Russian Attack on Ukraine II

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A View from Hungary During a regular meeting of Democracy Seminar, the worldwide committee of democratic correspondence, last Thursday morning, (February 24th), we discussed the unfolding crisis in Ukraine and agreed to write up and share our quick responses from our different locations. In this post, a perspective from Hungary. Jeffrey C. Goldfarb The Hungarian government was unprepared for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán …

Russia Invades Ukraine

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A Momentous Transgression During a regular meeting of Democracy Seminar, the worldwide committee of democratic correspondence, last Thursday morning, (February 24th), we discussed the unfolding crisis in Ukraine and agreed to write up and share our quick responses from our different locations. Soon after we received this response from our Czech colleague in Germany, Petra Gümplová, who works in the field of international political theory and specializes on …

The Russian Attack on Ukraine

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From our Democracy Seminar colleague inside Ukraine During a regular meeting of Democracy Seminar, the worldwide committee of democratic correspondence, last Thursday morning, (February 24th), we discussed the unfolding crisis in Ukraine and agreed to write up and share our quick responses from our different locations. At the same time, we received this message from our colleague in Ukraine. On February 24, thousands of Ukrainians woke up at …

Sources of Russian Military Problems in Ukraine

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Waging war against a developed industrial nation with substantial and sophisticated armed forces is always a perilous business. If said nation is also rather large (say, the second largest European country), substantially inhabited (say over 43 million citizens), had ample warning and quite some time to prepare for an enemy attack, things get even more complicated. If the will to fight is also present within the famous trinity …

The Nation and Putin, Revisited

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Photo by kremlin.ru I have to admit that I’ve been suffering from fatigue and depression about the state of our polity, and finding it difficult to write. However, the combination of the terrible prospect that the 1914 Guns of August have now become the bombs and tanks of February 2022, and might yet become the Nuclear Weapons of the 21st Century. This fearful prospect, together with the unfathomable …

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, The Hero We Now Need

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a 44-year-old man who until a few years ago was a professional actor and comedian. In 2019 he was catapulted to the Presidency of Ukraine, in an election in which he stood against corruption and ran as the leader of a party, “Servant of the People,” named after the television series in which he had starred. An unlikely politician, and an even less likely statesman, …

Medusa of War

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Putin on Ukraine Photo by Ad Meskens It was the most terrifying speech I heard in my adult life. These twenty-eight minutes activated my inherited memory of war’s destructiveness. The calm with which Putin spoke was leaden. Even the fact that he was sitting behind a desk, with white low-tech phones on his left showed his determination. I don’t need to show off, to raise my voice, he …

Putin’s Attack on Ukrainian Freedom Must Be Opposed

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On November 4, 1956, Soviet tanks entered Budapest to perform the “fraternal task” of suppressing a short-lived popular revolt against the Soviet-installed Communist government and ending the shorter-lived reform government of Prime Minister Imre Nagy, who had committed the ultimate political sin: he had declared that Hungary would exit the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet “peacekeeping forces” spent the next week organizing a full-scale military assault against the Hungarian …