num_pages: 144
description: “This careful, informed, judicious study is an invaluable guide to understanding the background, character, and likely consequences of Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, and most crucially, how we can act to help bring this terrible tragedy to an end.” —Noam Chomsky“So many people in the West are caught up in the war propaganda about Ukraine … This book is an important antidote.” —Mairead McGuire, Northern Irish peace activist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize“Lays out the historical background and series of provocations by the US that led Russia to launch its war on Ukraine. These provocations do not excuse the Russian invasion, but they make tragically clear that this was a conflict that could have been avoided if our foreign policy had not become captive to militarists whose sole loyalty is to the arms industry.”—Chris Hedges, author/journalistRussia’s brutal February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has attracted widespread condemnation across the West. Government and media circles present the conflict as a simple dichotomy between an evil empire and an innocent victim. In this concise, accessible and highly informative primer, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies insist the picture is more complicated.Yes, Russia’s aggression was reckless and, ultimately, indefensible. But the West’s reneging on promises to halt eastward expansion of NATO in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union played a major part in prompting Putin to act. So did the U.S. involvement in the 2014 Ukraine coup and Ukraine’s failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements. The result is a conflict that is increasingly difficult to resolve, one that could conceivably escalate into all-out war between the United States and Russia—the world’s two leading nuclear powers.Skilfully bringing together the historical record and current analysis, War in Ukraine looks at the events leading up to the conflict, surveys the different parties involved, and weighs the risks of escalation and opportunities for peace. For anyone who wants to get beneath the heavily propagandized media coverage to an understanding of a war with consequences that could prove cataclysmic, reading this timely book will be an urgent necessity.
language: English
title: War in Ukraine
publisher: OR Books