Best of the fortnight - 18 March

Each fortnight BISA Director, Juliet Dryden, scours the internet for IR-related content that might interest you. Here she brings you this week's best readings and podcasts to keep you up to date with what's happening around the world.

Ukraine

• The West v Russia. Why the global south isn’t taking sides. David Adler in the Guardian
• A reckless gamble. Lawrence Freedman
• America returns to containment to deal with Russia and China. The view from the Economist
• Giving peace a chance. Can Putin and Zelensky find a way out? Lawrence Freedman for Subshack
• A negotiated peace with Russia is fraught with danger. James Nixey for Chatham House
• Only NATO can save Putin. Tom Nichols for the Atlantic
• Four steps to surviving the Russian crisis. Patrick Porter for Engelsberg Ideas
• Russia can’t afford Putin’s war in Ukraine. Lawrence Freedman in the New Statesman
• No, Ukraine is not a NATO member. Does it really matter? Rebecca R. Moore for RUSI
• First recourse for rebels. Sanctions. Tom Stevenson in the London Review of Books
• Fighting out of their skins.  The Ukrainian response to Russia’s invasion. Michael Clarke for Tipping Point
• How Putin could try to split the country into regional puppet governments. Stefan Wolff for the Conversation
• Day 5, day 9, day 16. Responses to the invasion of Ukraine.  From the London Review of Books
• Poland reminds the EU how vulnerable its borders really are. Simona Guerra for the Conversation
• Podcast: Four Paths Forward in Ukraine. A diplomatic end to the conflict; protracted months long fighting; China coming to Russia’s rescue or President Vladimir V. Putin expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders. Listen to the Daily podcase to explore these scenarios
• Podcast: Global  disorder and the road to war in Ukraine. Helen Thompson for Shakespeare and Company
• Podcast: How the Russia-Ukraine conflict will change cyberwar. Listen to Robert Hannigan, former head of GCHQ explain how the conflict is playing out in cyberspace and what might happen next.  From Exponential View

History

• Why Russia is a prisoner of geography. Tim Marshall for the New Stateman
• Russian history rhymes. From Soviet collapse to Putin’s folly. Vladislav Zubok for Engelsberg Ideas
• Putin’s vision of ‘Russian Ukraine’ misunderstands how borders came about. Kerry Goettich for the Conversation
• John Mearsheimer and the dark origins of realism. Adam Tooze for the New Statesman
• Outside in, inside out. Russia is an empire on the periphery. Dominic Lieven for Engelsberg Ideas

Putin, the Personality

• How the ex KGB strongman has gradually turned the  clock back to Soviet repression. Stephen Hall in the Conversation
• How Putin’s oligarchs bought London. From the New Yorker
• Putin’s not a fascist, totalitarian or revolutionary – he’s a reactionary tyrant. Richard Shorten for the Conversation
• Podcast: Putin’s rise to power . In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the History Hit has dug out an old episode from June 2020 to discuss the former KGB spy turned leader. Listen to the History Hit podcast
• Podcast: Putin in person, Russian money in British politics. What's Vladimir Putin like to deal with in person? Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart tackle the latest developments in Ukraine, give their insight into the most effective next steps for NATO and explain how Russian money has affected British politics. From the Rest is Politics podcast
• Podcast: What will Vladimir Putin do next? The Economist asks

China

• The war in Ukraine will determine how China views the world. The Economist
• Why China is not yet bailing out Russia. Aglaya Snetkov and Marc Lanteigne for the Conversation
• Xi Jinping’s faltering foreign policy. Jude Blanchette in Foreign Policy
• Invasions are not contagious; Russia’s War in Ukraine Doesn’t Presage a Chinese Assault on Taiwan. Oriana Skylar Mastro  for Foreign Affairs

Rest of the World

• The last of her kind. Angela Merkel emerged from the ruins of the Eastern bloc as a spectacular example of the way the collapse of an old regime might create a much more benign sense of opportunity. Fintan O’Toole in the New York Review of Books
• The Macron paradox. The French leader is unloved but unbeatable. Jonathan Miller in the Spectator
• What does the release of Nazanin mean for the future of UK-Iran relations? Louise Kettle for the Conversation
• Food protests, spiralling prices in Iraq. This is an echo of the early Arab Spring. Bamo Nouri in the Conversation
• Exit polls in Seoul by E. Tammy Kim for the New York Review of Books
• Rethinking geopolitics. Geography and politics are closely intertwined, although that no more means that all geography is political than that all politics is geographical. Jeremy Black for Engelsberg Ideas
• Kicking universities is no way to solve the divide between the academic and the rest. Will Hutton in the Guardian
• Podcast: Did empire really end? Listen to Kojo Koram for Novara Media

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