ANATOL LIEVEN, via Jessica Rosenblum, rosenblum@
Available for a limited number of interviews, Lieven is senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His books include The Baltic Revolutions, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power? and Ukraine and Russia.
His recent pieces include “The horrible dangers of pushing a U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.” He writes: “To judge by its latest statements, the Biden administration is increasingly committed to using the conflict in Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia, with as its goal the weakening or even destruction of the Russian state. This would mean America adopting a strategy that every U.S. president during the Cold War took great pains to avoid: the sponsorship of war in Europe, bringing with it the acute risk of escalation towards direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO, possibly ending in nuclear catastrophe.”
He also wrote: “Giving Ukraine intel on Russian generals is a risky gamble” which states: “A New York Times report that the United States has been providing real time intelligence to the Ukrainian army with the specific purpose of killing Russian generals brings America a long step closer to actual war with Russia. This also means a risk of nuclear war that is now greater than it has ever been, even perhaps during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Biden administration and the U.S. establishment need to ask themselves just one question: If the position were reversed, how would the United States react to a third country deliberately helping to kill U.S. commanders?”
Lieven’s other recent pieces include: “Reckless and ruthless? Yes. But is Putin insane? No” and, for Foreign Policy, “The Meaning of Ukraine’s Coming Neutrality.”
