Anatol Lieven is an international relations expert and journalist who serves as a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His books include Russia and Ukraine and most recently Climate Change and the Nation State. His commentaries on the Ukraine war have appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, and elsewhere. 

Anatol is a highly experienced reporter with a thorough knowledge of the region, and in this conversation he explains what he thinks is left out of mainstream discourse in the United States around the war. He explains Russia's motivations and shows the most obvious path to peace. He also discusses the risks of nuclear escalation that could come from a U.S. policy that pushes Russia past red lines. Anatol's explanation of the current state of the war and what happens next is clarifying and intelligent, and anyone wanting to have a better understanding of what is actually going on needs to read Anatol's work.

• Anatol's major Nation feature from before the war, "Ukraine: The Most Dangerous Problem In The World" can be read here.
• Anatol's latest Guardian piece making several of the arguments discussed in this episode is here.
• The delusional Daily Beast article that comments on "how little Putin and his spokespeople mention NATO in public justifications" is here.
• The Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that we must "show we can win a nuclear war" is here.
• An article Nathan wrote mentioning several of the Cold War movies discussed in this episode is here.
• Our previous episodes with Katrina vanden Heuvel and Noam Chomsky cover some of the same issues.