Today on This is Democracy, Jeremi and Zachary talk with Dr. Michael Kimmage about the current crisis between Russia and the Ukraine and how it will influence US politics.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem, "The Most Careful Stalemate."

Dr. Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. He is also a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and chair of the Advisory Council for the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC. From 2014 to 2017, Kimmage served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He publishes widely on international affairs, U.S.-Russian relations, and American diplomatic history. Kimmage is the author of: The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (2009); In History’s Grip: Philip Roth’s Newark Trilogy (2012); and most recently, The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy (2020).  His most recent article (co-authored with Michael Kofman) is "Russia Won't Let Ukraine Go Without a Fight," Foreign Affairs, 22 November 2021: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2021-11-22/russia-wont-let-ukraine-go-without-fight. 

This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Kate Whitmer and Morgan Honaker.