Lawrence Freedman

Why Putin prefers ‘War-War’ to ‘Jaw-Jaw’

Winston Churchill 1954,As is often the case with familiar quotes this is not quite what Churchill actually said. Official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert reports that the original was ‘Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war’ which is not quite as punchy.

8 November 2022, 03:00 PM 321

Winning through attrition

From the start, the course of this war has been charted in two ways. The first is on maps.

18 August 2022, 01:23 PM 398

The battle for Kherson and why it matters

In my recent posts, I argued that the war with Russia has shifted in Ukraine’s favor.

31 July 2022, 12:46 PM 1528

Time for the Russian Army to take stock

In my last post I asked whether Ukraine could win this war, to which I answered it could, although it was not yet clear whether it would.

28 July 2022, 09:17 PM 3142

Next weeks are decisive. Can Ukraine Win?

In my first post after the start of the Russo-Ukraine war, I argued that Vladimir Putin had made a huge blunder and that Russia could not win.

10 July 2022, 01:43 PM 4104

Paralysis in Moscow

Why Putin persists with his established strategy, accepting a test of endurance.

2 July 2022, 12:13 PM 1934

What can spirits of the past teach us about the current Russian invasion of Ukraine?

‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.’ Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

16 June 2022, 12:04 PM 305

What will the Kremlin will do next?

Among the Kremlin’s many regrets about the conduct of this war one might be that expectations were allowed to build up around the annual parade to mark the end of the Great Patriotic War on 9 May.

15 May 2022, 02:46 PM 693

Escalators and Quagmires

It is an unfortunate feature of wars that they are often launched with an expectation of swift and decisive conclusions but then spin out of control, losing both focus and limits.

9 May 2022, 11:35 AM 347

Absolute ends with limited means: Putin’s self-deception

It is 50 years since I read Hannah Arendt’s essay on ‘Lying in Politics’. The essay was prompted by the unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers, a classified documentary history of US policy-making in the Vietnam War.

1 May 2022, 10:58 AM 869

NATO and Ukraine

Part of the conventional wisdom on the Russo-Ukraine war is that a crisis that began with Putin looking for ways to weaken NATO and cast doubt on its resolve has ended up strengthening the alliance.

16 April 2022, 02:27 PM 641

The Russo-Ukraine War: Phase Two

On 24 February as they began their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces began shelling Mariupol, a port city of over 400,000 inhabitants. The next day they began to advance to its outskirts.

9 April 2022, 03:00 PM 1101

The Problem with the Donbas

In 2014 Igor Girkin, aka ‘Strelkov’ (the shooter), became the face of the rebellion in Ukraine’s Donbas region against the new government in Kyiv.

7 April 2022, 03:08 PM 855