Original Article: Miscellanea: Understanding the War in Ukraine Convert your long form article to podcast? Visit SendToPod Follow me on Twitter to find out more. ---- This week, I want to break from our usual format and respond to the fairly unusual global events. I expect a lot of my readers are trying to get a grasp on what is happening right now in Ukraine and in my own experience the traditional news media often struggles to adequately explain complex issues that go beyond simply describing events. So I thought that, as a professional thing-explainer (also known as a teacher) who also, as a military historian makes an effort to follow these events as closely as I can, I might try to explain some of the elements of the conflict, particularly questions I’ve seen pop up on social media. (Thanks to AGreatDivorce, our kind reader-narrator, this post is now available in audio-format here.) I should note of course that I am not a Ukraine or Russia expert, though as a military historian I am at least a little familiar with both the history of the region and also the IR and military theory that guides a lot of the decision-making. And of course, since I teach on warfare, I try to stay well read on current conflicts. While I am not an expert here, I will reference people who are. If you just want to tune this out…well, I’d ask you not to. This is important, even if it is painful to watch. But if you’d rather be reading something else, my analytics tell me that y’all still mostly haven’t read my analysis of Thucydides’ Fear, Honor and Interest (which is actually quite relevant here) or the three primary source analyses on medieval military aristocrats: Dhuoda, ‘Antarah ibn Shaddad, and Bertan de Born (which are much less relevant here). And finally, if you want to support what I’m doing here – well, this week, support something else. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is almost certain to create a refugee crisis both within Ukraine and in neighboring countries. Consider donating to Ukrainian aid organizations like Razom for Ukraine. You could also donate to the UNHCR or other international aid groups and charities that support refugees. There are going to be a lot more refugees that need help and they will need your money more than me. For those who instead want to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine itself, ArmySOS raises funds to supply Ukrainian soldiers with much needed equipment and the Ukrainian army itself has a crowd-funding page. I also must note that I wrote this during the day on the 24th of February 2022, with some light editing in the very early hours of the 25th, so it reflects what I knew as of then. I have tried, where applicable here to indicate where there are points of real uncertainty in unfolding events, especially when it comes to the course future events may take. Confidence about outcomes in war is mere delusion, but some outcomes are more probable than others. Alright? Onward. I am not going to pretend to be neutral her...