Back

ICFRC: Russia's Impending War Against Ukraine: Three Perspectives

Listen to an audio podcast of this program.

For months, Russia has been amassing troops and weaponry along its border with Ukraine and, more recently, in Belarus to Ukraine's north. A Russian military incursion of some sort seems increasingly close at hand. Three specialists on international conflict and Russian foreign policy address pressing questions about the situation, including what international and domestic factors could be motivating Russian actions, what tools might still be available to deter a Russian attack, and how a new conflict in Ukraine would alter the security situation in Europe and beyond.

William M. Reisinger is Professor of Political Science at The University of Iowa. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and joined the University of Iowa faculty in 1985. His research concerns politics in the former communist states, especially Russia. His publications include Energy and the Soviet Bloc (Cornell University Press, 1992), Can Democracy Take Root in Post-Soviet Russia? (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), Constitutional Dialogues in Comparative Perspective (Macmillan, 1999), The 1999-2000 Elections in Russia (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Russia's Regions and Comparative Subnational Politics (Routledge 2012), as well as over 50 articles or book chapters. He travels frequently to Russia and has conducted research as well in China, Georgia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. He teaches courses on democratization, authoritarian politics and the politics of the post-communist countries.

Sara McLaughlin Mitchell is the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science at Michigan State University in 1997. She is Co-Director of the Issue Correlates of War Project (http://www.paulhensel.org/icow.html) and an Associate Editor of Foreign Policy Analysis and Research & Politics. She is coauthor of Domestic Law Goes Global: Legal Traditions and International Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Guide to the Scientific Study of International Processes (Wiley-Blackwell 2012), The Triumph of Democracy and the Eclipse of the West (Palgrave Macmillan 2013), and Conflict, War, and Peace: An Introduction to Scientific Research (CQ Press/Sage 2013), she has edited several special journal issues, and she has published more than thirty journal articles and book chapters. Her areas of expertise include international conflict, democratic peace, international organizations, diversionary theory, international courts, conflict management, territorial, maritime, and river issues, and time series analysis.

Professor Mitchell is co-founder of the Journeys in World Politics workshop, a mentoring workshop for junior women studying international relations (http://www.saramitchell.org/journeys.html). Mitchell serves on the editorial boards of a number of academic journals including American Political Science Review, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, International Interactions, and Political Analysis.

Paul van Hooft is a Senior Strategic Analyst at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) and the Co-Chair of The Initiative on the Future of Transatlantic Relations. He was a postdoctoral fellow from 2018 to 2020 at the Security Studies Program (SSP) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including as a 2018-2019 Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow. He attained his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Amsterdam (UVA) and was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) from 2016 to 2018. Dr. Van Hooft received the 2016 prize from the Dutch and Flemish political science associations for his dissertation on the impact of experiences with war on postwar grand strategy.

For more information on the Foreign Relations Council visit their website at www.icfrc.org.

Related Programs

thumbnail of video

ICFRC: 2024 Mandela Washington Fellows
Recorded: July 17, 2024
Runtime: 01:26:43

thumbnail of video

ICFRC - Obstacles to Peace: Stories about Palestine
Recorded: May 3, 2024
Runtime: 01:26:52

thumbnail of video

ICFRC - MSF/Doctors Without Borders: Surgical Missions and Tales from the Field
Recorded: April 17, 2024
Runtime: 00:53:28

thumbnail of video

ICFRC: Eyewitness to History
Recorded: April 10, 2024
Runtime: 01:06:07

thumbnail of video

ICFRC: Kosovo: Education as Resistance
Recorded: April 5, 2024
Runtime: 00:52:59

thumbnail of video

ICFRC: Why Women Peacebuilders Matter
Recorded: March 8, 2024
Runtime: 00:55:51

thumbnail of video

ICFRC: Russia and Ukraine - Entangled Histories, Diverging States
Recorded: February 21, 2024
Runtime: 01:09:05

thumbnail of video

ICFRC: In Pursuit of Food Justice, Globally and Locally
Recorded: February 7, 2024
Runtime: 00:58:03

thumbnail of video

ICFRC: Working with Refugees and Displaced Persons: The International Rescue Committee in Iowa
Recorded: January 23, 2024
Runtime: 01:05:12