BOOK REVIEW
How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe
by Benjamin Abelow 2022
About the Author
Benjamin Abelow has worked in Washington, DC, writing, lecturing, and lobbying Congress about nuclear arms policy. He holds a B.A. in modern European history from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine. His other areas of interest include the psychology of trauma, including war trauma.
About the Book
“A brilliant, remarkably concise explanation of the danger that U.S and NATO military involvement in Ukraine has created. Needs to be read and pondered by every citizen capable of thinking rationally and responsibly about American and European security.”
— Jack F. Matlock, Jr., U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1987-1991, author of Superpower Illusions
“For anyone interested in understanding the true causes of the disaster in Ukraine, How the West Brought War to Ukraine is required reading. Abelow makes a clear and compelling case that the United States and its NATO allies—not Vladimir Putin—are the principal culprits.”
— John J. Mearsheimer, author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago
“This is a splendidly concise book, taughtly written, logically organized, easy to read and persuasive but appropriately caveated. It is an invaluable primer on the trends and events that produced the escalating warfare in Ukraine. Without understanding the history documented in this book, there will be no de-escalation of the US-Russian confrontation on Europe’s eastern borders.”
— Chas Freeman, previously Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, author of Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy
“For those concerned about U.S. national security and the peace of Europe, this book is essential reading.”
— Douglas Macgregor, Colonel (Retired), U.S. Army, author of Margin of Victory, was decorated for valor in the Battle of 73 Easting in Iraq and served as Director of NATO’s Joint Operations Center at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters of Allied Powers in Europe)
According to the mainstream Western narrative, Vladimir Putin is an insatiable, Hitler-like expansionist who invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked land grab.
That story is incorrect.
In reality, the United States and NATO bear much of the responsibility for the Ukraine crisis. Through a series of misguided policies, Washington and its European allies placed Russia in an untenable situation for which war seemed, to Mr. Putin and his military staff, the only workable solution.
In How the West Brought War to Ukraine, author Benjamin Abelow lays out the relevant history and explains how the West needlessly produced conflict, subjecting its own citizens—and the rest of the world—to the risk of nuclear war.
Endorsed by leading defense experts and policy analysts, this brief and highly readable book shows how the West provoked the crisis and now labors under an existential threat of its own making.
How the West Brought War to Ukraine looks beneath the surface of recent events. It lets readers understand the deeper sources of the Ukraine war and provides new insights into how the conflict might be resolved.
If you’d like to hear the author respond to the claims that the Ukraine war is a “humanitarian” venture and that Ukraine has the “right” to join NATO, go to the Author’s page. There you will find two short video clips (two minutes each).To get to that page, click on the author’s photo beneath the cover image of the book (this may not be an option from mobile devices).
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