Why & How & If

On September 27, 2018, Yale's Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Poynter Fellowship for Journalism hosted Vladimir Pozner, the acclaimed Russian-American journalist and broadcaster. Pozner spoke on the impact of US foreign policy towards Russia after the Soviet Union has been disbanded, and shared his opinions on a range of issues raised by the audience, from the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, to Skripal poisoning, to the state of independent media in Russia and the US.

John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.