The narrative surrounding the Ukraine war often marks its
beginning on February 24, 2022, when Russia launched its
full-scale invasion. But the rivalries and political
decisions that brought the two countries into conflict
stretch back centuries. The start of the Cold War,
meanwhile, was the beginning of sustained US efforts to
further antagonize Ukraine’s relationship with
Moscow.
In his new book, Boiling
Point: How America Brought War to Ukraine, author
Stephen Kinzer presents an account of how successive US
administrations sought to cultivate Ukrainian nationalism
and challenge Moscow, helping set the stage for conflict.
Instead of viewing the invasion in isolation, Kinzer details
Washington’s involvement over decades, from covert CIA
operations in Soviet Ukraine during the early Cold War to
Ukrainian independence and the post-Cold War tensions with
Russia over NATO expansion, which all culminated in the
outbreak of war.
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Kinzer provides an extensive,
detailed account of the history of US foreign policy in the
region, without losing sight of the larger geopolitical
forces at play. By challenging the conventional narrative of
the war’s origins, Kinzer offers a deeply researched
perspective largely absent from mainstream
discussions.
Understanding the decades of geopolitical
competition and political motives that preceded the war is
essential to seeing why it began and where it might lead.
Any eventual peace settlement will pose difficult questions
about territory and security guarantees, as well as
Ukraine’s reconstruction and place between Europe and
Russia. The war will likely end without resolving Ukrainian
and Russian divisions that, as Kinzer describes in his book,
US policy helped deepen, leaving both countries and the
wider region to contend with the consequences for years to
come.
As a journalist, author, and historian, Kinzer
has spent decades examining American foreign policy,
interventionism, and the consequences of US involvement
abroad. His work has appeared in The New York Times
and other major publications, and he’s written several
books exploring America’s role in shaping international
affairs. I spoke with him about the history behind
Boiling Point, the choices that might have prevented
the war, and what he believes lies ahead for
Ukraine.
John P. Ruehl: Your new book,
Boiling Point,
examines the history of US policy toward Ukraine and Russia,
tracing Washington’s efforts since the end of World War II
to cultivate Ukrainian nationalism and challenge Moscow’s
influence. It looks at how those efforts contributed to the
tensions that ultimately erupted into the ongoing war in
Ukraine.
To start, could you tell us
a little about the book, its central argument, and the
history you believe readers need to understand to make sense
of the war today?
Stephen
Kinzer: One of the points that I hope people will
take away from this book is that much of what we have been
told about the Ukraine war is wrong. And, in particular,
there’s one word we constantly hear about the Russian
invasion, and it was that word, really, that set me off
after about the 200th time I heard it, and that word, of
course, is unprovoked. We always read about that not just
the February invasion, or the Russian invasion, or the
military invasion, but the unprovoked invasion. Now, you can
say a lot of things about this invasion, for example, that
it was illegal under international law, just like many
American operations have been, but it was definitely not
unprovoked. How do I justify that statement? That’s my
book.
The book traces 75 years of uninterrupted
American plans to turn Ukraine into a battering ram against
Russia. This began with the dropping of armed commandos into
Ukraine back in the late 1940s, and it continued through a
whole series of covert actions leading up to Ukrainian
independence in 1991; then the project went into overdrive.
[The US] spent huge amounts of money promoting
anti-government groups in Ukraine and groups that would
support the idea of confrontation with Russia.
That
finally exploded. You might make an argument that we did the
right thing to provoke Russia and to promote all this
nationalist feeling in Ukraine. And I’m okay with that.
But before you make any judgment on the justice or nature of
the Ukraine war, you should know what happened
before.
If you look at a snapshot of… February 24,
2022, you will see what happened. Russia invaded a peaceful
country, Ukraine. But that picture should really be seen as
just one frame in a very long movie that unfolded over 75
years. My book is an attempt to show you the real background
of the Ukraine war.
JPR: Do you think
Washington still has a bipartisan commitment to supporting
Ukraine, or has it largely achieved what it set out to
accomplish and now is unsure about how to proceed, amid the
Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate
peace?
SK: I think most
people in Washington still think the Ukraine war is a great
idea. It comes out of a deep-seated hatred for Russia, a
belief that Russian expansion or anything good for Russia is
bad for the world. I actually think that many Americans
consider this war a success. The reason is, we’ve killed a
lot of Russians. The fact that tens of thousands of
Ukrainians have been killed and their country has been
devastated doesn’t really register in
Washington.
Most of the people in Washington who are
most eagerly promoting this war can hardly find Ukraine on a
map. They are not interested in Ukraine. All they’re
interested in is Russia. … The result is that Ukraine has
gotten wrecked, but for Americans, and I think for some
Europeans as well, it seems like a win because it has
wounded Russia.
JPR: You write about the
CIA’s espionage and covert operations in Soviet territory
within Ukraine’s modern borders, particularly during the
early Cold War, which created massive tensions. The NATO
expansion after the Cold War has been another major source
of tension with Russia.
Now, NATO
appears less central to US policy under Trump. If NATO’s
role diminishes, what other institutions or government
agencies might take the lead in sustaining pressure on
Russia?
SK: The whole NATO
argument is really one of the saddest pieces of this whole
story. If Joe Biden had simply stood up and said five words:
“Ukraine will not join NATO,” the war would have been
avoided. He refused to say that. But the worst part of it is
that in private, American leaders all admitted that Ukraine
was never gonna join NATO; it’s not nearly ready, and
there were all kinds of problems that would take decades [to
resolve]. But nobody wanted to say this in public because it
would seem like we were responding to Russia, we were
intimidated by Russia, and we were doing what Russia wanted.
The fear of seeming to grant any credibility to Russia was
so great that we refused to do that.
There were many
off-ramps for this war, and simply declaring that NATO would
not accept Ukraine as a member would have stopped it. What
you really need from Ukraine is essentially a peace accord,
which was hammered out in Istanbul a month after the war
began. Henry Kissinger used to say the same thing—Ukraine
needs to be a bridge between east and west. It shouldn’t
be a territory that the two sides fight over.
A great
model would be Austria. After World War II, to ensure the
withdrawal of occupying forces, Austria signed a treaty and
inserted, in its constitution, a pledge that it would never
join a military alliance and would never have foreign troops
on its soil. That has worked great. That should be a model
for Ukraine, but Americans don’t like that because it
doesn’t smell like victory.
JPR: You
dedicate the book to the Ukrainian people and argue that
they didn’t really understand the consequences of the
policies pursued by the United States and NATO toward
Russia.
How do you respond to those
who would argue that opposing the United States and NATO
policy toward Ukraine amounts to supporting Russian
aggression? Beyond reading your book, what evidence or
arguments do you find most persuasive in that view, and what
convinces people to reconsider the United States’ and the
West’s role in the
conflict?
SK: I don’t
think Russia is seeking to capture Ukraine, much less
further territories, but Russia has a fear that is
understandable, and that is, they don’t want a
nuclear-armed military alliance that they are not a member
of right on their border. I pose this analogy: suppose China
decided with Mexico that it would open a military base in
Veracruz, or suppose Russia would open an air base in
Quebec. Would the United States say, “Well, every country
has a right to choose its own security partners, so I guess
there’s nothing we could do about it.” Of course, we
wouldn’t do that. We would bomb those bases. We would
never tolerate that. So we’re now expecting Russia to
accept something we would never accept.
There is room
for negotiation, but only if the United States and the
Europeans, who are now really taking on the extreme burden
of the war, accept that they have to recognize Russia’s
security interests. This is a horrific idea in some European
capitals. But in the end, the only way there is ever going
to be peace and stability in Europe is if there is a
security architecture that takes into account the security
interests of all countries, including
Russia.
JPR: You discuss Kosovo and the
Western effort to separate it from Serbia. Was there ever a
realistic possibility of peacefully accommodating separatist
sentiment in eastern and southeastern Ukraine after the
2013–2014 Maidan Revolution? Or were
Ukrainian nationalist forces, Western interests, and Russian
influence too deeply entrenched? And what alternative
policies might have prevented the current conflict after the
end of the Cold War?
SK: The
most important off-ramp we had was at the beginning of the
post-Cold War period, so around 1990 and the early 90s. Our
president then, George H.W. Bush, fully understood this, and
he promised Mikhail Gorbachev that he would not promote any
eastward expansion of NATO. Soon, of course, Bush was gone;
Clinton came in. There was a completely different approach.
But there is a perfectly reasonable argument for a neutral
Ukraine.
And I’ll tell you, one of the reasons that
I got so passionate about this project, I realized later on,
well, part of my experience way back in the 1980s, I was the
reporter covering the Contra War in Nicaragua. And one thing
I took away from that experience is that the war had nothing
to do with Nicaragua. It was a conflict between two great
powers that chose that poor country as the stage on which
they fought. And, of course, [most of] the dead people were
just the locals.
The same thing is happening in
Ukraine. This war is not about Ukraine. It’s Ukraine that
is suffering, and the big powers are holding its fate in
their hands. Now, you talk about obstacles to peace.
You’re absolutely right about the difference between
eastern Ukraine and western Ukraine. Really, they are two
countries that got stuck inside the same border by accidents
of history. And one of the real sticking points, one of the
real difficulties in reaching some kind of a national
accord, is that for non-Russian-speaking Ukrainians, those
in the western part of Ukraine, being anti-Russian, hating
Russia, is a fundamental part of the national patriotic
Ukrainian identity. And as long as there are millions of
Russians in the country, these other Ukrainians feel they
are a fifth column; they’re always going to be promoting
enemy interests.
So, any Ukrainian leader who signs a
peace treaty runs an immense danger, not only from history,
but also from far-right militias that are going to attack
them. The cleavage between the two parts of the country is
so deep that it’s hard to imagine how they would ever come
together, at least without some kind of federalized
structure, if not by moving those eastern provinces directly
under Russian control.
JPR: Could Ukraine’s
postwar frontline resemble the situation between Russia and
Georgia after their 2008 war, with an unstable standoff and
Russia gradually altering the boundaries? Or do you expect a
different outcome in
Ukraine?
SK: I think the
Russians won’t stop until they’ve consolidated their
power over [the] four eastern provinces that they claim.
After that, I do think there is a possibility that it could
settle into a kind of frozen conflict. That would avoid
forcing some Ukrainians to sign an agreement under which
part of their territory is surrendered, but it could also
end combat. It’s not an ideal solution. I would compare it
to what’s happening in Korea. But at least that might be
one way to end the conflict without putting people on either
side in an untenable position.
JPR: What do
you see as Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s political future after
the war? Wartime leaders can struggle to retain public
support in peacetime. Or do you think he will remain a
central figure in Ukrainian
politics?
SK: Zelenskyy is
really an odd figure who emerged; I have a whole section in
my book about how he did this. He was a TV personality. He
was a fictional character who led a political party that was
against corruption. And then this oligarch who owned the TV
station said to him, “You know, we’re going to make that
fake party. We’re gonna make it into a real party, and
I’m gonna make you run for president.” So, he was about
the most unlikely character you could imagine for that
job.
And I don’t think he’s gonna wind up being a
major figure in the future of Ukraine. Poor Zelenskyy, I
think, is in a really difficult position now. Here’s what
I think is going through his mind: “So the Americans are
yelling at me because I didn’t make a deal. I didn’t
accept a compromise with Russia. But when I tried to make a
compromise with Russia, just a month after the war started,
they stopped me! They told me not to do it. So now I’m
being punished for doing what you told me to do.” And I
can understand and sympathize with Zelenskyy’s
frustration.
JPR: There have been reports of
Ukrainian involvement in training militants in Mali against
Russian interests, while Ukraine has also continued striking
Russian oil infrastructure, despite pressure from Washington
to stop. And Ukraine now has a large battle-tested military,
even if the country itself is severely weakened. What
consequences could this have for Europe and the United
States, particularly if the Ukrainians come to feel that the
West and the United States have betrayed
them?
SK: The situation
you’re describing is somewhat analogous to what’s
happening in the Middle East; a war that was supposed to be
localized has metastasized and is turning up in different
incarnations in different places, even far from the nations
that were supposed to be the target.
So, I do think
we’re gonna wind up with a highly militarized Ukraine. The
worst part is that many of the strongest military units are
not the actual regular army, but are far-right militias,
which proudly use Nazi insignia and proclaim their loyalty
to Ukrainians who fought alongside the Nazis and helped
participate in the Holocaust. That is going to be a project
that Europe’s going to have to deal with.
But I
don’t even think Europe is thinking about a postwar yet. I
feel like Europe is in a complete delusion. They have the
idea that if we just keep pouring weapons into Ukraine and
pouring money into Ukraine, somehow the tide will turn.
Meanwhile, inside those European countries, there’s
tremendous political turmoil. Much of it is based on
frustration that the government isn’t using its money to
provide schools and other services people want. One reason
is that so much money is going to Ukraine.
So, I think
you might see resentment [toward] Ukraine growing, and
depending on the way the war finally ends or freezes, people
will become generally sympathetic to Ukraine, or very
hostile to Ukraine. It’s another example of how wars like
this set in motion processes that can’t be stopped and can
affect international relations for decades to come. It’s
really an object lesson in how you should stop and think
about long-term consequences before launching foreign
interventions.
JPR: What will or what can the EU do
if Washington pulls away from
Ukraine?
SK: The EU then has two
choices. One is to continue its policy, which is ever more
war, ever more arms for Ukraine, ever more money, or Ukraine
could go back to the agreement that was tentatively reached
a month after the war began and accept Ukrainian neutrality.
This would be very wise for Europe. It’s foolish for the
United States to be promoting war in Ukraine; it’s even
more foolish for the Europeans. They are going to face real
crossroads, and I fear the rise of radical political parties
in Europe will create an even more difficult
situation.
So that’s another reason I dedicated
Boiling Point to the people of Ukraine; it’s my
sympathy for them as victims of a great-power rivalry they
don’t want anything to do with.
JPR: What was one
of the biggest revelations you had while writing and
researching for the book?
SK: The
biggest revelation, by far, was my realization of how
completely American foreign policy toward Russia and Eastern
Europe has been shaped by officials with family backgrounds
in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. We had [former]
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. We had [former]
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. We had a
[former] ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland. There’s a
whole list of these [names] in my book.
So, what you
had was a group of children and grandchildren of emigres
from Eastern Europe and what became the Soviet Union. These
people grew up with bitter, anti-Russian hatred, and
that’s quite understandable, frankly, when you look at the
history of what Russia has done to those countries. But when
those grandchildren and children of emigres decided they
wanted to affect American politics and foreign policy, they
found themselves unwelcome in the Republican Party, which
was then not interested in ideological crusades. So, they
became Democrats. And all these people filled the Biden
administration, the Obama administration, and the Clinton
administration. It’s the only example in the entire
history of American foreign policy where all major policies
toward one part of the world were shaped by people with
family background in that region. They turned the United
States into the instrument of their vengeance against
Russia, and thereby greatly distorted American foreign
policy.
Those diplomats were quite capable. They
should have been made ambassador to Brazil, or assistant
secretary of state for Asia or something like that. But to
place them in these positions where they were able to wreak
havoc against Russia in accordance with the long instincts
that had been bred into them from childhood is unique, and
it greatly distorted American foreign policy. That was
really the greatest single revelation I
had.
JPR: And that’s a
dynamic we really don’t see regarding
China and Taiwan.
SK:
Absolutely. You don’t see Chinese, let’s say, the
children of Chinese immigrants, or the grandchildren, trying
to get into the State Department so they can shape the US
policy toward China. That would be the equivalent, but that
has never happened in US policy toward any other part of the
world, and it’s the piece of the story that I don’t
think has been told, and I hope it’s one of the pieces of
Boiling Point that turns out to be a major revelation
and point of discussion.
JPR: With much of
Ukraine’s industrial base, energy infrastructure, and
population severely diminished by the war and emigration,
what realistic prospects does the country have for
rebuilding?
SK: Rebuilding
prospects are very difficult to imagine. First of all, you
have to have an end to active fighting. Now, in the
Russian-speaking regions, there’s been a tremendous amount
of destruction. But if you look at what Russia did in
Chechnya, where the capital city essentially was completely
destroyed, you get the idea that they do know how to rebuild
things, because Grozny is now a thriving city. What about
the rest of Ukraine, the western part? I think Ukrainians
would be very justified in turning to the Europeans and
saying, “You’re the ones who pushed us into this war;
how about helping us resolve some of the
damage?”
JPR: Finally, is this the end of NATO
expansion, or is there room in the Balkans for
more?
SK: I don’t believe
there’s gonna be any expansion of NATO anytime soon. But
what I would really like is that since everybody in
Washington realizes this, they would say it. Instead, they
try to keep it vague to pressure Russia. Announcing that
would be a way to lower global tensions, but in some circles
that is seen as a concession to Russia, and maintaining
tensions is actually thought to be in our interest. I
don’t believe that’s true, and until that mindset fades,
it’s difficult to see a prosperous future for
Ukraine.
By John P. Ruehl
John P. Ruehl is an
Australian-American journalist living in Washington, DC, and
a world affairs correspondent for the Independent
Media Institute. He is a contributor to several foreign
affairs publications, and his book, Budget
Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy
Smaller Than Texas’, was published in December
2022. Follow him on X @john_ruehl.
This
article was produced by Economy
for All, a project of the Independent Media
Institute.
