Media gallery

Fellow in Residence

Andrew Michta, Ph.D.
M. W. Buckman Distinguished Professor of International Studies at Rhodes College

U.S., Russia and Crisis in Ukraine: How Bad Can This Get?
Watkins Room in the Trone Student Center
Thursday, September 4, 7 p.m.

The Ukrainian conflict, triggered when Russia sent troops to the Ukrainian region of Crimea earlier this year, has caused relations between the West and Moscow to sour dramatically. The downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by pro-Russian rebels, resulting in the loss of 283 lives, has exacerbated the crisis and further strained relations.

Has the crisis in Ukraine been building up for months, as media accounts report, or for years, perhaps even beginning in 2007? Vladimir Putin’s “declaration of intent” at that time to reverse the damage to Russia’s power caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union suggests a strategy that has global impact.

Is the conflict in Ukraine an isolated issue to which the United States must respond? Or it is part of a bigger plan that began with the reconstruction of Russia’s sphere of special economic and security prerogative—initially through the creation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the more recent formation of the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan)? With the pressure Putin is applying to the Baltics, is Ukraine the key piece of the puzzle?

Andrew A. Michta,  M. W. Buckman Distinguished Professor of International Studies at Rhodes College, shared his perspective on these questions in addition to examining the conflict’s predicted impact on geopolitical relationships and structures. Furthermore, Dr. Michta explored the implications for the NATO-Russian-Ukraine relationship and Russia’s relationship with the United States.

About Andrew Michta

Recently appointed as an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in DC, Michta was a senior fellow focusing on defense programming at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington in 2013-14. In 2011-13 he was a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund (GMFUS) of the United States and the director of the GMFUS Warsaw office. Earlier positions include: senior scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center; professor of National Security Studies, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany; visiting scholar, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; East Europe editor for Problems of Post-Communism; public policy Scholar at the Wilson Center; and research associate, George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Michta has written prolifically on U.S. and European security, NATO, transatlantic relations, civil-military relations and democratization. He is a frequent media contributor and government consultant, and writes a regular commentary “On Europe and Security” for The American Interest. His latest book, The Future of NATO: Regional Defense and Global Security is available from University of Michigan Press.