Month: July 2026

The war between Russia and Ukraine began in earnest in February 2022. It sent the Western political and journalistic commentariat into the shock of its life, making them forget about Covid, Israel, and the many other oh-so-important matters they had been "covering" until then. They finally located Ukraine on the map and discovered that it was more than a source of Slavic brides for Western unmarriageables. Who would have thought…? Academia—and especially the social sciences—became another arena of creativity. The level of informedness there was generally higher than among the journalistic class, though not by much. I am a member of several learned societies. Discussions of current affairs are not unusual on their forums and listservs, and the war had an immediate effect. I am a survivor of those discussions. For several months, between February and June 2022, I had to listen to groups of people—supposedly senior researchers of one thing or another—telling each other that Putin was evil, that Russia's conquest...