Media Link: It’s a wrap.

The last episode of season 3 of “A View from Afar” aired yesterday. It discusses the concept of hostage diplomacy and how it applies to the recent US-Russia prisoner exchange as well as the collective punishment involved in the Russian’s holding of Ukrainian cities hostage, and a few other things. In short: it is all about creating negotiating space and opening backdoor channels via the use of coercive diplomacy as leverage.

2 thoughts on “Media Link: It’s a wrap.

  1. I have not watched all of this yet.
    But I wanted to make a couple of recommendations, holiday reading and watching for anyone wanting inspiration and keeping one’s mind alive and relevant, when there’s not much else lol

    The 1st is on youtube, a series of lectures on the history of Ukraine by Timothy Snyder.

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNewfxO7LhBoz_1Mx1MaO6sw_

    He is an historian par excellence, starts out with some amazing revelations about how we can view history, turns everything on its head … some interesting facts (eg. very few war histories are being written nowadays – which he laments) .. I find the whole, detailed, and his lectures … compelling. There is no other word for it. Brilliant. A gifted teacher and historian, as you would expect from Yale. No ads either lol. When it is over I’ll probably go back and watch it again. We know so little of Ukraine. A country ‘on the borderlands’.

    The 2nd is a book on the fall of the USSR.
    “Collapse – the fall of the Soviet Union’. By Vladislav M. Zubok. 2021/22, Yale University Press (again).
    This looks and feels like a brick in its paperback form, somewhat off-putting – but the research, the insights, the detail again, is also compelling. I find it easy to read (though the print is rather small), lots of little tidbits, ’emotionally engaging for the reader’ – partly why it is so easy to read. Not intellectual, dry-as-dust history. And fascinating. Gorbachev et al.
    I highly recommend both the videos and the book, if ppl have not found them already.

    I wanted to make some comment about your predictions for 2023.
    It is interesting, the protests, in different authoritarian states.
    The book, in particular above, has some interesting insights into the suffocating, stultifying, nature of authoritarian regimes, how the Russian workers were continually drunk and disengaged … how the West was so attractive to the elites .. all fascinating.
    But i’ll leave that comment until I’ve watched it all.

    Thanks so much for all your insights, intelligence, and commentaries in 2022 … It keeps us alive and informed :-)
    See you in the NY.

  2. Much thanks Barbara. I will add your suggestions to my summer reading list. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season and look forward to your re-engagement with KP and AVFA next year. Cheers!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *