Towards a Negotiated Peace Agreement in Ukraine

January 4, 2023

Recently, calls for a negotiated peace agreement in the Ukraine war have increased not only in Europe but also in the US. General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made such a call in early November 2022.[i] Professor Charles A Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, announced “[i]t’s time to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiation table”.[ii] President Biden said during his visit to France on 1 December that he would meet with the Russian president if he showed a willingness to end the war. Possible and realistic terms of a possible peace deal have not however been elaborated. (This text co-authored with Tapio Kanninen was published in January 2023 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique in French as “Propositions pour une sortie de crise”; in English as “Giving peace a chance”; other editions will follow).

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The imperative of de-escalation in Ukraine: negotiations and possible solutions

December 2, 2022

In the West, there are two different competing narratives about the war in Ukraine. The prevailing narrative is that it is a struggle between the “bad guys” and “good guys”. For many, Russia led by dictator Putin represents imperialism and is alone responsible for this unprovoked war, whereas Ukraine represents freedom and democracy as well as courage and heroism. The forces of evil must be won decisively by military means. Russians have their own version of demonization, with an opposite view on locating the good and the evil. The likelihood of a nuclear conflict is played down as it would lessen the resolve to reach a total victory. (This text co-authored with Tapio Kanninen was originally published by Katoikos.world on 29.11.2022; and republished the next day at Rozenberg Quarterly; ZNetwork; and Brave New Europe.)

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Economic Impacts of Population Reduction

August 17, 2022

My contribution to GTI Forum The Population Debate Revisited (a direct link here).

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The end of the Nordic ideal: Finland and Sweden joining NATO

June 2, 2022

During the Cold War, the Norden was widely seen as the model of an enlightened and antimilitaristic society that follows the principles of distributive justice and is morally superior to two alternative models of modernization: the United States and the Soviet Union. The two countries that best exemplified the Nordic model and neutrality were Sweden and Finland. (This is a somewhat longer draft version of a text published on 1.6.2022 in Le Monde Diplomatique in French as “Finlande et Suède brisent l’idéal nordique” [here]; in English as “The end of the Nordic ideal” [here], republished in The Nation [here]; also in German [here], Spanish [here], Portuguese [here], and Norwegian [here]).

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