The Bear Baited

Episode 17 examines the Ukraine war as the predictable result of three decades of American policy choices. Following the argument of Article 17, the episode traces NATO expansion from Baker’s 1990 “not one inch eastward” assurance to the present, through the 2014 Maidan events, the Minsk agreements signed in bad faith, the failed December 2021 diplomacy, and the collapse of the Istanbul peace negotiations in April 2022. The episode handles the nuclear dimension with measured gravity, documents the vindication of realist critics including Kennan, Mearsheimer, Matlock, and Perry, and evaluates the April 2026 state of the war against the settlement that was available three years and one million casualties earlier.