Russia | Jane Takes On History

“The West likes him. The people of Russia, not so much.” That has been a theme in tributes to Mikhail Gorbachev, the former head of the Soviet Union, who died yesterday, August 30.

You may know more about Gorbachev than I did a few years ago when I wrote a paper about him for a class about modern European history. But perhaps sharing some of the history I learned will reveal why the West is grateful to him, even if the people of Russia are not.

Gorbachev never intended to break up the Soviet Union. He simply didn’t know that perestroika (restructuring the USSR’s economy) and glasnost (openness of speech) would result in cataclysmic change. Continue reading “Was Mikhail Gorbachev a Hero? Yes.”

The invasion of Ukraine may give us some insight into the causes of war, with the help of experts.

I recently shared Jeremy Black’s view of why wars happen.[1] High on his list are two explanations: humans are inherently warlike and we idolize war heroes. But after I wrote about Black, I was urged (by Mark Brady) to read a more classic treatment by Geoffrey Blainey, a prominent Australian historian. He wrote The Causes of War in 1973 and updated it in 1988.[2]

Blainey was not interested in fundamental psychological causes but, rather, in finding specific patterns of how wars get started and how they stop. His book, he said, was based on a study of all international wars since 1700.

Blainey’s most important claim is that war starts when “two nations disagree on their relative strength.”[3] The leaders of each nation weigh their chances of winning or obtaining a goal (which might be maintaining independence). The decision to go to war is based on at least seven factors, he says. Continue reading “Why Do We Have Wars? Part II”