War in Ukraine

In this new edition of their bestselling book, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies bring their account of the war in Ukraine up-to-date, to try and answer burning questions about how and why the conflict still rages on after two years of carnage, and who and what stand in the way of a stable and lasting peace. They examine the claims and counter-claims around the stalemate on the battlefield, the continuing expansion of NATO with the addition of Finland and Sweden, and contradictions in US and NATO policy as the war drags on.

They also examine the divisions among U.S. progressives that hindered the emergence of a strong anti-war movement and abandoned the anti-war position in Congress to the extreme right.

The authors describe Russia’s February 2022 invasion as a tragic and indefensible crime. However, they insist that Western government and media circles’ presentation of the conflict as a simple dichotomy between an evil empire and an innocent victim is a distortion of a more complicated chain of events.

The West's reneging on promises not to expand NATO in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union revived Cold War tensions. The violent overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government in 2014 caused the disintegration of the country, and its failure to implement the Minsk peace agreement led to an escalating conflict that the world has so far failed to resolve, one that could conceivably end in all-out war between the United States and Russia-the world's two leading nuclear-armed powers.

Skillfully bringing together the historical record and current analysis, War in Ukraine looks at the events leading up to the conflict, surveys the different parties involved, and weighs the risks of escalation and opportunities for peace. For anyone who wants to get beneath the heavily propagandized media coverage to an understanding of a war with consequences that could prove cataclysmic, this widely acclaimed book will prove invaluable.

About the Authors

Medea Benjamin is a co-founder of CODEPINK and the fair trade advocacy group Global Exchange. She is the author of Drone Warfare, Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.–Saudi Connection and Inside Iran. In 2012, she was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation’s Peace Prize; she is also recipient of the 2014 Gandhi Peace Award and the 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He has written extensively for Huffington Post, Alternet, Consortium News, Common Dreams, Salon, The Progressive, and Foreign Policy In Focus.