Michael Kimmage is a leading academic in US-Russian relations and Cold War history. He is currently a professor in history at The Catholic University of America and a research fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Kimmage has also worked at the coalface of US foreign policy, serving on the Policy Planning Staff at the US Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.
His latest book, Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability, traces the background to the conflict, from the Cold War, to the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Drawing upon his years of experience in academia and government, Kimmage delivers a unique account on how the world has reached a level of instability unseen since 1945.
History of War spoke with Kimmage about the military situation on the Crimean Peninsula – before and after its annexation by Russia in 2014 – the geopolitical ramifications and what lessons the West can learn from re-examining the events of a decade ago.
Prior to the annexation of Crimea, what was the military and political status quo in the region?
It was a rather ambiguous situation. Of course, the most important detail from the Russian perspective is that you had a very compliant president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who was not especially or at all interested in NATO membership and was perfectly comfortable with the naval base in Sevastopol that Russia was leasing from Ukraine. He was trapped politically between a country that wanted to move west and a country that wanted
