Buy tickets for Downstream IRL with Cory Doctorow and Aaron Bastani: https://dice.fm/event/oen5rr-downstream-irl-aaron-bastani-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-17th-nov-earth-london-tickets Sign up for our upcoming Downstream newsletter: http://novara.media/downstreamnewsletter In 1989, Francis Fukuyama, then a very young political scientist, declared that history was over. He wrote a book with the same title just a couple of years later. The Cold War had finished, the USSR had collapsed, liberal democracy and market capitalism reigned supreme, and it wasn’t going to change. And yet in the last few years, the script has moved quite significantly. History has returned. Emblematic of that has been the conflict between Russia and Ukraine which began in 2022, although of course, you can date that back to 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. Today’s guest on Downstream is Serhii Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University. He offers a deep history of Russia and Ukraine, the conflict, where it comes from, and where it sits within the broader sweep of collapsing empires. He’s also got a new book out, about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy: The Nuclear Age. They discuss what is driving Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, almost four years after it began. What does Putin’s stated aim of ‘de-Nazification’ really mean? What role does Russia’s nuclear arsenal play in determining the shape of the conflict? And, in an increasingly multipolar world where history has indeed come back, is nuclear proliferation within the next ten years likely? Support our work: http://novara.media/support Buy Novara Media merch: https://shop.novaramedia.com/ 00:00 Intro 03:59 Russia: A Dying Empire 08:20 The Historical Roots of Russia & Ukraine’s Relationship 16:36 Russian Expansionism 20:22 The Aftermath of the Soviet Union 30:07 Can Georgia Be in Europe? 38:11 Defining the Border Between Russia and Ukraine 48:55 Putin’s Version of Russian-Ukrainian History 51:13 What Was Russia’s Mission in Invading Ukraine? 56:59 The Russian Threat to Europe 1:04:46 Nuclear Disarmament in the 1990s 1:11:34 The Difference Between Guarantees & Assurances 1:15:52 South Africa’s Nuclear Programme 1:18:48 The American & North Korean Nuclear Programmes 1:21:37 Britain’s Nuclear Programme 1:22:24 Nuclear Proliferation in the Next Decade 1:28:55 Iran’s Nuclear Strategy 1:31:34 The Possibility of Nuclear Conflict 1:33:35 The Long Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1:35:54 How Will the Russia Ukraine Conflict End?
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