Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine

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collapse in relations. Military flashpoints have increased in number and frequency, and rather than acting as trade partners, the two countries view economic competition in zero-sum terms. As Shirk notes, China and the United States have become so fearful of one another that they are weaponizing Feb 2022, quote formerly pro-NATO Putin rightly stating before wrongly invading, "De-Nazify Ukraine." The verb is from Middle English overrechen ( “ to rise above; to extend beyond or over; to encroach; to catch, overtake; to reach; to obtain wrongfully (?); to take up (a book) to revise it ” ) [ and other forms ] , [1] equivalent to over- +‎ reach; [2] the noun is derived from the verb or from the phrase to reach over. [3] Pronunciation [ edit ]

Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against

When observing a war from a far the tendency to view things in terms of battles and grand strategies sets in and the stories of suffering and heroism on the ground can often be lost in the fog of war.

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Relations between China and the United States have deteriorated to the point that, in Susan Shirk's assessment, we are now fully embroiled in Cold War II. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese history and policy, focuses on this True, this is not a classic war reporter’s tale of frontline action. Some of Matthews’s accounts of key battles, for example, are not first-hand but recreated through interviews and cuttings. In recounting how Kremlin troops were woefully ill-prepared, for example, he draws on testimony to a Ukrainian war crimes court by a young Russian squaddie who pleaded guilty to shooting a civilian after his armoured convoy was ambushed. expand soft and hard power abroad. Prior to the global financial crisis in 2008, China seemed willing to engage with domestic and international issues in a constructive manner. Following the crisis, however, power dynamics shifted, and so, too, did China's approach. It began to view the U.S. as a Nor, in a country that still suffers an “addiction to imperial fantasies”, is it likely that Putin’s replacement will be Gorbachev 2.0. Nationalism, Matthews says, is a far more powerful current in Russia than pro-Western liberalism. He adds: “A military defeat at the hands of NATO weaponry would likely strengthen, not weaken, that tendency.”

Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise | Oxford Academic Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise | Oxford Academic

In Part 3, Matthews attempts to devote the same careful analytical attention to events following the February 2022 invasion. The results are mixed, in large part because these events are simply too recent. Matthews adopts a thematic, rather than strictly chronological account. Important topics, such as shifts in Western attitudes to the war and the effectiveness of economic sanctions, receive attention. However, Matthews is constrained by the limited information available at the time of writing. In February 2023 the question of Western resolve, while less pressing than in late 2022, remains open in the face of a potentially protracted conflict. A full understanding of the true impact of economic sanctions, and the consequent decoupling of Russia from Western economies, awaits the sort of detailed analysis by economists that will take years.their interdependence. Not even the common threat of the COVID-19 pandemic could convince them to coordinate their efforts. By mid-March, even Matthews himself has to leave for a while, fearing that his 19-year-old son, a Russian passport holder, may get drafted. Yet amidst this chaos and personal upheaval, he has produced a book that is not merely the first full account of the war, but may set the standard for some time to come. The author briefly goes over some key battles such as the one for the Hostomel airport. However, there are few details about other major battles such as the siege of Mariupol and Azovstal. The war crimes at Bucha are covered in more detail including the story of the young Russian soldier that committed war crimes and was subsequently captured and sentenced to life in prison. Various actors in the war such as the foreign volunteers, the Chechens, the Wagner mercenaries are each discussed in turn.

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Written at what must have been hypersonic speed, Overreach is a remarkable achievement, with Matthews’s expert eye like an all-seeing drone buzzing from one side of the conflict to the other. We drop in everywhere from Putin’s long white table to Zelensky’s bunker, via the siege of Kyiv and the trenches of Mariupol. Measured against this standard, and considering the circumstances under which it was produced, the book is a success. Part 1 covers the historical origins of the 2022 invasion, stretching from Kyivan Rus��� to the election of Volodymyr Zelensky as President of Ukraine in 2019. Chapter 1 (“Poisoned Roots”) is necessarily concise and touches lightly, if at all, on many of the controversies of early Russian and Ukrainian history, but Matthews does a good job emphasising the fundamental uncertainty of key issues. A key observer of China provides a detailed account of that nation’s political transformation under its current leaders. An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol.b) A country so corrupt that the new bridge built for a state of the art high-speed train collapses within a couple years because its builders opted to use low-grade concrete and pay out enormous bribes to get the contract? Putin goes crazy, doing worse things and aggravating the conflict with worse consequences worldwide.