Marshall here. Welcome back to the Realignment.

Hey everyone, welcome back to our daily coverage of the Ukraine crisis.

Once again, to signpost this episode that we get to clear takeaway.

Today's episode is a conversation with Stanford History Professor Ian Morris.

We discussed Russia's grand strategy.

Professor Morris wrote an interesting piece in Time magazine that we will link in the show notes.

That discusses Russia's specific strategic aims, goals and background that shaped their approach and decision to invade Ukraine.

This topic really matters as we look at whether or not the perspective piece deal,

which is supposedly on the table, is going to be lasting or actually matter.

And whether or not the questions that drove Russia to this point will be answered or not.

Ian has a really interesting perspective.

He's written a couple books that are relevant to people, most recently,

why the West rules for now, the patterns of history and what they reveal about the future.

He also has a book that's coming out in June.

Geography is Destiny, Britain's place in the world, a 10,000 year history.

His books and his thought really brings the idea of this conversation around what is the West?

What is Eurasia? How do rising powers in regions like Russia and China?

How does that factor into the broader history of Western, frankly,

into this broader history of Western supremacy up until around the rise of China?

So it's a really interesting conversation.

Be sure to check out his books.

We'll have Professor Morris back on the show and you'll have to talk about it.

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