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Hello and welcome to a special wildfire smoke edition of Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood.

Two segments today you'll be gobsmacked to learn. We'll hear from the International Relations Scholar Christopher Lane on the long history behind the war in Ukraine.

And the artist Marcus Brown will talk about an augmented reality exhibit on slavery he put together in Lower Manhattan.

It's become nearly impossible to talk about what led up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.

The only acceptable explanation seems to be the primal evil of Vladimir Putin which must be extinguished.

I'm not here to defend him as a figure or as invasion. He's a reactionary authoritarian and the war he launched is monstrous.

But resorting to primal evil doesn't really qualify as an explanation nor does it point to a way out of the current horror.

A good backgrounder as we say in the journalism trade for the war is a cover story in the June issue of Harper's magazine.

Why are we in Ukraine on the dangers of American hubris?

By Benjamin Schwartz and Christopher Lane.

No doubt the presence of the phrase American hubris will set lots of people off but they need to calm down and think a bit.

Here's Christopher Lane to talk about the history and politics around Ukraine.

He's the Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A&M University.

Not a title you'd associate with either a Putin fanboy or an airheaded hippie peacenick.

Lane is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Affiliation you wouldn't associate with a Putinite or hippie either.

In his long career his major focus has been international relations theory, a particularly American grand strategy.

His co-author Benjamin Schwartz was supposed to join us but he had to cancel because his dog required emergency surgery.

Here's Christopher Lane.

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