Welcome to the President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States.

I'm Jim Lindsay, Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This week's topic is Russia, Ukraine, and Global Instability.

With me to discuss the origins of Russia, and global instability.

With me to discuss the origins of Russia's war in Ukraine and the repercussions for world order is Michael Kimmage.

Michael is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America and a senior associate

with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program

at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the policy

planning staff at the U.S. State Department, where he held the Russia-Ukraine portfolio.

He is the author of the new book,

Collisions, The Origins of the War in Ukraine, and the New Global Instability. Michael, thank you

for coming back on the President's inbox. Congratulations on the publication of collisions.

Thanks so much, and really great to be back with you, Jim. I want to get to the

question, Michael, of the origin of Russia's war in Ukraine and what it means for global affairs.

But I'd like to begin with why you wrote collisions. You are a historian by training.

Historians typically pick up their pens or put their fingers to their laptop keyboards after

events have concluded.

Why write a history about the origins of a war that is still unfolding?

The first answer, I think, is that we very much need a history of this war, even though it's going to be inadequate inevitably because there's a lot of evidence that we don't have.

And we also don't know how the war ends, which is crucial to understanding what this war is going to mean.

But we are, as we all know, inundated by social media.

This is a war that brings a lot of intense, loud headlines, and it's easy,

...