How to Prevent World War III

A conversation with military historian Eliot A. Cohen on why we must “arm Ukraine to the teeth,” and why Biden's visit to Kyiv was invaluable.

Flags flying outside the presidential palace in Kyiv during U.S. President Joe Biden’s Feb. 20, 2023, visit. Photo courtesy of the Ukrainian Presidential Office.

By Michael Judge

My first TFP conversation with Eliot A. Cohen, military historian, author, and columnist for The Atlantic, was just over a year ago, and less than a month into Russia’s murderous, all-out invasion of Ukraine. In that conversation, Cohen stressed Putin’s gross miscalculations about the Ukrainian people and their willingness to defend the sovereign, modern democracy they founded in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin, he said, “thought he’d be able to brush aside the Ukrainian state and Ukrainians would want to be part of Russia.”

Putin’s miscalculation has led to more than 200,000 Russian soldiers, conscripts, and mercenaries dead or wounded, nearly 100,000 dead or wounded Ukrainians, including more than 8,000 civilians, and as many as 30 million displaced people. Horrific numbers like these haven’…