A Realist Take on How the Russia-Ukraine War Could End
About this episode
Atlantic Council fellow Emma Ashford, a self-described foreign policy realist, offers a framework for how the Russia-Ukraine war might end. She explains realism as a lens centered on interests and power rather than ideology, then applies it to the war's central dilemma: finding an 'off-ramp' that lets both sides stop fighting without humiliating Putin. Ashford weighs Ukraine's battlefield leverage, argues NATO membership is off the table but neutrality or a 'Finland'-style arrangement could work, and warns of the dangers of cornering a nuclear-armed power. She assesses Western sanctions and their long-run costs, questions the narrative that the war is purely about NATO expansion, and sketches what a durable European security order might look like once the fighting stops.