The narrative surrounding the Ukraine war often marks its beginning on February 24, 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. But the rivalries and political decisions that brought the two countries into conflict stretch back centuries. The start of the Cold War, meanwhile, was the beginning of sustained US efforts to further antagonize Ukraine’s relationship with Moscow.
In his new book, Boiling Point: How America Brought War to Ukraine, author Stephen Kinzer presents an account of how successive US administrations sought to cultivate Ukrainian nationalism and challenge Moscow, helping set the stage for conflict. Instead of viewing the invasion in isolation, Kinzer details Washington’s involvement over decades, from covert CIA operations in Soviet Ukraine during the early Cold War to Ukrainian independence and the post-Cold War tensions with Russia over NATO expansion, which all culminated in the outbreak of war.
Kinzer provides an extensive, detailed account of the history of US foreign policy in the region, without losing sight of the larger geopolitical forces at play. By challenging the conventional narrative of the war’s origins, Kinzer offers a deeply researched perspective largely absent from mainstream discussions.
Understanding the decades of geopolitical competition and political motives that preceded the war is essential to seeing why it began and where it might lead. Any eventual peace settlement will pose difficult questions about territory and security guarantees, as well as Ukraine’s reconstruction and place between Europe and Russia. The war will likely end without resolving Ukrainian and Russian divisions that, as Kinzer describes in his book, US policy helped deepen, leaving both countries and the wider region to contend with the consequences for years to come.
As a journalist, author, and historian, Kinzer has spent decades examining American foreign policy, interventionism, and the consequences of US involvement abroad. His work has appeared in The New York Times and other major publications, and he’s written several books exploring America’s role in shaping international affairs. I spoke with him about the history behind Boiling Point, the choices that might have prevented the war, and what he believes lies ahead for Ukraine.
John P. Ruehl: Your new book, Boiling Point, examines the history of US policy toward Ukraine and Russia, tracing Washington’s efforts since the end of World War II to cultivate Ukrainian nationalism and challenge Moscow’s influence. It looks at how those efforts contributed to the tensions that ultimately erupted into the ongoing war in Ukraine.
To start, could you tell us a little about the book, its central argument, and the history you believe readers need to understand to make sense of the war today?
Stephen Kinzer: One of the points that I hope people will take away from this book is that much of what we have been told about the Ukraine war is wrong. And, in particular, there’s one word we constantly hear about the Russian invasion, and it was that word, really, that set me off after about the 200th time I heard it, and that word, of course, is unprovoked. We always read about that not just the February invasion, or the Russian invasion, or the military invasion, but the unprovoked invasion. Now, you can say a lot of things about this invasion, for example, that it was illegal under international law, just like many American operations have been, but it was definitely not unprovoked. How do I justify that statement? That’s my book.
The book traces 75 years of uninterrupted American plans to turn Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia. This began with the dropping of armed commandos into Ukraine back in the late 1940s, and it continued through a whole series of covert actions leading up to Ukrainian independence in 1991; then the project went into overdrive. [The US] spent huge amounts of money promoting anti-government groups in Ukraine and groups that would support the idea of confrontation with Russia.
That finally exploded. You might make an argument that we did the right thing to provoke Russia and to promote all this nationalist feeling in Ukraine. And I’m okay with that. But before you make any judgment on the justice or nature of the Ukraine war, you should know what happened before.
If you look at a snapshot of… February 24, 2022, you will see what happened. Russia invaded a peaceful country, Ukraine. But that picture should really be seen as just one frame in a very long movie that unfolded over 75 years. My book is an attempt to show you the real background of the Ukraine war.
JPR: Do you think Washington still has a bipartisan commitment to supporting Ukraine, or has it largely achieved what it set out to accomplish and now is unsure about how to proceed, amid the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate peace?
SK: I think most people in Washington still think the Ukraine war is a great idea. It comes out of a deep-seated hatred for Russia, a belief that Russian expansion or anything good for Russia is bad for the world. I actually think that many Americans consider this war a success. The reason is, we’ve killed a lot of Russians. The fact that tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and their country has been devastated doesn’t really register in Washington.
Most of the people in Washington who are most eagerly promoting this war can hardly find Ukraine on a map. They are not interested in Ukraine. All they’re interested in is Russia. … The result is that Ukraine has gotten wrecked, but for Americans, and I think for some Europeans as well, it seems like a win because it has wounded Russia.
JPR: You write about the CIA’s espionage and covert operations in Soviet territory within Ukraine’s modern borders, particularly during the early Cold War, which created massive tensions. The NATO expansion after the Cold War has been another major source of tension with Russia.
Now, NATO appears less central to US policy under Trump. If NATO’s role diminishes, what other institutions or government agencies might take the lead in sustaining pressure on Russia?
SK: The whole NATO argument is really one of the saddest pieces of this whole story. If Joe Biden had simply stood up and said five words: “Ukraine will not join NATO,” the war would have been avoided. He refused to say that. But the worst part of it is that in private, American leaders all admitted that Ukraine was never gonna join NATO; it’s not nearly ready, and there were all kinds of problems that would take decades [to resolve]. But nobody wanted to say this in public because it would seem like we were responding to Russia, we were intimidated by Russia, and we were doing what Russia wanted. The fear of seeming to grant any credibility to Russia was so great that we refused to do that.
There were many off-ramps for this war, and simply declaring that NATO would not accept Ukraine as a member would have stopped it. What you really need from Ukraine is essentially a peace accord, which was hammered out in Istanbul a month after the war began. Henry Kissinger used to say the same thing—Ukraine needs to be a bridge between east and west. It shouldn’t be a territory that the two sides fight over.
A great model would be Austria. After World War II, to ensure the withdrawal of occupying forces, Austria signed a treaty and inserted, in its constitution, a pledge that it would never join a military alliance and would never have foreign troops on its soil. That has worked great. That should be a model for Ukraine, but Americans don’t like that because it doesn’t smell like victory.
JPR: You dedicate the book to the Ukrainian people and argue that they didn’t really understand the consequences of the policies pursued by the United States and NATO toward Russia.
How do you respond to those who would argue that opposing the United States and NATO policy toward Ukraine amounts to supporting Russian aggression? Beyond reading your book, what evidence or arguments do you find most persuasive in that view, and what convinces people to reconsider the United States’ and the West’s role in the conflict?
SK: I don’t think Russia is seeking to capture Ukraine, much less further territories, but Russia has a fear that is understandable, and that is, they don’t want a nuclear-armed military alliance that they are not a member of right on their border. I pose this analogy: suppose China decided with Mexico that it would open a military base in Veracruz, or suppose Russia would open an air base in Quebec. Would the United States say, “Well, every country has a right to choose its own security partners, so I guess there’s nothing we could do about it.” Of course, we wouldn’t do that. We would bomb those bases. We would never tolerate that. So we’re now expecting Russia to accept something we would never accept.
There is room for negotiation, but only if the United States and the Europeans, who are now really taking on the extreme burden of the war, accept that they have to recognize Russia’s security interests. This is a horrific idea in some European capitals. But in the end, the only way there is ever going to be peace and stability in Europe is if there is a security architecture that takes into account the security interests of all countries, including Russia.
JPR: You discuss Kosovo and the Western effort to separate it from Serbia. Was there ever a realistic possibility of peacefully accommodating separatist sentiment in eastern and southeastern Ukraine after the 2013–2014 Maidan Revolution? Or were Ukrainian nationalist forces, Western interests, and Russian influence too deeply entrenched? And what alternative policies might have prevented the current conflict after the end of the Cold War?
SK: The most important off-ramp we had was at the beginning of the post-Cold War period, so around 1990 and the early 90s. Our president then, George H.W. Bush, fully understood this, and he promised Mikhail Gorbachev that he would not promote any eastward expansion of NATO. Soon, of course, Bush was gone; Clinton came in. There was a completely different approach. But there is a perfectly reasonable argument for a neutral Ukraine.
And I’ll tell you, one of the reasons that I got so passionate about this project, I realized later on, well, part of my experience way back in the 1980s, I was the reporter covering the Contra War in Nicaragua. And one thing I took away from that experience is that the war had nothing to do with Nicaragua. It was a conflict between two great powers that chose that poor country as the stage on which they fought. And, of course, [most of] the dead people were just the locals.
The same thing is happening in Ukraine. This war is not about Ukraine. It’s Ukraine that is suffering, and the big powers are holding its fate in their hands. Now, you talk about obstacles to peace. You’re absolutely right about the difference between eastern Ukraine and western Ukraine. Really, they are two countries that got stuck inside the same border by accidents of history. And one of the real sticking points, one of the real difficulties in reaching some kind of a national accord, is that for non-Russian-speaking Ukrainians, those in the western part of Ukraine, being anti-Russian, hating Russia, is a fundamental part of the national patriotic Ukrainian identity. And as long as there are millions of Russians in the country, these other Ukrainians feel they are a fifth column; they’re always going to be promoting enemy interests.
So, any Ukrainian leader who signs a peace treaty runs an immense danger, not only from history, but also from far-right militias that are going to attack them. The cleavage between the two parts of the country is so deep that it’s hard to imagine how they would ever come together, at least without some kind of federalized structure, if not by moving those eastern provinces directly under Russian control.
JPR: Could Ukraine’s postwar frontline resemble the situation between Russia and Georgia after their 2008 war, with an unstable standoff and Russia gradually altering the boundaries? Or do you expect a different outcome in Ukraine?
SK: I think the Russians won’t stop until they’ve consolidated their power over [the] four eastern provinces that they claim. After that, I do think there is a possibility that it could settle into a kind of frozen conflict. That would avoid forcing some Ukrainians to sign an agreement under which part of their territory is surrendered, but it could also end combat. It’s not an ideal solution. I would compare it to what’s happening in Korea. But at least that might be one way to end the conflict without putting people on either side in an untenable position.
JPR: What do you see as Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s political future after the war? Wartime leaders can struggle to retain public support in peacetime. Or do you think he will remain a central figure in Ukrainian politics?
SK: Zelenskyy is really an odd figure who emerged; I have a whole section in my book about how he did this. He was a TV personality. He was a fictional character who led a political party that was against corruption. And then this oligarch who owned the TV station said to him, “You know, we’re going to make that fake party. We’re gonna make it into a real party, and I’m gonna make you run for president.” So, he was about the most unlikely character you could imagine for that job.
And I don’t think he’s gonna wind up being a major figure in the future of Ukraine. Poor Zelenskyy, I think, is in a really difficult position now. Here’s what I think is going through his mind: “So the Americans are yelling at me because I didn’t make a deal. I didn’t accept a compromise with Russia. But when I tried to make a compromise with Russia, just a month after the war started, they stopped me! They told me not to do it. So now I’m being punished for doing what you told me to do.” And I can understand and sympathize with Zelenskyy’s frustration.
JPR: There have been reports of Ukrainian involvement in training militants in Mali against Russian interests, while Ukraine has also continued striking Russian oil infrastructure, despite pressure from Washington to stop. And Ukraine now has a large battle-tested military, even if the country itself is severely weakened. What consequences could this have for Europe and the United States, particularly if the Ukrainians come to feel that the West and the United States have betrayed them?
SK: The situation you’re describing is somewhat analogous to what’s happening in the Middle East; a war that was supposed to be localized has metastasized and is turning up in different incarnations in different places, even far from the nations that were supposed to be the target.
So, I do think we’re gonna wind up with a highly militarized Ukraine. The worst part is that many of the strongest military units are not the actual regular army, but are far-right militias, which proudly use Nazi insignia and proclaim their loyalty to Ukrainians who fought alongside the Nazis and helped participate in the Holocaust. That is going to be a project that Europe’s going to have to deal with.
But I don’t even think Europe is thinking about a postwar yet. I feel like Europe is in a complete delusion. They have the idea that if we just keep pouring weapons into Ukraine and pouring money into Ukraine, somehow the tide will turn. Meanwhile, inside those European countries, there’s tremendous political turmoil. Much of it is based on frustration that the government isn’t using its money to provide schools and other services people want. One reason is that so much money is going to Ukraine.
So, I think you might see resentment [toward] Ukraine growing, and depending on the way the war finally ends or freezes, people will become generally sympathetic to Ukraine, or very hostile to Ukraine. It’s another example of how wars like this set in motion processes that can’t be stopped and can affect international relations for decades to come. It’s really an object lesson in how you should stop and think about long-term consequences before launching foreign interventions.
JPR: What will or what can the EU do if Washington pulls away from Ukraine?
SK: The EU then has two choices. One is to continue its policy, which is ever more war, ever more arms for Ukraine, ever more money, or Ukraine could go back to the agreement that was tentatively reached a month after the war began and accept Ukrainian neutrality. This would be very wise for Europe. It’s foolish for the United States to be promoting war in Ukraine; it’s even more foolish for the Europeans. They are going to face real crossroads, and I fear the rise of radical political parties in Europe will create an even more difficult situation.
So that’s another reason I dedicated Boiling Point to the people of Ukraine; it’s my sympathy for them as victims of a great-power rivalry they don’t want anything to do with.
JPR: What was one of the biggest revelations you had while writing and researching for the book?
SK: The biggest revelation, by far, was my realization of how completely American foreign policy toward Russia and Eastern Europe has been shaped by officials with family backgrounds in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. We had [former] Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. We had [former] National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. We had a [former] ambassador to NATO, Victoria Nuland. There’s a whole list of these [names] in my book.
So, what you had was a group of children and grandchildren of emigres from Eastern Europe and what became the Soviet Union. These people grew up with bitter, anti-Russian hatred, and that’s quite understandable, frankly, when you look at the history of what Russia has done to those countries. But when those grandchildren and children of emigres decided they wanted to affect American politics and foreign policy, they found themselves unwelcome in the Republican Party, which was then not interested in ideological crusades. So, they became Democrats. And all these people filled the Biden administration, the Obama administration, and the Clinton administration. It’s the only example in the entire history of American foreign policy where all major policies toward one part of the world were shaped by people with family background in that region. They turned the United States into the instrument of their vengeance against Russia, and thereby greatly distorted American foreign policy.
Those diplomats were quite capable. They should have been made ambassador to Brazil, or assistant secretary of state for Asia or something like that. But to place them in these positions where they were able to wreak havoc against Russia in accordance with the long instincts that had been bred into them from childhood is unique, and it greatly distorted American foreign policy. That was really the greatest single revelation I had.
JPR: And that’s a dynamic we really don’t see regarding China and Taiwan.
SK: Absolutely. You don’t see Chinese, let’s say, the children of Chinese immigrants, or the grandchildren, trying to get into the State Department so they can shape the US policy toward China. That would be the equivalent, but that has never happened in US policy toward any other part of the world, and it’s the piece of the story that I don’t think has been told, and I hope it’s one of the pieces of Boiling Point that turns out to be a major revelation and point of discussion.
JPR: With much of Ukraine’s industrial base, energy infrastructure, and population severely diminished by the war and emigration, what realistic prospects does the country have for rebuilding?
SK: Rebuilding prospects are very difficult to imagine. First of all, you have to have an end to active fighting. Now, in the Russian-speaking regions, there’s been a tremendous amount of destruction. But if you look at what Russia did in Chechnya, where the capital city essentially was completely destroyed, you get the idea that they do know how to rebuild things, because Grozny is now a thriving city. What about the rest of Ukraine, the western part? I think Ukrainians would be very justified in turning to the Europeans and saying, “You’re the ones who pushed us into this war; how about helping us resolve some of the damage?”
JPR: Finally, is this the end of NATO expansion, or is there room in the Balkans for more?
SK: I don’t believe there’s gonna be any expansion of NATO anytime soon. But what I would really like is that since everybody in Washington realizes this, they would say it. Instead, they try to keep it vague to pressure Russia. Announcing that would be a way to lower global tensions, but in some circles that is seen as a concession to Russia, and maintaining tensions is actually thought to be in our interest. I don’t believe that’s true, and until that mindset fades, it’s difficult to see a prosperous future for Ukraine.
