This lesson examines the crisis in Ukraine. First, students hold a brief discussion on what they think
is the most important news story going on. Then they read and discuss a background piece on the
crisis in Ukraine. Next, in small groups, they role play international lawyers and analyze Ukraine’s
1994 Budapest Memorandum, an agreement among Ukraine, Russia, the U.S., and the U.K.
“There are two kinds of people along the border, people who fight every day along the creeping border and people who have lost everything,” said Ms. Robakidze, who grew up in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and documented the crisis in “Creeping Borders,” a new project. “Overnight, you can find out your land or your house is now in occupied territory.”
What is the ideal approach for a nation confronting its historical crimes? In dealing with historical guilt, are nations better off working to become “normal,” or should they strive to be “exceptional”?
But is there a way out of this impasse? We will argue that the only way to make peace with a bloody history is through exceptionalism—reckoning with what is exceptional in your own country’s story, and finding, too, a distinct and homegrown way to face up to the truth and its consequences. Those consequences, and their lessons, will after all be different for different peoples.
The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin
U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting
to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now
that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater
mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.
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