I’ve uploaded the draft pre-publication versions of my territorial taboo paper, and my response to the critical commentaries on it on Research Gate and Academia.

Also, here’s a link to an interview I did with Virginia Tech news on our latest Ukraine survey findings.

It was interesting to listen Monday on Zoom to a discussion of the topic of ‘land for peace?’ at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence Italy, and to participate a little. The two points I made were:

1. The territorial taboo is weak and perhaps more so that ever before in the case of Ukraine. A series of factors are conspiring to force Ukraine into negotiations where it will have to reluctantly concede to a ‘frozen conflict’ scenario.
2. That may be an optimistic scenario, however, because there is little indication that Russia is willing to settle right now, especially when it is gaining ground daily on the battlefield.
3. And the one I didn’t have time for: the US election will be decisive in shaping the fate of Ukraine in the immediate term but no matter who wins there are a series of factors that are undermining Ukraine’s ability to sustain its warfighting capacity.

Coming soon: the long delayed Donbas survey data paper & an article on the English language genealogy of the meanings of geopolitics in the English language, both, by coincidence, in the journal Geopolitics.