How Major Powers Misread The Regions They Attacked, Now They are in a Deadlocked
Early this year on the outskirts of Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, which has been bombed consistently.Credit... Russia and the United States projected their own centralized views onto Ukraine and Iran, analysts said. As a result, the smaller countries trapped larger ones in a costly confrontation. By Neil MacFarquhar New York Times President Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, both resist the idea that ostensibly weaker powers fought them to a stalemate, with the two leaders leaning on negotiations to win the capitulation that they failed to secure in battle. Iran and Ukraine have pushed back robustly against this “might makes right” mentality, with top officials adopting an even more defiant tone in recent days. In an open letter to Mr. Putin this month, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine derided Mr. Putin for clinging to power as he aged. “You did not expect full-scale resistance from Ukraine, and you did not foresee that things would go thi...
