With a massive invasion of Ukraine one year ago this week, on February 24, 2022, Russia pushed its increasingly strained, sanction-riddled relations with the United States to the breaking point.

Launching a new five-part series, Conflict and Crisis, the Library and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College examine those tensions and the costly, globally fraught war in Ukraine now intensifying them. An interdisciplinary panel of military experts puts the fighting in the former Soviet republic into historical perspective, discusses the road to conflict, and examines its ramifications for Russia, for Ukraine, and for the U.S. and its NATO allies.

Joining the discussion and extended question-and-answer session are:

• Sean N. Kalic, a Cold War historian and professor in the Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He is the author of The Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War: An Essential Reference and Spies: The U.S. And Russian Espionage from the Cold War to the 21^st Century.
• Merrill Walker, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Europe/Eurasian foreign area officer serving as an instructor at the Command and General Staff College’s Department of Joint, Interagency, Multinational Operations. He previously served as the assistant Army attaché to Hungary from 2016-2000 and will become the Army attaché to Finland in late 2023.
• Mark Wilcox, a retired Army intelligence and foreign area officer who’s now an associate professor in the Command and General Staff College’s Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operation. His 25 years of active duty included tactical and strategic-level counterintelligence assignments, as well as politico-military posts and diplomatic assignments.

The Conflict and Crisis series looks at the chief sources of international stress for the U.S. today. Subsequent installments will focus on China, North Korea, Iran, and the world’s violent extremist organizations.