The war in Ukraine is about Russian mythology — the notion of reuniting two peoples with a long, viscerally complicated relationship going back centuries — and outdated ideas about spheres of influence.
It could be about empire building, or rebuilding, depending on how you want to interpret your history and what text you use as a guide to explain Moscow’s attempt to subjugate an independent nation of 44 million souls.
And that may very well be.
There is, however, a cold, hard, underappreciated calculation, one that — depending upon how the war ends — has the potential to secure either Ukraine or
