With Russian forces invading Ukraine, AEI's scholars are making the case for a strong strategic response to President Vladimir Putin's dangerous aggression.

Frederick W. Kagan explains that "Vladimir Putin has fundamentally altered the world as we have known it since the end of the Cold War." Putin's intentions are clear, Kagan argues, and they include returning Russian influence to its Soviet peak. Kagan offers a set of policies to address this threat, including redeploying forces to Europe that can immediately counter future Russian acts against NATO.

Danielle Pletka challenges the pundits and policymakers who ignore America's post–World War II status as the world's lone "benign revisionist power." She writes, "Here's the rub for all those modern-day Charles Lindberghs: War is deterred and often avoided when revolutionary, revisionist America is abroad."

Unfortunately, as Gary J. Schmitt argues, America's ability to deter adventurist powers has been hampered by the failure of successive presidents to increase military hard power. Schmitt suggests that for all of President Joe Biden's talk about matching Franklin D. Roosevelt's agenda, he should instead follow the example of Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman, who rebuilt the US military and adopted a coherent foreign policy to reverse America's strategic decline.

How might other national leaders respond to Putin's actions? Dan Blumenthal warns that China could easily adapt Russia's Ukraine playbook to its own ambitions against Taiwan. "Taiwan's diplomatic isolation makes it uniquely susceptible to a Russia-like campaign of intimidation and coercion," he writes. Fortunately, Blumenthal sees steps the US can take to cooperate with Taiwan in developing a coherent strategy against Beijing's aggression.

Michael R. Strain foresees that America will face immediate and lasting economic consequences from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to Strain, these consequences show that, contrary to some nationalists' claims, events in Europe can have a profound effect on the prosperity and stability that Americans enjoy.

Moving away from the war in Ukraine, Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey argue that the task of elite higher education in a democracy "is the education of a wiser, more honest, and more competent elite — an elite that feels less guilty about its privileges, because it is worthy of them." You can watch the Storeys' recent interview with Roosevelt Montás, author of "Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation" (Princeton University Press, 2021), here.