, Columnist
In Every Modern War, Ukraine Has Been the Big Prize
The Eurasian heartland is the axis of what the great geographer Halford Mackinder called the “World-Island.”
World War II victory monument outside Kyiv.
Photographer: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images
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The biggest story of 2022 was the war in Ukraine, which put that country on the front lines of the great struggle of this century: the contest between democracy and authoritarianism. But if the war surprised many observers, the position in which Ukraine finds itself is remarkably familiar.
With only modest exaggeration, we could call the past 100 years or so the Ukrainian Century, for that country has figured centrally in every great global clash of the modern era.