Many people on the left are looking at the confrontation between the U.S. and Russia over the status of Ukraine through the lens of the Cold War. But I wonder if this is the only frame that we should employ? Don’t we have to complicate this framing? I believe so.

Putin is more than a reactive and defensive actor in the present circumstances and generally speaking. By his words and actions, he is an anti-democratic, ruthless autocrat who crushes demoracy at home and aggressively interferes in the internal life of other countries (as we know) beyond Russia’s border. He possesses imperial ambitions to restore some version of the Old Russian empire or the former Soviet Union. At the center of both visions is the absorption of Ukraine.

These facts don’t lend any legitimacy to the expansion of Nato eastward at the end of the Cold War, as the U.S. government continues to do.. But it should inform our understanding of the present crisis. The violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty by Putin’s recognition of the independence of the separatist territories in Eastern Ukraine and the introduction of Russian troops to that area is an act of aggression and a violation of international norms. It’s misguided, illegal, and exceedingly dangerous, an attempt to resolve a complicated situation by military means.

What is more, these actions by Putin could well be the opening salvo, depending on how the international community reacts, to further aggression, to scaling up the invasion to the rest of Ukraine. Such an action would carry with it death and destruction on a barely comprehensible scale. Finally, like any war, it would run the danger of triggering a far wider war, including the danger of the use of nuclear weapons. And that would be catastrophic.

Restraint, de-escalation, and negotiation on all sides is the order of the day.

If anyone is a practioner of identity politics, it is Trump, Fox News, and the far flung media ecosystem of racist authoritarianism. As they tell it, “our” national identity – white, Christian, ethno nationalist, masculinist, straight, hard working, patriotic, etc. is under assault from the left, liberals, “fake news,” coastal elites, feminists, gay and transgender people, and, above all, people of color who, to their great fear, will soon be a governing majority.

This anti-democratic and false framing of our national identity can’t be ceded to the athortitarian right. We have to tell a different story of our country and its history. Not in a vacuum though.

But in the context of a bitterly contested election campaign where the coalition that defeated Trump and the Republican Party two years ago must shine a light once again on the impending danger of an anti-democratic, fascist like takeover, while making a case for robust, multi-racial democracy and economic and social policies – not least the unfinished domestic agenda of the Biden administration – that make a felt difference in people’s lives. And all this while articulating a compelling and egalitarian story of “America” to tens of millions.

Watching NBA All Star pregame where the top 75 players of all time are being honored. I’m old enough to have watched every one of them. Impossible not to be moved. The NBA has always occupied a special space in my life and brought me great joy. Still does!

Watching the NBA all star game tonight reminds me that the NBA culture – as well as the WNBA – have no equivalent in major sports.

I had to roll my eyes when I read David Leonhardt’s “Morning” in the New York Times last week.

“Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine,” he wrote, “has added a layer to the relationship between Moscow and Beijing. The threat reflects Putin’s view — which Xi shares — that a powerful country should be able to impose its will within its declared sphere of influence. The country should even be able to topple a weaker nearby government without the world interfering. Beside Ukraine, of course, another potential example is Taiwan.”

Nowhere in the rest of the column does Leonhardt mention that the U.S. insisted on the same right nearly two centuries ago. The Monroe Doctrine, named after President James Monroe, staked out the Americas as the sphere of influence of the U.S. It warned the colonial powers of Europe that they were no longer welcome there. It was “our backyard,” not theirs.

Moreover, this doctrine quickly became the political-legal architecture, legitimizing U.S. military intervention in the internal affairs of countries in Central and South America, if our “national interests” required it. Not surprisingly, more than a few presidents exercised that “right” in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

But the story doesn’t end here.

Out of the unimaginable death and destruction of WWII, the U.S. emerged as the preeminent power in the world. And in that position, it quickly declared itself the leader of the “free world – its new sphere of influence – and ascribed to itself the right to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries anywhere in the world.

Which it proceeded to do countless times, nearly always in the name of “freedom and democracy” and “fighting communism.” But it wasn’t always successful in its mission. More than once the interventionist (and counterrevolutionary) plans of the White House, Pentagon, and CIA ran up against popular movements demanding their right to choose their own path of development.

We saw this in Cuba, where a U.S. military invasion in 1962 was repelled by the new government led by Fidel Castro. A few years later the Vietnamese people led by Ho Chi Minh in a bitter and costly war vanquished the U.S. military machine and won what was most precious to them – their national independence. And then there was Operation Iraqi Freedom decades later that was met with massive resistence, sacrificed the blood and treasure of people on all sides, and left Iraq and that region of the world unstable and, at times, chaotic.

Leonhardt is a smart guy and surely knows this sorry and bloody history, not to mention the decision of successive administrations in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union to extend NATO eastward to the borders of Russia. But that doesn’t prevent him from writing as if Putin’s and Xi’s insistence on their own sphere of influence represents something without precedent, an entirely new page in world politics.

Now I’m not suggesting that Russia or China have any more right to a sphere of influence (which by their nature circumscribe the sovereignty and independence of other states) than the U.S. does. Nor am I unaware that Putin is an autocrat who has imperial ambitions of his own. But it doesn’t follow that Russia and China have no legitimate national security interests in their respective regions of the world. To dismiss them, as U.S. policy makers – and successive administrations – have, is egregiously irresponsible. It endangers world peace, as we are seeing.

To defuse the present standoff, I’m not expecting Biden to announce the pullback of NATO to its 1991 borders. Such a retreat, even if he were so inclined – and he isn’t, would be, in his mind, politically suicidal for him as well as Congressional Democrats up for election this fall. Is there any doubt that it would be seized upon and exploited by Republicans and the whole Trumpist movement in the same way that the pullout from Afghanistan was?

I believe that the intermediation of the UN at this moment is unrealistic too.

So what is the way out of this dangerous confrontation that, if not peaceably resolved, could have unintended and catastrophic consequences for tens of millions?

It lies in the hands of Biden and Putin. If they are imaginative and sober minded they can find ways to defuse the present situation and retreat from their present positions in such a way that both sides can declare victory.

Facilitating such an outcome, even if it is late, should be what is presently missing – an aroused people and elected representatives in both countries, insisting on a resolution that protects the territorial and political integrity of Ukraine, while demoblizing troops on all sides and acknowledging the legitimate security concerns of Russia.

In the meantime, each of us should let President Biden and Congress know that war is unacceptable and unnecessary.