On The West and it’s Vision

“A world without Russia is not a world worth living in”

“From Lisbon to Vladivostok”

These are phrases that have been stated by Russian propagandists and senior officials alike. Behind these and similar statements lies a view of the world that drives Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. For them this war is existential. Their current stated demands for control of Donbas and Crimea, in their minds, must be met or the war will continue. The instrumentalized fear that Europe will one day send armies marching eastward drives these demands. For better or worse Russia views itself as an oppositional civilization to Western Europe, a separate pole resisting liberal democracy’s expansion. If their demands for control over the currently contested areas are met, it is without doubt that we will again find ourselves in this same situation, as the same pretext used to excuse the initiation of this war exists in other places in Finland, Poland, the Baltics, and Moldova’s Transnistria, just as they have done in Chechnya and Georgia. It is a pattern of continual escalation used to rebuild the borders of the Soviet Union.

So what about Western Leadership? What does this conflict mean for Europe? For years what can only be called naïveté has kicked the can down the road to the point we’ve reached now, where Russia acts with China’s investment and support. The conflict is seemingly too big to fail for that alliance. However, the Western response to Russia’s worldview seems to be “A world without peace is not a world worth living in.” This view serves the West fine in terms of intervening in human rights violations abroad, a noble cause, yes. But it does not posit a vision.

The problem isn’t that Western leaders lack values, it’s that they lack a compelling counter-vision to Russia’s imperial project. “Rules-based international order” is a framework, not an animating principle. “Sovereignty and territorial integrity” describes what we’re defending, not why it matters. When asked why Ukrainian independence matters, Western leaders cite international law and the UN Charter. Russia answers the same question with ‘Because Ukraine is Russia.’ One is a legal argument. The other is an identity claim. Legal arguments don’t inspire sacrifice.

Russia offers its sphere a narrative: restoration of historical greatness, resistance to Western decadence, a civilizational mission. The West offers Ukraine… what? Eventual EU/NATO membership, maybe? The promise of democracy and prosperity rings hollow when those promises come with the caveat that we won’t actually fight to defend them. Until Western leadership can articulate what they’re for—not just what they’re against—with the same clarity and conviction that Russia articulates its imperial ambitions, the transatlantic alliance will continue negotiating from a position of moral authority but strategic confusion.