Putin is right - the existing world order is no more

So, here we are. At a point of no return. 

Even the slimmest hope of a peace treaty that would restore the pre-invasion status quo was irreversibly killed off yesterday. About 15% of Ukraine is now (within the Russian legal universe) part of Russia and according to the Russian constitution, it can never agree with anyone on giving it up. 

Either we accept and learn to live with this land grab (which would only encourage further expansion and aggression) or Russia is pushed back to the point where its constitutional order falls apart. In any case, one thing is certain (given Russia's veto power at the UN Security Council) - the post-WWII world order is no more.

Many people are surprised that we have come thus far. Many of us are still willing to dismiss the threats and continue our business as usual, preparing powerpoint presentations, procrastinating with funny cat videos. But if you've had the joy to follow the public discourse in Russia, the current juncture should not come as a surprise.

If we are to understand what might happen next, I do believe that it would be to our advantage to start taking Putin seriously.

If we do not understand what is going on with Russia and are being taken by surprise all the time with how it rolls, it is high time to change the analytical frame with which we approach it. Even today (e.g. on the otherwise excellent Economist podcast The Intelligence), commentators dismissed Putin's yesterday speech as a bluff, aimed to scare the West into submission, which sets the stage for more surprises as we go forward. 

In our liberal democracies, we have learned not to take the words of politicians at face value. The politicians would say anything to further their popularity. In the end, no matter what they say, they do what their support base wants, which as a rule does not involve mass suicide. But Russia is not a liberal democracy.

Analyzing the situation through the lens of our own worldview is leading us astray. We need to take a broader view and see what the other side is saying, through its own analytical frame. 

When the world's largest landmass is pointing the world's largest nuclear arsenal at you, saying that it is fighting an existential war with you, you should start paying attention to what it has been saying all along for years. 

This is not a regional conflict. It is not a war over resources, trade routes, minority rights, or what have you. This is a war to overturn the existing world order, at any cost. 

This is a war between two different worldviews, two different ideologies, two different epistemologies that can no longer coexist peacefully.

In the Western corner, we have the liberal approach that has largely shaped the post-WWII world order (since 1945 in the West and since the early 1990s worldwide). It is supposed to be a rules-based system. Equality before the law. The analytical unit is the individual. The individuals' rights, wants, preferences, votes are the source of power, right, and goodness for the collective. This is supposed to hold for individuals, but also for states that are supposed to follow the UN charter and abide by the decisions of supranational bodies of law. The aim is to have an integrated world economy, with a free flow of goods and resources, which maximises economic growth and material prosperity and smooths over historical grudges. Individuality, experimentation, diversity are desirable, as they are conducive to happiness, generate innovation, drive technological change, and further social progress. Social safety nets, free and engaged civil society, independent judicial system and independent authorities, checks and balances, are in place to smooth inequalities, enable social mobility and ensure cohesion in the system. At the epistemological level, knowledge is acquired by having various hypotheses compete to fit better with facts, established through collectively accepted rules and procedures. 

In the Eurasian/fascist/communist/totalitarian corner, the fundamental analytical unit is the collective. The individuals are shaped by and within the collective to which they belong, through the collective's traditions and customs. The ultimate goal of each collective is to persevere against other encroaching collectives. For the collective to survive, it has to fight to preserve its identity and customs. Governance modes and authority draw from the collective's history. Great leaders have shaped history by imposing their strong will to expand the collective. A great leader is not guided by people's whims - he secures people's support for his aims by all means he has in his disposal. Happiness is a secondary, variable outcome that comes from congruence with the collective will, which is primary and fixed. Social outcomes come through a power struggle of collectives. The stronger will wins. Rules are written by the winners to suppress the losers. Equality, happiness, justice, sustainability, SDGs, CRS, ESG, LGBTQ+ etc. are buzzwords and buzz acronyms of Western elites that are used to suppress the masses. Individuality, diversity, experimentation are suppressed, as they undermine authority, blur the collective's identity, and threaten its chances for survival. At the epistemological level, truth is established by authority alone. Within a liberal society, it is possible to have illiberal worldviews, but the opposite does not hold. 

So, with this in mind, what can we expect to happen next? One thing is certain - we cannot go back to the pre-2022 world of an integrated global economy and institutions, without a change in Russia's constitutional order. 

One of the two competing worldviews has to prevail. Either Russia loses and liberal order is restored (hopefully in a more coherent version, without a hegemon, with working institutions and significantly less hypocracy) or we plunge into a multipolar world of competing great powers. In the second case, the fate of Europe or at least many of its nations is far from certain. The path to any of these outcomes may involve the use of nuclear weapons, or it may not. Only time can tell.

Before going back to presentations and funny cat videos, I leave you with a quote from a Russian history podcast that I heard a few weeks back - the death of Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth II marked the end of the 20th century, while the death of Putin will mark the end of the 19th century.

Further reading: Putin: "The End of Western Hegemony is INEVITABLE"  

And here is an account with great funny cat (and other animal) videos: https://twitter.com/buitengebieden