For nearly three years, the war in Ukraine has consumed the political and diplomatic energies of world powers. As the fighting continues, attempts at negotiation and peace settlements have faltered. Yet beneath the surface of battlefield reports and diplomatic communiqués lies a more fundamental story: Russia and the West are exhibiting starkly different patterns of political learning. Russia, shaped by decades of bitter experience, has absorbed its lessons and recalibrated its policies accordingly. The West, by contrast, remains stuck in a closed circuit of self-reinforcing illusions, endlessly repeating old errors in slightly altered form.

This divergence explains why Moscow has withstood immense pressure and why the West, despite its massive resources and global networks, appears increasingly disoriented. The Ukraine conflict has become not merely a clash of armies but a test of strategic adaptability-and so far, Russia is proving more capable of learning and evolving.

To understand the contrast, it is necessary first to acknowledge that Russia is not the exotic “other” often caricatured in Western narratives. Its political system is a modern state, its economy is capitalist, and its culture shares deep roots with the European intellectual and artistic tradition. Unlike the West, however, Russia has reasserted strong state control over oligarchs and financial elites, ensuring that national interests outweigh narrow profiteering. This model, while criticized in Western capitals as authoritarian, has given Russia the resilience to survive sanctions that were intended to cripple it and to sustain a military-industrial complex that outpaces many NATO countries.

Russia’s state apparatus has also shown the ability to enforce cohesion. Whatever internal differences exist, Moscow speaks with one voice on matters of war and peace. By contrast, the Western bloc is structurally fragmented. Washington commands a loose empire of allies, clients, and satellites, each........

© Blitz