The Great Doctrinal Discord

The West has failed to understand Russia ever since the end of the Cold War. The reason, however, lies in the universalistic pretensions of the West’s worldview.

However, this moment of civilizational unilateralism was short-lived with the rise of several major powers—China, India, Brazil, etc. The early decades of the 21st century also saw the revival of Russia under President Vladimir Putin as a great power. However, the realist school of international politics argues that despite the presence of international institutions, nation-states are the most important actors, and because all countries lay emphasis on the need to enhance their national power for the purpose of bolstering their survival, it creates anarchy in the international political order, thereby contributing to showdowns among important powers.

In that context, offensive realists like John Mearsheimer argue that such anarchy leads to conflict, which eventually worsens. Something of this sort is currently playing out between the West and Russia.

However, it is essential to understand the fact that realism provides a surface-level description of this conflict. The actual roots of the conflict lie in the divergent worldviews of the two actors.

Pretensions of Liberal Internationalism

Liberal internationalism is a school of thought within liberalism that believes that nation-states are rational actors who know what’s best for them. They argue that institutions, rule of law, and norms play an important role in promoting such cooperation. A key plank of liberal institutionalism is the idea that the spread of democracy, albeit Western-style, would contribute to the universalization of peace and stability.

However, in the name of democracy promotion, the West has used and abused the idea of humanitarian intervention and, later on, the R2P, or Responsibility to Protect, principles. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, among others had to bear the brunt.

However, in Eurasia, Russia has been at the receiving end of this missionary goal of the West. As a part of their hybrid warfare playbook, the West has resorted to the use of sanctions, propping up of oppositional regimes in the neighborhood like Ukraine, and organizing color revolutions, among others, to undermine the very existence of Russia.

Civilizational Realism

But what the West doesn’t get is that its worldview isn’t as universal and legitimate as it seems. Samuel P. Huntington, the late American political scientist, in his work The Clash of Civilizations, argued that the West is accepted not because of the global acceptance of their ideas, but because they are adept in the use of coercion. However, Russia has been fighting back.

The roots of this fight back lie in its doctrine of civilizational realism. This is a doctrine that conceives of the world order not in terms of institutions, but in terms of civilizational entities. The doctrine is anchored in the principle of ‘live and let live,’ wherein the focus is on countries possessing their own unique ways of life cooperating with each other in order to not only ensure their own survival but also promote a civilizationally governed, rules-based world order.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Russia has been simply advocating this cause. Her rise is not directed at any party; Mother Russia is interested not only in the development of her people but also in ensuring that it can establish amicable relationships with other civilizations, most notably India and China.

However, in accordance with the meta-narrative of universalism spawned by liberal internationalism, the West is still trying to export its worldview and its way of life to other parts of the world, most notably Russia, but fails to understand three things—first, the culture wars it is facing from within is undermining its own existence; second, their elites are experiencing a moral and political decay in the eyes of their people thanks to startling revelations in the recently released Epstein files and third, other civilizations are carving out their own spheres of influence in order to oppose the West’s hegemony.

Pranay Kumar Shome, a research analyst who is a PhD candidate at Mahatma Gandhi Central University, Bihar, India

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