On Metaphysics of Russian-Ukrainian War

Nikita Zhiltsov

Many commentators on the Russian-Ukrainian war scratch the surface, trivializing its roots by misrepresenting it as a local conflict motivated by historical reasons. At the same time, it is crucial to realize the full context, i.e., the true intentions of all the involved sides, and, in a way, the metaphysics of the tragedy we are observing in real-time. Moreover, even if we advocate none of those views, taking them seriously as seemingly shared by the conflict stakeholders is crucial to foresee plausible scenarios. I’d also like to emphasize that this text is by no means a justification for the Russian invasion and especially the atrocities we witnessed so far.

West

The Russian-Ukrainian war can be reflected from the angles of three long-debating conceptions in political science about the world order, incarnated in Francis Fukuyama’s thesis about End of History [1], Samuel Huntington’s view on the world order as Clash of Civilizations [2], and John Mearsheimer’s offensive (structural) realism [3]. In somewhat modern terms, there is a battle of the ideals of liberalism and globalism, performed by the West, i.e., the US and their allies, against the real politics of cultural civilizations, i.e., Chinese (Sinic), Russian (Orthodox), and Islamic. In 1989, the victory of Western liberal democracy as the universal final form of governance seemed evident: the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapsing Soviet Union, westernizing Japan as well as South Korea, China, embracing a liberal economy and becoming a strategic trade partner of the US, and deteriorating interest in competitive ideologies, such as communism, in the western society itself. Since then, the order has been challenged by authoritarian regimes and vigorous Islamic radicals, which led to military conflicts in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and Syria. Despite this, the adoption of ideas of democracy, liberalism, and globalism proliferated due to the booming Internet industry, especially companies based in Silicon Valley, from where I am writing these notes.

Russia

As opposed to this global trend, the emerging Russian democracy has swiftly backslid into authoritarianism in the early 00s and, nowadays, with traits of totalitarianism. Democracy and liberalism, taken for granted, were easily surrendered because of the banal poverty and defiant crime, causing frustration, vulnerability, and a desire for a strong hand, fulfilled in Vladimir Putin and his ex-KGB entourage. At the same time, the integration into the global economy was successful in many areas. Not speaking about the elite integration, often made through corruption and other suspicious ties going around the anti-money laundering laws in Europe and the US. Nonetheless, the cultural integration remained fragmented: Russia experienced drastic social degradation and the collapse of the Soviet education system (its STEM disciplines used to be at least 2nd in the world; while humanities have never been fully developed and free from ideology).

Even worse, the thirst for retaliation as well as ressentiment of the failed civilization with a cultural military tradition have been both abused by the elite and gradually fostered by its blatant propaganda. On the surface, the ideology of modern Russia is extremely anti-liberal, étatist, hostile, antagonistic to the West, and seeking its identity in an eclectic mix of imperialism, Orthodox Christian messianism, leftist proclamations, and past military victories. The meta-layer of this ideology is being served by some influential thinkers, such as A. Dugin [4], who, among other things, frivolously interprets F. Nietzsche’s and M. Heidegger’s philosophies, trying to prove the existence of Russian Dasein [5], i.e., the experience of being that is peculiar to the Russians. In reality, Russia’s political system is neo-feudalism, leveraging corruption as the backbone and depreciating the value of human life. The population growth trend is declining. Its unbalanced natural resource-based state-owned economy has begun to wither even before the Crimea annexation in 2014 and the applied sanctions.

In cultural aspects, figuratively speaking, Russia is a country of prevailing post-modernism. The lie, or, following J. Baudrillard [6], pure simulacra are pervasive and indistinguishable from reality. “Potemkin villages”, a concept behind the historical facts of erecting fake portable settlements in Crimea to impress the Russian Empress in the XVIII century, have never gone. Moreover, the Russian power branch (“siloviki”) attempts to stop thoughtful accountable people from distinguishing between simulation and reality. Thus, an art performance, a social media post, or a paper cup being thrown at a police officer (“simulation”) may end up with a real ramification (“reality”), such as actual long-term imprisonment. The propaganda pairs this treatment with nurturing the learned helplessness syndrome, explaining that the safest option for the disgruntled is to stay at home. To philistines, the propaganda sells external military successes since the Russo-Georgian War in 2008 or, even earlier, the resolution of internal conflicts since the second Chechen War, playing on their quasi-patriotic strings. The propaganda is tech-savvy and equipped not only with a plain old TV but also present on the Internet: censored Internet content, state-owned Internet companies, farms of online trolls for agenda setting and defamation, etc. That is the reality of the infamous “Russian mir” (a bitter pun: in Russian, “mir” is ambiguous between “world” and “peace”), enforced by Putin’s Russia.

China

The liberal political determinism did not work out for economically raising China either. In 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping, a nominee from the nationalistic military wing, replaced Hu Jintao, a long-time leader of the Communist Youth League circles, traditionally having close ties to the US Democratic Party. Later on, he consolidates his power and declares a change of the main course, openly confronting the US with the multi-polar world alternative. Thus, the Chinese government gradually gains more control over the economy and rigorously pursues its foreign policy course, named One Belt, One Road, making their continental and Southeast Asian partners gravitate toward China through mutual trade interests and the circulation of the yuan, the Chinese currency. Chinese ressentiment towards the West and its allies in the region is also present due to historically distant, but memorable periods, such as the Opium Wars and WWII.

Authoritarianism Strikes Back

Authoritarianism is what both the antagonists of the West have in common. The role of the elites in authoritarian regimes is exceptional. The policy choice is inherently elitist. The influence and, therefore, the responsibility of the whole nation in such regimes, even though they may represent enormous civilizations, are very limited and different from those in democratic countries. Reserved attitudes toward those in power are often driven by cultural characteristics. Another consideration is that a cultural civilization is much broader than a nation. The Chinese civilization includes a variety of sub-ethnicities, speaking their language dialects, spread geographically across the Mainland and Southeast Asia. Russia is an even more prominent patchwork quilt of ethnicities: Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, and others. On the other hand, the geographical distribution of Russian language speakers includes the ex-USSR countries. A language is a powerful tool of soft influence. The leaders of cross-border civilizations are tempted to think over borders, drawing red lines and controlling the spheres of influence. The US is no exception, as having Monroe’s doctrine, which original principle is still relevant today.

The expansion of NATO, a seemingly defensive move for Eastern European countries, may serve as a double edge sword, provoking Russia, no matter Putin’s or more democratic Eltsin’s. Moreover, in February 2022, Moscow and Beijing have publicly declared their opposition to further enlargement of NATO [7] and the formation of other regional security alliances, while deepening their military ties. This fact, however, should not be misinterpreted as an alliance of two equal forces. Unlike Russia, China has a gigantic population, economy, army, and, more importantly, a solid foundation in the realm of modern science, high-tech, and AI. Coupled with digital currency plans, it offers a clear prospect of building a full-fledged cybertyranny. The Chinese leaders look assertive, confident that the future belongs to them. Following V. Suvorov’s analogy about Stalin and Hitler in WWII, Putin rather plays the role of Xi’s icebreaker, probing the Western reaction to a potential military invasion of Taiwan.

Ukraine

Ukraine is a relatively young democratic country with close ties to Russia. Along with the Ukrainians, which is an undoubtedly separate national identity (East Slavic group as the Russians), it has a significant fraction of ethnic Russians and Russian-language speakers. According to Huntington, Ukraine lies on a fault line between the West and Russia. As claimed by the Russian state propaganda, Ukraine is “anti-Russia”. Cannot agree with that more, Ukraine is truly anti- Putin’s Russia in a good way. While suffering from corruption, oligarchy, and, last but not least, state-level interference from its powerful neighbor, leading to hindered economic development and relative poverty, the Ukrainian nation made its historical choice of European integration, i.e., choosing the Western values, and managed to stand up for it in 2004 (Maidan), 2014 (Euromaidan, Revolution of Dignity), and 2022 (War against Russia).

Having the alignment of forces defined, conveniently using the insights of Fukuyama and Huntington, we move on to the theses of J. Mearsheimer. First, the world order is about possibilities: mighty states want as much power as they can get regardless of moral aspects. It resonates well with the famous Bismarck’s quote: politics is the art of the possible. The world is particularly conflict-prone when a multi-polar world arises, especially if the balance of power becomes unstable. Unlike Huntington, Mearsheimer correctly predicted the violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine and, in 1993 (!), stated an argument why Ukraine should keep nuclear weapons to deter future Russian aggression [8]. Without the deterrence capability and in the presence of the open intention of the West to avoid a direct military conflict with Russia, Ukraine remains in a vulnerable position. From Mearsheimer’s perspective, Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 is a victim of the clash of those geopolitical forces [9].

Arguing Mearsheimer and echoing some independent Russian analysts, I tend to think that not even the reckless expansion of NATO pulled a trigger. Rather, the announced integration with European Union did that, because a thriving Ukraine would be fatal for the current regime in Russia. Again, while recognizing the rightness of the Ukrainians and whole-heartedly admiring their firm determination to pursue the choice of liberty, one has to admit that their full-scale conflict with Putin’s Russia in these circumstances was the writing on the wall. So, it was up to the Ukrainian elite to decide in which form they would be willing to face it. Left with extremely limited Western support, they prefer to fight rather than give up their sovereignty. The unequivocal support of ordinary people in Ukraine, suffering, and bleeding, convinces us that the elite made the right choice. As it was said in “Brother 2”, a popular Russian movie in the late 90s, power lies in the truth. And in human values, I would add. The truth is on the Ukrainian side. May the humanism and liberalism of Montesquieu and Kant win up at least for a while. While it won’t be the end of history, anyway, quoting the recent Fukuyama’s article [10], “the spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.”

  • [1] F. Fukuyama. The End of History and the Last Man (1992)
  • [2] S. Huntington. Clash of Civilizations (1996)
  • [3] J. Mearsheimer. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001)
  • [4] A. Dugin. Unfulfilled End of History and Russia’s War against the Liberal World Order [in Russian] (2022) Link
  • [5] A. Dugin. Lecture 4 on Heidegger on Youtube
  • [6] J. Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation (1983)
  • [7] South China Morning Post: China blames US-led Nato for tensions on Russian border with Ukraine Link
  • [8] J. Mearsheimer. The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent (1993) Link
  • [9] J. Mearsheimer. John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis (2022) Link
  • [10] F. Fukuyama. Preparing for Defeat (2022) Link

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