Peter Lavelle — The West Will Never Defeat Russia – Here’s Why And It Will Surprise You

The mistake is that the American view of liberalism is natural and given the chance all humans will spontaneously adopt it. 

This mistake was reflected in the naïve belief that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would automatically result in US-style democracy being adopted in Iraq after Saddam's Baath Party was disbanded. It was of course a pipe dream.

This view is a subset of the Western view that Anglo-American and Continental civilization is exceptional and has a right to rule, and, moreover, it is the "burden" of the West to bring the benefits of this civilization to the rest of the world regardless of whether they want. The assumption is that don't know better and will be grateful afterwards.

Other cultures see it as an ideology that spawned imperialism and colonialism, which has morphed in to neo-imperialsim and neocolonialism under neoliberal globalization.

Like sunrises and sunsets everyday, there is never an end to the predictions of Russia’s demise. The west cannot contempt the very thought any part of the world – humanity itself – could willfully and consciously refuse to emulate its superior civilizational mission. Messianic worldviews cannot accept exceptions and anomalies. To a large degree this explains the west’s destructive obsession with Russia. This is a grave mistake and we are witnessing the consequences of this error.

Russia has its own long history and civilizational awareness, be they a hybrid of many temporal experiences. That history and civilization form the bedrock of an identity. For most Russians identity exists in the realm of the sacred. In the west national identify is deemed as an idea that is backward looking and archaic. National identity must be replaced with a civic definition of the person. Culture is consigned to the dustbin of history. Not so in today’s Russia – as anyone who is aware of the disastrous impact of western-driven globalization.

The failed Soviet experiment assaulted the Russian identity with horrific glee. Nazi invaders attempted complete destruction of it. Russian liberals of today are dismissive and loathsome of their Russian identity, admonishing their people to blindly copy their western betters. Western elites are contemptuous of any state and national expression not in compliance with their self-defined “will of history.”

All these catastrophes and threats only refined an elemental characteristic of the Russians – “we will survive.”

In the west Russia is described as the loser in the Cold War. Most Russians don’t see it that way. Did the Soviet Union lose in that ideological conflict with the west? The answer is “yes.” But that is the wrong question to ask and irrelevant today. The right question to ask is the following: Do the Russian people believe they were defeated by the west? The answer in the case is ”no.” Russia as a civilization and a very board cultural expressions were not defeated, actually both were liberated. This is something the west refuses to understand – even conceive as possible.

The west’s fundamental misunderstanding of Russia is its conception that ideology will always trump culture. The Russians see this assumption in reverse – culture will always and should trump ideology. Thinking in this way assures they survive in a very hostile world.…

The Duran
The West Will Never Defeat Russia – Here’s Why And It Will Surprise You
Peter Lavelle