Russia and The Grand Narrative

Or how the power of story is why the West doesn’t understand Russia

It has been nearly a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. Over the past year, we have learned to stop calling it, “the Ukraine” and we have changed our pronunciation of Kyiv from “key-ev” to “keev.” This has been the largest land war in Europe since World War II (although it should be noted that when I said this over the summer, someone remarked that the collapse of Yugoslavia was a European war). This is a war that the West has feared for years, but as it turns out, Western fears were exaggerated. No one knew how bad the Russian military was or how the equipment was faulty and poorly maintained.

How did we get here? Why did Putin decide to make every Western fear come true?

War Game: Russia Invades Ukraine

One of the biggest threats to European security, especially before the end of the Cold War, was Soviet armored tanks driving across Warsaw Pact countries and into Europe. After the end of the Cold War, a new buffer zone appeared to protect the West from this threat. Some of these nations like Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland would join NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and hold the line against the Russian Federation should they ever become aggressive. For the former…