Cascade Institute Speaker Series lecture: How global ideological competition drives Russia’s war in Ukraine

Since the start of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, analysts have expressed puzzlement at President Vladimir Putin’s actions. Even if ultimately able to achieve some kind of advantageous ceasefire, Russia has been substantially harmed by the war, with huge Russian casualties in the military campaign, progressively severe damage to the Russian economy, a growing Russian dependence on China, Iran, and North Korea, and the strengthening and expansion of NATO. In this talk, speaker Jonathan Leader Maynard will suggest that this puzzle is largely explained by the growing role of ideological competition in global politics in the 21st Century. Maynard stresses two key points: first, that ideological changes within Russia are key to understanding how Russia has come to perceive itself as increasingly threatened by external ideological forces; second, that Russia has further been emboldened by transnational ideological linkages between ultraconservatism in Russia and populist authoritarian trends in Europe and North America. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this actually makes ideological competition more destabilising in 21st Century politics than in the Cold War. These factors are crucial to explaining the difficulty of what would otherwise be a relatively simple task – containing Russia’s revisionist ambitions – and point to important broader fractures within the international system.