EXPOSED: UK Professor Reveals Shocking Roots of Russophobia | Prof. Richard Sakwa

The conversation lays bare a powerful and unsettling claim: contemporary Russophobia is not merely a reaction to 20th-century communism or a product of Cold War ideology, but the expression of a deeper civilizational and geopolitical refusal embedded in the post‑1945 “political West.” The exchange traces how a Washington‑led, Atlanticist model of modernity became, over time, both a beacon and a boundary—offering universalist claims while simultaneously excluding a rival civilization that stubbornly resisted assimilation. What emerges is a complex account linking history, power politics, institutional dysfunction in the West, and the re‑militarization of Europe to the renewed partitioning of the international order. ## Power, Civilization, and Mearsheimer The discussion reorients the familiar realism debate by insisting that a full explanation of Western hostility toward Russia requires attention to both power dynamics and civilizational identities. On the one hand, the realist frame—exemplified by scholars like John Mearsheimer—remains indispensable: great‑power competition, security dilemmas, and balance‑of‑power calculations clearly shape behavior. Yet the conversation underscores a lacuna in strict offensive realism: by treating states as black boxes and subsuming internal culture under material calculations, such accounts miss why some powers are treated as acceptable partners and others as existential rivals. The interlocutor’s argument reframes Russia not simply as another great power but as a civilizational actor, carrying a distinct history, religious inheritance, and political culture that place it outside the comfortable boundaries of the political West. That civilizational charge matters because it makes Russia’s very difference threatening to a Western model that sought—especially after 1989–91—to present itself as universal. Where Mearsheimer explains intent and incentive, the civilizational lens explains exclusion: Russia’s sense of identity, its historical claim to autonomy, and its unwillingness to be fully subsumed make it difficult for a West invested in a single modernist story to absorb it. The result is a mix of balance‑of‑power rivalry and cultural anxiety—both are necessary to understand persistent Russophobia. ## NATO, EU, and Western Hostility A central claim of the exchange is that the architecture of post‑Cold War Europe—NATO and the European Union—acted less as neutral stabilizers and more as instruments that reconstituted Western identity through processes of inclusion and exclusion. The 1990s, when Russian leaders explicitly sought entry into European and transatlantic institutions, became a decisive turning point: rather than being integrated, Russia found itself progressively pushed to the margins. NATO enlargement, therefore, is not merely a security measure but a signal: the political West could accommodate new members only so long as they fit into a preexisting civilizational and strategic mold. This dynamic was compounded by the East European dimension. Former Soviet satellites, once free of Moscow’s direct control, carried with them bitter memories and domestic constituencies that viewed Russia as a continuing threat. Their accession to NATO and the EU amplified anti‑Russian narratives in Western capitals and provided political cover for policies that effectively “enlarged against Russia.” The conversation makes clear that these moves reproduced conflict where a different political settlement might have produced a pan‑Eurasian order. In that sense, contemporary hostility is as much the product of institutional choices and alliance politics as it is of historical prejudice. ## West in Crisis: State, Economy, Society The interview situates Russophobia within a broader crisis of the Western model. The political West has always contained two faces: a liberal, welfare‑oriented public goods face and an imperial, domination‑oriented face. The post‑war decades were defined by the former—state capacity, redistribution, and robust public institutions—but the neoliberal turn weakened that foundation. The result, as argued in the exchange, is a “void” in governance: hollowed‑out parties, fragmented representation, underfunded local services, and a financialized economy that privileges speculative returns over productive investment. This internal erosion matters for foreign policy. A state that has lost internal coherence is more likely to externalize its identity struggles, seeking a unifying enemy or mission. The rise of populist movements across Western Europe and the UK is read not simply as a reaction to migration or culture wars, but as a symptom of deeper economic and political dislocation. In this context, anti‑Russian sentiment can serve both as a moral shorthand and a political mobilizer: it provides a narrative of danger and purpose that masks the decline of domestic institutions. Thus, Russophobia is not only an external policy preference but an internal coping mechanism for Western states facing delegitimation. ## Militarization and New Cold War One of the sharper claims from the exchange is that Europe is undergoing a dangerous remilitarization, a reconstruction of geopolitical fault lines that echoes—but in some ways surpasses—the Cold War. This is not simply a matter of weapons procurement; it is the revival of a confrontational posture, the restoration of red lines that had, for decades, been managed through deterrence and dialogue. Unlike the older Cold War, the current partition is driven as much by European capitals as by Washington, a reversal that signals the depth of the political West’s internal anxieties. The consequences are stark. Previously held prohibitions on strikes that risked escalation have eroded, while the proliferation of hybrid warfare narratives morphs political contestation into existential threats. The conversation emphasizes that these developments are not inevitable. They are products of policy choices—NATO posture, sanctions regimes, and the normalization of military intervention in peripheral theaters—that together reproduce a more virulent and unpredictable strategic environment. The remilitarization, then, is both a symptom of Western dysfunction and an accelerant of global division. ## Russia, China, and the West A final geopolitical axis in the exchange is the relationship between Russia and China and what their alignment means for the West. Russia’s turn toward multipolar rhetoric and strategic partnership with China is portrayed as both pragmatic and reactive. If the political West insists upon excluding Russia from the “universal” order, Moscow will seek complementary partners to secure its autonomy and status. China, with its own civilizational confidence and strategic reach, offers a natural foil to Western universalism; a closer Sino‑Russian relationship thus reshapes global polarity. The conversation highlights that this alignment is not a conspiratorial bloc but an emergent balancing mechanism. Both powers perceive the political West as a model that seeks to normalize others by force or coercion. In response, they promote multipolarity as a normative and institutional alternative. That alternative challenges the West’s claim to universalism and forces a reappraisal of whether international order can tolerate a single, hegemonic narrative. The interplay among Russia, China, and the political West therefore becomes the crucible in which the next institutional order is being tested. ## False Universalism and Decline Perhaps the most penetrating conclusion drawn in the exchange is that the political West’s claim to universality masks a deeper process of decline. After 1989–91, the West proclaimed the end of history and pushed a singular model as globally applicable. But that very claim—when paired with domestic weakening, institutional sclerosis, and strategic overreach—revealed itself as brittle. Universalist rhetoric, so the argument goes, served as both

UK Professor Reveals Shocking Roots of Russophobia | Richard Sakwa Prof. Richard Sakwa joins Pascal to discuss Russophobia, the post-1945 “political West,” and why Russia was never fully accepted into it. He links today’s tension to old history, power politics, and the split between Atlanticism and continental Europe, then explains how the Ukraine war, sanctions, and weak Western states have pushed the world toward more division. Links: Richard Sakwa - University of Kent: https://www.kent.ac.uk/politics-international-relations/people/2273/sakwa-richard Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro and Russophobia 00:03: 34 Why Russia Was Excluded 00:07:42 Power, Civilization, and Mearsheimer 00:10:09 NATO, EU, and Western Hostility 00:14:28 West in Crisis: State, Economy, Society 00:19:16 Militarization and New Cold War 00:25:27 Russia, China, and the West 00:35:53 False Universalism and Decline 00:42: 33 Advice for Russia and China #Pascal Welcome back to Neutrality Studies, everybody. My name is Pascal Lottaz, and I am joined today live by Professor Richard Sakwa. Richard, welcome back. It's my pleasure to be with you. It's fantastic having you here and that we can sit at the same table for once. We were just at a conference about Russophobia, actually, and you gave a very brilliant exposé, I think, on what Russophobia is about. Can we talk about that? How do you analyze—especially what we looked at is especially Western Russophobia, right? How do you make sense of it? #Richard Sakwa Well, it's very hard to make sense of. But two things to say. First of all, Russophobia changes. So it's not a continuous thing. It's discontinuous. It goes up and down, interspersed with moments of alliance and two wars, for example. But what I'm particularly focusing on, and what I'm trying to argue, is that after 1945, this sort of Russophobia is just another way of describing the relationship between the West and Russia, with a particular inflection in the way that this attitude is, of course, tempered by a long history of relations all the way back to the split. You could go back to the split between Byzantium, between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism in 1054. But my particular focus is how, in the post-war years, a distinctive type of political West emerged, led by the United States, but bringing together the United States and West European states, and that this political West transformed the character of politics internally and the way they really acted and related to external other actors, of course, China and in earlier days as well. So this -- 1 of 17 -- political West transformed the way it deals with outsiders. I mean, it's... In the early years, of course, we had the Cold War, the first Cold War, which was a type of regularized hostility, because the political West is a model of world order. It basically considers that, you know, and that is a model of modernity, if you like. It's a model of modernity. It takes different forms, but it's not homogeneous, and there's always tensions and conflicts within the political West. I never ever argue that it's totally homogeneous. Of course, you had the emergence of a Gaullist critique of it at a certain point. But nevertheless, it was in the first Cold War that it generated a critique of the Soviet Union as an alternative model of world order, based on a different principle, socialist internationalism, as opposed to the liberal internationalism of the political West in those early years. But it also generated a type of systemic hostility. It used to be the anti-communist crusade, which, of course, in some ways shaped into a relationship. We had McCarthyism at a certain point. Then you had the CIA establishing journals and the whole cultural onslaught. But the key point in all of this, to sum up, is that after the collapse of the Soviet model of world order in 1989–91, the end of the first Cold War, instead of all of this sort of attitude towards Russia changing, it intensified. Why? That's a great question, because in my earlier book called *The Lost Peace*, I precisely argue that we squandered the opportunity, a twofold opportunity: first, on the European continent, to build a genuine peace order all the way from Lisbon to Vladivostok. The Russians wanted it. Plenty in Europe wanted it. But because of the way that the political West had developed this Washington-led alliance—you know, we talk about NATO, but NATO was only a symptom of the larger hostility. We know quite clearly that in the 1990s, Gorbachev earlier, then Yeltsin, and then Putin all wanted to join the political West. It couldn’t do it. And that’s the question—it couldn’t do it. And my answer is because of the character of the way that this particular model of the West had developed. It could not absorb Russia because Russia comes with a whole civilizational baggage. We used to think the problem was communism. Then, as Alexander Zinoviev said, we tried to shoot communism and we hit Russia. #Pascal Yeah. And of course, like the older version of Russophobia—and we've had speakers who talked about this, most importantly Alexander Mercouris, who will also be speaking again here on this podcast—but Russophobia is much older than communism. It's much older than the revolution. It goes back, and then it survives also communism. So in a sense, this feeling that Russia is the significant other and that it must be opposed, and that then comes together with the stereotypes of the evil Russian, the drunk Russian, the nefarious Russian, the despotic Russian—all of these stereotypes. Communism was kind of just a very convenient vessel in order to say, like, oh no, no, it's actually all very rational. But there's a deep irrationality behind it, isn't it? #Richard Sakwa -- 2 of 17 -- Absolutely. Once you stripped away that communist level, you actually find there was a deeper vein of hostility to Russia as a state, as a civilization. As you say, it's long-term but discontinuous. So yes, in the 19th century, it took a particular form, as outlined by our colleagues, and particularly generated after, well, the Congress of Vienna and sort of the Holy Alliance, the Union Défensive. You had, as it were, the liberal revolution of 1848. But also, one of the trigger events was the Polish uprising of 1830. You add then that a lot of Poles went to the West, and later on Hungarians added to this voice, which actually has been repeated today, of course, by Russian dissidents going to the West and asking the West to use coercive measures against their homeland for various reasons. So that's what generated it. And of course, we had the long competition between England and Russia over the so-called Great Game in Central Asia, the wars over Afghanistan, because of that Britain did it, and the Crimean War. So yes, there is, because you could say there are three or four factors involved. There's the religious factor, that Russia is Orthodox, but of course so are Romania and Greece, but of a particular form. There's the historical factor, which goes all the way back to 1054, if not more. But there's always, in my view, ultimately, it's generated by geopolitical competition. Russia is a vast state to the east, which always considers itself a separate, unique type of civilization and geopolitical force. #Pascal Yeah, and you just... they didn't like it. You just used the C word. And we've had, in our conference, especially Jeff Roberts, who says, like, ah, nonsense, it's not about civilization, this has some other roots. But your interpretation actually goes quite a bit together also with John Mearsheimer's analysis, which says, like, look, at the end of the day, it's all about the power differential between great powers. What do you make out of Mearsheimer? I mean, is Mearsheimer important in order to understand Russophobia? #Richard Sakwa Yes, I mean, he's right, of course. It is about the fact that Russia, however, you know, the standard for Russia is never as strong as it thinks it is, but it's never as weak as we think it is, or vice versa. So there is this element. But when we talk about civilization, it does matter. So, I mean, Mearsheimer is very good, but he misses out two fundamental things. Obviously, his hard offensive realism is based on the premise that there are two things: that there's a black box of internal politics. You don't look at internal politics, you don't look at internal culture, and so on, which I think he's right about in some points, because people determine foreign policy largely in terms of positionality, strength, security assessments, and so on. And the second thing he doesn't look at is that in the larger context outside—and I've been arguing against him personally—I think he's great, his -- 3 of 17 -- thinking, but the fact is that we do live, since 1945, after the Second World War, not only was this political model of world order established, which after 1989–91 considered itself universal, couched in the language of the end of history and all of the other stuff. And so he radicalized. Instead of going away, it became more offensive. But when we talk about civilization, we're talking about, at a sub-political level, that Russia, China, Persia, Iran today, India, of course, and so many other countries have a deep cultural identity, a sense of themselves as a culture, as a civilization, and you cannot ignore that. So it's more than just a simple balance of power, because it's how you see yourself in the world. And Russia sees itself today, and it uses the language of multipolarity to express that individuality and its agency or activeness in international affairs. #Pascal Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. But that, of course, then begs the question whether the West—and I think your concept of the political West is actually a civilizational expression, right? It's the people who belong together in their civilizational terms, although they live in different countries. But at the end of the day, what we're seeing at the moment is deep collaboration to the point of integration of these systems. And some people then argue, oh, this is just the United States controlling its satellites, which to a certain extent it is. But on the other hand, probably, if I understand it correctly, it's a shared outlook on the world and a shared kind of feeling of how this should be confronted, which then begs the question: is Russophobia actually a civilizational trait of the political West? #Richard Sakwa It turned out to be the case. I mean, it was just simply empirical. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia emerged and said, guys, we want to join you. We want to be part of the political West. And so many, a whole generation, emerged thinking about this. And then they were shocked. And NATO enlargement, you know, we often focus on all of that. It's just a symptom of this larger problem, which was, you know, maybe NATO should have enlarged. It's the way it was done to exclude Russia. I mean, NATO could do good things. I mean, if it was stopping Greece and Turkey going to war over those islands and so on and so forth, you know, why not? But what you could not do, which of course they did, they enlarged effectively against Russia. And this is where another source of Russophobia emerges, and that is the Eastern European dimension, which, of course, once they joined NATO beginning in 1999 and then the European Union—so which are, of course, in this model of the political West, the European Union and NATO— and the whole cultural bagga