Ukraine and Iran Wars are Ending 500 Years of Western Empire | Prof. Richard Sakwa

## Introduction Two contemporaneous conflicts—the war in Ukraine and the war involving Iran—have exposed a tectonic shift in global politics that goes beyond battlefield calculations. The conversation with Emeritus Professor Richard Sakwa portrays these wars not as isolated tragedies but as accelerants for a larger systemic realignment: the unravelling of a political formation that emerged after 1945, which for centuries had anchored European and global power. What was once a seemingly universal West—an Atlantic-centred political order that combined military, economic and ideological dimensions—is fracturing under the combined strain of expansionist impulses, exclusionary choices, and a shrinking space for genuine diplomacy. The exchange maps how follies of empire, driven by the triumphalism of a transatlantic project, produced a cascade of security dilemmas that now threaten to rewrite the rules of the international system. ## Follies of empire The idea of “follies of empire” is a deliberate invocation of a long history of self-destructive state behavior. The classical pattern—when a polity pursues aggressive expansion or ideological dominance even as alternatives remain available—recurs in modern guise. The post‑1945 political West, as described in the conversation, combined admirable public goods with an imperial tendency: open trade and institutional cooperation on one hand, and ideological universalism and disciplinary mechanisms on the other. Over time, the liberal rhetoric of emancipation was repurposed into an instrument of control. Expansion became institutionalized not only through military alliances but also through ideological incorporation—whether via the EU, NATO, or broader Western normative frameworks. When a political formation increasingly treats alternative orders as illegitimate rather than negotiable, it amplifies the risk of self-inflicted wounds. The Russo‑Ukrainian war, in this framing, is less an aberration than a symptom of that deeper dynamic. ## Proxy war and Europe’s decline The Ukraine conflict illuminates how proxy dynamics have hollowed out Europe’s agency. What began as a regional contest rapidly became the cockpit of a wider confrontation between the political West and an anti‑hegemonic coalition. Europe’s institutional architecture—its member states, the EU bureaucracy, and NATO—has been pulled into alignment with U.S. strategic priorities in ways that diminish independent policy-making. The conversation highlights a striking contrast with earlier cold‑war-era pluralism within Western blocs, when Ostpolitik and independent voices could temper bloc orthodoxy. That pluralism has been eroded; contemporary European elites, when confronting crises from Ukraine to Gaza, often fall in line with transatlantic consensus, even where that consensus appears misaligned with regional interests. This vassalization weakens Europe’s capacity to act as a mediator or to craft a distinct strategic path, accelerating a relative decline in influence at exactly the moment when independent European diplomacy would be most needed. ## Russia excluded from the West A crucial thread in the discussion is the deliberate exclusion of Russia from the post‑Cold War Western project. Leaders in Moscow repeatedly signaled willingness to engage with Western institutions, yet the political West treated those overtures with suspicion or indifference. Exclusion was not a mere diplomatic slight; it carried systemic consequences. Integrating Russia would have altered the foundational balance within the transatlantic order—transforming an Atlantic system into a more pan‑continental configuration and changing the ideological and material architecture of Western power. From Moscow’s vantage point, expansionary moves into Europe’s neighbourhood—whether through NATO or EU enlargement—created a classic security dilemma: the extension of a bloc’s frontier generates defensive anxieties that are easily securitized. The refusal to entertain Russian inclusion thus fed into a cascade of grievances and strategic reactions that helped produce the current rupture. ## Security logic and war models Explaining the Russo‑Ukrainian war requires disentangling competing explanatory models. Popular narratives in the West often reduce the conflict either to a domestic legitimacy play—where leaders manufacture external threats to consolidate power—or to raw Russian imperialism. The conversation challenges both reductions. The “external war as regime legitimacy” thesis underestimates the material and geopolitical stakes at play; the “imperialist land grab” model misreads motives and outcomes when contrasted with Russia’s own actions regarding contested territories. A security-centric model, by contrast, locates the conflict in the logic of deterrence, alliance expansion, and the perception of existential threats. When legitimate security concerns are dismissed as parochial or illegitimate—when a major power’s interests are treated as irrelevant—the stage is set for strategic overreach and miscalculation. The result is not a singular cause but an interaction between ideological closure, alliance dynamics, and the tangible materiality of borders and military capabilities. ## Neutrality buried in Ukraine One of the most consequential missed opportunities was the burial of Ukrainian neutrality as a viable option. Historically, neutrality has served as a stabilizing arrangement in layered strategic environments; it can allow states in the middle ground to avoid becoming the flashpoint of great‑power competition. Yet the political West’s ideological frame and security priorities rendered neutrality politically untenable. Rather than negotiating arrangements that might have preserved Ukrainian sovereignty while addressing Russian security concerns, the dominant dynamic was instrumentalization: Ukraine as a theatre for the projection of broader geopolitical aims. The conversation mourns the obliteration of the “other Ukraine” — the pluralistic, multilingual polity that might have charted a middle way — and underscores how the instrumental use of states as proxies forecloses pathways to durable peace. ## Nuclear risk and false diplomacy As the confrontation deepens, nuclear risks and the degradation of credible diplomacy loom large. The conversation points to an alarming narrowing of the diplomatic space: formal channels survive, but they are often overshadowed by theatrics, symbolic gestures, and mediated negotiations that paper over the proxy architecture of the conflict. False diplomacy—performative meetings, curated intermediaries, or bargaining framed as bilateral when it is multilateral in effect—can lull publics into thinking dialogue is robust even while substantive bargaining is absent. This performativity is dangerous when nuclear postures are recalibrated in a climate of existential mistrust. The spectre of escalation—intentional or accidental—rises as frameworks that once inhibited the worst outcomes, including mutual vulnerability doctrines and arms management protocols, come under strain or are ignored. In short, the erosion of genuine diplomacy compounds military risks. ## Paths to peace and the UN If these crises are accelerating the end of an 80‑year order, what credible paths to a new equilibrium remain? The conversation points to the United Nations Charter and the multilateral architecture it embodies as the lodestar—imperfect, but indispensable. Re-centering the UN does not mean nostalgically restoring a bygone order; it means reinvigorating mechanisms of collective security, dispute settlement, and negotiated compromise that can accommodate pluralism rather than eradicating it. Practical steps include honest negotiations over security guarantees in Europe, creative neutrality frameworks for contested states, and a recommitment by major powers to arms control and crisis management mechanisms. Crucially, peace will not arise from triumphalism on either sid

Ukraine and Iran Wars are Ending 500 Years of Western Empire | Prof. Richard Sakwa The Iran War is increasing the speed of western decline that began 4 years ago with the intensification of the Russia-Ukraine Proxy War. How did that happen? How could the US-Europe alliance miscalculate this grossly? I sat down with Emeritus Professor Richard Sakwa to test the hardest claims around this war: folly or strategy, proxy war or direct clash, exclusion or security failure, peace process or staged theater. The talk moves from NATO expansion and Ukrainian neutrality to Europe’s crisis, Russia’s place in the post-Cold War order, and the shrinking space for real diplomacy. Links: Richard's Book as ebook or paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Russo- Ukrainian-War-Follies-Empire/dp/B0FTGNL2J9 Richard's Book from Amazon: https://www.amazon. com/Russo-Ukrainian-War-Follies-Empire/dp/B0FTGNL2J9 Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch & Donations: https://neutralitystudies-shop. fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:15 Follies of empire 00:08:37 Proxy war and Europe’s decline 00:13:03 Russia excluded from the West 00:17:50 Security logic and war models 00:24:25 Neutrality buried in Ukraine 00:35:38 Nuclear risk and false diplomacy 00:45:07 Paths to peace and the UN #Pascal Welcome back, everybody. My name is Pascal Lottaz, and today I'm joined again by Emeritus Professor Richard Sakwa of Kent University. Richard, welcome back. #Richard Sakwa It's my pleasure, thank you. #Pascal It's great that you're coming online, and you wrote a new book, which is actually going to be the topic of our discussion. You wrote this piece, this entire volume here, and you're discussing *The Russo-Ukrainian War: Follies of Empire.* And if I'm not mistaken, it's either out now or coming out in just a couple of weeks. #Richard Sakwa -- 1 of 15 -- It's actually formally coming out on the 24th of March—so just a week away. #Pascal The 24th of March—this video will be shown right around that time. So everybody, if you want to get the book, please go online and order a copy. But let's discuss it now. Richard, what are the main arguments you're making there? What kind of follies are we seeing in the war? #Richard Sakwa The subtitle *Follies of Empire* is a reference to Barbara Tuchman’s magnificent book with a similar title. Initially, I was going to use *The March of Folly Redux*. She did marvelous work, as you know—*The Guns of August* on the First World War—but she also wrote *The March of Folly*, which goes all the way from the Peloponnesian War to the Vietnam War, covering the American War of Independence and other events in between. And what she does is define what folly is. A folly is when, for example, the Greeks went up against Sparta—what Graham Allison has called the Thucydides Trap. It’s the idea that you start a war that ultimately destroys you, even though you had other choices. Athens was weakened and eventually lost the Peloponnesian War, the United States lost the Vietnam War, and the British lost the War of Independence in America. She defines it very precisely—I won’t go into all the details—but that’s what a folly means. And I believe this war in Ukraine can again be added to that list of world-historical follies. Why? Of course, then we saw that on one side we have the expansion of what I’ve been calling, in this book and elsewhere, the political West. Now, it’s easy to talk—as you know, at the latest Munich Security Forum, the Davos meeting, the World Economic Forum, and so on—endless talk about the international order collapsing, rules-based orders, and so on. Mark Carney made that fine speech about how the middle powers need to get together, and so on. But what everybody seems to have missed is that after 1945, a very specific political formation took place. You could call it what you like—the Atlantic power system, the transatlantic alliance, and so on. But the political West is why—and the Russians love to call it the “collective West”—but what I want to say is that this political West, first of all, repudiated and challenged some of those traditional elements of the West, going all the way back to the origins of something definable as “the West.” Obviously, the Judeo-Christian culture, the Greco-Roman tradition, Babylonian elements, and so on. And then, of course, you’ve got the 500 years of the imperial West—the West expanding through colonialism. In East Asia, where we are, of course, quite famously in 1853, the black ships came to Edo and forced open what had been, for 250 years, a closed system. But all these are parts of the West. And, you know, at the moment in the West, we're having this huge debate about the West—the decline of the West—and we've got all these overtones of Spengler and Toynbee and all of that. All -- 2 of 15 -- of that is part of it. But what I'm saying is that we need to be very specific. Since 1945, this US-led political West emerged. It was transformative of the various states and ideologies that constitute it. Liberalism, in one respect—the Cold War liberalism, as we know it—was very peculiar; it lost its emancipatory edge. It became suppressive, it became disciplining. Of course, the ideology of freedom was all fine, but it became instrumentalized. So I'm arguing that the political West transforms its member states, just like the European Union transforms the character of the nation- states that become part of it. But I'm pushing that forward and saying, look, membership in this political West changes the very nature of the state. And it applies as much to Japan as it does—though to a lesser degree—to South Korea. But the core West—the United States, Canada, and the Western European states—was transformed, along with their associated ideologies. Anyway, after this was established after 1945 as a world order, the Soviet world order collapsed in 1989–91. We know that. And therefore, this political West then claims to be universal. It radicalized in all sorts of ways—ideologically, in the end- of-history ideology, the Hegelian, the Kantian human rights agenda, the Hegelian imperial element of suppressing alternatives—all sorts of elements take place within it. So this political West—and then gradually you have, in a Karl Polanyi sense, a counter‑movement— and that counter‑movement is the anti‑hegemonic alignment of Russia, China, India, some other states, the non‑aligned states, and so on. So that's the context of the Russo‑Ukrainian war. And we have this political West—summarizing it very briefly—it has two facets. It has the Commonwealth aspect, which is the common, you know, the public goods that it has genuinely delivered: open trade, whether you like it or not (of course, all of that is contestable), free trade, the alleged commitment to positive goods or freedom, and so on and so forth. But the other side of this political West is the imperial West—hence *Follies of Empire*—and that’s our... So that’s the political West after 1999, as it expands, and that’s the context in which any debate about NATO enlargement or EU enlargement needs to take place. But it does entail the association that the European Union’s enlargement to the east was similar in style to that of NATO, in an ideological and meta‑ideological sense. It was the expansion of this Western political formation. And of course, then it ultimately meets the resistance of Russia, just as it will in Asia with China and some other countries. On the other side, of course, you have Russia, and they say, look, you’re just blaming the West here—what’s the political West? What about the other follies, the Russian follies? And of course, again, the mismanagement, in some ways, of relations with its neighbors. I mean, you could also say Russia has this Commonwealth aspect as well—post‑communist Russia. And also, they are articulated by, in particular, the LDPR, Zhirinovsky, when he was alive, with this sort of imperial attitude, which is definitely there, though combined with this Commonwealth aspect, trying to establish a post‑Soviet community through the Eurasian Economic Union. One way or another, of -- 3 of 15 -- course, it’s failed as well. But then these two projects, if you like, combine in conflict over Ukraine. So that’s the context. Sorry to go on so long. But that’s why *The Follies of Empire*. Then, of course, we could look at the more detailed aspects. #Pascal Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this could happen again at any time. So please consider subscribing not only here but also to my mailing list on Substack—that’s pascallottaz.substack.com. The link’s in the description below. And now, back to the video. Yeah, and we should—especially the role now of the Ukraine war. The book itself is still called, you know, *The Russo‑Ukrainian War*, but within the book, of course, you go into the proxy‑war aspect of the whole thing. Which is why, you know, the Russo‑Ukrainian war is really a war between Russia—or it’s a contest between Russia and Ukraine. The political West, as you call it—and I think actually “political West” is a better expression than “collective West.” It kind of captures more of the essence of what this group approach to international relations is about. Of course, as you pointed out, it goes back much further—like 500 years of European expansionism around the globe, with all the colonial crimes committed in the process. But the post‑’ 45 version of this collective approach among several countries has a very distinct flavor, especially after ’89–’90, when it really led to a collectivization of decision‑making. And what we’re seeing at the moment is the vassalization of Europe under the wishes of the imperial core. Can you speak a little about that, and where you see the Russo‑Ukrainian war impacting the entire system? #Richard Sakwa Yeah, indeed. Until 1989, paradoxically, during the first Cold War, you had a more dynamic relationship between the various wings of the political West. Surprisingly enough, after the end of the first Cold War, you’d think we wouldn’t need NATO anymore and could move beyond bloc politics. Instead, bloc politics was consolidated. It consolidated internally and expanded externally. In some ways, it became a more far‑reaching and, if I can use the word, insidious body in the way it intensified the vassalage, if you like, of its members and harnessed them to the purposes of the U.S. empire—the imperial aspect of the political West. For example, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, you had countries opposing it. But today, and especially after Libya, they don’t. And now, of course, this whole disciplining mechanism is even more intense. The European Union has totally failed to deal with it. As you know, earlier this week—when we’re talking—she addressed 140 European Union ambassadors, and she spent over two‑thirds of the time talking about Russia, at a moment when you have genocide in Gaza and the world’s worst war, not just in the Middle East but, in a sense, the most threatening war since 1945, which could spin out of control in all sorts of directions. The European Union’s utter failure to condemn what’s going on in Gaza or to take any action is striking. So, yes, bloc politics is intensifying. It’s intensified just before the whole thing unravels—which is where we’re heading next. -- 4 of 15 -- #Pascal And just one second—again, in comparison to the First Cold War, as you previously called it—you know, during the First Cold War we had Ostpolitik with Willy Brandt in Germany. We had Olof Palme. We had people who were not in line with Washington’s wishes. And that was bloc politics; it was actually a negotiated bloc politics. That negotiation has completely left the scene. Anyone with eyes to see understands who’s playing first fiddle in the cac