The earth-shattering headline you most certainly missed in August: “Ukrainian troops cross into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, Kremlin retaliates with nuclear strikes, world inches closer to annihilation.”
No editor had to write it because it didn’t happen. And maybe it’s time we ask why. The reddest of lines any country has—let alone a dictatorship like Moscow’s—is to defend its borders and not let foreign tanks roll over them. Well, Ukrainian tanks did just that, so what happened with the Kremlin?
Here’s my take: the world’s misread Russia. Again.
I’m no military strategist, but it’s hard not to spot the pattern: the Kremlin escalates whenever the Free World hesitates. On the surface, Kyiv’s move into Russian territory seemed risky, but those who’ve lived next to a violent empire for centuries know full well that strength deters Moscow, while weakness invites its aggression.
This isn’t new. Lenin, in his brutal pragmatism, reportedly said,
“You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.”
A century ago, Russia’s despot sought to build a communist state; today’s tsar runs a kleptocracy. But neither can escape Moscow’s imperial ethos—conquest, subjugation, and oppression—a handy substitute for a non-existent national idea.
The words of the Yale historian, Timothy Snyder, come to mind:
“Putin doesn’t offer his people a future at all. He governs without a future.”
Russia flirted with democracy for about a minute in the 90s, but it quickly reverted to the only form of government that could sustain the level of oppression needed to hold its colonial structure together – a police state, or, to be more precise, a state organized around its secret police.
While democracies gain legitimacy through the consent of the governed, a neo-imperial, expansionist, and now overtly fascist Russian state asserts control over the inhabitants of its Federation with invasions, propaganda, and the repression of dissent.
In 1999, the Kremlin’s bayonet was aimed at Chechnya. But, has a nation of a million people ever had a chance to resist a colonizer the size of Russia when the Free World couldn’t care less?Fast forward to 2008: Georgia is invaded. The West expresses deep concern, but its response amounts to a shrug.
In 2014, the Kremlin thrusts its bayonet into Crimea—Washington wields a stick so feeble it barely stings, while Berlin brings a carrot, pressing ahead with the signing of Nord Stream 2. Why reward aggression – a criminal act under international law?To no one’s surprise, Russian troops invade eastern Ukraine right after Crimea, yet the Free World indulges in the fiction of a “local uprising.” Calling a spade a spade would have demanded decisive action—so why not look the other way instead? Did such callous, cynical hypocrisy whet Moscow’s appetite? You bet.
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No rational analysis can explain—or justify—the Russia-related policy choices made in Western capitals over the past two decades.
The US, Europe, and allies like Japan, South Korea, and Australia together account for half the global economy. Russia? Barely 2%. In 2021, Russian military spending was $66 billion, a rounding error compared to NATO’s $1.2 trillion. The disparity is staggering.
Ukrainians want the invaders out and are putting everything on the line to defend freedom: theirs as well as ours. Yet, despite having the means and clear strategic interest, the Free World is failing to provide what is needed for a decisive Ukrainian victory.
Rousing political will to intervene in “a quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing,” as Neville Chamberlain once said, is a tough sell. But the alternative is always worse. What we dismiss as “regional conflicts”—whether in Chechnya, Georgia, or Ukraine—inevitably escalate into larger wars.
Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, laid it out clearly:
“Putin is spending $140 billion while we struggle to promise fifty. We are basically sending him the message, ‘We won’t stop you,’ so he won’t stop. But if we allocated $800 billion, he would be forced to rethink. Yes, we could afford it. And yes, it would be cheaper than letting him carry on.”
$800 billion sounds like a big number, but it’s meaningless unless we’re honest about the alternative. If a terrorist state starts an unprovoked war, commits innumerable war crimes, and profits from it, while the Free World does little, we will enter a new era of unsecurity—a world where wars of aggression are no longer taboo. A world where nuclear blackmail has worked is one where the proliferation of doomsday weaponry is all but inevitable.
Ukraine is fighting not because the West is helping, but because the alternative is annihilation. Can we predict what Moscow will do if the West abandons Ukraine? No—because predict is the wrong word when dealing with a certainty.
Did Hitler stop when the West abandoned Czechoslovakia? If this war ends with anything even remotely resembling a Kremlin victory, Europe should start preparing for military conscription.
Pinning down the exact amount of aid to Ukraine—whether announced, appropriated, obligated, or disbursed; whether grants or loans; whether book value or actual value—is nearly impossible. But if you think cutting aid to Ukraine will save national budgets and free up funds for domestic priorities, you’re in for a rude awakening.
Right now, the US spends about $1 trillion a year on defense—just 3.5% of GDP. That’s a fraction of Cold War levels when, for more than two decades, military budgets hovered around 10% under the shadow of nuclear Armageddon.
Yet here we are, sleepwalking—if not sprinting—toward a similar state of affairs. If the West fails to confront and punish aggression, the threats will multiply, China and Russia will come even closer together, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime will unravel. The costs for the American taxpayers won’t just rise—they will explode. $40 trillion to be precise if we apply the same spending ratio over the same timeframe.
If Russia is not defeated in Ukraine, European NATO members will have to, at a minimum, triple or quadruple their defense budgets to establish credible deterrence.
The current $20 billion in annual aid to Ukraine will suddenly seem like pocket change, as these countries would need to collectively spend nearly $160 billion more per year on top of the current spending of $480 billion they spend now—eight times the current aid to Ukraine levels.
By deterring ourselves and showing restraint in the face of blatant aggression, we aren’t signaling wisdom. We’re telegraphing disinterest, hypocrisy, and weakness. The Kremlin reads our dithering as permission. The longer we hesitate, the more dangerous the world becomes.
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Americans and Europeans, regardless of politics, share a stake in halting this cycle. This isn’t about picking sides on a partisan issue; it’s about standing up for a world where aggressors face consequences. We’ve chosen mush over steel for far too long. The Free World needs to stand tall—not just for Ukraine’s sake, but for our own. If we don’t stop Russia now, the next apocalyptic headline won’t be a warning; it will be the grim reality we failed to prevent.
Editor’s note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press’ editorial team may or may not share them.
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