When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, he was betting against the West. The West — understood as Europe and the United States — would not have the mettle to save Ukraine, he surely surmised. Neither united nor effective, it had a long record of failure in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Russia’s victory would prove that the West’s golden age was over, freeing Russia to partner with China and other rising countries, asserting itself anew on the world stage.
Mr. Putin’s bet has not paid off. As the war drags on and on, the Kremlin has taken a two-pronged approach to the West. Domestically, the Kremlin has demonized it, encouraging Russians to rally around Mr. Putin in a civilizational battle. Abroad, Russia has sought to divide the West, peeling away the doubters and the dissenters from the pro-Ukraine coalition. In this project, Donald Trump’s election in November was supposed to be a turning point. The West would tear itself apart, leaving Ukraine to Russia.
Those hopes have proved illusory. After initial enthusiasm, Mr. Trump has cooled on his Russian counterpart, recently referring to him as “crazy.” He may still act on his stated desire to do business with Mr. Putin but will be unable to deliver either Ukraine or the West. Hard facts forbid it. Russia’s brutal war has horrified and terrified the West, jolting it into a collective effort of containment and turning Europe conclusively against Russia. These developments, far from trivial or temporary, will limit Russia’s prospects for security and prosperity for decades to come.
Russia has always needed the West and benefited from contact with it. Because of an unnecessary war, Mr. Putin has lost it for good.
Far from unconnected, Russia has been an organic part of European affairs since the 17th century. By the 18th century, Russia was an empire in Europe, having joined Prussia and the Habsburg empire in carving up Poland. Russian soldiers made it to Paris in 1814, and throughout the 19th century Russia was pivotal for war and peace in Europe. The Romanov dynasty had close relatives in most European capitals, while the assimilation of European culture sparked an artistic renaissance in Russia. Trade and technology from Europe augmented Russia’s wealth and power.
Phases of isolation marked Russia’s 20th century. Yet the Soviet Union, a child of war and revolution, never ceased being a European power. It lionized Karl Marx, a European thinker, and its goal was always to shape Europe, which by 1945 had become a complicated reality for countless Europeans. After World War II, Moscow ruled half of Europe, leaving the other half preoccupied with the Soviet threat. In 1989, as Soviet power began to dissolve, reform movements in the Soviet Union intersected with revolutionary movements in Eastern and Central Europe — and vice versa. Mikhail Gorbachev spoke lyrically of a “common European home” from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
Mr. Putin’s relations with the West have been less cordial. Obsessed with the supposed failures of the 1990s, he sought to block NATO expansion categorically instead of negotiating a reasonable set of demands about bases, the stationing of troops and missile deployment. Having failed to achieve a working relationship with NATO, Mr. Putin let his fears of Ukrainian independence metastasize. This led in 2014 to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine. Eight years later, his zeal for dominion over Ukraine exploded into a terrible war, provoking the most severe break with the West in Russia’s modern history.
But it’s wrong to say Mr. Putin aimed to sunder Russia’s relations with the West. He wanted to reorient them in his favor, reclaiming a role in European affairs by weakening the West. Had Russia quickly won its war in 2022, he might have got what he wanted. Russia might have claimed a place in Eastern Europe. A chastened West might have bowed to Russian prowess, winding back the NATO alliance. Panicked neighboring countries might have broken away from NATO or the European Union, currying Moscow’s favor. The trans-Atlantic relationship, bedrock of the West, might have cracked.
None of that has come to pass. Instead, Mr. Putin has done something far worse for his country than initiating an unwon and unwinnable war: He has compelled Europe to organize itself as a military counterweight to Russia. Germany is rapidly rearming; new patterns of military consultation and cooperation are spreading across Europe; Finland and Sweden have joined NATO; and Brexit has been sidelined by a meaningful security agreement between Britain and the European Union. Formidable resources are being gathered to keep Russia out of Europe. Russia’s only path to a future partnership with Europe is to end the war on Ukrainian terms, which Mr. Putin will not do.
Mr. Putin has also managed to alienate a Russophile American president. Mr. Trump has been unable to usher Russia back into the Group of 7 — from which Russia was expelled in 2014 — or to enmesh Russia in the normal procedures of European diplomacy. When Mr. Trump returned to office, he did not appear to grasp what Mr. Putin had given up by resorting to war. Russia can no longer employ persuasion in Ukraine or in Europe and has nowhere near enough force to conquer the former, not to mention the latter. Mr. Putin has banished himself from Europe. Mr. Trump, even if he wanted to, cannot rescue Russia from its isolation.
At the NATO summit this week, there will be heated debates about all that the alliance has not accomplished since the start of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainians are still suffering. Russia is still taking territory. China, Iran and North Korea are still abetting the Russian war effort. The Russian economy is still muddling through; there is no visible antiwar movement in Russia. But Russia has also been effectively stopped in Ukraine, and Europe can live without Russia, as can the United States. The West can afford to lose Russia, nice as it would be to have a peaceful Russia alongside it.
Russia’s loss of the West, by contrast, is a grievous setback that could take generations to undo. It is Mr. Putin’s choice and Russia’s tragedy.
Michael Kimmage is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America and the author, most recently, of “Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability.”
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