Russia, the United States and ‘The West’

When one speaks of the ‘West’, its defining features can be understood culturally and/geographically. Those who tilt towards the secular side tend to view the West purely in geographic terms. Historian Ian Morris’s Why the West Rules for Now, is one such example. Where the author downplays the role of religion and ethnicity in determining the emergence and development of the West, with a distinct identity. According to this framework, the idea of the West is viewed minus its cultural dimension. Hence ‘the West’ as an entity is not seen from the perspective of Western culture or Western civilization, which contains the three key pillars: The Classical heritage of the Greeks, Roman law, and the Judeo-Christian spiritual heritage. For when the West is viewed in these terms, as a cultural entity, the idea of what constitutes the West expands. In that nation-states and peoples who embrace value systems and norms that connect them with the West at a deeper cultural, moral, and spiritual level can also be considered Western. 

The most notable example is Christianity. Christianity has traditionally, and for the most part is still, associated with the West proper: that is the ‘West’ in a geographic sense, a definition that most of us can agree on. Christianity, despite its emergence in the Levant (Western Asia) first took root, and shape in Europe and surrounding regions, and was then exported to all corners of the world through colonization and conquest. Since Christianity established its first cultural home (outside its nation of founding) in regions that are geographically part of the West (beginning with Rome). It naturally took on a very Western or European character. Christianity as a belief system as it expanded and spread across the world, its growth went hand in hand with the expansion of European or… ‘Western’ culture: Which in addition to the religious belief, also included the export of language, legal codes, and later technical expertise, and critically people (i.e. Europeans). Whose entry accelerated the Westernization of these regions.

A notable example here is the Americas. Where both North and South America were not only colonized by Europeans (who represented the designs of kings and emperors of their native homelands). But colonization also meant the Europeanization of the region through a steady influx of Caucasian immigrants. Who went on to play an influential role in the social and political development of their societies. (Simón Bolívar, known as the liberator, who played a key role in the independence of states from Spain in South America was of Spanish descent). The emergence of North American nation-states was a product of European exploration and settlement: the Founding Fathers of America were all of European descent, Canada was a Crown Colony, and today is a Commonwealth Realm. The point is parts of the world where Christianity gained a foothold can be traced back to the adventures of Europeans; specifically European Christians (caz back then virtually everyone was religious) in those respective lands. And the lands where European Christians took hold and established themselves, today constitute the West, despite the cultural and ethnic pre-history of those lands being somewhat different (e.g. pre-colonial Australia).

Speaking of the geographical West today: North America, Western Europe, Oceania, South, and Central America, these are regions that are fast losing their religious, but specifically Christian character. The rise in the irreligious, the growth in secularism, agnosticism, and notably the phenomenon of NONES are all predominantly Western in their character. But not Russian. As we shall see, the Slavic country, in a somewhat contradictory way, has started to move in the opposite direction. 

On the other hand, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, which despite having sizable Christian populations are not considered to be under the Western orbit. This is mainly due to their ethnic character. Then there is the economic dimension. Which is largely tied to the political system of the nation, with certain (and problematic) ethnic correlations. The prevalence of functioning market systems tends to go hand in hand with republican or representative governments. Exemplified by Communist regimes that are found in places like North Korea, Cuba; whose socialist economies are held together by a totalitarian political class.  

Staying on the relationship between economics and politics, as countries move close to authoritarianism, they tend to manifest stronger economically collectivist or ‘extractive’ tendencies. This point is reinforced in Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Where the ruling political class, which invariably takes the form of some one-party dictatorship, built on nepotism and cronyism, exploits the masses in a kleptocratic framework of governance. Almost all countries that are in the Western sphere tend to have elected governments that operate according to market principles. More or less anyway. Interestingly countries with large Christian populations in parts of Africa are notorious for their bad governance, weak economies, dilapidated infrastructure, corrupt institutions, and social instability; and are not considered to be Western despite their religious connection with the West.

In this context ethnicity and socio-economic systems seem to matter more when it comes to the question of what constitutes the West. For countries in Latin America, notable examples here are Brazil and Colombia, which are much closer to the West (i.e. via economic and security ties with the United States). Despite their economies and political systems not being in great shape. An argument can be made here that both Brazil and Colombia, and a number of other South and Central American countries that have sizable European populations or people who have an ethnic European heritage (mestizo), are able to connect better with the idea of the West, owing to the racial dimension (Controversial, I know). Russia on the other hand is an outlier in this regard, in that its political system is considered to be antithetical to what the West stands for: Democracy. Despite it being a majority ethnic European country like most Western nations. Russia, due to its economy, one that is not the most open, with the heavy hand of the state, the dominance of oligarchs and widespread cronyism, is distrusted by ‘the West’.  

Finally, there is the question of history, which is closely tied to that of culture. Since Russia is a country that was on the opposite side of the Cold War, it is still viewed as an advisory in many quarters. Especially among certain conservative thinkers, and foreign policy hawks in the Anglo-American world. Since Russia was an adversary then, it is likely to be an adversary now. (Though the Soviet Union was an allied nation in WWII, contributing greatly to the defeat of Third Reich). And in the case of Mr. Putin, as a former KGB officer, the fear in certain Western quarters is that he harbors the vision of reconstituting the Soviet Union; a point that is repeated often in recent times. 

This is where things become complicated. Russia is a large country with a lot of nuclear weapons. A country that has invaded neighboring states from time to time: Georgia, Chechnya and Ukraine notably. And is routinely accused of cyberwarfare against Western nations. So fears regarding its geopolitical ambitions are justified. However when it comes to the cultural connection with the West, Russia’s position is an interesting one. Russia is a country with a communist past. A rather painful one where leftist ideologies like atheism, collectivism, and feminism prevailed. Whereas today it is a society that is evolving in a different direction. One could say in a more ‘conservative’ direction. And paradoxically this is where problems start to emerge. Geopolitical questions aside, Russia’s biggest ‘crime’ today, one that has possibly contributed to ‘the West’ (at least certain influential segments that determine its policy) to view Russia as public enemy No 01 has been the cultural shift that has been taking place, in what once the core of the ‘Evil Empire’.