A Civilizational Interpretation of the West’s Body Politic
Associate professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto and TFF Board member
August 25, 2026
“How do we explain the self-defeating and self-harming policies of Western states?
Europe seems to be happily deindustrializing, the US proxy war in Ukraine is killing hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Ukrainians—the very people NATO swears it wants to protect—and by now this warfare is close to swapping over into the continent. And what does Europe do? Doubling down on the policies that have been failing them for twelve years—creating a 21st sanctions package (!). No diplomacy in sight. At the same time, the war the US/Israeli alliance started against Iran is laying waste to both their military installations and eating away on US hegemony in West Asia. Yet, the entire Euro-Atlantic leadership seems dead-set on continuing a course that many of us in the critical commentariat see as obviously ruinous and suicidal to most of the club members.
Of course, each theater, each war, each battle has its own narrative rationale on both sides. However, from a bird’s-eye perspective one is really left to wonder: what is riding the people who are taking these decisions? Just one example: The largest case of industrial sabotage in post-Second World War history—the attack on the Nord Stream Pipeline—is still unsolved, four years after it happened. We know by now that this is by design, as it would expose the inside nature of the crime. At best it was rogue elements in Ukraine (as the Germans are vaguely trying to establish), at worst it was a NATO job (as Seymour Hersh has been asserting). But there’s more. Why would Sweden and Finland give up the very security policies that kept them safe for decades and centuries? Why would no one in the West look at a compromise arrangement like a neutral Ukraine to avoid (or end) the war? Why would the USA want to fight another war with Iran rather than going back to the JCPOA that for all intents and purposes had achieved everything the Never-an-Iranian-Bomb crowd in the US and Israel had wanted? The list of self-defeating and self-harming policies goes on and on and on.
It seems to me that this is not just a crisis of the West, but a crisis for (scholastic) Realism, too. After all, one of the core-assumptions of Realism is that the actions of states are guided by national interest. This is especially true for great powers. While Realism does not claim that bigger states can’t infiltrate and abuse smaller countries through coercion and bribes, this should not be possible the other way around or lead to a circular logic in which suddenly the tail starts wagging the dog.
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That said, I want to reflect on a theoretical issue that irks me. The quiet assumption many in our profession seem to share is that the highest level of actors in international relations is the nation-state. May I ask: what if there is an even higher levelthat sits above the nation-state and functions as a (partially) structuring force behind mass behaviour?
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