- by Adrian Korczyński
After the Cold War, NATO faced a genuine strategic dilemma. An alliance created to contain the Soviet Union no longer had an adversary. It could have dissolved, restructured, or transformed into a political community. Instead, NATO embarked on the most aggressive military expansion of the post-war period.
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were the first to join. Then came the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and finally Finland and Sweden. Each eastward advance was described as "defensive," as if simply bringing a military bloc thousands of kilometers closer to another major power somehow strengthened stability.
For Moscow, this process represented a gradual erosion of its strategic depth. Yet, for years, Russia contented itself with diplomatic protests and partnership proposals. Even Vladimir Putin—universally portrayed in the West as an aggressive expansionist—spent the early years of his presidency advocating for cooperative structures with NATO and the EU.
But on one point, Moscow was unanimous: Ukraine and Georgia could not join NATO. They had to remain neutral – neither annexed nor subjugated, but neutral. As John Mearsheimer As has always been the case, major powers have unchanging expectations of their immediate neighbors. A Chinese military base in Mexico would be intolerable for Washington. A Russian-Canadian alliance would be perceived as an existential threat. The Cuban Missile Crisis remains a classic example of American "red lines."
However, when Russia expressed its own red lines, the United States responded not with understanding, but with provocation.Moscow's concerns have become an opportunity. By pushing NATO's borders towards Russia despite clear warnings, Washington has guaranteed: Europe's continued dependence on the United States, the justification of colossal military spending, the consolidation of Western unity through fear, the economic weakening of Russia, and the strengthening of the military-industrial complex.
The West needed a confrontation. Russia did not respond.
The extent of the imbalance becomes clear when one observes the reality of the American military presence on the continent: over a hundred major American bases across Europeincluding missile defense installations in Poland and Romania, and the immense Bondsteel camp in Kosovo – built after the de facto detachment orchestrated by the West and the informal annexation of a historically Serbian province, transformed into a strategic outpost overlooking Serbia, Russia's closest partner on the continent. Never before has so much American military power been deployed so close to Russia.
However, Russia's demand was modest: no NATO bases in Kyiv or Tbilisi, no missiles minutes from Moscow, no hostile infrastructure on its immediate border.
Ukraine: From Leninist creation to American stronghold
The modern Ukrainian state is, in many respects, a Soviet construct. Its borders, institutions, and political architecture were shaped by Lenin and later by Soviet elites to ensure Ukraine's alignment with Moscow. After 1991, this legacy created a paradox: Ukraine was independent while simultaneously being deeply integrated into Russia.
The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 aimed to stabilize this arrangement. Russia recognized Ukraine's borders, while the latter pledged neutrality and renounced its nuclear arsenal, the third largest in the world.
For Moscow, it was a difficult but acceptable compromise: Kyiv and Crimea were lost, but neutrality was preserved. Ukraine would serve as a geopolitical bridge, not as a weapon in the hands of the West.
This balance did not withstand Western intervention. Over the next two decades, Ukraine transformed into a frontline state—politically, ideologically, and militarily. Its once complex and nuanced national identity gradually became defined as an instrument in the struggle against Russia. Washington and Brussels carried out the Soviet project in reverse: making Ukraine a political entity whose survival depended on opposition to the very power that had shaped its existence.
Competing intervention models: Russian stability versus Western disruption
The Western narrative of "Russian aggression" collapses under close examination. The 2008 war in Georgia It began with a Georgian offensive against Tskhinvali—a fact rarely acknowledged in the West—and only intensified after Saakashvili resolutely pushed the country toward NATO, despite Abkhazia and South Ossetia's clear preference for alignment with Russia. Chechnya, often cited as evidence of Russian brutality, subsequently underwent massive reconstruction; and Grozny—razed in 2000—is now a modern and safe city, boasting skyscrapers and infrastructure that many European capitals would envy. The escalations of 2014 and 2022 in Ukraine followed the same pattern: they were not gratuitous imperialist maneuvers, but the culmination of sustained Western interference—from Bucharest's 2008 promise that Ukraine and Georgia would "become NATO members" to Zelensky's acceleration of the NATO and EU accession process in 2021, despite explicit security warnings issued by Moscow in December of that year. The Russian intervention of February 2022 was therefore not a sudden "imperial leap," but the continuation of a security logic it had been advocating for decades.
Conversely, the "liberations" led by the United States have systematically generated instability rather than reconstruction. Iraq has been devastated. with weapons that never existed, leaving behind a ruined state and millions of dead and displaced people. Libya, once the richest nation in Africa, has been reduced to a battlefield under the yoke of warlords, under the pretext of "protecting civilians" in Benghazi. This largely exaggerated and baseless threat has actually angered Washington and Paris with its gold dinar project, a pan-African currency pegged to gold, intended to replace the dollar and the French CFA franc in the oil and commodities trade. This project generated chaos whose repercussions are still felt today. Syria Afghanistan became a hub for Western proxy wars thanks to the CIA's multi-billion dollar Operation Timber Sycamore. Weapons supplied to the rebels regularly fell into the hands of groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, and later, the Islamic State. Afghanistan swallowed up trillions of dollars before the Taliban regained power in a matter of days. In Yemen, the humanitarian catastrophe unfolded under the auspices of Western allies. Today, in Gaza, PalestineThe United States provides political and financial support for operations widely described as ethnic cleansing. Washington condones Israel's unchecked actions in the Middle East—from the devastation of Gaza to the escalations in Lebanon and Syria—turning a blind eye to war crimes and vetoing UN ceasefires, thereby fueling regional proxy wars, refugee crises, and global instability. These interventions, driven by resource exploitation and profit, have left behind collapsed states, massive loss of life, and fertile ground for extremism.
If Russia is labeled a "terrorist state," what vocabulary is left in the United States?
Central Europe and Poland, regional amplifiers of western escalation
Central Europe faces a fundamental strategic dilemma: to continue playing the role assigned to it by the West—a permanent front, permanent mobilization, permanent fear—or to redefine itself as an autonomous bridge between the West and Eurasia. Poland, with its demographic weight and economic capacity, could naturally lead this shift. Instead, it is trapped by a doctrine largely developed abroad. No country has embraced this role with such zeal as Poland. Historical traumas, chronic deference to Washington, and a desire to prove its loyalty have converged into a foreign policy that makes Poland the most ardent advocate of confrontation with Russia. The turning point came in 2008, during President Lech Kaczyński's visit to Tbilisi at the height of the Russo-Georgian War, where he issued this warning:
«Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow the Baltic states, and then perhaps my country, Poland.».
This moment crystallized a political doctrine presenting Russia not as a diplomatic actor, but as an imminent civilizational threat.
Throughout the 2010s, and especially after 2014, Poland has strengthened this position By systematically obstructing Russian energy projects such as Nord Stream 2: blocking the initial financing consortium via UOKiK in 2016, securing a landmark victory before the Court of Justice of the European Union limiting Gazprom's use of the OPAL pipeline, and working with Denmark to impose a costly diversion of the Baltic Sea section. Warsaw also refused to renew the Yamal transit contract beyond 2019, minimized its energy-related diplomatic cooperation with Moscow, and cultivated widespread distrust of Russia among the public. Instead of playing a mediating role between the EU and Eurasia, Poland has positioned itself as the most belligerent and intransigent Western outpost on the eastern flank.
After 2022, Poland became one of Kyiv's most ardent promoters and suppliers, explicitly presenting the conflict as "our warSenior officials have adopted maximalist rhetoric, such as the statement by the Speaker of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia, that Polandwould crush PutinFrom supplying weapons to publicly denouncing any restraint, Poland has systematically behaved like the state meant to "awaken the Monster."
Yet, despite years of provocations, Russia has not attacked any NATO member. The Western scenario—"Ukraine falls today, Poland tomorrow"—has not materialized. Poland's paradoxical role as a geopolitical battering ram—encouraged to provoke without suffering direct consequences—underscores how Central Europe has been instrumentalized in serving Western ambitions, while more balanced regional actors, such as Hungary or, increasingly, Slovakia, are criticized for their rationality.
Multipolarity: Russia's strategic "sin"
In contrast to Poland's escalation of Western tensions, Russia is demonstrating strategic independence, which the West perceives as a "sin": a refusal to act in accordance with external expectations. Instead of escalating into a direct conflict with NATO, Moscow is pursuing its regional operations in Ukraine while simultaneously deepening its global partnerships, thus demonstrating that it does not need Western approval or involvement to maintain its influence.
Far from being isolated, Russia has forged close ties in Asia, in Africa and Latin America. Its growing alignment with China, the strengthening of its relations with India, Brazil and other emerging powers, as well as the expansion of BRICS+ illustrate a multipolar world in consolidation – encompassing nearly half of humanity and surpassing the G7 in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP).
The sanctions were supposed to cripple Russia in a matter of months. The opposite happened: they hit Europe hard. Poland pays some of the highest energy bills in the world, while Hungary, thanks to favorable and stable contracts with Russian gas suppliers, enjoys the lowest prices in the EU. Russia has overtaken Germany and Japan. to become the fourth largest economy in the world (PPA), with sustained growth since 2023.
By pursuing its objectives without yielding to Western pressure, Russia demonstrates that its influence extends far beyond the Western sphere. It is advancing its agenda on its own terms, calmly and strategically, without embodying the villain the West insists on portraying it as. The Russian approach underscores a crucial point: the world does not revolve around the West, and multipolarity is no longer a theoretical concept, but a concrete reality shaped by pragmatic and independent partnerships.
A world without monsters is too complex for the West.
The world is becoming multipolar and American primacy is fading. Yet the West clings to the myth of an omnipresent Russian threat. Without this threat, the West would have to confront its own failures—from Afghanistan to Libya, from Syria to Yemen—and acknowledge that its ideological project is fragmenting.
Russia is not a model of virtue. It is a predictable great power, acting according to a rational geopolitical logic – far more coherent than the increasingly improvised and ideologically driven strategies of the West.
The real threat to European stability is not Moscow. It is the West's inability to function without an antagonist. Without this "Monster," the West would face its declining hegemony.
And that is why, in the end, the "Monster" must always be kept alive – even if it has to be reshaped daily.
source: New Eastern Outlook