What Was It That Russia Broke? It Was the Yoke of the West
What Was It That Russia Broke? It Was the Yoke of the West
The war in Ukraine is neither a clever ploy by Putin nor a drama of imperial restoration. Rather, its essence lies in the spiritual and institutional rupture caused by Russia's attempt to break away from the 'logic of the West.' It is not just NATO that has been broken. It is the 'invisible collar' of the European order—that is, the belief system of progressive history, the faith in democracy, the neutrality of the market, and the governance of the state through bureaucracy.
Only by rejecting these 'rational worlds' did Russia return to a world where 'war is a reality.' On the other hand, the West still believes without doubt that 'war can be deterred,' 'international law functions,' and 'the post-war order is universal.' This is remarkably similar to the era of Ibn Taymiyyah. It is an age where humanity, having lost the center of the world, wavers between orthodoxy and apostasy, clinging to the echoes of old rule while failing to find legitimacy for a new one.
Russia has not been able to pacify Ukraine. The Donbas is mired in mud, and Kyiv still resists. But what Russia has broken is not territorial boundaries. It is the 'yoke' of the Western worldview itself. The faith that law supports order, the superstition that legitimacy is obtained through elections, and the illusion that institutions can stand above violence.
And this movement began with Primakov. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia once tried to 'become Western.' Market economy, privatization, electoral systems—but it did not work. Seeing that failure, Primakov said, 'Russia is not the West; it is, rather, Eurasia.' From here, the ideal of 'multipolarity' began to be discussed. But what emerged was not multipolarity. Rather, it was non-polarity—an era where there is no center anywhere, and justice, currency, and institutions drift.
In this world, what is the Russia that Putin has built? It is not an institutional state. Rather, it is a networked state that transcends institutions; intelligence, economy, religion, and Jewish intellect—the peripheral knowledge that has long effectively supported Russia's institutions—are acting on behalf of a state that has lost its center. That is why Russia cannot persecute Jews. Putin maintains a certain distance from Israel and does not participate in the 'good vs. evil dualism' of American liberals. Behind the outward tolerance like that of Cyrus the Great lies a distrust of institutions and a reliance on knowledge outside of them.
In other words, what Russia has broken is the 'institutional West.' While strategic rationality, institutional faith, and the understanding of the world through statistics and predictions are all collapsing in the West, Russia is with the 'world itself,' which is unpredictable and irrational. An era where war is once again not an extension of politics, but something that exposes the truth of the world itself. That is the era Ibn Khaldun saw, and the world Ibn Taymiyyah fought in.
Institutions still appear to be alive. But already, institutions are only pretending to be institutions. The state continues to act like a state, universities pretend to be universities, and currency is printed while having lost the memory of metal.
What Russia broke was this performed West.