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Considering how much of current American culture war debates revolve around national identity, sovereignty, and international influence, it makes me wonder: are conflicts like Russia’s move into Ukraine and China’s posture towards Taiwan fundamentally rooted in the same security dilemma, rather than pure expansionism?
I’ve been thinking about the deeper drivers behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s stance on Taiwan.
For Russia, Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border, severely shrinking Russia’s strategic buffer zone. Similarly, for China, the growing U.S. military presence around Taiwan raises a direct security concern.
Since U.S.-China relations have deteriorated, there has been increasing discussion about the possibility of the U.S. deploying missiles or even establishing a permanent military presence in Taiwan. Given Taiwan’s geographic position, major Chinese cities like Fuzhou, Xiamen, and even Shanghai would fall within the range of intermediate-range missiles.
This makes the Taiwan issue not purely about nationalism or ideology, but also about very tangible security calculations.
In 2024, U.S. defense reports indicated a rising focus on “hardening Taiwan” against potential Chinese action（https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/19/2003375866/-1/-1/1/2024-NDS.PDF”
China has repeatedly emphasized that foreign military deployments in Taiwan would cross a “red line”（https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-says-us-should-stop-official-exchanges-with-taiwan-2024-03-05/）
Russia already had multiple NATO states on its border, and the war added Finland which Russia pretty much shrugged at. Ukraine has somewhat more advantageous terrain if NATO wanted a ground invasion to Moscow, but there's long been zero appetite for that AND Russia has the ultimate deterrent in the form of a huge nuclear arsenal. The major reasons Russia actually invaded are:
Taiwan is a similar problem for China. The direct threat on the border part is an element of the equation, but it's far from the whole story. Taiwan is a democracy full of Han Chinese that shows what life could be like without the CCP. Hong Kong was crushed for similar reasons. It also occupies a special place in the political myth that is the Century of Humiliation, a victimization narrative similar to what the Treaty of Versailles did for Weimar Germany, i.e. it's a fairly mundane piece of history dressed up to be this hugely unjust violation that must be corrected if China is ever to stand tall.
The year is 2025 and we're unironically busting out "they hate our freedom" for the purposes of neocon war propaganda.
Where you see "democracy" and "freedom", dictators see "coup" and "regime change". Check out Putin's rants on "Color Revolutions" for instance.
You cannot properly understand dictators without understanding how much they obsess over coup proofing.
Sure, Putin identified Ukraine as a threat to his regime, but the story is just a bit more complex than 'democracy spreading into the Russian sphere'. Ukraine recently overthrew a Russian-aligned guy before the first invasion, after all.
Sure, I'm by no means claiming democracy explains 100% of the reason. Single explanations rarely have high r-squared values when dealing with entire countries with millions of people, even if one of them is led by a dictator.
But it's likewise foolish to dismiss democracy as a major explanation.
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Yes, it strikes me as funny to suggest that Putin's invasion of Ukraine (precipitated as it was by an illegal coup with foreign support that overthrow a democratically elected leader) was a response to too much democracy. To Western-alignment, perhaps.
I could be very wrong, but I doubt that Ukraine (which as I recall had done fairly poorly compared to Russia) would have suddenly eclipsed it in standard-of-living if Russia had resorted simply to economic warfare instead of, well, literal warfare.
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