How To Hurt Your Own People

The geopolitical history of Europe is, on one level, a history of border disputes. Of course, these conflicts overlay other issues: religious wars, ethnic/cultural differences, and in the 20th century, Communism and Naziism. Yet today, with the notable exception of Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine. Europe is prosperous and peaceful.

America’s experience paralleled Europe’s, but on a smaller scale. The U.S. managed to engage in war with its only two neighbors, precipitated in each instance by border disputes.

Are there lessons we can draw from the European/American experiences when we look at today’s examples of Putin’s bloody adventurism or China’s chronic series of border disputes? The particular cases of China and Russia are very different, to be sure, but there are common threads: Each set of problems was initiated by that country, and each has resulted in a deterioration in that country’s international standing. In other words, Russia and China each have a reduced international role resulting from their own initiatives. How could two great nations, each with a competent foreign ministry and a long history of international involvement, undertake these self-defeating initiatives? Let me suggest two reasons as to how foreign policy could work to the detriment of the country it purports to serve.

One: Define Greatness as a Matter of Territory.

Russia and China tend to discuss national “greatness” in terms of territorial expansion. For Russia, the subjugation and dismantling of Ukraine is a national mission. For China, asserting control in the South China Sea is a sign of success. Both nations tend to invoke territorial expansion as a signal of geopolitical ascendency, similar to 19th century political behavior. More territory means more wealth. It means the country has a greater buffer. Finally, the expansion in itself is a show of strength and a message to the neighborhood. This also helps make the policy self-defeating because any territorial aggrandizement necessarily requires some other country to be diminished and can alarm others in the region. Russia’s move into Ukraine, for example, spurred Finland and Sweden to join NATO. China’s build out in the South China Sea has reinvigorated the U.S.-Philippines security relationship.

Two: Build a National Culture Around Grievance

Many nations and many people have a sense of injustice, holding that hostile powers or the vicissitudes of history have conspired to diminish that nation from its historical heights. In other words, the country has been cheated and it has a historical mission to correct these wrongs. Instead of looking at the evolution of international roles as a normal ebb and flow, these societies look at history similar to an accounting ledger, with wins and losses tallied up. Nursing these supposed injustices carries an enormous cost for the countries involved for several reasons. It is a backward-looking exercise, defining greatness against historical norms instead of looking to the future and defining greatness in terms of prosperity or access to education or any future activity.

Most of the European nations learned the lesson across the 20th century, that territorial expansion was the historical accident, usually driven by a sustained period of economic out-performance, and sovereignty over a relatively compact and contiguous land mass was more sustainable. Similarly, in the choice between being focused on grievance or aspirations, a focus on aspirations will allow you to meet some of those aspirations, but a focus on grievances will leave you with nothing but grievances. I know of no historical example in which a grievance-based national ideology ever redeemed itself or found itself satisfied that its grievance had been addressed. National unhappiness can be a one-way ticket.

Looking at the European and American experience, we can hope that Russia and China will move away from the twin curses of expansion and grievance, but this evolution can take decades. In the meantime, this offers a rather stark message to the rest of the world as to how it ought to engage or deflect initiatives from China or Russia.