The Russian president is the latest in a long line of dictators to manipulate history and manufacture enemies to rally the population against and secure his own hold on power. Past Soviet leaders have drawn on the same core themes, and I have seen this playbook in action in China and North Korea, where Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un insist that they too are defending their nations against hostile foreign adversaries.

Yet we must not assume that this autocratic rewriting of history, driven largely by a desire to consolidate power, affects only a dictator’s domestic population (though it does). In fact, these retellings matter far beyond, encompassing expansive territorial ambitions and aggressive foreign policies that threaten neighboring democracies, such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan—and Ukraine—and whip up nationalist fervor against the United States and its allies.

As Putin is currently demonstrating, these questionable historical narratives in faraway autocracies are a problem for democracies too.