To understand just how deep this crisis runs, we need only recall the chaotic withdrawal of NATO forces from Kabul in 2021. In many ways, it was in Afghanistan that the geopolitical ground for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was laid. For in those panicked, feverish few days in August last year, the waning of American (and, by extension, Western) power was exposed for all to see. The West had not simply been defeated. It had been humiliated.
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban after a two-decades-long occupation was not just a military or intelligence failure. It was also a moral failure. Not because the West had a moral duty to remain in Afghanistan, let alone invade in the first place. Rather, the withdrawal represented a failure of moral purpose. The West effectively pulled out of Afghanistan not because it had been beaten militarily, or because it was the right thing to do. It pulled out because it had no idea what it was doing or why it was doing it. Such was their moral disorientation, British officials couldn’t even decide whether it was better to rescue dogs or humans. …
The Ukrainian resistance has, if anything, further exposed the West’s own disorientation. Before and even during the initial stages of the invasion, the West saw Ukraine as a weak, divided and morally confused nation. Western politicians and pundits expected Ukraine to be quickly defeated by Russia. And Russian leaders, it seems, shared this view.
Yet Ukrainians did resist. They defied the fears and assumptions projected on to their nation by the West and Russia alike. And in doing so, they have shown that ideas of nationhood, shared values and sovereignty still matter today. …
Ukraine’s resistance does not validate the West. It reminds the West of all that it has ceased to believe in.
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