Editor's Notes: They Hate Us For Our Freedoms

In his Statecraft, military analyst Jack Watling notes that there is a fundamental difference of worldview between Russian and Western leaders. Western leaders view attacks on Western lives, including Western troops, as tantamount to acts of war. They assumed Putin feels the same, and therefore that any increase in lethal aid to Ukraine—for instance, in long-range munitions capable of striking targets within Russia—would lead to an escalatory spiral. As we have seen, this was a fable: we have since delivered such munitions to Ukraine with no escalatory spiral in sight.

This is because Vladimir Putin does not care about Russian lives. He does not care about Russian capital. He does not care about Russian territory. For dictators like him, all of these things are negotiable. What is not negotiable is ideas. For Vladimir Putin, ideas are far more threatening. The ideas of democracy, freedom, and shared prosperity are existential threats to his regime.