
Centre for West Studies
We are a politically non-aligned think tank dedicated to policy development, critical scholarship, and public debate on issues relevant to the contemporary West.
What is the West?
An evolving definition of the West could be: states and societies that broadly encompass or subscribe to liberal democratic values, are active members of the international system, are considered strategic allies of traditional Western states such as the US, UK, Germany, etc., regardless of ethnic or racial composition or geographical position. Ultimately, it is a network of power, a set of institutions strongly influenced by, and comprised of, Western states. It could be argued there is a core West: the US, Europe and Anglo-sphere democracies; a broad west comprising that core, international institutions established after WWII and peripheral partially liberal-democratic states that strongly support the existing post-WWII international political system and sometimes ally with the core. There’s an additional conception of the West: issue/interest/value based temporary crystallizations of elements of core and periphery.
CWS operates under the assumption that sustenance of the individual freedom is the paramount goal of western societies and their associated states. To this end, a kind of subsidiarity involving the limitation of state encroachment into areas where individuals are competent to decide and act, is a fundamental underpinning of our political philosophy. CWS is also internationalist, but unconventionally so. We recognize international legal responsibilities and take the protection of human rights globally as key to progress. As an under-researched, indeed under-recognized subject of scholarly enquiry, the West is THE elephant in the room of international politics and society. There is skepticism about the very question of the West’s contemporary existence as an idea, let alone as a political, economic, social and cultural reality. There is also currently an explosive, degenerate push back against the West in history. But at the same time, it is a ‘concept’ regularly employed as a vague reference point, in discourse about political, cultural and social issues. The West certainly was and indeed remains an amorphous, shifting, constantly re-crystallizing force in human civilization. It has increasingly seen by a wide range of commentators as undergoing a significant, potentially damaging cultural revolution and facing decline of its power and influence in the world.
Central to a proper understanding of the West, often neglected in commentary on strategic issues, is its inspirational and sustaining role in the development of democracy movements throughout the undemocratic or authoritarian world.
The CWS Mission
The Centre is dedicated to the exploration of policy proposals for the betterment of the contemporary West, and additionally, the study, and public debate of, all aspects of it: its definition, formation, evolution and nature; the history of the West with special reference to its colonial past; contemporary issues such as diversity, woke culture, immigration, human rights, media, and democracy; internal Western division; the US and the West; Europe and the West; its relationship to China, Russia and the authoritarian world; its relations with other major rising powers, India and Brazil, the West’s power and relationship to power in the global system.
The CWS is unique as a think tank in its approach to policy making, scholarship and public debate – a central objective being our attempt to integrate into policy and academic analysis a broader sense of public thinking and discourse on issues concerning the West to avoid the pitfalls of division between elites and ordinary people in the UK and wider West that have been seen in recent years. Huge gaps between the perspectives of those holding power in institutions across society and the public in general have arisen over many decades resulting in great fissures in UK, US and European societies and a sense or view, held increasingly by many, of a lack of democratic accountability on fundamental issues. We will engage with public opinion through polls, focus groups and worker-scholars’ research wherever feasible in relation to our research projects. As such it will aim to offer a counterview to prevalent policy, conventional think tank and academic perspectives.
The Centre for West Studies is a politically non-aligned think tank but has, nonetheless, a strong political compass which helps to shape its policy formulation: focused on the West, the Centre is pro-West, but not uncritically so. It is strongly opposed to the rise of many authoritarian powers clustered around China, Russia and Iran, which it perceives as a huge, looming danger to the free world. In this sense, in terms of human rights, but also in relation to the systemic contest for power in the world realists recognise, the CWS takes the liberty of individuals and states (and their linked societies) as critical features in analysing the world’s problems.
The CWS is strongly supportive of freedom of speech and freedom of expression and as such is extremely concerned about the rise of cancel culture in the West, which has seen many careers and public lives of decent people dashed against the rock of ideological novelty and activist innovation. Above all, it serves to limit the spread of ideas and creativity which helped to create the West through its stamping on free expression. In this sense, the Centre strongly supports, though might often disagree with, a range of actors who are critical of gender ideology or have an informed but critical view of the ‘climate consensus’ or have questioned aspects of a so called scientific consensus about the myriad issues relating the Covid crisis.
The massive reconfiguration of knowledge creation and dissemination through the media transformations we are living through has led to an epistemic crisis which has helped polarise opinion across a range of political ideas. Now, it’s not unusual to question established expert opinion and apparent consensus. The CWS sees dangers in this technological and social turn but also, opportunity. The Centre is concerned for the fate of the ordinary folk, suffering a welter of new, often radical and life-changing ideas and believes in the need to debate anyone and any idea that is not explicitly advocating violence at the individual level or promoting unprovoked aggression at the level of states.
In terms of Western societies, the CWS has a concern with tradition. There is an increasing sense that societies are become unmoored from the intricate networks and structures that shaped their development over hundreds, if not thousands of years. Technological change, and concomitant social and cultural reorganisation is now enacted at an unprecedentedly accelerating rate. In this sense the Centre is techno-sceptic but not -phobic, it is pro reflection on tradition and wary of the influx of ideologies and religious ideas and practices which can be seen as undermining traditional cultures and practices long-established in the West. Again, the fate of ordinary people throughout the West, who still value their existing ways and structures of life, is a central concern of the CWS.
The UK’s interests in Ukraine
Is it worth the UK spending billions, developing an even worse relationship with Russia, to protect and defend Ukraine. It is after all, over a thousand miles from the UK, the war zone itself is quite a bit further given Ukraine’s size (as Europe’s largest country). Are we really expecting ordinary Brits to get behind protecting such an ambitious endeavour?
There’s a lot said about President Trump lacking morality in relation to Ukraine, siding with Russia, blaming Ukraine. Less is said about what our interests are in Ukraine. Below we discuss the complex set of interests, that are sometimes barely distinguishable from what others might prefer to label values.
It’s a perennial problem of international politics and history to identify interests, separated from values. The ‘school’ of Realists, so dominant in international political thinking, are only concerned with interests, they say. So, what are Britain’s interests, or put another way, why is Ukraine so important to us?
Context
This may come across as dry, or obvious to some readers. However, in light of the recent divergence between the US and the rest of the West, it could be important to re-state an understanding of the ground on which we operate.
It’s impossible to answer this question of interest without a sound awareness of the world we are living in. Specifically, the system of states, the state-system or international system which structures both the lives of ordinary people across the globe as well as the interactions between the leaders of states who control the levers of power within each, as we often call them, country. This was not always the case: until very recently, in historic terms, large parts of the world were not controlled by states and even now certain states struggle to maintain control of the large spaces encompassed by their borders. Two hundred years ago large tracts of territory, especially in Africa, were not classed as states or even controlled by empires (a now frowned upon form of state). The coming into being of a system of states has undoubtedly provided stability and security and increasingly a more peaceful world for human beings.
An additional aspect worth noting is that we live in a world rich in resources but also one in which there are many competing claims for those resources. Whether it be access to water, food, minerals and fuels, access to the sea or other territories or whatever other humans crave, there is often competitive struggle to secure these resources.
Systemic Interest
A key aspect of this system is the inviolability or sanctity of nation-state borders. It is widely recognized that these should never be changed, unless through negotiation and uncoerced agreement. Related to this understanding is the wide perception that to shatter the peace that this system of borders and order is criminal: it amounts to, in settled international law, the crime of aggression and is arguably the greatest crime, perhaps only vying with ‘genocide’ as in the public imagination of the worst transgressions humans can perform. A fundamental interest of most, if not all states, is therefore, a systemic interest in maintaining this status quo. The UK, having had an at times checkered, or at best, varied past as one of the pre-eminent historical empires, is today a major supporter of the state system. All UK governments recognize that ignoring transgressions in the form of expansionist wars is courting disaster for the world.
Ideological Competitive Interest
A second major interest for the UK relates to the matter of resources alluded to above. It is frequently forgotten in discussions of international political interaction that there exists a wider, long-running, highly-charged and competitive strategic ‘game’ – I prefer the term, struggle – for power in the world. All states are engaged in this, but the major powers are often the focus of analysis of what is called Great Power Politics – the carving up of resources and regions at the expense of lesser powers, or states, or even other great powers. This oft-overlooked feature of world politics is older than the system of states discussed above. We can easily imagine tribes in a pre-state era, fighting for livestock, other resources, to achieve dominance and in turn their own security vis a vis local neighbours. In the modern world, the wealth incorporated in any country’s population’s aggregate wealth, its industrial base, natural resources, agricultural output, etc. are a zero-sum prize in the competition between states. If Ukraine permanently loses territories holding millions of tonnes of rare earths, or billions of barrels of oil or gas, or huge highly fertile plains of agricultural land to Russia they are not shared; there is no benefit to both, one loses all, the other gains all. Specifically, if Russia manages to hold onto the territories it has taken since 2014, and since 2022 it could benefit to the tune, according to some estimates, of $15trillion. Ukraine will lose this wealth. We must throw in the multiplying effect of such an injection into any economy and the recognition that on these prizes the military strength is built on which further expansion and conquest, and acquisition of resources can be gained; it’s a clear upward spiral that has fueled most empires in history.
This power political contest – that many in the new US administration seem to see as a legitimate great power carve up of the world – has, in fact, been overlaid with a template: the democracy and human rights model on which our Western freedoms is based.
In the last decade, we have seen the rise of the authoritarian world and the relative decline of states that base their internal functioning on a human rights-based regime of rules and laws. The growing number of autocratic states led by China, Russia and Iran but including many smaller allies such as North Korea, Burma and Venezuela, seems hell bent on bringing down the democracies.
As such, the fact that China is heavily backing Russia in its assault on Ukraine, as is Iran with military support and North Korea with frontline military personnel is no surprise. Looking at the war as an ideological competitive struggle makes clear the much larger interests at stake in this war. Already historic opponents Russia and China have allied to challenge the West. Unlike the West however, these regimes do not really have a coherent ideological base that unites them, other than their distaste for human freedoms available to the people of the Western democracies. So, to be clear, losing the four partially conquered territories of Ukraine will be a huge loss to the West in this level of the struggle for global power and will simultaneously strengthen those forces waged against states that protect and cherish human rights. Ideology is central to this conflict, therefore. But so are resources and relative global power or the power balance. And it will be clear to the perceptive reader
Secondary interests
Related to these two primary interests are two interconnected secondary aspects, effectively lower order interests which apply to the UK and to the countries of Europe: deterrence and collective defence. The connection is obvious: deterrence – that is deterring aggressive states from attempting conquest in the overlapping systems and contests described above – will be a much easier prospect if organized in concert or cooperation with other like-minded states.
Deterrence
Deterrence is a mechanism for avoiding the need to fight a war. While democracies rarely fight each other and generally do not, in the post-45 era, launch wars of territorial conquest against other states, the same cannot be said of, especially the major, authoritarian powers but even small powers or actors. It’s important to stress this phenomenon of war is declining however the invasion of Ukraine, if unchecked, would represent a major change in this trend. Deterrence clearly was not attempted or failed in Ukraine in 2014 (where surprise and stealth were key elements in the attack) and 2022 (where major Western powers did little to prevent the evident build up to attack).
Deterrence is relevant to the Ukraine conflict still despite these failings: showing unflinching resolve to win a war can deter an enemy at war, of escalating further, and push it to find a way out. Clearly, Ukraine and Western states have so far failed to achieve such in-war deterrence. The other way in which deterrence is a vital interest to the UK and its European neighbours and other Western states, including the US, is to prevent future aggression. Knowing that the response will be robust, sustained, potentially all in, other authoritarian states remain cautious about their expansionist designs. On everyone’s lips is the situation regarding Taiwan – a jewel, again with enormous resource implications for the ideological competitive struggle – which China looks increasingly like plucking given the lack of resolve shown regarding the security of Ukraine. There are a range of other contested territories, from islands in the South China Sea, to Kosova and Bosnia in the Balkans, to India-Pakistan-China contested territories to various disputed territories in South America. Without effective deterrence the world could soon be ablaze in years, if not months.
Collective European Defence
For the UK, and other European states, and until 2025, the US, collective security in Europe has been a major, long-term interest. Collective defence or security as it is often termed, has taken a severe knock with the Trump Administration’s isolationist/America First/Transactionist turn. While there has been a strong rationale for years for Europe to do more, to become a second, quite different Western superpower, the manner of the transformation President Trump has enacted has been as alarming as it has been disappointing. It has transformed, and diminished NATO, the main institution of Western collective security. The question for the UK and European allies is, will we undermine it further by our own faltering commitment to building shared military capacities organized to defend mutual interests and values?
Conclusion
The UK has a set of strong interests in supporting, defending and protecting Ukraine; the UK’s vital interests are at stake in systemic interests in the historic, increasingly peaceful structures of states, borders and law that have developed over recent centuries, and in the ideological-competitive struggle in which all states compete for resources and relative power in the world, overlaid as it is by the ideology of human rights, actually a set of values, which define Western states such as the UK today. These interests are largely shared by all other European states. Underpinning these primary interests are secondary interests vital to perpetuating the higher order concerns: deterrence and collective European security. Regarding deterrence, the UK did much in the build up to the 2022 invasion in leading Europe by supplying weaponry that proved to contribute greatly to defeating the Russia onslaught of that fateful February. But without sufficient support from France and Germany, among others, this pre-war deterrence was insufficient and too late to be publicized fully. During the war, so far, the deterrence of further attacks and expansion has failed. Even with the US, weapons systems have come years too late to create the strength required to force Russia to sue for peace. Will deterrence come now that the Trump Administration has unceremoniously withdrawn support from Ukraine and Europe? Is the new leadership in Germany ready to step up to this challenge? Will Macron realise this may be his last chance to positively alter prospects for Ukraine? And will Kier Starmer recognize the historic opportunity this presents to meet its own interests so plainly present in the war in Ukraine, right here, right now.