Writing for RealClearDefense, Leonard and Michael Hochberg note the two very different world views which animate the thinking of strategists in Russia and in the NATO-centric West. That of Russia is territorial and that of the West is maritime, both make sense as organizing principles but they lead to exactly opposite conclusions.
The Hochbergs observe the current war in Ukraine is the result of these two views in kinetic opposition to one another. Russia has historic reason to fear attack by a united Europe (e.g., Napoleon, Hitler) whereas Europe has even more recent historic reason to fear the bullying of a bulked-up Russia (the USSR in the Cold War).
As a way of understanding how we got here, their analysis makes considerable sense. It does not, however, suggest a way out of the current impasse. Meanwhile, those who live along the borders of the two macro-polities end up as battlefields.
