By Andrew Latham
Every now and then, scholars of international relations devise a neologism that enhances our ability to understand important international phenomena. It doesn’t happen very often, of course. Like many other academic fields, ours is chronically vulnerable to Shiny Object Syndrome (or, in academia, Shiny Concept Syndrome), defined as the chronic tendency of people to be easily distracted by the flashy and new, often at the expense of the useful and enduring.
But “ontological security” may be one of those rare neologisms that is more than just another shiny concept — one that actually illuminates rather than merely dazzles.
Consider the case of the Russian decision to invade Ukraine. The stale binary currently in circulation pits realpolitik explanations against imperialist ones. According to proponents of the former, the outbreak of war was the result of NATO’s seemingly inexorable eastward expansion and the fear this inspired in Russia. In the realpolitik view, the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO and bringing the old enemy right to Russia’s doorstep was always going to be considered intolerable to Moscow, and was always going to result in a military effort to prevent or preempt such an eventuality. And on Feb. 24 of this year, that is precisely what happened.
This piece was originally published in The Hill on December 21, 2022. Read more HERE.