The war in Ukraine is the twilight struggle not of a dictatorship which lasted half a century, but of an empire which lasted nearly five. In A.D. 1475 the Principality of Theodoro fell to an Ottoman siege. The final rump state of a rump state of what had once been the Eastern Roman Empire, Theodoro’s fall had been inevitable since the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, the date historians usually point to as the fall of Eastern Rome. But whether one pegs the final end of the Eastern Roman Empire to 1453 or 1475 is beside the point; the fall of the empire, sometimes referred to as the Second Rome, was a seismic event, ending over two millennia of some form of Roman statehood. But the full reverberations of that fall took centuries to become clear, and certainly never were so to those living at the time. Though it may not seem so at first, the world finds itself in a similar situation today in regard to what was once called the “Third Rome”: Moscow, the heart of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and the current-day Russian Federation. Moscow received this moniker due to its proximity to the Second Rome, Constantinople, its close relationship to that empire, and their shared Orthodox Christianity. And the fall of that Second Rome provides a roadmap of warning to Western policymakers today regarding the final fall of the Third. Of course, most foreign policy analysts, especially those of the liberal internationalist variety, would not see a connection here beyond historical happenstance. To them, the Third Rome, such as it was, ended when the Russian Empire fell in 1917. Most Western analysts and policymakers view the current state of affairs in Eastern Europe as nothing more than post-Soviet Russia making a last-gasp attempt at retrieving its former territories in order to climb back to its 1950s communist heights, a time in which it was the clear ruler of Eurasia. This explains President Joe Biden’s administration’s recent call for a “weakened Russia” and Biden’s improvised call for regime change. In his eyes, the current Russian Federation is simply the weak and dying Soviet Union, led by weak and dying former communist officials. Those crafty cartoon communists, Boris and Natasha, are at it again, and those on the right side of history must step in. But there is another possibility, one which should be taken seriously by those who seek to determine the future of the world: that we are not in the aftermath of the Soviet Union but are instead still in the final days of the Third Rome. The idea of the Russian Empire still existing in spirit is not original; for just one example, it was recently espoused by the Russian author, philosopher, and historian Boris Akunin. But it has flown under the radar of major Western policymakers on all sides of the political spectrum and it deserves attention, because when viewed through this lens recent historical events take on a different hue. In this telling, the Soviet Union was a last-ditch attempt by a group of radicals, knowingly or unknowingly, to resurrect Russian imperial greatness. The war in Ukraine, therefore, is the twilight struggle not of a dictatorship which lasted half a century, but of an empire which lasted nearly five. This leads one to a conclusion opposite that of the former view: that the West should be cautious in seeking to destabilize or destroy the Russian Federation. Far from desiring to end the aftermath of a failed communist experiment, the West may inadvertently be seeking to finalize the half-millennium old Russian Empire. We should therefore be wary of wantonly seeking to “weaken” Russia. This warning was most recently exhibited by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at Davos, who called on the Ukrainians to “match the heroism that they have shown in the war with wisdom for the balance in Europe and in the world at large.” For inspiration as to how to proceed with balance and the West-Russian relationship, and for warning as to what not to do, we can look to the fate of Russia’s Orthodox progenitor, the Second Rome: the Eastern Roman Empire, its collapse, its final stand, and all that followed.

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