Ukraine crisis a lesson for the West

With the Russia-Ukraine conflict entering its fourth year, the realities of the battlefield have shattered many of the comfortable illusions nurtured by the West. The conflict, far from being the "defense of democracy" it was initially portrayed to be, has become a profound test of strategic endurance, national interests and the limits of the liberal order's coercive tools.

This conflict offers at least three fundamental lessons, which reaffirm a truth long understood by students of geopolitics: in international relations, power, not narrative, defines outcomes.

First, narratives do not win wars. Western leaders sought to present the conflict as a moral crusade, a clash between good and evil, liberty and tyranny. But history offers few rewards to those who mistake rhetoric for reality. As Sun Tzu said more than two thousand years ago, "All warfare is based on deception."