In 2022, when the initial missile struck Poland, the global community watched with bated breath to see if Article 5 of the NATO treaty would be invoked. Nowadays, instances of ships under attack off the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria for two weeks running, armed individuals entering Latvia from Belarus, and a constant presence of drones along the eastern frontier typically fail to cause any stir at all. As Ines Burrell points out in a piercing essay, the more we try to contain this war, the further it spreads.
The Jurisprudential Trap of Playing by the Rules
Europe’s paralysis stems from a fundamental asymmetric warfare problem: Russia operates as a rogue state while demanding the protections of the very liberal legal order it seeks to dismantle.
Russia discards every tenet of the UN Charter and the laws of armed conflict, yet fiercely clings to Western legal protections to preserve its state capital. As Burrell notes, Europe finds itself paralyzed by the fear of being sued while an entire nation is systematically battered on its doorstep. Historians have drawn inevitable parallels to the twilight of the 1930s, noting that the international community is currently living through a 1938—with the critical difference that Ukraine has chosen to fight back.
Game Theory and the Cost of Perpetual Cooperation
To understand why Western deterrence has repeatedly failed, one must look to the prisoner’s dilemma. Formulated by RAND Corporation mathematicians in 1950 during the height of the Cold War, the game demonstrates how two opposing rivals can avoid mutual destruction. Decades later, Robert Axelrod subjected the model to computerized tournaments running 200 rounds at a time. The definitive conclusion of Axelrod’s simulations was simple: a player who constantly chooses cooperation when facing an unyielding defector loses every single time.
The optimal strategy is never to defect first, but to immediately answer every defection in kind. This approach communicates clearly that defection carries an immediate cost, incentivizing the opponent to return to cooperative norms. Yet Europe has stubbornly maintained a posture of unilateral compliance. From the 2008 invasion of Georgia to the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the downing of flight MH17, Moscow defected at every turn while Western capitals offered limited sanctions, agreed to build Nord Stream 2, and urged diplomatic accommodation.
Breaking the Mold of Asymmetric Compliance
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, flattening cities like Mariupol and committing widespread atrocities, Western allies insisted that their response remain strictly within peacetime legal boundaries to avoid escalating tensions. That refusal to match Moscow’s strategic defection has only emboldened the Kremlin. As Burrell argues, holding oneself to ethical standards in a cooperative environment is a virtue, but maintaining strict pacifist legalism when facing an adversary wielding nuclear saber-rattling is a fatal miscalculation.
Signs of a strategic pivot are slowly emerging on the eastern flank. Poland has initiated a process of creating a “pre-war state,” recognizing that traditional peacetime laws restrict a nation’s capacity for rapid self-defense against hybrid aggression. Furthermore, Europe should stop cooperating with Russia and instead answer its defections in kind, thereby denying Moscow the luxury of predictable long-term planning.
Ultimately, the legal architecture of international law cannot function as a suicide pact. If Russia wishes to benefit from the protections of sovereign assets and international jurisprudence, it must first submit to the rules governing civilized nations. Otherwise, Russia’s frozen assets should be used to fund the defense of Ukraine—and by extension, the security of the continent itself.
