Does national humiliation explain why wars break out?

For a nation, humiliation isn’t just a feeling – it’s a story. Understanding this can help countries move beyond aggression

https://psyche.co/ideas/does-national-humiliation-explain-why-wars-break-out


A rally in Moscow to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s annexation of four regions in Ukraine, 29 September 2023. Photo by Stringer/Reuters



Why do countries go to war? International relations scholars are increasingly pointing to national humiliation as a key factor. Evelin Lindner observes in Making Enemies (2006) that ‘Humiliated hearts and minds may represent the only “real” weapons of mass destruction.’ Likewise, Joslyn Barnhart argues in The Consequences of Humiliation (2020) that ‘Humiliating international events on average increase individual support for assertive foreign policy actions.’ When citizens of a nation feel humiliated, they become more likely to support aggressive foreign policy initiatives.

This argument has featured prominently in discussions about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The Kremlin’s official justifications have included unfounded claims about Ukrainian Nazis committing genocide, as well as the threat of NATO expansion. But a recurring theme in explanations for the war is also the humiliation supposedly felt by everyday Russians.

We see this in the rhetoric of the Kremlin. On the morning of the invasion, the Russian president Vladimir Putin framed the war as a response to humiliation, declaring that its purpose was to protect those who had ‘been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime’. Similar explanations appear in Western commentary. As Thomas Friedman noted in The New York Times in 2022: ‘When Putin felt humiliated by the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the expansion of NATO, he responded: “I’ll show you. I’ll beat up Ukraine.”’

This idea extends beyond Russia. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has warned against humiliating Russia in efforts to aid Ukraine, implying that further humiliation could prolong the conflict. Looking further back, the humiliation of Germany by the Treaty of Versailles (1919) is often cited as a key driver of Hitler’s rise to power. And China’s so-called ‘century of humiliation’ – spanning from the Opium Wars to the end of the Second World War – is frequently invoked to explain China’s aggressive stance towards the West today.

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