Hubris balancing: classical realism, self-deception and Putin's war against Ukraine

Abstract

Abstract Why did Putin decide to invade Ukraine in 2022? Structural realists regard it as a preventive war with a strategic rationale in response to NATO's eastward expansion. However, as many scholars suggest, Putin's decision-making is riddled with various irrationalities, which can be better framed as overbalancing and the classical realist concept of ‘hubris’. Lawrence Freedman and others argue that a key to explaining Putin's overbalancing is applying the concept of self-deception in evolutionary psychology, which can be the scientific foundation of hubris in classical realism. Thus, Freedman's argument of Putin's self-deception and others' general theses of self-deception as a cause of overconfidence led to the introduction of self-deception into classical realism to solve the puzzle of overbalancing in international affairs. Thereby, the novel balancing concept of ‘hubris balancing’ was developed: irrationally aggressive balancing that exceeds what is achievable in practice. There are three causal pathways (cognitive, emotional and social) to hubris balancing as ideal types: overconfidence, anger and nationalism. As a plausibility probe, hubris balancing is illustrated by analysing Putin's decision to wage war against Ukraine. The result shows that, as the logic of hubris balancing suggests, driven by overconfidence and anger towards western liberalism, Putin decided to invade Ukraine by driving exclusive nationalism.