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Dr. Joseph Dillard is a psychotherapist with over forty year's clinical experience treating individual, couple, and family issues. Dr. Dillard also has extensive experience with pain management and meditation training. The creator of Integral Deep Listening (IDL), Dr. Dillard is the author of over ten books on IDL, dreaming, nightmares, and meditation. He lives in Berlin, Germany. See: integraldeeplistening.com and his YouTube channel. He can be contacted at: [email protected]

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A Ukrainian Post-Mortem

Joseph Dillard

Almost Autopsy Time

While the corpse is not yet cold and “Slava Ukraine!” posters still decorate the yards of apparaticks dwelling in the suburbs of Washington DC, the vital signs of the patient are weakening by the day. As of this date, February 22, 2025, Ukraine remains twitching, although it has been taken off life support. Ukrainian officials report that U.S. arms delivery have reduced to a trickle. Trump has cut off military and financial aid to Kiev. There is a rumor going around that Musk will deactivate Starlink, necessary for the command of Ukrainian troops in the field, as soon as March first. Budanov, the head of Ukrainian security, has stated that Ukraine has only until mid-summer 2025 before it will collapse. Right now Ukraine is like a rocket that has been launched, run out of fuel, and now travels on under the power of inertia.

Ukraine has been the walking dead, moving around like Frankenstein in a zombie-like state, since the failure of its offensive in the summer of 2023. Similarly, it was clear by 1943 that the Third Reich had lost the war in Europe, but it continued for another two years, at great cost to all participants. It was already clear to some, as early as the first months of the war, that Ukraine had been unceremoniously pumped full of embalming fluid by the West on the occasion of its celebratory 2014 Maidan, organized and financially supported by the West, in which the last vestiges of democracy disappeared from the life monitors it dragged along behind it.[1] Post-2014, Ukraine banned Russian-language media, at least eleven opposition parties, and centralized power under Zelensky, who is now the unelected “dictator” (according to Trump) of Ukraine. Ukraine's GDP fell some 30% in 2022, with reconstruction costs estimated at $486 billion by December 2023.

Ukraine has suffered staggering losses on the battlefield. Even the Washington Post, a major booster of the war on Russia, concluded in January of 2025 that Ukraine had lost more than 400,000 killed. Russia now controls some 20% of Ukraine's territory, including Crimea and most of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. As these oblasts have voted to become part of Russia, it is highly likely they are gone forever. Over 7.2 million Ukrainians are displaced. Even western media sources are slowly admitting that the war is lost.

The Trumpster: Betraying Democracy and Human Rights

Never in a million years would I, could I, have foreseen that the Angel of Common Sense descending upon the West would come in the form of one larcenious, incredibly crude buffoon. Trump's February 2025 call with Putin reversed three years of U.S.-led isolation, signaling a pragmatic pivot. His Vice President, J.D. Vance, called Ukraine's war “unwinnable.” Trump expressed disdain for “wasting money” on a lost cause.

To give credit where credit is due for the disaster currently befalling woke bureaucrats, elites, and bureaucrats, a great deal of it has to go to the masses of the Smartest and Most Compassionate purveyors of democracy the world has ever seen. These people very happily, with full knowledge and consent, signed their own death warrants. Never could they imagine the Orange Wurlitzer would be lifted out of the cellar to which it had been consigned and begin playing The Phantom of the Opera in the living room of their lives. Never in several galactic orbits did these self-assured, entitled nabobs, secure in their bureaucratic privilege, imagine that they would become worms wriggling on hooks in revenge for eight years of Russiagate.

We only need observe the cries of outrage, angst, despair, and self-pity coming from the likes of Emmanuel Macron, Kier Starmer, Olaf Scholz, and a cavalcade of U.S. High Muck-a-Mucks, like Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who pushed ATACM use against Russia. “Return of the Night of the Zombies” is now playing not in movie theaters, but for real, in our neighborhoods.

Kübler-Ross Rides Again

These entitled neocons and bureaucrats are beginning to move through Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's famous Five Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Western prelates remain frozen in a state of abject shock and horror, making vacuous mouth noises regarding sending troops to Ukraine to be slaughtered, or volunteering UK Phantom jets to Fly the Friendly Skies above Kiev, generously offering themselves up for Russian target practice. In those Five Stages of Grief, initial denial is often accompanied by the vomiting forth of self-righteous anger. The wretched consequences now coming to pass were not in the script; this is not how the movie was supposed to turn out. The characters were not supposed to emerge from the silver screen, like in Woody Allen's “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” much less attack the audience. Death and destruction was supposed to come to The Donald and to the last Ukrainian, not to the movie producers or its tony audience.

Revenge of the Nerds Sequel

But indeed, the barbarians have indeed exited the silver screen and attacked the audience. Not only is Trump calling the anointed Golden Boy of Kiev a “second-rate comedian” and “dictator,” but his Secretary of State is proclaiming the advent of a multi-polar world. His Secretary of Defense is saying the calvary is not going to come to the rescue of the settlers, and his Vice President has the audacity to accuse the Best and Brightest of repression, censorship, and betraying democracy. To make it worse, Elon Musk is taking a break from his Mars fantasies to strip the sheen off the U.S. government. His geek squads are spreading like the plague through the hallowed halls of the Treasury, the FBI, and probably even into the Holy of Holies, Fort Knox. The problem for the Usual Suspects is that it is not a good look to whine about the unfairness of uncovering billions in government graft, grift, and incompetence. It is also not a good look to appear to be opposing transparency, accountability, and saving taxpayer money. USAID do-gooders and purveyors of color revolutions are dropping like flies, globally. The Clinton Foundation is being exposed as a simple grifting Ponzi scheme. None of this was supposed to happen.

I've got to admit I am as astounded as anyone. Not only was I a life-long Democrat up until Obama's second term (that's how utterly brainwashed in groupthink I was), but I had concluded Republicans were committed prepersonal tribalists who didn't care whose grandmother was deprived of cancer treatment, what brown-skinned person was drone assassinated, or what minority or white trash was evicted from their home. But then I finally moved out of denial myself. I realized that Obama, good Uncle Tom water carrier for Wall Street that he is, was doing all these same things and more. And it wasn't just Obama. It became crystal clear that he was just the smiling, altruistic face painted on a whoopie cushion full of cockroaches.

So it wasn't just a matter of arguing who to vote for, Pepsi or Coke; it was more a matter of debating the relative benefits of death by Jim Jones' Jonestown Kool Aid or by American Big Pharma. The Ukrainian, European, and American working classes were being gutted, roasted, and served up on a platter, with an apple in their collective mouths. They enjoyed, with a few noted exceptions, the privilege of being lambs led to the slaughter.

Revenge is not a pleasant thing

It does appear as if revenge is having its day. That narrative fits Trump's history—two impeachments, 34 felony counts in a 2024 hush-money case, and assassination attempts. Who would have thought a merry troupe of genocidalists would pull down the globalist Potemkin Village, the movie set of The Longest Day?

The moral of the story is that it is not always wise to piss off buffoons, just because they are criminals that celebrate the worst instincts in humanity, like genocide, kayfabe, and open, unadulterated theft. The problem with Trump is that he hates throwing money at things that don't benefit him. While he is quite capable of wasting money on ostentatious gold-plated furnishings in his opulent and pretentious living quarters, when he sees money - tons of money - being spent on things that don't benefit him, he has a habit of taking it very personally. The problem was also Europe, the UK, the Democrats, liberals, progressives, and the Deep State all colluding for years, since before Trump first got elected in 1016, to destroy him. For unfathomable reasons, The Donald took quite personally attempts to put him in jail, kill him, or compost his already destroyed reputation. Like Napoleon on Elba, he evidently spent his years in exile at Mar-a-Largo, plotting his revenge.

I do not for an instant believe this recompense is fueled by any love for Putin, Russia, the Ukrainian people, democracy, or American citizens. Trump did not have a soft spot in his heart for Putin. Trump is a purely transactuional organism, like tapeworms. He goes where the food is. If he kills the host in the process, oh well. Both Pepsi and Coke dissolve nails. It is no wonder that the oligarchs that control both Republican and Democratic parties, like Geppeto controlled Pinocchio, view themselves as invincible. They turn the hubris of the Greek tragedians into Amateur Hour. However, it may be time to remember “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.” The Great Stay Puft Avenger of Death has numbered the days of the kingdom of self-righteous grifters and brought it to an end. They have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The kingdom of the Western colonialists is divided and given to the Russians and Chinese.” The handwriting is on the wall.

Who Provoked the War in Ukraine?

It really doesn't matter who provoked the war in Ukraine. What matters is that 1) Russia has won it and 2), Trump has decided that the criminal destruction of Ukraine was indeed a proxy war armed, funded, and justified by NATO, the EU, and Washington. This even as Zelensky has concluded that Trump is the victim of Russian disinformation. At this point, Trump doesn't care what Zelensky and his supporters think. The West is out of bullets and money. Russia isn't. The only thing left to decide is exactly when the Ukrainian military and government will collapse and just how far west the Russians are going to go. Trump has already determined that a best-case scenario is that Ukraine will remain largely intact, but as a neutered neutral entity. Whether or not Putin will accept this instead of swallowing Ukraine whole we do not yet know, but my guess is that he will. Why? Because Russians regard this as a filial civil war among brothers. Unlike Trump, they are not out for revenge, nor do they have the slightest interest in ruling over the rabid, luny ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazis in western Ukraine who hate Russia, Why would they want to take on the management of a pack of rabid dogs?

The Fate of Europe

Western elites are shocked by Trump's multipolar shift and BRICS ascendancy, stuck in denial and anger as their script unravels. The just completed German election predicts continued political gridlock for Europe. The larger issue in this sordid B-rated tragicomedy is just how bad and complete the ongoing collapse of five hundred years of Western global exploitation will be. How badly and for how long will the proud tradition of Western enlightenment be dragged through the mud? While my crystal ball cracked years ago, my best guess is that neither China or Russia see any gain in killing and eating a goose that has laid plenty of golden eggs in its time. Rational actors prefer to have those golden eggs continue to come - as long as they get to sit at the table and enjoy the omelettes. The Chinese have a long history of preferring trade over colonialism. Putin is, if anything, rational. He has consistently proven his ability to out-think and out-maneuver the best of the pathetic crop of Western minds arrayed against him.

You don't have to agree with Putin or Xi in order to recognize the sanctions have only made them stronger, that Russia has beaten back everything the West could throw at it, and in fact used economic Judo to strengthen itself and weaken the West. You don't have to like Russia or China in order to conclude that BRICS is the new world order, and that the West can either join it or stew in a civilizational recession and depression of its own making. In 2023, in Purchasing Power Parity, the BRICS GDP surpassed that of the G7, with sanctions strengthening Russia-China ties. Russian oil exports to India were up 20% in 2024, with that Russian oil as rebranded as “non-Russian” and sold to Europe at a considerable mark-up for European consumers. “We don't want that nasty Russian oil, but we'll sure buy rebranded Russian oil at a higher price, sticking it to our industry and consumers, just to show those ugly Russians.” As early as 1922 the conservative Washington-based Brookings Institute had an essay entitled “West's 'Potemkin Village' crumbles as sanctions backfire.”

The legal case for Russia's invasion of Ukraine as self-defense

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are told, was “unprovoked,” perhaps we can gain some insight by doing something other than parroting Western groupthink. Article 51 of the UN Charter allows for preemptive self-defense if an “armed attack occurs” or is imminent. Russia argues NATO's actions constituted a creeping armed threat via Ukraine. Legal scholars like Yoram Dinstein, in War, Aggression and Self-Defence, affirm preemptive self-defense when a threat is “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” Russia cites NATO's 2008 Bucharest pledge to admit Ukraine, followed by 14 eastward expansions since 1991, Ukraine's 2021 NATO membership bid and U.S. missile-defense systems in Eastern Europe, and intelligence regarding from OSCE in February of 2022 of 50,000 Ukrainian troops near Donbas, suggesting an imminent strike, which Russia preempted. If NATO's proxy war aimed to “hurt Russia economically” and beyond, as RAND's report suggests, Russia could legally claim a cumulative threat justified its February 24, 2022, action. But then, reality doesn't matter; we can simply cover our eyes, ears, and keep whining “unprovoked!”

Russia recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR/LPR) as sovereign on February 21, 2022, invoking collective self-defense under Article 51. DPR/LPR requested Russian aid against Ukraine's “aggression.” Precedent exists in the U.S. defense of unrecognized Kosovo in 1999. Ukraine's refusal to implement Minsk II, including autonomy for Donbas, which was agreed upon in 2015, and its ongoing attacks support Russia's legal claim to protect allied entities. The OSCE reported more than 1,000 explosions in Donbas from Feb 17-20 in 2022. But of course, that doesn't matter. When the West does it, it's to expand democracy and human rights. When Russia does it, it's “unprovoked.”

While international law lacks a clear “proxy war” doctrine, aggression by a third state can trigger self-defense, according to the International Court of Justice in its 1986 ruling regarding Nicaragua v. U.S. Russia alleges Ukraine was a Western proxy based on over $300 billion in Western aid since 2014, including lethal weapons like Javelins and HIMARS. The West essentially ignored or downplayed multiple Ukrainian attacks on the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, in Zaporizhzhia. The training of some 15,000 Ukrainian forces by the U.S. and UK by 2022 is another indication that Ukraine was being prepared as a proxy fighting force against Russia, as were NATO exercises in Ukraine, such as Rapid Trident, in 2021. If this was a “proxy war to hurt Russia,” as Putin claimed, the legal threshold for self-defense broadens. Russia acted to neutralize a staging ground for Western escalation. But western groupthink can't abide any facts that support a “provoked” narrative, so these either have to be ignored or dismissed as irrelevant.

In addition, Russia highlights Western hypocrisy to bolster its legal stance. The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 on preemptive grounds, that there were weapons of mass destruction, an unproven allegation, one which has been widely debunked. NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 without UN approval. Russia's attack, while unsanctioned, mirrors these acts. Kyiv's NATO alignment posed a clearer border threat than Iraq did to the U.S. The International Court of Justice's cases regarding the Legality of Use of Force suggest that such inconsistent enforcement weakens Western objections. However, it is clear that the West would prefer to collapse than to admit that it picked a fight that anyone who is not an ideologue could see it was going to lose.

The moral case for Russia's invasion of Ukraine as self-defense

Morally, a state has a duty to protect its sovereignty and citizens from existential threats. Russia perceived NATO expansion and Ukraine's militarization as orchestrating a proxy war to encircle and destabilize it. Putin's February 24, 2022, address cited NATO's eastward push as “a matter of life and death” for Russia, claiming it risked “degrading and destroying us from within.” But of course the West, which only views its intentions as noble and egalitarian, even when it is drone assassinating citizens or supporting genocide, couldn't even begin to imagine how Russia could so profoundly misperceive its wholesome intentions. The West's support for Ukraine, including $61 billion in U.S. military aid since 2022 and training programs, including100,000 Ukrainian troops trained by NATO by 2024, was viewed by Russia as arming a neighbor state to threaten Russia's survival. Morally, preempting such a threat aligns with self-preservation, a principle even Western ethicists like Aquinas upheld as self-defense in his Summa Theologiae.

In addition, Russia faced a deliberate Western strategy to cripple its economy, a moral threat to its people's welfare. Over 16,000 sanctions on Russia by the West by 2024, have targeted 40% of Russia's budget in the form of energy exports, aiming to starve its economy and spark unrest. The Nord Stream sabotage, the greatest act of intentional environmental terrorism in modern times, which is widely attributed to the U.S., severed Russia's gas lifeline to Europe, costing billions.

The Ukraine hosted U.S. biolabs, now shown to be funded by USAID and other US government sources. But why should Russia take offense at a little thing like biological warfare? While Russia can argue that it acted to protect its people's livelihood, a moral imperative akin to resisting economic genocide, the West's control of the news its citizens get, could easily minimize the influence of reality on the hearts and minds of its subjects.

Morally, a nation can resist foreign attempts to overthrow its government or fragment its territory. The RAND Corporation's 2019 document, “Overextending Russia” explicitly outlines destabilizing Russia via Ukraine, including arming Kyiv to “increase costs” and provoke internal dissent. But that doesn't count as “unprovoked.” Post-2014, Western NGOs and aid, including $5 billion in U.S. “democracy promotion,” according to Victoria Nuland, backed anti-Russian factions in Ukraine. Putin's 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” frames Ukraine as a cultural extension of Russia, suggesting its Western alignment threatened national identity. If the West sought to splinter Russia into “mini-states”—a fear echoed in Kremlin rhetoric since Brzezinski's 1997 The Grand Chessboard—Russia's attack becomes a moral stand against colonial dismemberment.

Russia's “special military operation” aimed to stop what it calls a genocide in Donbas, where, according to a UN report in 2021, 14,000 died in Ukraine's post-2014 conflict with separatists. The OSCE noted over 3000 ceasefire violations by Ukrainian shelling just in 2021. But none of that justified a Russian military response, right? Russia could have done something else, like allow NATO to place nuclear capable missiles in Ukraine, since as a sovereign nation, Ukraine had that right under international law. Or so goes the “unprovoked” argument.

The overwhelming proof of neo-Nazi influences in the Ukrainian government and military generated for Russia a moral duty to intervene. But, as some have argued, Russia contains its own neo-Nazis, why should it take offense at a few more rabid ones, armed to the teeth, bombing ethnic Russians day in and day out?

Westerners may be either unaware, ignore, or make light of some 27 million Russians killed at the hands of National Socialism during World War II. Russians do not. Humanitarian intervention has precedent in NATO's 1999 Kosovo bombing. It suggests that Russia's actions align with a moral norm the West itself set. It is morally consistent to call out both the Western funded and armed genocide on Palestinians and the proxy war on Russia as immoral. Russia can claim it acted to protect its people from economic ruin, political subversion, and cultural erasure, driven by a West intent on proxy warfare through Ukraine. But who cares if Russia can claim moral justification? The reality is that the West could march eastward with its military and Russia could not or would not stop it. When it finally did, the cries of moral outrage have been loud and long.

The “Authoritarians” Smoke the West

On an ideological level, the West is going to have to continue going through those five stages of grief. What will remain of Western culture when that process is concluded remains to be seen. Already the most obscene of wokeness have come to a bitter end. The weaknesses, limitations, and excesses of democracy have been exposed and the strengths, benefits, and utility of authoritarianism are, like it or not, clear as the light of day. By almost every metric the “authoritarians” in Beijing are lapping the West. By almost every metric, the “authoritarians” in the Kremlin have outsmarted the West. Maybe it's time for the Best and the Brightest to ask “why?” “What do they know that we don't know?” We are still a couple of stages in that progression through the stages of grief away from that point when minds in the West begin asking that simple question. But that day will come.

A history of avoidance of conflict, but oh well

The White House has stopped referring to the Russians as “aggressors.” There is a reason for this. History will show that Putin did everything he did to avoid attacking Ukraine. He agreed to the Minsk II agreements, he negotiated for their enforcement for seven years; he agreed to very favorable terms for Ukraine at Istanbul. He withdrew his troops from the vicinity of Kiev in a gesture of good will after that agreement appeared to have been reached. Russia has avoided attacking civilian infrastructure and has kept civilian casualties in Ukraine low, particularly when compared with the savagery unleashed by the West in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, and Palestine.

When Western apologists for the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev are asked what could Putin have done to avoid war that was more than he did, they cannot come up with anything, because there isn't anything. Would these same Westerners allow a foreign power to put whatever weapons they want on their borders? Obviously not. Would these same Westerners allow a genocidal government that killed their own citizens living in their country to continue doing so? Of course not.

Will Europe grow up?

Where will the West go from here? It will have to make its way through the remainder of the Five Stages. While Trump is willing to negotiate, the regime in Kiev, the powers in Europe, and the Democrats in the U.S. remain resolutely opposed to doing so. On the one hand, they are shocked and outraged that Russia and Washington are meeting without them. On the other hand, they are against negotiating with “the enemy.”

Fortunately, reality has a way of winning out in the long run. Europe has security concerns that must be addressed, with or without the help of the U.S. It looks like it may finally, after some seventy-plus years, stop playing poodle to Washington and start making decisions that reflect its own policies and interests. Europe also has economic interests that are different than those of the U.S. that it is well overdue that it begins asserting and defending.

What might reanimate the corpse of Ukraine?

Where does all this leave Ukraine? It is clear at this point that the U.S. under the Trump administration will provide neither military or economic support for Ukraine going forward. Will Europe? Like the U.S., Europe has already drained its weapon stockpiles, giving them to Ukraine during the previous three years. Its industrial base has been gutted, meaning that it has no capacity to provide more weapons of any significant number for some years to come.

Economically, Ukraine is devastated. Most of its heavy industry and mineral wealth was located in the far eastern provinces, now Russian oblasts. Trump is claiming Ukraine owes it some 500 billion dollars, but Ukraine is functionally bankrupt. With the West unwilling or unable to support Ukraine financially and highly unlikely to provide the funds or capability for its reconstruction after the war, Ukraine is most likely to fall, out of economic necessity, if for no other reason, under the aegis of Russia. This makes sense, because Russia views Ukrainians as brothers and the war as a Western-fueled civil war. After all, Ukraine had been a province of Russia since 862 until only 1991. That is some eleven hundred years of historic, ethnic, cultural, and social affiliation with Russia. How likely were fascists, fueled by Western money and weapons, to succeed in overturning that legacy? It is also important to remember that Zelensky ran on a platform of peace with Russia and reintegration of the Russian ethnic minority into greater Ukraine. It was on that basis that he was elected, not on his subsequently adopted ethno-supremist policies and mandates.

Russia, and possibly China, are the only countries with the resources, motivation, and freedom to rehabilitate Ukraine. It is possible that Russia will agree to the incorporation of western regions of Ukraine into Poland, Hungary, and possibly Romania, in which case reconstruction of those areas will become their business, not Russia's. Russia will not take on reconstruction if it is confident that Ukraine will never again become a tool for war waged against it. However, on what grounds should Russia accept Western assurances that will be the case?

Putin signed Minsk II in 2015, offering autonomy to Donbas within Ukraine, but Ukraine stalled the agreement for seven years, using that time to arm Ukraine. In the Istanbul talks in March, 2022, Russia withdrew near Kyiv, in an unreciprocated goodwill gesture, as Ukraine, per Boris Johnson, rejected peace. Ukraine is most likely to become a Russian “protectorate” if it is not absorbed wholly back into Russia. How else can Russia be confident the West will not eventually re-arm rump state Ukraine?

Implications for the Integral Community

Many in the integral community, including prominent voices like those on Integral Life and Deep Transformation podcasts, including Corey deVos, Jeff Salzman, Kateryna Yasko, initially framed Russia's 2022 invasion as a moral and developmental crisis. They saw it as a clash between Putin's “red/Amber” stages, “pre-modern” authoritarianism and Ukraine's striving for Orange/Green “modern” or “postmodern stages. Supporting Western arming of Ukraine aligned with a “warrior consciousness” to defend democracy and human rights, values resonant with Green-stage pluralism and compassion. Protests against Russia reflected a rejection of aggression and a call for global solidarity, consistent with Integral's worldcentric ethos. But the shifting narrative, based on economic and political realities, including Russia's resilience, Ukraine's authoritarian leanings under Zelensky, and unaccounted aid, have complicated this stance.

What can we conclude regarding the AQAL framework's predictive power? AQAL aims to map reality across individual interiors (UL), collective interiors (LL), individual exteriors (UR), and collective exteriors (LR). The community's early support leaned heavily on LL cultural values like democracy and UL moral outrage, while undervaluing the significance of LR geopolitical systems and power dynamics as well as UR economic and military realities. Russia's success suggest a realist power dynamic in the LR trumped liberal ideals. These successes include controlling some 20% of Ukraine and Russia prospering under Western sanctions. Integralists might ask, “Did we miss the structural drivers, such as NATO expansion and energy geopolitics in favor of a values-based narrative?” “Did we ignore the Russian case in favor of our hierarchical geopolitical stereotyping?”

While AQAL theory itself remains robust, these facts on the ground imply its application requires more rigor in balancing quadrants. Overemphasizing the Green-stage ideals of compassion and democracy without grounding in Amber/Orange realities of security and power risks misreading complex conflicts. It is more complicated than simply a conflict between idealism and realism. Jeffrey Sach's analysis does not view global conflict and war between the great powers as inevitable, as John Mearsheimer does (See Mearsheimer's take on China). I agree with Darwin that survival of the fittest is balanced by cooperation. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent, the necessity of cooperation will increasingly outweigh the advantages of conflict.

A second take-away for Integralists involves their tendency to cast Ukraine as progressing toward pluralistic and democratic Green, with Russia stuck at authoritarian Amber. Yet Ukraine has been under martial law since 2022, complete with bans on opposition, with media censorship and consolidation. Freedom House gave Ukraine a rating “partly free,” 3.36/7, suggesting a regression to Amber under pressure, not a democratic leap forward. Russia, meanwhile, leverages the economic adaptation of Orange efficiency and the military resolve of Red power through military resolve.” It appears that Russia got the Integral message of developing a righteous “warrior consciousness.” Indeed, Russia today arguably has the best trained and equipped military in the world. The implication is that the Integral community projected developmental optimism onto Ukraine, misaligning stage assessments with on-the-ground realities. This challenges Integral Theory to refine how it diagnoses state behaviors under duress, avoiding idealization.

Corruption

U.S. Inspector General reports of 2024 note more than $1 billion in untracked weapons. Trump argues that Ukraine owes the US some $500 billion, and he wants it back. Did the Integral community overlook corruption or proxy-war motives? For example, these are spelled out in RAND's 2019 “Overextending Russia” strategy, in its zeal to support Ukraine? Integral Theory's emphasis on shadow integration pushes members to examine their own complicity in backing a flawed cause, potentially blinded by Green-stage moralism or Western exceptionalism. Integral's shadow work, confronting unconscious biases, looks like a largely ignored priority.

There are further implications for the Integral community. Supporting a losing effort tied to a non-democratic regime tarnishes the community's credibility. If aid scandals deepen, Europe's economy and industrial base continue to collapse, European governments are largely discredited and overthrown, and Russia consolidates its victory by neutralizing Ukraine as a buffer state, integralists who cheered Western intervention may face accusations of naivety or groupthink.

In a “best case” scenario, the Integral community could pivot to a “post-mortem,” post-autopsy analysis, using AQAL to dissect what went wrong, such as aid mismanagement and ignoring both the power and sovereignty of Russia in the LR and democratic erosion in Ukraine in the LL. This could reinforce Integral's relevance as a tool for sense-making, not just advocacy. However, if the past is predictive, the first line of defense of at least some Integralists will be to change the subject and pretend that they never supported Ukraine and its neo-Nazi military and government. If that fails, the second line of defense will be to attack reality by contending that its supporters are just not evolved enough to understand 2nd tier multi-perspectivalism.

It is important to point out that not all integralists backed Western intervention in Ukraine. Some, mostly the realists in the community, foresaw Russia's resilience and questioned NATO's role. Russia's win could split the community between those doubling down on idealist moral outrage and those urging a more nuanced, realist-based power-aware stance. Based on the ongoing polemics at Integral Global, it is safe to conclude that is what has happened.

A Western Liberal Order or a Multipolar World?

It is important to confront, acknowledge, and address the latent ethnocentrism within the Integral world view, something that is often hidden beneath a surface patina of egalitarianism and heralding of minority rights. The rise of BRICS, with its GDP surpassing the G7 in PPP, as previously noted, and Russia's defiance signal the arrival of a multipolar world, something acknowledged by U.S. Secretary of State Rubio in his very first public pronouncement after taking office. This reality challenges the Western liberal order integralists often implicitly endorse. Ukraine's fate as a neutered state underscores this shift. The Integral community must adapt Integral Theory to a geopolitically multi-perspectival, non-Western-centric reality. Integralists would benefit from re-evaluating support for Western hegemony and engaging non-Western voices, such as Chinese humanism, with its emphasis on mercantilism rather than conflict.

Some integralists could hope that the debates drive members toward second-tier Teal thinking, integrating Green compassion with Orange pragmatism and Amber stability, rather than staying siloed in Green. My own hope is that Integral will outgrow assessing geopolitics in the LR in hierarchical developmental framings and lame color coding and instead approach it in terms of universal, humanistic morals of respect, reciprocity, trustworthiness, and empathy that are equally relevant and critical for all developmental levels.

Conclusion

The West, in funding, arming, and providing narrative support for its proxy war against Russia has undermined its industrial, economic, and moral foundations while increasing those of Russia. It has hastened its own demise and credibility while improving that of Russia in the eyes of the greater global community. If Ukraine's regime is non-democratic, as Zelensky's 2024 election postponement clearly demonstrates, and aid-fueled corruption is rampant, the moral clarity of “defending democracy” blurs. Integralists might wrestle with whether the end of resisting Russia justified the means of arming a fascist state and sending hundreds of thousands to their deaths. This is a classic ethical dilemma Wilber's work often sidesteps for systemic focus.

There is a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth currently going on in the power centers of the West. In an amazingly short time (only a month has passed since the inauguration), Trump has, to his credit, already made significant steps to correct a disastrous U.S. course, even if that occurs at the expense of Europe and the entitled elites of the U.S. military, industrial, congressional, and bureaucratic complex. Whether those steps are simply cover for the classical Republican attempts to gut social welfare programs or whether it is something deeper, fairer, and more profound is yet to be determined. To the cynics out there that argue that all that is happening is that one group of grifters is being replaced by another, you may indeed be correct. However, few would argue that it is better to keep intact a group of known corrupt grifters than to throw them out and hope to do better with a new, less entrenched batch.

Russia's victory, Ukraine's authoritarian drift, and aid scandals don't invalidate Integral Theory. Instead, they expose gaps in its community's application of that theory. These include over-idealism, moral horror as a defense against moral hypocrisy, quadrant imbalance, and Western bias. The implications are a call to evolve by deeper assessment of unfounded assumptions regarding who is Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer. Multipolar complexity, like multi-perspectivalism, needs to be embraced. Shadow work needs to be undertaken to reassess developmental assumptions that result in fundamental misperceptions regarding others, the international community, and oneself. Integral needs to do a better job of embracing multipolar complexity than simply pigeon-holing nations in one color category or another.

The Ukrainian population itself has been tragically victimized in this obscene fiasco. Russia, the Europeans, the Americans, the government of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian population itself all share some responsibility in this unmitigated disaster. Although demanding justice for the victimized is both appropriate and necessary, it is also largely a waste of time to attempt to apportion blame. Something more along the lines of the South African Truth and Reconciliation process is necessary, but at this point that seems highly unlikely.

For the Integral community, these historic events represent a reckoning. Some may retreat to moralism while others advance to a more grounded multi-perspectival synthesis. AQAL theory itself stands resilient, but its practitioners must prove it can wrestle with messy realities, not just lofty visions, to stay vital in a shifting world order as of February 24, 2025.

NOTES

[1] Dillard, J. Is Putin Red and the West Green? March, 2022., IntegralWorld.Net