Milada Anna Vachudova of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill presented on “Europe in the Face of War and America’s Authoritarian Turn” during a Rethinking European Development and Security (REDS) seminar, co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and The Europe Center (TEC). Drawing on research coauthored with Nadiia Koval of the European Policy Institute in Kyiv, Vachudova examined how Russia’s war in Ukraine, democratic backsliding within the European Union, and changing U.S. foreign policy are reshaping Europe’s geopolitical role.

Vachudova began by arguing that Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion is also a defense of European democracy, national sovereignty, and the security of EU and NATO members. She situated this claim within a broader account of the EU’s power. Historically, the union has exerted influence through its democratic norms, economic integration, market access, and enlargement rather than military force alone. Yet she rejected the idea that Europe must choose between defending liberal values and pursuing geopolitical interests. Military capabilities, she suggested, can complement the EU’s normative and economic strengths.

That potential has long been undermined by political expediency. Vachudova pointed to Europe’s pre-2022 dependence on Russian energy and continued economic engagement with Moscow, as well as the challenge posed by authoritarian-minded political parties within the EU. These vulnerabilities illustrated the costs of prioritizing short-term economic interests over democratic commitments and long-term security.

Russia’s February 2022 invasion nevertheless prompted an unusually rapid European response. EU institutions, particularly the European Commission, moved to assist Ukrainian refugees, expand market access, impose sanctions, provide financial and military assistance, and revive enlargement. Vachudova emphasized that this early institutional leadership occurred amid an absence of traditional French-German leadership. It also coincided with the emergence of ad hoc coalitions and a shift in influence toward northern and eastern European states, whose governments have often taken a more urgent view of the Russian threat.

However, translating this initial momentum into sustained military capacity has proven difficult. Increased defense spending, including in Germany and Poland, has not eliminated obstacles to coordination, implementation, and collective action. The EU must contend with powerful veto players even as uncertainty about the United States raises questions about Europe's ability to defend Ukraine and itself.

Vachudova characterized the current U.S. trajectory as an “authoritarian turn,” arguing that the Trump administration’s approach to Russia and Ukraine has eroded transatlantic trust. In her assessment, perceived American unreliability carries significant security, reputational, and economic costs, including growing doubts among allies about dependence on U.S.-made weapons systems.

Despite these challenges, Vachudova identified reasons for cautious optimism. External threats can catalyze European integration, while democratic mobilization can counter authoritarian movements and Russian influence. She also described a pattern of “democratic bandwagoning,” exemplified by Canada moving closer to the EU. Ultimately, she suggested that Ukraine’s determination could help sustain enlargement and strengthen Europe’s identity as both a democratic community and a geopolitical actor. The central question is whether Europe can convert crisis-driven solidarity into lasting political unity and defense capabilities.

On October 8, 2026, Aleksandar Matovski presented at a Rethinking European Development and Security (REDS) seminar, co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and The Europe Center (TEC), on Russia’s nuclear escalation and restraint during the war in Ukraine. The central puzzle he sought to explain was why the severity of an external shock does not necessarily correspond to the timing or intensity of Russia’s response. Moscow has repeatedly resorted to nuclear threats and provocative signaling. Yet, at other times, it has absorbed substantial military setbacks without responding with comparable ferocity. The question, therefore, is what explains this variation in restraint and escalation.

Matovski identified three broad explanations in the existing literature. The first concerns external constraints, including backlash from Russia’s remaining partners, the limited battlefield utility of nuclear weapons, and the danger of confrontation with NATO. However, these factors primarily explain restraint rather than escalation. The second concerns credibility decay, whereby repeated threats without follow-through undermine credibility and encourage riskier behavior to restore it. The third concerns domestic political influences, including hardliner pressure, regime survival threats, and risk-averse elites and citizens. Interestingly, domestic politics can generate both escalation and restraint. The question is which pressures matter, when, and how they interact with external constraints.

Matovski consequently proposed his pressure cooker framework, based on three premises. First, Putin needs a “forever war” to maintain political control. Continued confrontation allows the regime to mobilize nationalism, justify repression, and redirect dissatisfaction toward foreign adversaries. Second, military failure does not necessarily imply domestic political failure. Much depends on how the Kremlin frames setbacks and manages their political consequences. Third, nuclear coercion is essential to sustaining the war. It discourages Western intervention and reinforces the domestic narrative that Russia cannot ultimately be defeated.

The mechanism begins with an external shock, followed by initial restraint and the gradual accumulation of political pressure. Initially, restraint may be advantageous because escalation can publicly acknowledge military failure, alarm risk-averse citizens, and create further external risks. The Kremlin can also temporarily defer the political costs of inaction by controlling the narrative. However, as setbacks accumulate, hardliners increasingly interpret restraint as weakness. Meanwhile, the wider public may question the war’s sustainability. Repeated unenforced threats also undermine Russia’s credibility and may encourage adversaries to test its limits. Eventually, the political costs of restraint may outweigh those of escalation, prompting more dramatic action.

Matovski illustrated this through the 2022 mobilization and nuclear scare. Despite the failure of Russia’s initial invasion, Putin initially avoided large-scale mobilization. However, following further setbacks, particularly Ukraine’s Kharkiv counteroffensive in September, domestic pressures arguably intensified. Putin subsequently announced partial mobilization and the purported annexation of four Ukrainian regions. Russia also intensified nuclear threats. In October, Moscow made allegations concerning a potential Ukrainian “dirty bomb,” amid heightened fears of nuclear escalation. Yet Russia subsequently withdrew from Kherson in November without nuclear retaliation. Matovski interpreted this sequence as consistent with his argument that escalation follows accumulated pressures rather than necessarily responding immediately to individual setbacks.

The central implication is that Russian restraint and escalation may represent different phases of the same political process. Apparent restraint may therefore be unstable, making subsequent escalation difficult to anticipate.

On February 12, Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Europe Center, and the Hoover Institution hosted Lucan Way, Distinguished Professor of Democracy at the University of Toronto, for a seminar titled “Economic Dependence and Authoritarianism: Russia in Comparative Perspective.” The talk, part of the REDS (Rethinking European Development and Security) series, examined the structural relationship between state resource concentration and democratic outcomes, using Russia as a central case while situating it within broader comparative patterns.

Way’s core argument centered on a simple but powerful proposition: when economic resources are concentrated in the hands of the state, autocracy becomes more likely; when resources are dispersed outside the state, democracy becomes more feasible. The key mechanism linking economic structure to regime type is the strength — or weakness — of countervailing societal power. Resource concentration generates societal dependence on political leaders. Citizens dependent on public-sector employment or state benefits face high personal costs for political opposition, including loss of income or access to essential services. Similarly, business elites reliant on state licenses, contracts, or regulatory goodwill incur substantial risks if they challenge incumbents. The result is weak opposition, limited activist networks, minimal independent funding, and fragile civil society organizations.

Way situated this framework within three major literatures on authoritarianism. First, underdevelopment (Lipset 1959; Przeworski et al. 2000) remains strongly associated with autocracy: roughly 70 percent of poor countries were autocratic between 2000 and 2021. Second, oil wealth (Ross 2001; Bellin 2004) produces an even starker pattern: about 90 percent of petrostates were authoritarian in the same period. Third, statist or weak private-sector economies (Fish 2005; Greene 2007; Arriola 2013; Rosenfeld 2021) show similar tendencies, with roughly 80 percent of the most statist countries classified as autocratic. Despite their differences — very poor African states, wealthy Middle Eastern petrostates, and middle-income statist regimes — the underlying mechanism is the same: resource concentration fosters weak countervailing power.

Russia exemplifies this structural dynamic. While the 1990s appeared to feature strong countervailing forces, including powerful oligarchs credited with supporting Boris Yeltsin’s reelection, Way argued that these actors were in fact institutionally weak. Russia’s private sector relied heavily on state connections in a system with weak courts and manipulable regulatory frameworks. The imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky after he challenged Vladimir Putin underscored the vulnerability of even the wealthiest economic actors. The broader business community remained largely passive, reflecting structural dependence rather than autonomous strength.

Statism further entrenched authoritarian control. A state-dependent middle class and political parties reliant on Kremlin financing limited the development of robust opposition. In oil-rich systems, public-sector employment and distributive benefits deepen citizens' dependence, while governments remain fiscally insulated from private-sector pressures. In underdeveloped postcolonial contexts, even modestly financed states wield disproportionate leverage over fragile economies, facilitating cooptation and repression.
Preliminary statistical evidence using V-Dem measures of “resource concentration” supports these claims. State ownership or control over key sectors correlates strongly with authoritarianism, high pro-incumbent mobilization, low opposition mobilization, media control, and weak civil society. Way acknowledged complications, including endogeneity: autocrats often increase resource concentration through nationalization or expansion of public employment. Nevertheless, certain structural conditions — such as large oil reserves, extreme underdevelopment, or historically weak private sectors — make concentration more feasible ex ante.

In conclusion, Way emphasized that autocracy is not inevitable in such contexts. However, where countervailing societal power is weak, imposing authoritarian rule becomes far easier. Across diverse regimes, economic dependence constitutes a common mechanism of authoritarian control — whether through business capture of the state or state capture of business.