Paper Tigers: Why the West’s Enemies Are Always Weaker Than They Roar

 

The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria proves once again that tyrants can build palaces of terror, but they always crumble under their own corruption. For instance, for all its swagger, Russia is increasingly looking like a desperate empire in decay, clinging to allies like Iran and North Korea—two regimes that can't even feed their own people.

The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria is more than a regional upheaval; it serves as a clarion call, a reminder of a truth often hidden beneath the swirling chaos of daily news: our enemies are weaker than they pretend to be. When Vladimir Putin entered Syria in 2015 to rescue Bashar al-Assad from imminent defeat, the Kremlin broadcast its return to global influence. Russia’s involvement in Syria was, in Putin’s eyes, a resounding declaration that Moscow could challenge the United States and NATO wherever it chose. Yet Assad’s downfall exposes a different truth: regimes propped up by Putin’s Russia, much like Russia itself, rest on brittle foundations of corruption, dysfunction, and coercion—factors that inevitably lead to collapse.

History has a habit of repeating itself. For decades during the Cold War, the United States vastly overestimated the Soviet Union. From the 1957 Sputnik launch to Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech in 1983, Moscow’s strength appeared formidable. Behind the Iron Curtain, however, economic stagnation, corruption, and systemic inefficiencies rotted the Soviet state from within. The USSR poured resources into weapons, war, and propaganda, yet by the 1970s, it could no longer mask its weaknesses. In 1991, the collapse came almost as a shock to the West—how could a superpower unravel so quickly? The answer lay in its inability to reform and innovate. Putin’s Russia today bears an unsettling resemblance to its Soviet predecessor.

The same pattern has played out more recently. In 2003, the West believed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. U.S. and British intelligence overstated Iraq’s capabilities, launching a war on faulty premises. Then, in 2022, as Russian troops stormed across Ukraine’s borders, many Western generals and analysts assumed Kyiv would fall within days. Russia, after all, boasted one of the world’s largest militaries. But appearances, as history teaches us, are deceiving. The invasion soon devolved into a quagmire. Ukrainian resistance exposed the decay of Russia’s military machine, which—despite its tanks, missiles, and nuclear threats—was plagued by disorganization, outdated logistics, and low morale.

If Russia were winning in Ukraine, would Putin need to threaten nuclear war at every turn? Would a victorious army be begging pariah states like North Korea for ammunition or buying drones from Iran? These desperate measures reveal that Putin’s vaunted “special military operation” has drained Russia’s resources and damaged its international standing. In the first half of 2024, Russia’s casualties climbed to staggering levels. Analysts estimate over 300,000 troops have been killed or wounded since the war began—numbers that mirror Soviet losses in Afghanistan, a conflict that contributed to the USSR’s downfall. Putin has now become reliant on waves of conscripts, inexperienced soldiers thrown into the front lines with poor training and antiquated equipment. Such tactics may buy Russia time, but they cannot win a modern war.

Meanwhile, Russia’s economy crumbles under the weight of war. Western sanctions, initially dismissed by Moscow as ineffective, are now strangling its financial sector and industries. Russia’s budget deficit has widened as the Kremlin pours unprecedented funds into its military. Consumer goods have become scarce, inflation rises steadily, and a brain drain accelerates as young, educated Russians flee the country in droves. Economists note eerie parallels to the Soviet 1970s, when stagnant growth and excessive defense spending led to economic paralysis. Putin can sell his people tales of strength, but at some point, reality catches up.

Consider the international arena, where Putin’s desperation has made him look less like a grand strategist and more like a man grasping for lifelines. Is this the Russia that once wielded influence across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond? Assad’s fall marks a symbolic blow to Russian ambitions. Syria was Moscow’s military showcase, a proxy war designed to demonstrate its ability to counter Western influence. Instead, the collapse of Assad’s regime reminds us that Russian-backed states, no matter how brutal, are built on sand. Assad, like Putin, ruled through fear and corruption, and such systems always collapse under their own weight. In backing him, Putin overreached—just as Russia has in Ukraine.

One must also note the bizarre optics of Russia’s alliances. When a supposed “great power” leans on North Korea and Iran for weapons, it underscores weakness, not strength. In 2024, reports emerged of North Korean artillery shells arriving on the Ukrainian front, weapons so poorly maintained that many failed to function. Iran, for its part, provides drones that have become Russia’s crude stand-in for advanced air power, as Western-supplied Ukrainian defenses continue to down Russian aircraft. During the Cold War, the USSR wielded vast influence over aligned states; today, Russia is reduced to scraping support from rogue regimes. Putin’s world has shrunk.

Domestically, cracks in Russia’s façade grow wider. The rebellion by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries in 2023 revealed fissures within Putin’s own power structure. The Wagner uprising wasn’t just a mutiny—it was a signal that Putin’s monopoly on control is slipping. Despite decades of consolidating power, Putin’s reliance on oligarchs, security forces, and loyalists has created a brittle system where dissent simmers beneath the surface. As economic hardship deepens and more families bury their sons returning from Ukraine, Putin’s “invincibility” will face greater challenges.

The collapse of the Assad regime is a potent warning for those who still fear Russia’s strength. For all the nuclear bluster, Putin rules a country caught in the past. Like the Soviet Union before it, Russia’s failure to modernize—to embrace transparency, innovation, and accountable governance—dooms it to decline. The world today moves too fast for regimes weighed down by corruption and dysfunction. Autocracies like Russia can project power briefly, but over time, their weaknesses always catch up.

It is often said that the West’s greatest weapon is its tendency to underestimate its adversaries, but perhaps the inverse is also true. Our adversaries often overestimate themselves. Putin has invested years in building an image of himself as a modern-day czar, a leader to restore Russia’s greatness. Yet Assad’s fall, Russia’s struggles in Ukraine, and the strain of international isolation reveal something deeper: Russia’s reach exceeds its grasp. A regime that cannot sustain its wars or support its allies cannot claim strength.

The echoes of the Soviet 1970s are deafening. Like Brezhnev’s USSR, Putin’s Russia clings to military might as its only claim to relevance. Like the USSR, it sacrifices economic stability and innovation for war. And like the USSR, it will one day discover that no amount of propaganda can hide failure. Russia today is not an unstoppable power but a giant lurching toward its own collapse.

As Assad fades into history, Russia should take heed of the lesson: no regime built on corruption and fear can survive forever. Putin, take notes—because this playbook ends the same way every time.