The Defeat Of The West by Emmanuel Todd: Was I Wrong About Russia?

In 2023, the latest book by one of my favorite authors, Emmanuel Todd, was published. The book, titled La Défaite de l’Occident in French (or The Defeat of the West in English), immediately caught my attention. I was eager to read it for two main reasons: first, I have read everything I could from Todd (at least everything that has been translated into English), and second, the subject matter was of clear interest to me—the war in Ukraine and its broader anthropological context, the reasons behind its outbreak, and, of course, the consequences of its outcome.

As a sharp reader might already infer from the title, Todd does not view this conflict with much optimism for the collective West. However, there was one major problem: the book had not been translated into English, and from what I could gather, there were no plans for an English translation in the near future—if ever. Since I do not speak French, this presented a frustrating obstacle that I could not overcome.

To make matters worse, over the past few months, several long-format interviews with Todd were published on the French YouTube channel Fréquence Populaire Media, totaling nearly six hours of content. But once again, everything was in French, and no English subtitles were available. In these interviews, Todd discusses some of the most pressing contemporary issues, including the war in Ukraine, the decline of the West, and the election of Donald Trump. The sheer volume of new content from one of my favorite non-fiction authors—all inaccessible to me—was incredibly frustrating.

Determined to find a solution, I started digging through the internet, and my search paid off: someone had used AI to translate the entire book into English and put it online for free.

Now, I almost always pay for the books I read, and I have certainly never hesitated to financially support authors like Todd. But in this case, my curiosity left me no choice—I had to read the translation. While the AI-generated text is far from perfect, with occasional glitches and awkward phrasing, it is still perfectly readable.

I read the book in about three days, as Todd’s books are both relatively short and highly readable, despite tackling complex topics. And I must admit, it challenged some of my long-held convictions and forced me to reflect on my beliefs. Now throughout this article I will mostly present the ideas from Todd’s book and only in the end I will add my own commentary on the matters.

The book’s central argument is that the war in Ukraine was provoked by the West, particularly the United States. Russia is a power in irreversible demographic decline, making it fundamentally incapable of large-scale territorial expansion—such as reclaiming significant portions of the former Warsaw Pact countries. Its actions, Todd argues, are primarily defensive rather than expansionist. Ukraine is a distinct nation from Russia, as evidenced by the clearly different anthropological roots of its population, particularly in the western and central regions. The mass emigration of Russian-speaking and ethnically Russian populations from eastern Ukraine to Russia over the past decade has gradually homogenized Ukraine’s sociopolitical identity, reinforcing its national cohesion and contributing to its unexpected resilience in the early stages of the conflict.