From Story to Straitjacket: The Strategic Cost of Political Mythmaking
Every day we watch foreign policy unfold in bold headlines and staged statements. But behind the choreography of diplomacy lies something more enduring—and more dangerous: the narratives states craft to justify their actions.
I had originally intended to begin this series by laying out the theoretical foundations of ideological framing in foreign policy—why leaders across regions and regimes wrap self-interest in the language of values. But I soon came across an excellent piece by
that tackles the roots of this phenomenon head-on. He lays out how ideological fundamentalism becomes embedded in state behavior and offers a strong lens through which to view today’s geopolitics. I encourage readers to take a look at his article here.Rather than cover that ground again, this piece picks up where that one leaves off: not at the origins of ideological framing, but at its deployment—how states use it as a tool, how it shapes public perception, and what happens when the narrative starts to control the very actors who created it.
Governments across the ideological spectrum—right and left, east and west, democratic and autocratic—have long used moral and ideological narratives to justify foreign policies that are, at their core, rooted in self-interest. These actions are rarely about altruism or principle. They are about economics, politics, and strategy. But cloaked in the language of good versus evil, these interests become more palatable to the public.
Ideological framing serves a practical purpose: it suppresses dissent. When a government seeks to pursue a policy that imposes social or economic costs—such as war, sanctions, or defense spending at the expense of domestic programs—presenting it as a moral imperative discourages opposition and makes it easier to sell the policy to a potentially reluctant polity. Citizens questioning the policy can be branded as naïve, unpatriotic, or even traitorous, reducing the likelihood of opposition if the narrative is framed well. It is also useful on the international arena, where leveraging particular ideological narratives -human rights, democracy- is useful in putting rival states on the defensive
This isn’t about belief. It’s about control.
Ideological fundamentalism often serves as a disguise. Across history, governments have acted first to secure their interests—and used ideological drivers to cloak their intentions. Today’s international crises follow the same well-worn script: first the action, then the justification. And behind the justification lies a carefully crafted architecture of interests.
How Ideology is Wielded: The Mechanics of Justification
Ideological framing is not a spontaneous reaction—it is a calculated instrument of statecraft. Once a strategic decision has been made, governments shift into narrative-building mode, crafting moral justifications designed not to reflect reality, but to shape public perception. The goal isn’t to align policy with public values—it’s to align public values with the chosen policy, to ensure support for it, and reduce any potential opposition to it.
This narrative engineering has become a common tool because it effectively taps directly into useful psychological mechanisms. First, the messaging is moralized: actions are framed as necessary for defending democracy, protecting human rights, or confronting evil, values that are difficult to oppose in and of themselves. These emotionally resonant appeals leverage the availability heuristic—people assess the validity of information based on what’s emotionally vivid or easily recalled, not necessarily what’s accurate. Images of suffering, selectively presented atrocities, and historic analogies (like comparisons to Nazi Germany) are used not just for explanation, but for emotional calibration.
At the same time, opposition is dehumanized or delegitimized. This activates in-group/out-group biases—a primal social psychology function where humans instinctively side with the familiar and vilify the “other.” The enemy becomes not just adversarial, but existential. The more simplistic the framing—us vs. them, freedom vs. tyranny—the easier it is to rally support and suppress nuance.
Dissent within the state is then framed as betrayal. This draws on the actor-observer bias, where states interpret their own actions based on intention, but judge critics and opponents purely on outcome or appearance. A citizen questioning the war effort may be seen not as rationally critical, but as ideologically suspect—siding with the enemy, or failing to grasp the "greater good."
To keep the illusion intact, governments deploy an ecosystem of amplification tools: state-aligned media, strategic leaks, policy-friendly think tanks, and even co-opted humanitarian rhetoric. These actors serve as echo chambers that reduce the public’s cognitive dissonance, the discomfort that arises when reality conflicts with belief. Rather than forcing a reassessment of state actions, this machinery floods the zone with justifications, comforting narratives, and selectively curated facts. In so doing, the majority of the messaging received by audiences revolves around the necessity of supporting the good and opposing evil.
The result is a populace that is nudged into compliance through sheer volume of messaging. The ideology functions as social glue, reinforcing cohesion and discouraging defection. A government’s support for a certain set of values then becomes a performance, and the audience, knowingly or not, plays its part.
The belief itself is optional. The effect is what matters.
To illustrate how this works in practice, we can look at two of the most prominent conflicts happening now, and how governments are leveraging this tool for impact.
Case Study 1: Ukraine – Selling the Fight for Values
As the Russia Ukraine war erupted in February 2022, European leaders moved swiftly to cast the conflict as a civilizational struggle, a battle between freedom and tyranny, light and darkness, West and East. The language was immediate and absolute: this was not merely a geopolitical dispute, but a moral war for the soul of Europe.
In public addresses, media campaigns, and official statements, the narrative centered on defending democracy, upholding international norms, and resisting authoritarian expansion. Russian aggression was described as “unprovoked,” and any attempt to contextualize it—no matter how nuanced—was condemned as appeasement or worse, justification for war crimes. Comparisons to Nazi Germany and references to the 1938 Munich Agreement were frequently invoked when suggestions we made to engage in dialogue, evoking a collective European trauma that made resistance seem not only necessary, but righteous.
This framing, however, concealed more than it revealed.
The reality behind the curtain is far more complex. Russia’s invasion was not born in a vacuum, nor was Europe’s involvement purely reactive. Prior to the war, Moscow had repeatedly raised concerns over NATO expansion and its encroachment on Russian borders concerns dismissed outright by Western governments. Rather than seeking to defuse the situation, the United States pushed for maximalist positions in late 2021 that left little space for compromise. Europe, for its part, was dragged into the conflict largely through diplomatic pressure from Washington—despite the fact that the war has inflicted deep economic harm on European societies and revealed the continent’s energy dependence, inflation vulnerabilities, and strategic confusion.
Still, the moral narrative proved highly effective.
By casting the war in ideological terms, European leaders are seeking to stifle dissent, justify sanctions and military aid packages, and rally populations around policies that would have otherwise been deeply unpopular. Opposition to NATO involvement was framed as disloyal or naïve. Questioning the wisdom of escalation became a taboo. In some cases, politicians and academics who urged negotiation were labeled apologists or stooges—socially isolating anyone who diverged from the dominant narrative.
As the U.S. pivoted toward Russia, and abandoned Europe to its own devices under the Trump administration, the European narrative took on a more urgent tone. Almost reflexively, Europe doubled down on its ideological positions. As the Trump administration discarded the ideological narratives that fueled its predecessor, Europe was left holding the flag, and it was in a collective bind.
If it also pivoted toward practicality, it would be admitting the that previous three years of narrative construction was a flimsy scaffold erected to mask particular interests on the geopolitical scale. Furthermore, now its own strategy had shifted toward achieving strategic autonomy, a step that will require significant investment in the defense sector, and therefore incur strains on European state budgets. Had this process begun earlier, it would have been more gradual and thus less intrusive on state resources within a given timeframe, but also harder to justify politically. Now that it has to manifest rapidly, the reduced timeframe necessitates more spending in a shorter window, and therefore requires more intense narrative to justify it.
Enter the existential threat narrative. Now Russia is being framed not as a threat to Ukraine, but as an existential threat to Europe. Since this framing begun, various European governments and the EU have begun printing booklets on how to survive in time of war, in a rather transparent attempt to galvanize support through fear. The EU and its governments are now framing the war as one of survival, entrenching the ideological framework constructed over the past 3 years.
Here, ideology did not lead policy.
Policy led—and ideology followed, as its trusted camouflage.
Case Study 2: Gaza – Moral Absolutism as Defense
In its ongoing war on Gaza, the Israeli government has drawn heavily on moral framing to justify its actions, casting them as a defensive necessity in a war between civilization and barbarism, democracy and terror. Israeli officials repeatedly assert that the war is not one of choice, but of survival. That the goal is not conquest, but self-defense. That every strike, no matter how devastating, is part of a righteous struggle against extremism. With that framing in mind, therefore, no action can be construed as evil, tragic maybe, but ultimately in the service of good.
This framing rests on a binary moral landscape: Israel is portrayed as the embattled outpost of democracy in a sea of hostility, while Hamas—and by extension, all forms of Palestinian resistance—are cast as embodiments of absolute evil. Any loss of civilian life is presented as the tragic but unavoidable consequence of fighting terrorism. Any criticism of Israeli conduct is swiftly reframed as sympathy for terrorists or latent antisemitism.
As with Ukraine, the ideological language is designed to preempt dissent, both within the domestic political landscape and on the international stage. But it goes a step further here: Israel has successfully weaponized historical trauma. References to the Holocaust, the perpetual threat to Jewish survival, and existential danger are invoked to build an unassailable moral shield. This not only protects the Israeli government from domestic pushback, but constrains international criticism, particularly among Western states still haunted by their own complicity in Europe’s past.
Yet behind this moral absolutism lie deeply entrenched interests.
Domestically, the war has served to consolidate power for Prime Minister Netanyahu, deflecting from internal political turmoil, corruption charges, and mass protests over judicial reforms. Internationally, it has allowed Israel to expand its military footprint and test the limits of Western support. The framing of the war as a necessary defense provides cover for a broader campaign that includes the leveling of entire neighborhoods, blockades on aid, and violations of international humanitarian law.
In Israel’s case, the dichotomy is even more pronounced. The driver of the war is not national interest, but Netanyahu’s narrow interests and those of his extreme right-wing supporters. The former needs to perpetuate a state of conflict, open multiple fronts and ensure that tensions remain high until the elections in Israel in 2026, all to ensure victory and continuation in office in an effort to stay out of the courts and possibly prison given the multiple charges of corruption leveled against him. The latter have an expansionist view that necessitates military engagement to secure territory.
This narrative has crumbled and due to the stark divergence between what is being said and what is being done, has unraveled both domestically and internationally. On the domestic front, opposition to Netanyahu and his policies has broken through the narrative armor as multiple units within the IDF protest further war, and protests surge in numbers and urgency across Israel calling for a cessation of hostilities. Internationally, Israel has become increasingly isolated from even its traditional partners in Europe, compelling Netanyahu to lean on right wing populists like Hungary’s victor Orban to dispel the image of isolation. Netanyahu and former minister of defense Yoav Gallant have warrants for their arrest by the International Criminal Court, further eroding their narrative of engaging in a just war.
As with Europe’s stance on Ukraine, the ideology is less a belief than a strategic construction.
It turns a policy of sustained escalation into a moral imperative, and attempts to turn anyone who questions it into an enemy of the good.
From Justification to Conviction
In both Ukraine and Gaza, the pattern is clear: ideology follows policy, not the other way around. Governments or leaders act out of interest, then build a moral scaffolding to justify the cost, suppress dissent, and maintain control over public perception. What begins as a calculated messaging strategy evolves into a powerful social tool, one capable of turning even the most controversial actions into moral imperatives.
But the use of ideology in this way is not without consequence.
It may rally support in the short term, but it also obscures trade-offs, silences debate, and fosters brittle, emotionally charged consensus. The question, then, is not only how this framing is constructed, but how long it can last.
That brings us to the next issue: just how effective is this tool—and where does it begin to break down?
How Effective Is It? The Strength—and Fragility—of the Ideological Frame
When wielded skillfully, ideological framing is extraordinarily effective. It taps into deep psychological and sociological forces—tribalism, moral clarity, fear of the other—and channels them into public consent. It creates cohesion in times of uncertainty, simplifies complex realities into digestible narratives, and turns political action into a moral crusade. In the short term, this strategy can produce near-total alignment between state policy and public sentiment.
It works because it offers clarity in chaos.
Citizens, faced with geopolitical complexity and limited information, gravitate toward emotionally satisfying explanations. Framing state actions as moral imperatives reduces anxiety, mitigates cognitive dissonance, and gives people a sense of purpose. Even those who harbor doubts may fall in line, either out of fear of social exclusion or belief in the bigger picture. And for many, believing the story is easier than confronting the trade-offs.
But its effectiveness varies dramatically across political systems.
In democracies, the ideological frame benefits from an illusion of choice and a wider ecosystem of trusted intermediaries like media outlets, elected officials, and public intellectuals. When these actors echo the state’s framing, it creates the perception of broad societal consensus, reinforcing the legitimacy of the narrative. And because democratic governments are presumed to be accountable and transparent, the moral veneer often goes unchallenged, at least initially.
But this also makes the collapse sharper when it comes.
When citizens realize that moral arguments were used to conceal strategic motives, the sense of betrayal is profound. Disillusionment doesn’t just target the current administration, it spreads across institutions. The very legitimacy of democratic governance is questioned, leading to polarization, conspiracy thinking, and a collapse in trust that can take years to recover from. This scenario is playing out across Europe, the Middle East and North America as we speak.
In autocracies, by contrast, the narrative is less about belief and more about control.
Citizens are often already skeptical of official rhetoric and accustomed to state propaganda, which they understand to be a tool rather than reflective of reality. As a result, ideological framing is treated more like theater than truth, useful for signaling, but rarely internalized. Its purpose is not to persuade the majority, but to create enough plausible justification to maintain international posture and domestic compliance.
The strength of the frame in autocracies lies in its enforcement mechanisms, not its credibility. Independent media is often stifled, dissent punished, and alternative narratives suppressed. But this also means that the population learns to read between the lines, fostering a kind of collective doublethink: outward conformity, inward disbelief. The ideological scaffolding may stand longer, but it rests on thinner ground.
The irony is stark:
In democracies, ideological framing may be believed too much, and collapse too fast.
In autocracies, it may be believed too little, and persist too long.
In both cases, the outcome is the same: when the frame no longer fits reality, the gap between state and society widens. And once exposed, governments that relied on belief find themselves with no tools left but force (arrests, suppression of dissent, criminalization of opposition, etc.), and those that relied on force may struggle to rebuild even the illusion of trust.
Trapped by the Frame: The Consequences of Strategic Mythmaking
Once ideological framing is deployed, states often find themselves gradually locked into the very fiction they created. The issue isn’t belief, especially not at the highest levels. It’s that the narrative, once set in motion, becomes too costly to walk back. When policies are justified in moral absolutes, the space for recalibration disappears. To shift course is no longer just a strategic adjustment- it becomes a confession.
This is the core danger of strategic mythmaking:
What begins as a tool to rally support becomes a trap of the state’s own design.
To maintain coherence, the story must be kept alive from speeches, to media briefings, press coverage, and institutional messaging. Contradictions must be suppressed, nuance flattened, dissent reframed as betrayal. But narratives constructed to serve immediate interests often outlive their usefulness. And the longer they endure, the harder they are to sustain. Slippages—an off-message statement, a leaked agenda, a policy U-turn—can quickly expose the machinery underneath. These ruptures don’t just challenge the story, they reveal it was a story.
In Ukraine, Europe’s moral framing has begun to corner its leaders. By casting the war as a defense of civilization against barbarism, governments have narrowed their own options. Diplomatic paths once available are now politically toxic. To advocate negotiation risks being labeled as weak, or worse, sympathetic to tyranny. What might have been a calculated conflict management strategy has hardened into a posture from which they cannot easily retreat. Even as it becomes clear that Europe is being sidelined by both Russia and the U.S. as they engage on diplomatic engagements for the future of their bilateral relations and the outcomes of the Ukraine war, the continent has yet to figure out how to reintroduce itself into the discussion without discarding the ideological framing it constructed over the last three years.
In Israel, the trap is even more pronounced. The narrative of existential defense has not only been hijacked for individual political survival, but has now taken on a life of its own—dragging the state behind it. Institutions are fracturing under the weight. Trust is eroding, not only between citizens and government, but within the military and civil society itself. The illusion that once held the public together is now tearing it apart. And internationally, the myth no longer travels; allies grow uneasy, and legitimacy and the broad support it enjoyed fade.
These are not isolated breakdowns. They are the inevitable costs of building policy on performance rather than principle. Once it becomes clear that interests—not values—drove the decisions, the betrayal feels personal. Publics don’t simply lose faith in a policy—they lose faith in leadership, in process, in purpose. Institutions hollow out. Civic trust collapses. And even when the machinery of state remains intact, no one truly believes the voice behind the curtain anymore.
At that point, the state is no longer leading the narrative—it is serving it, hostage to the demands of consistency, and afraid of what happens when the curtain falls.
The Strategic Cost of Narrative Dependence
When states overcommit to ideological framing, they sacrifice more than credibility, they sacrifice room to maneuver. Foreign policy becomes reactive to the story being told, not to the conditions on the ground. Leaders lose the ability to recalibrate, to pivot, or to strike pragmatic deals without appearing compromised. Allies become uneasy. Rivals exploit the rigidity. And internally, the space for critical policy debate shrinks.
This isn’t a theoretical risk. We are already witnessing its consequences: governments unable to engage in diplomacy without backlash, domestic institutions strained under narrative-driven decisions, and publics increasingly skeptical not just of leaders—but of the very capacity for course correction.
The irony is that the more effective the framing is at the outset, the more fragile the system becomes over time. When policy is elevated to principle, even small shifts appear as betrayals. And when reality diverges from the script—as it always eventually does—governments are left with three options: escalate, stall, or backtrack and lose face.
Strategic flexibility is replaced with performative rigidity.
And states find themselves navigating a world of fluid threats and shifting alliances while trapped inside a story that no longer fits.