WI: Cold War seen as a battle between civilizations and not ideologies?

The new Cold War seems to have aspects of a battle between civilizations rather than ideologies. Writers like Voletov talk of the war in Ukraine as a war between European civilization and "Bolshevic slavery" (clearly "Bolshevik" is a euphemism for "Asiatic" since he says the war began before 1654 AD). Ukrainian mainstream politicians are often talking about how "Ukrainians are fighting for Europe" or how the "civilized world stands with Ukraine". The previous cold war had these elements too, with 1989 Polish, Check and Slovak protesters using slogans like "Back to Europe!".

But in the West, the Cold War was seen as a victory for capitalism & democracy and not a victory of European Civilization over Asiatic Powers. What would need to happen for the West to see Cold War as a victory for the Western Civilizations. What would be the impact on the rest of the world.

I'm guessing that it would mean with less emphasis on victory of "democracy" there would be no need to support (even in lip service) such things like the Palestinian elections in 2005 when noted terrorist organisation Hamas won power through elections.
 
I think you'd have to have no WWII or are least a radically different WWII for thathe to work. The focus on Ethnonationalism by the Axis in general and Nazi Germany in particular made such cultural and racial lens unpalatable for most of the world. Not saying there isn't any truth about differences airising from inherent cultures, it's just claiming that your opponent is culturally degenerate is a quick way to be labelled a skinhead.
 
You'd need to move the Iron Curtain further East, or make Russia less Western. Russia itself is too culturally similar to the West for us to see it as part of a different civilization, especially when it had so much of what was seen as the "civilized world" on its side during the Cold War.
 
Modern day China has made people forget that communism and democratic capitalism were seen in the day as not being able to co-exist in perpetuity. And I think the it was true. East Germany saw their population decline from 17mm in 1950ish to just under 15mm in 1961 with the losses solely due to emigration to the West - hence the Wall. This wasnt a comparison of religion or culture. You had rival economic systems where you could tangibly compare quality of life combined with rhetoric and propaganda on both sides touting the superiority of one over the other. To meet the OP, the dominant system in the east needs to be something other than communism, at least as it formed and existed OTL.
 
Back to the height of the Sino-Soviet Split, the Soviets portrayed the Chinese as the archetypical orientals, which poses a threat akin to that of Genghis Khan, the Golden Horde, and the Yellow Peril. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was supposed to stand a battle against this new Mongoloid invasion just like the Moscovites against the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo.

Culturally, Russia was, is, and will alway be a western power. Any struggle between Russia and other European-derived nations is a part of the Western civilization's civil war.
 
Back to the height of the Sino-Soviet Split, the Soviets portrayed the Chinese as the archetypical orientals, which poses a threat akin to that of Genghis Khan, the Golden Horde, and the Yellow Peril. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was supposed to stand a battle against this new Mongoloid invasion just like the Moscovites against the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo.

Culturally, Russia was, is, and will alway be a western power. Any struggle between Russia and other European-derived nations is a part of the Western civilization's civil war.

And then there is this influential Eurasian ideology in modern day Russia , which tries to constantly discredit the cultural "Western" Hemisphere. It sometimes tries to appeal to anti-democratic/populist movements within the West, too . It also argues, that all Western Nations are degenerate and evil due to cultural progression and liberalism.
 
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