It is hard to imagine two more radically different figures than the men who sat down with me on the sidelines of a DC conference to debate Ukraine. On one side sat Ambassador John Herbst, a quintessential statesman from an era of American consensus that no longer exists. On the other sat Curtis Yarvin: co-founder of Urbit, brilliant computer scientist, and architect of the "Dark Enlightenment," the radical worldview which has been gaining ground across the West.
Two Visions of the West
This debate took place at the same time and place as “America's Adversaries: The Russia Reality,” a conference primarily organized by the Independent Women’s Forum, dedicated to informing those on the conservative and MAGA end about all the reasons why the United States should support Ukraine, though most of the main reasons given did not do much to convince Yarvin, a man whose preferred dividing line between “Us” and “None of Our Beeswax” is across the English Channel.
But this is exactly why it was important to match Yarvin with someone like Amb. Herbst, a man of immense experience going from diplomatic posts in the twilight of the Soviet era to advising US foreign policy today as senior director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.
Herbst (b. 1952) represents a mid-century archetype Yarvin can still respect: an old-school establishment where high responsibility and competence were paired with the genuine freedom and gusto of a generation that never had to answer to HR. That institutional weight gave the post-war establishment a candid, unvarnished authority that today’s sanitized, risk-averse elite simply lacks. In other words, John Herbst is based and most definitely redpilled, based on his knowledge of the USSR alone.
Yarvin (b. 1973), on the other hand, embodies the deeply skeptical hard-right counter-intellectual, rising from beneath “the ashes” of our civilization - which has actually not yet been set aflame, though many from within his circle would never tire of counting the amount of kindling stacked against what they see as the dry husk of our political institutions.
Perhaps it’s his Generation X cynicism toward institutional authority that makes Yarvin see the world the way he does, though he takes it far beyond passive disillusionment toward the vision of a technocratic CEO dictatorship of sorts. Just as the Bishop of Rome had to step into the vacuum left by the collapsing Western Roman Empire, Yarvin looks at today's political scene, notices the total absence of people like Ambassador Herbst, and recoils at the sight of the inmates running the asylum.
But lacking any faith that the true staff will ever return, his solution is to reject the classical liberal framework entirely, in favor of appointing a preferred inmate who at least knows how to run the facility.
The Strange Alliance Against Liberalism
Such rejection of Western classical liberal institutions likewise binds this mindset routinely labeled "far-right" together with radical leftist ideology. Third Worldist far-left movements and Russian intelligence see such far-right movements as accomplishing two great things at once: growing distrust of our institutions - including those fighting against the Russia-China-Iran axis - and an anti-interventionist stance which sees America and Russia on equal moral terms, especially in the case of some future US dictator modeling themselves on Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
This phenomenon brings to mind Russian theorist Alexander Dugin, the chief architect of Neo-Eurasianism. Dugin famously hosted lectures in Spain attended by ultra-nationalists and far-left radicals alike, welcoming them both with open arms. His message was simple: Don’t hesitate and join us, because we have so much in common, including the common enemies of imperialism, capitalism, and liberalism.
Yet at the same time, few invested in upholding these values choose to take Yarvin’s critiques of our current political and social state at face value, leaving only those invested in the dictator-CEO part coming true in the form of Yarvin’s own “fellow travelers” - people who have no sensible reason or bravery to ever disagree with him.
Breaking the Echo Chambers
At least, that was the case before I began building Break The Rules. It started when I introduced Yarvin to Vladislav Davidzon, then a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. An unlikely friendship took root, eventually paving the way for this debate. Vlad joined forces with Adrian Karatnycky - a fellow Atlantic Council senior scholar who led Freedom House as president and executive director from 1993 to 2004 - to help organize "The Russia Reality" conference.
The conference itself was made possible thanks to Meaghan Mobbs, the Independent Women’s Forum’s Director for the Center for American Safety and Security. Mobbs is the daughter of Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who served as the United States Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia - and later as the United States Special Envoy for Ukraine - during the second presidency of Donald Trump. Like her father, whose strong support for Ukraine often put him at odds with prevailing anti-interventionist impulses within the broader MAGA movement, Mobbs has not shied away from what she rightfully sees as the position that will define the trajectory of the West as a whole.
So the stage was finally set to bring these two worlds face-to-face.
The most important outcome of this debate was never about converting Curtis Yarvin to the Ukrainian cause. While a small part of me hopes something moved him that day to reconsider his stance on Russia, the true value lies elsewhere: this cross-generational, cross-ideological debate forged a rare intellectual node - one that could never exist if everyone simply remained locked inside their respective echo chambers, as has increasingly become the norm.
The Battle for the West
This is precisely why these cross-tribal connections must accelerate. We are already seeing a noticeable shift among right-wing commentators on X who are abandoning Russian talking points for pro-Ukrainian positions - a trajectory Laura Loomer openly admits to having taken in her own journey towards understanding the truth.
This growing support for the Ukrainian cause, along with admiration or at least neutrality toward Israel, can be seen in right-wing online figures like Captive Dreamer, John Doyle, Patrick Casey and Matt Forney - the latter two of whom I had on BTR. They speak of “The Retard Right” being led by the pied-piper notes of pundits like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, and it may be that their audience’s hatred for the stupidity and arbitrary cruelty of the Third Worldist BRICS bloc does more for Ukraine support than any moral or practical argument can.
With that understanding of what is against the West, both domestically and abroad, the hope lies in discovering by contrast what makes the West so special in the first place, and how this can be harnessed rather than waiting for a dictator ruthless enough to take power for themselves.
But time is running out. There are fewer John Herbsts and plenty more Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Zohran Mamdanis. As Mikhail Gorbachev said in 1985,
“We have no time to lose. We cannot wait, for the past has exhausted our time to maneuver. We must move forward and accelerate.”
Lev Polyakov
Creator, host, and editor of "Break The Rules"
