The impact is self-fulfilling prophecies which ends in war---Western securitization is unsustainable because of the inability to separate the West from the source of perpetual peace.

Propaganda has the positive function of creating unity and mobilizing people and resources towards a rational and strategic objective. However, propaganda can also have the negative consequence of diminishing rational decision-making. A world divided between good and evil makes confrontation moral and compromise immoral. As Walter Lipmann discovered, propaganda is an essential tool to mobilize the public towards the confrontation of an adversary, although it often thwarts a workable peace.

Propaganda undermines the ability to mitigate the security dilemma, the situation in which actions taken by one state to enhance its security cause insecurity and thus counter-actions by other states. It is imperative to understand the security challenges of an adversary to aptly analyze their security policies and formulate the ideal policy in response. The West’s policies towards Russia are primarily informed by the security challenges from Russia, and Russia’s policies towards the West are similarly shaped principally by the security threats from the West. Recognizing that the actions taken by one state to increase its security can decrease the security of the rival state is imperative to enhance mutual security. This should not be controversial as the security dilemma is one of the most central concepts in political science and international relations, which infers that power maximization does not equate to security maximization.

However, propaganda can make the mere existence of the security dilemma controversial as the polarization of the international system undermines the ability to discuss how the in-group may threaten the security of the out-group. Propaganda deliberately undermines the ability to compare the superior and benign in-group, “Us”, with the inferior and belligerent out-group, the “Other”. The scope and accuracy of analyses are severely limited if propaganda demands conformity around the notion that the West cannot be a threat but solely a source of democracy and human rights as the source of perpetual peace.

The analyses of all Russian security policies is then limited and presented as being driven solely by internal characteristics of the state, such as the personal characteristics of the president and the political leadership, contempt and fear of democracy, or dreams of restoring a former empire. The flawed analyses then produce a flawed foreign policy. In a world of conflicting economic and security interests, security can be maximized with mutual understanding and compromise. However, when the world is seen as a struggle between good and evil, understanding and compromise are tantamount to treason.