Structural Realist Analysis of NATO–Russia Geopolitical Competition in Eastern Europe and the Origins of the Ukraine War

This study, drawing on a structural realist analytical approach, investigates the systemic drivers of the NATO–Russia confrontation and its ultimate outcome in the form of the Ukraine War in 2022. Through a combination of comparative historical analysis, process tracing, and discourse analysis, it reconstructs the evolution of threat construction, strategic misperceptions, and entrapment in alliance patterns from the post–Cold War period to the present. The findings indicate that the gradual expansion of NATO, the collapse of geopolitical buffer zones, and the ontological insecurity of Russian elites have intensified a mutually reinforcing security dilemma. By analyzing military doctrines, elite speeches, and strategic documents, this research demonstrates how the erosion of deterrence transparency, the resurgence of securitization, and civilizational discourse have transformed a structural conflict into a military confrontation. In this context, Ukraine, as a patterned buffer state, has become entangled in the spiral of alliance ambiguity and the logic of strategic isolation. Contrary to liberal or constructivist interpretations, this war is not viewed as the result of miscalculations or ideological divergences, but rather as the inevitable outcome of structural transformations in power polarization and the institutional consolidation of alliances. This study highlights the limitations of diplomatic crisis management without structural recalibration of the international system and offers new theoretical insights into civilizational realism and ontological insecurity during periods of multipolar transition.