This comic is kinda old already, but still stays relevant.
Claiming europeans and americans do not have a massive appetite for war is just ridiculous.
Neither have a draft. Neither have a majority population that actually supports these overseas conflicts. These aren't popular conflicts by any measure.
That hasn't always been the case. Americans were gungho about invading Afghanistan after 9/11. And Iraq had majority support in its opening months. But Libya? Syria? Iran? None of these ever did. They provoked popular backlash the day the first shots were fired.
Thats why I talk about orientalism and calipers.
The Russian media having done a better job of manufacturing consent has nothing to do with their skull size. Again, this is the sort of thing Americans used to be good at. Now they blaze ahead without the pretext of public consent, because the US democratic system has become morbund.
Russian state actors do appear significantly more concerned with "winning hearts and minds" than their Western peers. They invest more in propaganda and social controls.
It also helps that this is a border war and not some conflict happening on the other end of the planet. Russians don't need to read about Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil in the media, they can see it in their own backyards. This isn't twenty years of "Ukraine is just six months away from an Atom Bomb" Thomas Friedman scare stories. This direct conflict amps up the nationalist urgency, in the same way US attacks into Iran and Yemen ignited a firestorm of militarism fueled by newfound nationalist sentiment.
Its pretty clear there’s a good amount of othering going on here, as well as just pure old-fashioned nationalism.
The Russian government and the US government are not mirrors of one another.