When the Internal and External Collide: A Social Constructivist Reading of Russia's Security Policy

Abstract

This study provides a social constructivist reading of Russia's security policy under President Vladimir Putin, by investigating the relationship between the internal and the external security spheres and state identity through the prism of Russia's narrative on the fight against terrorism. Drawing on social constructivist theories of identity, security and narratives, it argues that a change occurred in the Putin regime's conceptualisation of Russian state identity: from an initially weak state which prioritised internal security threats and the fight against terrorism, to a strong state, whose main security ‘Other’ was the West, by the end of Putin's presidency. This resulted in less priority being given to the terrorism issue in the official discourse and the widening of the notion of ‘threat’ and ‘terrorism’, in line with a developing security narrative in both internal and external spheres.

Notes

Several studies have investigated questions of internal security, such as the reform of the Russian military (see Vendil 2009; de Haas 2004). For studies on the power and the influence of siloviki in Russia see Renz (2006) and Taylor (2007); for issues of food security see Sedik et al. (2003); and for environmental security see Funke (2005).

The notion of a strong state in this essay is not used to designate an objective model of what constitutes a strong state, nor does it seek to adjudicate as to whether or not Russia had indeed become strong by the mid-2000s. Instead, the focus is on the way in which the narrative of a ‘strong’ state in the official Russian discourse both structured and was structured by its conceptualisation of its security priorities in the internal and external spheres.

Vladimir Putin, ‘Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletii’, 29 December 1999, reported in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 30 December 1999.

Vladimir Putin, ‘Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletii’, 29 December 1999, reported in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 30 December 1999.

Vladimir Putin, interview with the ORT TV channel, 15 January 2000, available at: http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2000/01/15/0000_type82912type82916_122607.shtml (press site), last accessed 15 November 2008.

The focus of this essay is on the official version of events in relation to the Chechen incursion into Dagestan in August 1999 and the apartment bombings in September 1999. These two events have raised a great deal of controversy and debate both in Russia and in the West in relation to what ‘actually’ took place on the ground, especially in relation to the role that Putin and the FSB may or may not have played. However, due to the lack of space the focus of this piece is exclusively on the official narrative and discourse rather than these alternative interpretations. For alternative versions of events please see Felshtinsky and Levinenko (2007) and Bennett (2007). Criticism of such conspiracy theories was put forward by other scholars such as Sakwa (2008a). Discussion of the different version of events can be found in Hale (2004).

Vladimir Putin, interview with the French television channel TF1, France 3, radio station RFI and television channel ORT, 23 October 2000, available at: http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2000/01/15/0000_type82912type82916_122607.shtm, last accessed 2 December 2008.

Sergei Karev, Speech of the representative of the Russian Federation at the VI Committee of the 55th session of UN General Assembly, 13 November 2000, available at: http://www.un.org.ezproxyd.bham.ac.uk/News/Press/docs/2000/20001113.gal3167.doc.html, last accessed 19 February 2009.

Vladimir Putin, ‘Rossiya na rubezhe tysyacheletii’, 29 December 1999, reported in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 30 December 1999.

Vladimir Putin, interview with the French television channel TF1, France 3, radio station RFI and television channel ORT, 23 October 2000, available at: http://archive.kremlin.ru/appears/2000/10/23/0000_type63379_28955.shtml, accessed 2 December 2008.

Igor Ivanov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Speech at the 106th meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, on the issue of ‘The Russian input into the Council of Europe and the recommendations from PACE (1456) about the situation in the Chechen Republic’, 11 May 2000 (Ivanov 2000).

Russia's voting rights in the Council of Europe were removed for the period 2000–2001.

These groups included Riyadus-Salikhin gruppa, Islamskaya internatsional'naya brigada and Islamskii polk spetsial'nogo naznacheniya.

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer who highlighted this issue to me. For more details on the issues surrounding Russian and US discourses on Georgia and the war on terror see the report by Peuch (2002) and Devdariani and Hancilova (2002).

For more details on this new initiative see new reports from NewsRu.com available at: http://txt.newsru.com/finance/25nov2008/conception.html, accessed 16 April 2009. Whilst the effect of the recent global economic crisis has forced the Russian government to re-examine the feasibility of such socioeconomic as well as military programmes, these have been renegotiated and delayed by a few years, but as yet not suspended outright. On the economic initiative see ‘Pravitelstvo RF rassmotrit kotseptsiu razvitiya strany do 2020 goda’, RIA Novosti, 1 October 2008, available at: http://www.rian.ru/economy/20081001/151746239.html, accessed 16 May 2009.

A remark made by a group of doctors returning on an official trip from Chechnya on 16 May 2007. See ‘Stenograficheskii otchet o vstreche s chlenami Soveta Obshchestvennoi palaty Rossii’, Russian Presidential website, 16 May 2007, available at: http://archive.kremlin.ru/appears/2007/05/16/2214_type63376type63381_129310.shtml, accessed 10 July 2010.

For a detailed outline of this announcement see ITAR-TASS daily reports, 16 April 2009, available at: http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13843796, accessed 16 April 2009.

Vladimir Putin interview in RIA Novosti, 4 August 2008, cited in ‘Putin Says Terrorism Remains a Major Threat for Russia’, Johnson's Russia List, #30—JRL 2008-141, available at: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-141-30.cfm, accessed 10 May 2009.

Regnum, 20 November 2008, available at: http://www.regnum.ru/news/1087077.html, accessed 9 December 2008.

According to an interview with the Minister of Interior, Rashid Nurgaliev, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta (quote reproduced in press release of the Ministry of Interior, 5 February 2008, available at: http://www.mvd.ru/press/interview/5188/, accessed 10 November 2009).

Alkaxander Torshin, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, quoted in RIA Novosti, 8 April 2008, cited in ‘Foreign NGOs Support Terrorism in Russia—Senior Senator’, in Johnson's Russia List, #24—JRL 2008-72, available at: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-72-24.cfm, accessed 1 May 2009.

For more information about the mayoral race in Sochi, prior to the elections of 26 April 2009, see the report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16 March 2009, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/The_Circus_Comes_To_Sochi/1511167.html, accessed 16 April 2009.

Interview with Alexander Bortnikov, Head of Federal Security Bureau: ‘Russia is Strengthening its Antiterrorist Security of Key Facilities, Afraid of Georgian Terakts’, Regnum, 19 August 2008, available at: http//www.regnum.ru/news/1043516.html, accessed 10 April 2009.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16 March 2009, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/The_Circus_Comes_To_Sochi/1511167.html, accessed 16 April 2009.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release, ‘Russia in International Counterterrorism Cooperation in 2008’, available at: http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/itogi/37D2CC4F7789ADC6C325752E00533147, accessed 22 March 2009.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16 March 2009, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/The_Circus_Comes_To_Sochi/1511167.html, accessed 16 April 2009.

Personal communication with Dr Peter Duncan, 3 March 2009, London.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16 March 2009, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/The_Circus_Comes_To_Sochi/1511167.html, accessed 16 April 2009.

For a summary of current initiatives see: The United States–Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism Joint Press Statement and Fact Sheet, 20 June 2008, available at: http://moscow.usembassy.gov/ctwg.html, accessed 20 February 2009.

Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee, quoted in RIA Novosti, 11 September 2006, cited in Johnson's Russia List, #13—JRL 2006-205, available at: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2006-205-13.cfm, accessed 9 April 2009.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16 March 2009, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/The_Circus_Comes_To_Sochi/1511167.html, accessed 16 April 2009.

Regnum, 19 August 2008, available at: http//www.regnum.ru/news/1043516.html, accessed 10 April 2009.

Sergey Lavrov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Statement at the Meeting of SCO Council of Foreign Ministers, 15 May 2009, available at: http://www.ln.mid.ru/Brp_4.nsf/arh/98D7CC300536531EC32575B70049D7BF?OpenDocument, accessed 17 May 2009.