Determinants of Russia’s Political Elite Security Thought: Similarities and Differences between the Soviet Union and Contemporary Russia

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the Russian political elite’s security thinking and, through comparison of the similarities and differences between Soviet-era and current elite security thinking, how it has been influenced by historical experience, Russian domestic politics, and trends of the international system. The paper also attempts to analyze the influence of the political elite’s security thinking on general public threat perception. The article argues that prospective Russian political elite external security attitudes are influenced by continuing threat perceptions based on past experiences in Russian history and Russia’s perceived weaknesses, which fuel fears triggered by domestic, political, and socio-economic conditions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. On the Soviets’ nonlinear theory, see Vladimir Triandafillov, Kharakter operatsii sovremennykh armii [The Character of Operations of Modern Armies], 3rd ed. (Мoscow: Gosvoenizdat, 1936); Georgii Isserson, Evoliutsiia operativnogo iskusstva [The Evolution of Operational Art] (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1937).

2. The development of nonlinear warfare theory did not take place in a vacuum. Western military thought, and especially collaboration with Germany, which started with the signing the of Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, played an important role in the formulation of the theory. For more see Sergei Gorlov, Sovershenno sekretno: Al’ians Moskva–Berlin, 1920–1933 gg. [Top Secret: The Moscow–Berlin Alliance, 1920–1933] (Moscow: OLMA-PRESS, 2001), http://militera.lib.ru/research/gorlov1/04.html.

3. During the purges between 1937 and 1940, almost all of the main designers of the theory were arrested or executed. See John Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History 1918–1941, 3rd ed. (London: Frank Cass, 2006).

4. See George Frost Kennan, Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin (Boston; Toronto: Little, Brown, 1961), 389.

5. The Cold War included elements of a security dilemma, but, according to Robert Jervis, it was not purely a case in which tensions and arms increased as each side defensively reacted to the other. Jervis writes that “many Americans believed, the Soviet Union had been expansionistic because it was a power-hungry dictatorship permeated by an ideology proclaiming the duty and necessity of spreading revolutions throughout the world. When Mikhail Gorbachev became less dictatorial and abandoned the class struggle as the foundation for Soviet foreign policy, the American perception of threat rationally decreased enormously” Robert Jervis, “Dilemmas About Security Dilemmas,” Security Studies 20, no. 3 [2011]:419–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2011.599189). See also Robert Jervis, “Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?” Journal of Cold War Studies 3, no. 1 (Winter 2001):36–60; and Charles L. Glaser, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).

6. See also James Goldgeier, “Bill and Boris: A Window Into a Most Important Post–Cold War Relationship,” Texas National Security Review 1, no. 4 (August 2018), https://tnsr.org/2018/08/bill-and-boris-a-window-into-a-most-important-post-cold-war-relationship/#_ftn31.

7. For instance, according to Russian scholar Ekaterina Schulmann, negative attitudes and also suspicion toward the outside world as a subject of threat are more common among the older generation than the younger one. Analyzing Russian attitudes data between 1990s and 2018, she concludes that the younger generation has a more open, cooperative attitude toward the outside world and official propaganda cannot influence them because their main source of information is the internet, not the official media. Ekaterina Schulmann, “Zapros est’ takoi, chto zakruchennye gaechki nemnogo potriakhivaet” [The Request Is Such That the Tight Screws Should Be Loosened a Bit], lecture at the Yeltsin Center, January 9, 2019, https://www.znak.com/2019-01-09/kakoy_dolzhna_byt_vlast_v_rossii_i_chego_zhdet_narod_lekciya_ekateriny_shulman. See also Mikhail Dmitriev, Sergei Belanovskii, and Anastasiia Nikol’skaia, “Priznaki izmeneniia obshchestvennykh nastroenii i ikh vozmozhnye posledstviia” [Signs of a Change in Public Sentiment and Their Possible Consequences], Komitet Grazhdanskikh Initsiativ, October 10, 2018, https://komitetgi.ru/news/news/3902/.

8. See also Irina Nagornykh, “‘Tsvetnym revoliutsiiam’ otvetiat po zakonam gibridnykh voin,” Kommersant.ru, March 1, 2016. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2927168. Accessed March 1, 2019.