The Politics Of Security In Modern Russia

The Putin era saw a striking 'securitization' of politics, something that he has bequeathed to his chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev. The omens from the early days of the Medvedev presidency have been mixed, marked both by less confrontational rhetoric towards the West and by war with Georgia and continued re-armament. Has the Medvedev generation learned the lessons not just from the Soviet era but also from the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies, or will security remain the foundation of Russian foreign and domestic policy? Fully up-to-date to reflect the evolving Medvedev presidency, the 2008 Georgian war and the impact of the economic downturn, this volume is a much needed objective and balanced examination of the ways in which security has played and continues to play a central role in contemporary Russian politics. The combination of original scholarship with extensive empirical research makes this volume an invaluable resource for all students and researchers of Russian politics and security affairs.

Securitising Russia shows the impact of twenty-first century security concerns on the way Russia is ruled. It demonstrates how President Putin has wrestled with terrorism, immigration, media freedom, religious pluralism, and economic globalism, and argues that fears of a return to old-style authoritarianism oversimplify the complex context of contemporary Russia. The book focuses on the internal security issues common to many states in the early twenty-first-century, and places them in the particular context of Russia.

After a period of relative weakness and isolation during most of the 1990s, Russia is again appearing as a major security player in world politics. This book provides a comprehensive assessment of Russia's current security situation, addressing such questions as: What kind of player is Russia in the field of security? What is the essence of its security policy? What are the sources, capabilities and priorities of its security policy? What are the prospects for the future? One important conclusion to emerge is that, while Russian foreign policy under Putin has become more pragmatic and responsive to both problems and opportunities, the growing lack of checks and balances in domestic politics makes political integration with the West difficult and gives the president great freedom in applying Russia's growing power abroad.

This book explores the mythology woven around the Soviet secret police and the Russian cult of state security that has emerged from it. Tracing the history of this mythology from the Soviet period through to its revival in contemporary post-Soviet Russia, the volume argues that successive Russian regimes have sponsored a ‘cult’ of state security, whereby security organs are held up as something to be worshipped. The book approaches the history of this cult as an ongoing struggle to legitimise and sacralise the Russian state security apparatus, and to negotiate its violent and dramatic past. It explores the ways in which, during the Soviet period, this mythology sought to make the existence of the most radically intrusive and powerful secret police in history appear ‘natural’. It also documents the contemporary post-Soviet re-emergence of the cult of state security, examining the ways in which elements of the old Soviet mythology have been revised and reclaimed as the cornerstone of a new state ideology. The Russian cult of state security is of ongoing contemporary relevance, and is crucial for understanding not only the tragedies of Russia’s twentieth-century history, but also the ambiguities of Russia’s post-Soviet transition, and the current struggle to define Russia’s national identity and future development. The book examines the ways in which contemporary Russian life continues to be shaped by the legacy of Soviet attitudes to state-society relations, as expressed in the reconstituted cult of state security. It investigates the shadow which the figure of the secret policeman continues to cast over Russia today. The book will be of great interest to students of modern Russian history and politics, intelligence studies and security studies, as well as readers with an interest in the KGB and its successors.

This book examines Russia’s external security policy under the presidencies of Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev and beyond. The Russian Federation has developed from a neglected regional power into a self-declared resurgent superpower. Russia’s background in the former Soviet Union as well as close ties with the upcoming new powers of China and India served as spring-boards towards regaining an influential status in the world. Simultaneously, Moscow developed an assertive policy towards the West and unwilling neighbours, culminating in August 2008 in an armed conflict with Georgia. Reviewing this decade of Russian international security policy, this work analyses security documents, military reforms and policy actions towards friends and foes, such as the USA and NATO, to provide an assessment of the future security stance of the Kremlin. This book will be of much interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, European politics and Security Studies and IR in general.

Given the resurgence of Russian economic capabilities and of Russia's role as a regional, even global, political actor, much of the literature written more than 4-5 years ago is already dated. The editor and contributors to this timely volume draw upon a broad range of analysts who deal with various aspects of Russian relations with its neighbours to the West and to the East. Implications for Russian foreign and security policy are key to understanding Russia's position in the 21st Century. Readers in Russian foreign and security policy; European, Eurasian, and Asian security; and contemporary international politics/security will find this volume invaluable.

How do once bitter enemies move beyond entrenched rivalry at the diplomatic level? In one of the first attempts to apply practice theory to the study of International Relations, Vincent Pouliot builds on Pierre Bourdieu's sociology to devise a theory of practice of security communities and applies it to post-Cold War security relations between NATO and Russia. Based on dozens of interviews and a thorough analysis of recent history, Pouliot demonstrates that diplomacy has become a normal, though not a self-evident, practice between the two former enemies. He argues that this limited pacification is due to the intense symbolic power struggles that have plagued the relationship ever since NATO began its process of enlargement at the geographical and functional levels. So long as Russia and NATO do not cast each other in the roles that they actually play together, security community development is bound to remain limited.

The book explores the Russian leadership’s strategic agenda and illuminates the range of problems it faces in implementing it. Given these difficulties and the Russian leadership’s concerns about an unstable and increasingly competitive world, the Russian official and expert community often use the term 'mobilisation' to describe the measures that Moscow is increasingly resorting to in order to implement its agenda. The book explores what this means, and concludes that many of the terms used in the Western debate about Russia both misdiagnose the nature of the challenge and misrepresent the situation in Russia. At a time when many of the books about Russia are focused specifically on the war in Ukraine and the deterioration in relations between the Euro-Atlantic community and Russia, or are biographies of Vladimir Putin, it offers a new and unique lens through which to understand how Russia works and how Russian domestic and foreign politics are intimately linked.