Understanding Russia

This timely book provides a balanced and comprehensive overview of the geographical, historical, political, cultural, and geostrategic factors that drive Russia today. Russia has long inspired fear in the West, but as the authors argue, Russia is fearful as well. Three decades after the transformations launched by perestroika, multiple ghosts haunt both Russian elites and ordinary citizens, ranging from concerns about territorial challenges, societal transformations, and economic decline to worries about the country’s vulnerability to external intervention. Faced with a West that emerged victorious from the Cold War, a shockingly dynamic China, and former Soviet republics claiming their right to emancipate themselves from Moscow’s stranglehold, Russia is constantly questioning its identity, its development path, and its role on the international scene. The country hesitates between two strategies: take refuge in a new isolation and revive the old notion of being a “besieged fortress,” or replay the messianic myth of a Third Rome, the last bastion of Christian values in the face of a decadent West. Explaining Russia’s perspective, Marlene Laruelle and Jean Radvanyi offers a much-needed analysis that will help readers understand how the country deals with its domestic issues and how these influence Russian foreign policy.

This book analyzes the evolution of Russian military thought and how Russia's current thinking about war is reflected in recent crises. While other books describe current Russian practice, Oscar Jonsson provides the long view to show how Russian military strategic thinking has developed from the Bolshevik Revolution to the present. He closely examines Russian primary sources including security doctrines and the writings and statements of Russian military theorists and political elites. What Jonsson reveals is that Russia's conception of the very nature of war is now changing, as Russian elites see information warfare and political subversion as the most important ways to conduct contemporary war. Since information warfare and political subversion are below the traditional threshold of armed violence, this has blurred the boundaries between war and peace. Jonsson also finds that Russian leaders have, particularly since 2011/12, considered themselves to be at war with the United States and its allies, albeit with non-violent means. This book provides much needed context and analysis to be able to understand recent Russian interventions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, how to deter Russia on the eastern borders of NATO, and how the West must also learn to avoid inadvertent escalation.

This book the conflicting issues in EU-Russian relations and presents an innovative theory for the understanding of their emergence. Drawing on up-to-date research data, the author argues that conflicts in EU-Russian relations are generated by the clash of principles of state sovereignty and international integration.

Understanding International Relations: Russia and the World examines world politics through the lens of Russia and its effects on the international system. Contributors to this volume examine Russian politics, economics, global and regional policies, and history in order to better understand Russia’s place in world politics. This book explores the impact Russia has on international politics in three parts: how current theories in international relations studies treat Russia, the primary disputes in modern world politics relating to Russia, and Russian policies and their effects around the world. This collection offers a comprehensive view of Russia’s place in the global political system by exploring Russian foreign policy, the economy and statecraft, the Arctic, global organizations, arms control, national security, the environment, soft power, and Russian relations with the United States, Europe, and Eurasia.

Examines Russian history from the early eighteenth century until the Revolution, discusses the causes of the czars' decline, and describes the social and political forces in czarist Russia.

Updated fourth edition In the wake of the Cold War and perestroika, the New Russia is finding its place in the global world. No longer a superpower, but still a nation with great influence, Russia remains an enigmatic and mysterious land. Like earlier editions, the new fourth edition of From Nyet to Da illuminates the dynamics of traditional Russian culture in the framework of contemporary events, such as the March 2008 elections and the Georgian conflict. With a new preface, and updates and revisions throughout, From Nyet to Da enlightens readers about virtually every aspect of Russian life, covering social and interpersonal skills as well as the underlying cultural assumptions and values of the Russian people.

Relations between the EU and Russia have been traditionally and predominantly studied from a one-sided power perspective, in which interests and capabilities are taken for granted. This book presents a new approach to EU-Russia relations by focusing on the role of images and perceptions, which can be major obstacles to the enhancement of relations between both actors. By looking at how these images feature on both sides (EU and Russia), on different levels (bilateral, regional, multilateral) and in different policy fields (energy, minorities, regional integration, multilateral institutions), the book seeks to reintroduce a degree of sophistication into EU-Russia studies and provide a more complete overview of different dimensions of EU-Russia relations than any book has done to date. Taking social constructivist and transnational approaches, interests and power are not seen as objectively given, but as socially mediated and imbued by identities. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of European Foreign Policy, Eastern Partnership, Russian Foreign Policy and more broadly to European and EU Politics/Studies, Russian studies, and International Relations.

This title provides a thorough introduction to Russia as it confronts the challenges of modern day's interdependent world. Interdisciplinary in design, the book draws on different scholars to provide sophisticated yet accessible treatments of subjects ranging from geography and history to politics and economics.