Russia and the question of world order

Abstract

There is broad agreement among commentators and analysts that Russia seeks to undermine the US-led liberal international order. At the same time, there is considerable disagreement over the nature and extent of the challenge Moscow poses, the underlying drivers of Russian revisionism, and how the West should respond. In this article, we argue that it is possible to distinguish between three major perspectives. In brief, the first suggests that Russia is a 'revanchist power' that seeks to overturn the very foundations of the liberal world order. The second perspective holds that Russia is a 'defensive power' that works for incremental changes within the existing order. The third perspective contends that Russia is an 'aggressive isolationist', meaning that the Putin regime deliberately plays a spoiler role in international affairs to boost its domestic legitimacy. This article describes in detail the arguments of the three perspectives; it shows that each suffers from explanatory shortcomings and defects; and it outlines how the contributions to this special issue address the identified shortcomings.

Russian revisionism in the Putin era: an overview of post-communist military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria

“…Others scholars, on the contrary, emphasized that Moscow nationalism and territorial expansionism is a real threat to the liberal international order and suggested that USA and EU should resist Russian revisionism through a mix of a containment and rollback. In short, they should reinforce diplomatic efforts to isolate Moscow; impose more severe sanctions; increase NATO military deployments in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states; provide military support to Georgia and Ukraine (Götz, 2019).…”

Conceptualising the Arctic as a Zone of Conflict

“…51 argues that the motivating force behind these tactics is the imperative of regime survival. 52 Focusing on an external threat helps to invoke patriotism and benefits those currently in power, who want to maintain the status quo. Russia has many of the trademarks we expect to see that explain why Russia is imagining the Arctic as a zone of conflict including both growing social unrest as well as rhetoric geared towards a domestic audience that encourages a focus on conflict outside the state.…”

Russia and the European security order revisited: from the congress of Vienna to the post-cold war

“…Clunan, 2018;Hill, 2018;Jankovski, 2017;Kanet, 2018;Morozov, 2015;Radin & Reach, 2017;Romanova, 2018;Sakwa, 2017;Voskressenski, 2016). At the risk of oversimplification, one can distinguish between three positions in the ongoing debate: for some, Russia is a revolutionary or revisionist power intent upon destroying the present order; for others, it is an anti-reformist conservative force seeking to restore order; and for still others, it lies somewhere in between and seeks only minor adjustments (for an overview, see the introductory article by Götz and Merlen, 2018).…”