The empire strikes back: War without war and occupation without occupation in the Russian sphere of influence

Abstract

Russia's recent actions in Ukraine constitute a new form of warfare distinctly suited for a 21st‐century battlefield. Through a comparative analysis of the political technologies it has deployed there and in two other conflict zones, Georgia and Moldova, we maintain that Russia is implementing a new political strategy that utilizes fear and intimidation to thwart a further eastward expansion of the European Union and NATO. By masking Russian “occupation without occupation” as humanitarian and as fulfilling a “responsibility to protect,” Vladimir Putin satirizes the moral and legal arguments used by Western states to justify their own international intervention. Ultimately, we argue that the pervasive fear created by Eurasia's frozen conflicts constitutes a new form of post‐Soviet liminality that challenges the norms of the international system.

Towards conflict or cooperation? The Ukraine crisis and EU-Russia relations

“…Russia sees the principle referring more to the responsibility deriving from sovereignty, together with the need to safeguard its citizens living in other states. In practice Russia has associated the R2P principle with the fear and instability created by the frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet space in order to challenge the rules of international system (Dunn and Bobick 2014). In this sense the Ukraine crisis saw the radicalisation of the way Russia uses the R2P principle and a growing contrast with the EU's own understanding of the principle.…”

Everyday Diplomacy

“…Recent events in Ukraine and Russia have brought vivid attention to the ways in which nation-states seek to cultivate grass-roots support for their international diplomatic efforts as well as for pursuing proxy wars (Dunn and Bobick 2014): what is widely referred to as 'public diplomacy' (Altman and Shore 2014) or 'popular geopolitics' (Billig 1995).…”

After Sochi 2014: costs and impacts of Russia’s Olympic Games

“…It occasioned the boycott of the Olympics by the leaders of European states, such as the German president Joachim Gauck, and prompted others, such as the US, to include openly gay members in their delegations to the Olympic Games as a sign of protest. If that was not enough, the annexation of Crimea and subsequent support of rebel forces in Eastern Ukraine (Biersack and O'Lear 2014;Dunn and Bobick 2014) destroyed any ambition of changing Russia's image in the world or shoring up its soft power credentials.…”

“…Large posters at the Sochi Olympics declared "Russia -Great, New, Open!" and the state-owned Sberbank, a major sponsor of the mega-event, proclaimed the global ambitions of the event: "Sochi today, the world tomorrow" -a phrase whose ominous undertones became reality a few days after the Olympics with the invasion of Crimea (Biersack and O'Lear 2014;Dunn and Bobick 2014).…”