The Ukraine invasion: Hierarchy, discipline and counterbalance

Abstract

This article examines Russia’s 2022 military intervention in Ukraine through an eclectic theoretical framework that synthesises hierarchy theory, foreign-imposed regime change, and negative balancing strategy. We argue that Russia justified the attack as a means to protect its hierarchical objectives in the post-Soviet region against three perceived imminent threats: Ukraine’s independent trajectory, the growing alignment of certain post-Soviet states with the US-led hierarchy, and the expansion of the US-led Western hierarchy into the post-Soviet space. In response, Russia employed the hard face of its negative balancing strategy by launching an overt foreign-imposed regime change operation to replace Zelensky’s government with a pro-Moscow regime. From the outset, this operation has been tasked with two key aims: discipline and balance. The disciplinary objective has focused on ensuring Ukraine’s loyalty to Moscow and deterring other Western-leaning post-Soviet states from emulating Ukraine by sending a clear disciplinary message. The balance objective has sought to counter the negative and outbidding strategies of the US-led hierarchy, which Russia perceives as a neo-containment agenda aimed at undermining its regional influence.