Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Report Part Title: The Building Blocks of Russian Strategic Culture

Report Title: Etched in Stone:

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Introduction

The field of national security studies offers multiple definitions of strategic culture and has yet to
agree on one that would be universally accepted by scholars and policy practitioners. Most, if not all
definitions, however, agree that strategic culture is a product of a country’s geography, history, and
shared narratives that shape the prevailing worldview of its national security establishment, which in
turn guides its responses to challenges and threats.1

The Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 was a major turning point in the relationship
between Russia and the West, including not only the countries that belong to the two principal
political and security institutions of Europe—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and
the European Union (EU)—but also those on their shared periphery with Russia. The annexation of
Crimea and the undeclared war in eastern Ukraine were a shock to the politics and security of
Europe as a whole. However, when examined in the context of Russian strategic culture, they should
not have come as a surprise. The concept of strategic culture and its building blocks offer valuable
insights into the drivers of Russian actions vis-à-vis Ukraine and transatlantic security in general, as
well as indicators of likely future Russian responses to developments in Europe.

This paper offers an overview of the key building blocks of Russian strategic culture as it relates to
Russian views on transatlantic security, examines the developments in European security since 2014
in this context, assesses their implications for Russian and U.S. security and interests, and concludes
with policy implications and recommendations.

The Building Blocks of Russian Strategic Culture

When exploring the building blocks of Russian strategic culture, it makes sense to begin with its
structural components. In other words, those factors are the least likely to change as a result of shifts
in a country’s domestic politics, prevailing ideology, and personal preferences of its leaders.

The Fusion of Geography and History

To state the obvious, Russia is European.2 Kiev, the original capital of the Russian state, and Moscow
are in Europe. The country is predominantly Christian. Its culture, major aspects of its history, and
critical trends in its development—economic, political, societal—are inextricably tied to Europe.
Since the founding of the modern Russian state in the middle of the sixteenth century, its interests,

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key relationships with other powers, and foreign and security policies have been focused on Europe.
Even Russia’s pursuits outside Europe—in the Caucasus, in Central Asia, and even in more distant
geographic locales—had, at times, a key European dimension. The conquest of Central Asia in the
nineteenth century was an important element of Russia’s competition with the British Empire. The
Crimean War of 1853–1856 was waged against Russia by a coalition that included the Ottoman and
British Empires and France.

In other words, the history of Russia’s foreign policy as a modern state is mostly confined to Europe.
Since the establishment of the empire under Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century, Russian
military and diplomatic history has been dominated by a succession of wars and diplomatic maneu-
vering with France, Austria, Great Britain, Sweden, Poland, Prussia, various other German states and
principalities, and multiple combinations of these powers. In the twentieth century and especially
during the Cold War, the principal arena of East-West confrontation was in Europe. Since the end of
the Cold War, the focus of Russian diplomacy has been on rebuilding its position in Europe. Europe
always was and will remain the geopolitical center of gravity of Russian foreign and security policy.

Even a cursory look at the map of Russia makes something else clear: it lacks natural physical features
that could serve as a defensive barrier to shield the country from outside invaders or act as a powerful
check on its own expansionist impulses. Throughout the history of the modern Russian state—since
the middle of the sixteenth century—it has pursued territorial expansion to the west in Europe, to
the east in Siberia, and to the south and southeast in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In most geographic theaters, Russia rarely confronted a more powerful adversary to impede or stop
outright its expansionist pursuits, or its efforts to ensure the safety and security of its lands and
people. This was not the case in Europe. The two nearly fatal invasions—by Napoleon’s France and
Hitler’s Germany—are only the best-known and most dramatic examples of wars that Russia has
fought in Europe. But it is easy to overlook such dramatic episodes as the occupation of Moscow by
the troops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1610 and the territorial losses and conces-
sions in multiple, mostly forgotten wars of the seventeenth century with Poland and Sweden.

At the risk of oversimplification, one can easily conclude that the entire history of Russian foreign
policy has been a struggle for control of the geographic space between the western frontier of Russia
and the eastern border of Germany.

During periods of domestic instability, even turmoil, European powers capitalized on Russia’s
preoccupation with its internal affairs to make significant territorial gains at its expense. That was the
case in the early seventeenth century during the “time of troubles” following the death of Ivan the
Terrible in 1584; in 1918, when Russia, as a result of revolution and civil war, signed the Treaty of

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Brest-Litovsk and gave up most of what now comprises Finland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine,
parts of Poland, and Moldova; and in 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved and Ukraine, Belarus,
Moldova, and the Baltic and the South Caucasus and Central Asian states gained independence.3

Russia’s experience of the twentieth century has much greater relevance to its strategic culture than
distant historical events. Russia’s retreat in Europe in 1918 and in 1991 paved the way for the estab-
lishment of several new independent states. This was widely considered elsewhere in Europe as a sign
of progress that would enhance the security and stability of the continent, but that is not how these
developments were perceived in Russia. The loss of its vast European possessions was equated with
strategic defeat and was a major blow to the country’s security and national psyche.

In the absence of natural barriers to separate Russia from the rest of Europe, and with a long legacy
of conflict between it and other European countries, strategic depth has been a critical element of
Russian security, saving the country from defeat in 1812 and in 1941. Regaining strategic depth was
the principal task of the young Soviet state as soon as the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand in the
civil war; by 1922, Russia had reclaimed most of the old empire and the margin of security that came
with it. Similarly, restoring that margin of safety in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union
became the principal task of Russian foreign policy in the 1990s, first with the establishment of the
Russia-Belarus union in 1996. With discussions about NATO admitting new members well under-
way in the mid-1990s, it could not have been lost on Russian national security officials that Napo-
leon and Hitler had marched across Belarus to the gates of Moscow.

In Europe, but Not With Europe

Although in Europe and integral to the continent’s security, political, and cultural fabric, Russia has
had throughout its history a difficult and complicated relationship with the rest of the continent. In
2016, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complained that from its very origins the Russian state was
forced to “defend the right of the Russian people to have their own faith and decide their own
destiny despite the European West’s attempts to subjugate Russian lands and deprive them of their
own identity.”4 A commitment to defend the Russian identity and way of life “is in our genes,”
he concluded.5

The gap between Russia and “the European West,” to use Lavrov’s terminology, covers the hard-
power and soft-power aspects of their relationship. Aside from the historic differences between the
Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches, and despite its active participation in European power
politics since the rule of Peter the Great, Russia has struggled to establish its legitimate place among
the great European powers and gain their acceptance of its rightful place among them.

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The gap between Russia and the European West became especially pronounced in the nineteenth
century. Despite its critical role in defeating Napoleon, whose conquest of nearly all of continental
Europe no other power was able to stop, Russia’s acceptance by the major European powers—
Austria, Prussia, France, Great Britain—as one of them proved elusive. As most of the rest of Europe
was being consumed by revolutionary fervor and democratic movements, Russia remained firmly
autocratic and committed to extinguishing popular uprisings within its own empire and rescuing
wobbly monarchies elsewhere, especially when trouble broke out near its borders, as was the case in
1848 with the Austrian Empire.6

The reverse side of Russia’s emergence as the “gendarme of Europe” and defender of autocratic values
was the fear of other major powers that it was growing too powerful.7 The Crimean War launched in
1853 by the British-led coalition, which included Austria—whose monarchy Russia had rescued only
a few years earlier—was intended to contain Russia’s expansion at the expense of the faltering Otto-
man Empire and to acquire more territories.8 The rush by a coalition of European powers to defend
the oppressive Ottoman regime from Russia’s intervention, undertaken in the name of protecting
fellow Christians suffering, was interpreted by Russian nationalists and Slavophiles as proof of
Europe’s duplicity and inherent, incorrigible Russophobia.9 Nikolay Danilevskiy, a leading nine-
teenth century Slavophile ideologist, complained about Europe’s double standard—declaring war on
Russia when it demanded that the Ottomans respect the rights of their Christian subjects, but
condoning the 1864 “partition” of Denmark by Prussia and Austria, when they intervened in
Schleswig and Holstein and forced Denmark to cede both, ultimately to a unified Germany.10

The intellectual and political line of Russia’s quest for recognition and dissatisfaction with the denial
of its presumed inherent rights as a great power enjoyed by other European major powers can be
traced from nineteenth century Slavophiles to twenty-first century politicians, including President
Vladimir Putin.11 In the latter’s eyes, Russia’s claim to Crimea, which they regard as integral to the
Russian state, is no less legitimate than the support of the Western European powers and the United
States for the establishment of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, as an independent state. The
adversarial relationship between Russia and the western part of Europe is part of a long and estab-
lished Russian narrative.

A Shared Worldview

The sense of grievance against the “European West” and, by association, the United States, is a
prominent feature of the entrenched worldview broadly shared by Russia’s national security
establishment—reaffirmed by its experience during and since the Cold War. Putin is a typical

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representative of this establishment, whose many members are currently presiding not only over
defense and foreign policy, but also domestic politics and the economy. In this context, it is not
difficult to understand the Russian president’s nostalgia for the Soviet Union.12

Decisionmaking on national security and foreign policy by a narrow circle of like-minded elites is a
long-standing feature of Russian political and strategic culture. In tsarist Russia, it was the domain of
a small circle of court officials drawn largely from the military and diplomatic elites who were a prod-
uct of the upper echelons of the bureaucracy and aristocracy.13 In the Soviet Union, the Communist
Party leadership guided policy with inputs and support from the bureaucracy, including the military,
diplomatic, intelligence, and academic communities.14 The direction and tenor of Russian and Soviet
foreign policy have always been determined at the top of the political-bureaucratic pyramid. Under
Putin, the Security Council appears to include the president’s circle of close advisers and to be where
major foreign policy issues are considered and decided.15

For Putin and senior national security decisionmakers of his generation, mostly men in their sixties
and career professionals who rose through the ranks of Soviet intelligence, armed forces, and domes-
tic security, the fall of the Soviet Union was a dramatic event rather than cause for celebration.16
These were children of the Soviet Union’s “greatest generation” that had fought and won a historic
victory in the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is commonly referred to in Russia. They grew up
and advanced in their careers as their country was reaching the pinnacle of its power—conquering
outer space, building the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, sailing the high seas, and firmly controlling a
vast European empire. Within that system, they belonged to a privileged class, enjoying the trust of
the Communist Party and material benefits available only to very few citizens.

The West was the adversary for many of these Soviet national security professionals. In their narra-
tive, Western radio stations broadcast hostile propaganda aimed at undermining the Soviet Union’s
hold on its outer empire in Europe, as well as its domestic stability.17 NATO was a hostile military
alliance whose weapons threatened the Soviet heartland. The West applied economic pressure
through trade embargoes and denial of advanced technologies to the Soviet Union in order to wring
geopolitical concessions from it. These actions were often taken under the guise of promoting human
rights and democracy, but in the view of the national security elites they were aimed at rolling back
the Iron Curtain and denying the Soviet Union the gains of its victory in World War II, as well as the
security for which the country paid such a heavy price.18

The collapse of that state, political system, and ideology was complete and sudden. For generations
of national security professionals who were brought up to believe in the political system and its
ideology and to serve the state, the explanation of the Soviet collapse was to be found in the malign

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actions of the state’s adversaries to subvert it from within. For many of them, the Cold War, after a
brief interlude in the 1990s, has continued because in their eyes the West, not content with the
breakup of the Soviet Union, has waged a campaign against Russia. The aims of that campaign are
two-fold: to weaken Russia and encircle it with hostile neighbors by means of sponsoring “color revo-
lutions” and expanding NATO, and to further subvert Russia from within by supporting nongovern-
mental organizations, promoting hostile, pseudo-liberal ideologies, and corroding the traditional
values of Russian culture and society.19 In this narrative, the ultimate goal of the West’s policy toward
Russia is to stage a “color coup.”20 In other words, the “velvet” revolutions of 1989, the breakup of
the Soviet Union, the expansion of NATO, and the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine were part
and parcel of the West’s long-term campaign against the Soviet Union and Russia.

The Great Patriotic War

Along with the thesis of the West’s enduring hostility toward Russia, the Kremlin’s national narrative
devotes special attention to the legacy of World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, as the cornerstone
upon which rests Russian claims to recognition as a great power and to a special voice in the affairs of
Europe. According to this narrative, Russia contributed more than any other nation to the defeat of
Nazi Germany. During public discussions about changes to the constitution in 2020, some politi-
cians even proposed a special amendment that would affirm the status of Russia as a “country-victor”
in the conflict.21 The proposal earned a favorable comment from Putin, but eventually was shelved.22

In the Kremlin’s narrative, Russia, as a “country-victor” in World War II, which gave rise to the
international system that exists today, as a founding member of the United Nations, and as a major
nuclear power, bears special responsibility for the legacy of the war.23 This includes ensuring the
correct historical record of the war and defending it against attempts at falsification, upholding the
postwar international system, and building a stable world order. Putin has taken the lead in this
effort, engaging in polemics with foreign opponents and insisting on his firmly held interpretation of
the history of World War II and its origins.24 In an unprecedented move, he even published earlier
this year a lengthy article in a U.S. policy journal to once again highlight the special Soviet contribu-
tion to victory and the long-standing, historic animosity of the West toward the Soviet Union and
Russia.25 There is rarely any mention in Russian discussions about World War II of the war in the
Pacific or the brief campaign the Soviet army waged against Japan in Manchuria in August 1945.
There is no doubt that in the Kremlin narrative Russia’s war began and ended in Europe. Europe
is where Russia’s historical legacy is and where the Kremlin’s national narrative demands it focus
its energies.

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In sum, the critical building blocks of Russia’s strategic culture—its geography, historical experience,
worldview of the national security establishment, and ideology and national narrative—point to
Europe as the key geographic theater for its national security interests and policy, the principal arena
of its ambitions, and the main source of its insecurity.

Russian Threat Perceptions

The combination of enduring factors described above helps to explain the continuity of threat
perceptions within Russia’s national security establishment. The transition from the Soviet Union to
the Russian Federation has had seemingly little effect on these.

Then

For the Soviet leadership, the victory in World War II and the conquest and consolidation of a vast
empire that included all of Eastern Europe and even East Germany represented the pinnacle of
power and influence on the continent for the Russian state. The empire’s vast expanse also provided
strategic depth and a degree of security from adversaries in the West that was unprecedented. Secur-
ing these accomplishments that the country had paid so much for with blood and treasure became
one of the chief preoccupations of the Soviet leadership after 1945. The suppression of unrest in
Berlin in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1981 attests to the
strength of that commitment.

It is easy for Western observers to dismiss the notion that NATO, as a defensive military alliance,
posed a threat to the Soviet Union and its empire in Eastern Europe. But the idea of rolling back the
Iron Curtain was more than a figment of the paranoid imagination of Soviet leaders, who saw
Western leaders challenge the legitimacy of the Soviet empire and, in effect, the legitimacy of the
outcome of World War II. U.S., British, and German radio stations broadcast what the Soviets
considered subversive propaganda into Eastern Europe with the aim of loosening the Soviet Union’s
grip on it. U.S. presidents from Harry Truman in 1947 to Ronald Reagan in 1987 pledged support
for “free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation” and called on the Soviet leaders to aban-
don their empire.26 Although this was to be done “primarily through economic and financial aid,”27
the Soviet Union confronted in NATO a formidable military alliance, a superior economic and
defense-industrial base, and a vast covert action toolkit that no Soviet national security leader could
consider as merely defensive.

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