Russia

Great Power, Weakened State

Marlene Laruelle, Jean Radvanyi

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English

Rowman & Littlefield
27 July 2023

History of other lands

Russia inspires fear. For decades, American presidents viewed the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” and now, the Ukrainian crisis has added a new chapter to this narrative inherited from the Cold War. Russia’s behavior is regarded with distrust and its “nuisance power” arouses frustration. The country’s image has not been so negative since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But at the same time—and this is a key point of this book—Russia is fearful, too. Thirty years after the end of the Soviet Union, multiple ghosts haunt the country, its elites, and its society, from concern over demographic and economic decline to worry about the country’s vulnerability to external intervention, reviving the old notion of Russia as a “besieged fortress.” Opened up practically overnight under President Boris Yeltsin, the country had to deal with a rapid and violent globalization. Faced with both a West that emerged victorious from the Cold War and a shockingly dynamic China, Russia constantly questions its identity and the notion that its fate is to bridge East and West. Vacillating between reformist aspirations and a fear of liberal society, which is often portrayed as amoral and perverse, the country, and certainly its leader Vladamir Putin, sometimes seems tempted to take refuge in a new isolation.

This book is more than timely: no other book offers a comprehensive overview of Russia’s fears and challenges that could help the American public to understand how the country deals with its own issues and how this influences Russia’s foreign policy, including the ongoing war in Ukraine. This in-out aspect is critical to understand the country’s international stance and therefore directly US policy and security.

By: Marlene Laruelle, Jean Radvanyi
Imprint: Rowman & Littlefield
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: Second Edition
Dimensions: Height: 223mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 422g
ISBN: 9781538174777
ISBN 10: 1538174774
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 27 July 2023
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Marlene Laruelle is research professor of international affairs and associate director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. She is codirector of PONARS-Eurasia and director of the Central Asia Program at GW. Her books include Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), In the Name of the Nation: Nationalism and Politics in Contemporary Russia (Palgrave, 2009), and Russia’s Strategies in the Arctic and the Future of the Far North (M.E. Sharpe, 2013). Jean Radvanyi is professor of Russian Studies and Geography at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Cultures in Paris. He directed the French-Russian Center for Social Sciences and Humanities located in Moscow for four year, between 2008 and 2012. His books include four editions of (in French) The New Russia (Armand Colin), and Geopolitical Atlas of the Caucasus (Autrement).

Reviews for Russia: Great Power, Weakened State

"A marvellously erudite, perceptive and eminently readable analysis of Russia today and how it got to be how it is. Avoiding simplistic or essentialist explanations, the book presents a country as complex as it is troubled. This brilliant work is essential reading for anyone interested in the fate not only of Russia but of the world at large. Explaining Russia in the midst of a war that's convulsing the world order is not a task for the faint-hearted, but Laruelle and Radvanyi have done just that. With trenchant analysis of aspects as diverse as Russia's war economy, Moscow's romance with the Global South and the origins of ""Putinism,"" the authors make sense of Russia's retrenchment, even as it builds coalitions to resist U.S. hegemony. Russia's invasion of Ukraine upended Western security policy in ways that are highly inimical to Russian interests, notably the enlargement of NATO's military presence in the Baltic states and the decision by both Sweden and Finland to join the organization. That the Kremlin could have anticipated these responses raises the question of why it invaded. Laurelle and Radvanyi address this question in their survey of Russian history, emphasizing the fears of Russian elites and the general public--the fear of demographic decline and a struggling economy, but above all the fear of foreign intervention � la the color revolutions. Russia's weakness invites intervention, making the restoration of its great power status an overarching foreign policy goal. For Putin this means establishing a global presence that counters the West-centered world order. He has forged a close relationship with China, made Russia an indispensable power in Syria, and cultivated Russia's participation in BRICS. For Putin, however, this restoration of status is linked first and foremost to Russia's ability to dominate Ukraine. The book covers familiar ground but is a very useful introduction to Russia's place in international politics and to its repressive domestic policies and economic resilience under Western sanctions. Highly recommended. General readers through graduate students."