Russian Strategic Culture in Flux: Back to the Future?

Abstract

Tradi tional Russian strategic culture-that of Imperial Russia from its emergence as a state in the middle of the last millennium through most of the existence of the Soviet Union into the late 1980s-has been one of the most martial and militarized such cultures in history, rivaling, if not exceeding, those of Prussia, Imperial and Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan in this respect. Starting sometime in the 1970s, accelerating in the 1980s, dramatically so in the years after the collapse of the USSR, conditions have arisen that open the possibility of changing this nature-significantly "demilitarizing" Russian strategic culture-while also leaving open the possibility of a revival or reassertion of traditional, highly militarized, Russian strategic culture. The purpose of this tutorial essay is to summarize the origins, contents, and implications of traditional Russian strategic culture, and then, in conclusion, to explore the possibilities for change or reassertion arising from post-Soviet conditions. Strategic Culture Defined for the Russian Case It is that body of broadly shared, powerfully influential, and especially enduring attitudes, perceptions, dispositions, and reflexes about national security in its broadest sense, both internal and external, that shape behavior and policy. For all its high degree of militarization, Russian strategic culture is not simply coterminous with its military culture, that is, deep attitudes about how military power should be shaped, maintained, and used. Strategic culture in the Russian case is very much influenced by political culture, how political power is defined, acquired, legitimized, and used; by foreign policy culture, how the outside world is regarded and addressed; and by economic culture-although the latter is, in the Russian case, more a product of the other influences than itself a source of influence. But that may be changing. In other words, strategic culture arises from the intersection of political, foreign policy, military, and economic cultures-and influences can flow in both directions. Continuity and Change In the Imperial and Soviet eras, Russia experienced changing structure of statehood, imperial expansion, the appearance of firearm weapons, the industrial revolution,