Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior: Imperial Strategic Culture and Putin’s Operational Code

This  book examines the extent to which Russia’s strategic behavior is the  product of its imperial strategic culture and Putin’s own operational  code.

The work argues that, by conflating personalistic regime  survival with national security, Putin ensures that contemporary Russian  national interest, as expressed through strategic behavior, is the  synthesis of a peculiar troika: a long-standing imperial strategic  culture, rooted in a partially imagined past; the operational code of a  counter-intelligence president and decision-making elite; and the  realities of Russia as a hybrid state. The book first examines the role  of structure and agency in shaping contemporary Russian strategic  behavior. It then provides a conceptual understanding of strategic  culture, and applies this to Tsarist and Soviet historical developments.  The book’s analysis of the operational code, however, demonstrates that  Putinism is more than the sum of the past. Finally, the book assesses  Putin’s statecraft and stress-tests our assumptions about the exercise  of contemporary power in Russia and the structure of Putin’s agency.

This book will be of interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, strategic studies and International Relations.