Which factors drive Russia’s grand strategy adjustment: pressure, perception, power
Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Relations between Russia and the West, mainly the US, EU and NATO, have continuously
deteriorated in the past decades due to several crises and differing answers to these by the
relevant players, e.g. in the cases of Ukraine and Syria. Whereas there are numerous works
which deal with the phenomena of Russian foreign policy conduct in those crises from a realist
point of view, there are remarkably few that take a neoclassical realist perspective. This paper
does, looking at such international crises as part of a bigger picture: Russian grand strategy. In
short, the thesis finds that perceived pressures from the IS, moderated by relative material power
capabilities, drive Russian grand strategy adjustment. The results of the case study enhance our
understanding of Russian foreign policies and grand strategy, and demonstrate the flexibility
and applicability of neoclassical realism as a theoretical framework to explain various
phenomena in international politics.