Stephen Blank and Philip Wasielewski
It is a mistake commonly made to argue that Russia presents only a localized threat. It is wrong and it needs to be squashed because the Kremlin’s menace is not limited, it affects the whole planet. This is key to understanding the modern world and denying it would cause serious repercussions.
Of the four members of the “Axis of Upheaval”, Russia is the most active agent of malign disruption. Experts acknowledge Russia as an “architect of destabilization and chaos.” It wages a war of aggression in Ukraine, supports frozen conflicts, helps Houthis target commercial and Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, supports a civil war in Sudan, and generally undermines Middle Eastern and African stability for commercial and strategic gain.
To understand the sources of Russia’s conduct, we must recognize that the ideology of Russian imperialism drives its foreign policy, stimulating its ambition to recreate an empire of subservient states. To achieve security in Europe, we must therefore defeat Russian imperialism. Only then can Russia’s imperial drive be redirected to more useful purposes, something every other former European colonial power accepted decades ago.
Imperialism, extending a state’s dominion by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other polities by coercion, supposedly ended after the post-World War Two decolonization of the British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese overseas empires.
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