Russian and Post-Soviet Security

Syllabus

Russian and Post-Soviet Security (JPM711)

Martin Laryš ([e-mail])

David Erkomaishvili ([e-mail])    

Course description

This course aims to give the students conceptually informed and empirically-driven insight of key security issues facing Russia and post-Soviet region. The course discusses main priorities of the Russian security and economic policy in the region. With a focus on political violence as the common denominator of most of the security issues, the course is also focused on jihadist violence, secessionist conflicts and “hybrid” war. The course offers a balanced insight into the key regional security issues, that is not confined to the empirical complexity of the case studies, but allows students to analyse these phenomena with respect to the general literature.  

Aims of the course

After completing the course, students shall be able to understand the concepts of Jihadist terrorism, ethnic separatism, and interstate war and apply them in the context of Russia and Eurasia. In addition to learning basic facts on the topic of the course, this rather seminar-style course is intended to contribute to developing methodological and analytical skills among the students. Students are strongly encouraged to attend all the classes; attendance, key to a successful complement of the course, is not a formal requirement, though.  

Structure of the course:  

Week 1: Introduction to the course (ML + DE), 22 February  

Week 2: Russian Economic Statecraft in the Post-Soviet Region: Trade Wars with Ukraine and Moldova (ML), 29 February

Russian trade wars in the post-Soviet space will be discussed in this seminar jointly with other topics such as use of economic pressures and incentives; economic integration as one of the forces of Russian foreign policy in post-Soviet space (case of Eurasian Economic Union), and Russian energy policy as a tool for political influence.

Readings:

Cenusa, Denis et al. “Russia’s Punitive Trade Policy Measures towards Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia,” Centre for European Policy Studies Working Document (2014), (13 pages).

Nygren, B. “Russian Resource Policies towards the CIS Countries,” In.: Freire, M. R. – Kanet, R. (eds): Russia and its Near Neighbors, Palgrave Macmillan, (2012) 223-245 (22 pages).

Roberts, Sean P. and Arkady Moshes, “The Eurasian Economic Union: a case of reproductive integration?” Post-Soviet Affairs (2016) (24 pages).

Laruelle, Marlene. Eurasia, Eurasianism, Eurasian Union: Terminological Gaps and Overlaps, PONARS Eurasia (2015) (5 pages).

Newnham Randall, “Oil, carrots, and sticks: Russia’s energy resources as a foreign policy tool,” Journal of Eurasian Studies (2011) (10 pages). 74 pages in total.

Presentations: 3A: Russian Trade Wars with Moldova and Georgia 3B: Energy policy as the political weapon: The Case of Ukraine  

Week 3: Militant Far-Right: Comparison of Russia and Ukraine (ML), 7 March

This session is focusing on the comparison of the far-right movements in Russia and Ukraine – their willingness to participate in political violence, insurgencies, instrumentalization by the states and support of foreign far-right movements.

Readings:

Holzer, Jan, Laryš, Martin, and Mareš, Miroslav “Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Putin’s Russia – Legacies, Forms and Threats,” Routledge (2018): Chapters 3 and 6 (61 pages).

Umland Andreas. “Irregular Militias and Radical Nationalism in Post-Euromaydan Ukraine: The Prehistory and Emergence of the “Azov” Battalion in 2014, Terrorism and Political Violence 31(1): (2019), 105-131 (26 pages).

Yudina Natalia and Alexander Verkhovsky. “Russian Nationalist Veterans of the Donbas War,” Nationalities Papers 47(5): (2019), 734-749 (16 pages). 103 pages in total

Presentation: 6A: Enemies of the state: Oppositional radical nationalism in Putin’s Russia 6B: Either with us or against us: How Russia uses radical political parties in Europe  

Week 4: Organized Crime: The Cases of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (ML), 14 March

This seminar will be driven by a discussion on organized crime and its links to the ethnic violence, religious extremism, and inter-state disputes.

Readings:

Roy Allison, “Virtual regionalism, regional structures and regime security in Central Asia”, Central Asian Survey, 27:2 (2008), 185-202 (17 pages).

De Danieli, Filippo. “Beyond the drug-terror nexus: Drug trafficking and state-crime relations in Central Asia,” International Journal of Drug Policy, (2014) (6 pages).

Bakiev, Erlan.  “The Power Shift from Government to Organized Crime in Kyrgyzstan,” In.: Mirh Anja (ed.), Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West, OSCE, (2013) 139-158 (19 pages).

Doolotkeldieva, Asel. “The 2020 Violent Change in Government in Kyrgyzstan Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic: Three Distinct Stories in One,” In.: Mirh Anja (ed.), Between Peace and Conflict in the East and the West, OSCE, (2021) 157-175 (18 pages).

ACLED. “Everlasting of Ever-Changing? Violence Along the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan Border,” (2020) June 8. (7 pages). 67 pages in total

Presentation: 7A: Afghanistan 2.0, how NATO’s withdrawal reshapes Central Asian security  7B: On the borderline: Ethnic violence and inter-state disputes in Central Asia  

Week 5: Russian Security Policy in the post-Soviet Region: Fight against the “Colour Revolutions” (DE), 21 March 

In a more general perspective this seminar will evaluate how Russia distinguishes between friends and enemies in the post-Soviet region. This session will focus on the Russia’s fear of “colour revolutions” (Georgia, Ukraine), and the reasons behind this fear.

Readings:

King, Charles. “The Five-Day War: Managing Moscow after the Georgia Crisis.” Foreign Affairs 87 (2008), 2-11 (10 pages).

Way, L. A. The limits of autocracy promotion: The case of Russia in the “near abroad.” European Journal of Political Research, 54(4), (2015), 691–706 (16 pages).

Klein, Margarete. “Russia’s Military Policy in the Post-Soviet Space: Aims, Instruments and Perspectives”. German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin., (2019) 7-40 (33 pages).

Hedenskog Jakob, Gudrun Persson and Carolina Vendil Pallin. “Russian Security Policy, In.: Persson Gudrun (ed.) Russian Military Capability in Ten-Year Perspective – 2016”, Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), (2016) 97-133 (36 pages). 95 pages in total

Presentations: 1A: Not in our backyard: How Russia tries to prevent color revolutions in post-Soviet region? 1B: Why international opinion (doesn’t) matter: Understanding global attitudes to the Russian-Georgian August War  

Week 6: Russian Foreign Policy: Autocracy Promotion and Democracy Subversion (DE

Annotation

This course aims to give the students conceptually informed and empirically-driven insight of key security issues facing Russia and post-Soviet region. The course discusses main priorities of the Russian security and economic policy in the region.

With a focus on political violence as the common denominator of most of the security issues, the course is also focused on jihadist violence, secessionist conflicts and “hybrid” war. The course offers a balanced insight into the key regional security issues, that is not confined to the empirical complexity of the case studies, but allows students to analyse these phenomena with respect to the general literature.