The Kremlin’s Plan to Destabilize the West
10th July 2021
On Sunday, Russia released its new National Security Strategy. In many ways, it picked up from where the 2015 version left off — on a crusade to politicize and polarize every aspect of Russian culture. This is not a strategy for the country’s security but for the government: the document sets out to mobilize the Russian nation, even Russian identity itself, against western bogeymen at home and abroad.
Apart from some more sober references to ecology and partnership with China, most of the strategy reads as a paranoid diatribe against Russia’s oft-cited ‘internal and external enemies’. They loom large on nearly every page, lurking within discussions of national interest, societal cohesion, economics and strategic stability. But these threats are most explicitly referenced in the frequent pages that address culture, historical truth and spiritual and moral values.