Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior

Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior PDF Author: Graeme P. Herd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429537549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
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. At the end, 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.

Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior

Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior PDF Author: Graeme P. Herd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429537549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book

Book Description
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. At the end, 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.

Understanding Russia

Understanding Russia PDF Author: Marlene Laruelle
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538114879
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
This timely book provides a balanced and comprehensive overview of the geographical, historical, political, cultural, and geostrategic factors that drive Russia today. Russia has long inspired fear in the West, but as the authors argue, Russia is fearful as well. Three decades after the transformations launched by perestroika, multiple ghosts haunt both Russian elites and ordinary citizens, ranging from concerns about territorial challenges, societal transformations, and economic decline to worries about the country’s vulnerability to external intervention. Faced with a West that emerged victorious from the Cold War, a shockingly dynamic China, and former Soviet republics claiming their right to emancipate themselves from Moscow’s stranglehold, Russia is constantly questioning its identity, its development path, and its role on the international scene. The country hesitates between two strategies: take refuge in a new isolation and revive the old notion of being a “besieged fortress,” or replay the messianic myth of a Third Rome, the last bastion of Christian values in the face of a decadent West. Explaining Russia’s perspective, Marlene Laruelle and Jean Radvanyi offers a much-needed analysis that will help readers understand how the country deals with its domestic issues and how these influence Russian foreign policy.

The Leviathan (New Directions Pearls)

The Leviathan (New Directions Pearls) PDF Author: Joseph Roth
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811219321
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 65

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Book Description
Joseph Roth’s final novella, The Leviathan, concerns a shtetl’s finest coral merchant and how his dream of seeing the sea for the first time materializes at a terrible cost. In the small town of Progrody, Nissen Piczenik makes his living as the most respected coral merchant of the region. Nissen has never been outside of his town, deep in the Russian interior, and fantasizes that a Leviathan watches over the coral reefs. When the sailor nephew of one of Progrody’s residents comes to visit, Nissen loses little time in befriending him for the purpose of learning about the sea. The sailor offers Nissen a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come to Odessa and tour his ship. Nissen leaves his business during the peak coral season, and stays in Odessa for three weeks. But upon his return to Progrody, Nissen finds that a new coral merchant has moved into the neighboring town, and his coral is quickly becoming the most sought after. As his customers dwindle, life takes an evil twist for Nissen Piczenik. And the final decider of his fate may be the devil himself.

What is Media Archaeology?

What is Media Archaeology? PDF Author: Jussi Parikka
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745661394
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This cutting-edge text offers an introduction to the emerging field of media archaeology and analyses the innovative theoretical and artistic methodology used to excavate current media through its past. Written with a steampunk attitude, What is Media Archaeology? examines the theoretical challenges of studying digital culture and memory and opens up the sedimented layers of contemporary media culture. The author contextualizes media archaeology in relation to other key media studies debates including software studies, German media theory, imaginary media research, new materialism and digital humanities. What is Media Archaeology? advances an innovative theoretical position while also presenting an engaging and accessible overview for students of media, film and cultural studies. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the interdisciplinary ties between art, technology and media.

Kremlin Winter

Kremlin Winter PDF Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 9781509883059
Category : Russia (Federation)
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
A riveting account of Vladimir Putin's rule since his return to the Russian presidency in 2012.

Between Two Fires

Between Two Fires PDF Author: Joshua Yaffa
Publisher:
ISBN: 1524760595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
From a leading journalist in Moscow and correspondent for The New Yorker, a groundbreaking portrait of modern Russia and the inner struggles of the people who sustain Vladimir Putin's rule "Unforgettable. . . . This is a book about Putin's Russia that is unlike any other." --Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing In this rich and novelistic tour of contemporary Russia, Joshua Yaffa introduces readers to some of the country's most remarkable figures--from politicians and entrepreneurs to artists and historians--who have built their careers and constructed their identities in the shadow of the Putin system. Torn between their own ambitions and the omnipresent demands of the state, each walks an individual path of compromise. Some muster cunning and cynicism to extract all manner of benefits and privileges from those in power. Others, finding themselves to be less adept, are left broken and demoralized. What binds them together is the tangled web of dilemmas and contradictions they face. Between Two Fires chronicles the lives of a number of strivers who understand that their dreams are best--or only--realized through varying degrees of cooperation with the Russian government. With sensitivity and depth, Yaffa profiles the director of the country's main television channel, an Orthodox priest at war with the church hierarchy, a Chechen humanitarian who turns a blind eye to persecutions, and many others. The result is an intimate and probing portrait of a nation that is much discussed yet little understood. By showing how citizens shape their lives around the demands of a capricious and frequently repressive state--as often by choice as under threat of force--Yaffa offers urgent lessons about the true nature of modern authoritarianism.

Putin's Kleptocracy

Putin's Kleptocracy PDF Author: Karen Dawisha
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476795207
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia. Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin’s kleptocratic regime. She presents extensive new evidence about the Putin circle’s use of public positions for personal gain even before Putin became president in 2000. She documents the establishment of Bank Rossiya, now sanctioned by the US; the rise of the Ozero cooperative, founded by Putin and others who are now subject to visa bans and asset freezes; the links between Putin, Petromed, and “Putin’s Palace” near Sochi; and the role of security officials from Putin’s KGB days in Leningrad and Dresden, many of whom have maintained their contacts with Russian organized crime. Putin’s Kleptocracy is the result of years of research into the KGB and the various Russian crime syndicates. Dawisha’s sources include Stasi archives; Russian insiders; investigative journalists in the US, Britain, Germany, Finland, France, and Italy; and Western officials who served in Moscow. Russian journalists wrote part of this story when the Russian media was still free. “Many of them died for this story, and their work has largely been scrubbed from the Internet, and even from Russian libraries,” Dawisha says. “But some of that work remains.”

The Turkish Gambit

The Turkish Gambit PDF Author: Boris Akunin
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0812968786
Category : Detective and mystery stories
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In 1877, Erast Fandorin finds himself at the Bulgarian front in a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, where he assists a Russian woman who is risking her life for her fiancé, who has been falsely accused of espionage.

Russian Exploration, from Siberia to Space

Russian Exploration, from Siberia to Space PDF Author: Brian Bonhomme
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489561
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
In the history of geographical discovery and exploration, a well-known cast of European characters and events takes center stage. While the importance of achievements by Columbus, Cortes, Magellan, Cook, Lewis and Clark, and Neil Armstrong remains unassailable, the participation of Russia in the European era of exploration, conquest, expansion, and colonization deserves equal attention. This study provides a narrative survey and critical analysis of a rich but overlooked tradition of geographical exploration by Russians and others in Russian service since 1580. Following Russian pioneers across Siberia, Alaska, Brazil, Hawaii and the Pacific, Central Asia, Australasia, the Arctic and Antarctic, and into space, this work establishes Russia in the history of world exploration and connects the Russian experience of exploration to Russian national identity past and present.

Leviathan

Leviathan PDF Author: Scott Westerfeld
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416987061
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The first novel in a masterful trilogy by #1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld that School Library Journal hailed is "sure to become a classic." It is the cusp of World War I. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ genetically fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet. Aleksandar Ferdinand, a Clanker, and Deryn Sharp, a Darwinist, are on opposite sides of the war. But their paths cross in the most unexpected way, taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure….One that will change both their lives forever.