Authors

Tony van der Togt¹;  ¹ Institute of History, Leiden University, Netherlands

Discussion

Russian foreign policy think tanks and their experts were as surprised by Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine as outside observers. Many experts even explicitly excluded such a scenario in the immediate run-up to the invasion, as (in their view) this would be harmful to Russia’s interests and doomed to failure. But soon they had to adapt to the official narrative about the “special military operation” or make the choice to move into foreign exile.
This paper looks at some prominent mezhdunarodniki (international relation specialists) who decided to remain in Russia and continue their work under increasingly restrictive conditions.
As Russia’s official strategic narrative became more conflictual towards relations with the “collective West” and would increasingly present Russia as a separate civilization, foreign and security policy experts inside Russia had to relate to this narrative as the foundation of the Kremlin’s legitimation of the war, unless they would remain quiet and move their research to politically less sensitive topics and subsequently lose their prominent position in the debates.
In my paper I will look at four prominent mezhdunarodniki, who remained in Russia: Sergey Karaganov, Fyodor Lukyanov, Timofey Bordachev and Dmitri Trenin, in order to map out how their ideas about Russia’s identity and place in global order have evolved since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More in particular, I will focus on three aspects, related to the new narrative:
- Conflict with the collective West and “constructive destruction” to shape a new multipolar world order, including the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons to restrain the West and secure Ukraine’s position as part of the Russian World;
- Russia’s leading role in forming a more “democratic world order” by linking up with the Global Majority against Western hegemony;
- Contributing to the formation of a new (unofficial) state ideology, the gosudarstvennaya tsivilisatsiya (state-civilization) and promoting the idea of multiple civilizations, with each civilization able to live according to its own cultural traditions and values and promoting an illiberal discourse.
The paper will conclude by showing how these think tank experts have adapted to the new realities of the war in an effort to keep their positions and contribute to evolving foreign and security policy debates in Russia within the restrictions as set by the government.