The Kremlin’s plan to destabilise the West

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 politicise and polarise every aspect of Russian culture. This is not a strategy for the country’s security but for the government: the document sets out to mobilise 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.

According to the authors of the strategy, Russia must grapple against the destabilising influence of the US and its allies as they desperately seek to preserve and reimpose their disintegrating global hegemony.