What is the

Russian Security State?

Russian security state:

government decision-making and administrative activity in areas of

  • military strategy, capabilities and operations
  • diplomacy and foreign relations
  • intelligence collection and analysis
  • crime and law enforcement
  • energy and critical infrastructure
  • natural resources
  • disaster response
  • protection of human rights

by the Russian Federation and its predecessor states

This is us

 

Map of Russia

This moment in Russian and global history

Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive, August 2024

Yevgeniy Prigozhin (1961–2023)

How did Russia get here?

 

How bad were the “Wild 90s”?

  • bad
  • worse than US Great Depression
  • 50% GDP loss 1989-1993
  • poverty rate jumps from <2% to 40-50%
  • life expectancy falls 10 yrs for men, 4 yrs for women
  • hyperinflation (ruble:USD)
    • .5:1 in 1980s
    • 40:1 in 1991
    • 5000:1 in 1997
    • re-denominated 1/1000
    • 30:1 after 2000
    • now about 100:1
  • economic inequality


Boris Yeltsin

Economic trajectory since collapse of USSR

 

Economic recovery in 2000s

  • eightfold rise in GDP
  • significant rise in wages, pensions paid on time
  • poverty, unemployment down
  • foreign investment, trade up (until 2014…)
  • inflation down
  • consumer spending up
  • emergence of a middle class


Russia’s GDP

Unemployment

 

A more connected Russia

  • more cell phones than people
  • vast majority of Russians have internet access
  • Russians traveling more abroad (until 2014…)


Internet Usage

Tourism Departures

Oil and gas

 

How important are commodity prices? (oil, natural gas)

  • very
  • but Russia becoming less dependent on resource rents
  • and has a cushion against oil price shocks


Russia’s GDP

Crude Oil Prices

Foreign and security policy

 

Military modernization

  • huge reduction in troop numbers after Soviet collapse

    (interrupted by Chechnya Wars of 1994-1995, 1999-2009)

  • rise in military spending in 2000s

  • major reforms started in 2008

    (shift away from Soviet-style mass mobilization model)

  • but reforms never completed

  • now mismatch between military capabilities, political objectives

Military Personnel

Military Spending

Democracy and civil liberties

 

Democracy and civil liberties

Putin’s first 8 years

  • close independent TV media

  • raise barriers in elections

    (5% \(\to\) 7% threshold in Duma)

  • direct appointment of (most) governors and mayors

  • remove “against all” option on election ballots

  • ban “distortion of Soviet role in World War II”


The Democrat

 

Democracy and civil liberties

From 2012 to 2021

  • new restrictions on protests
  • restrictions on online media
  • criminalize actions that “offend religious feelings”
  • criminalize “propaganda of homosexuality to minors”
  • ban swearing in the arts
  • campaign vs “national traitors”
  • domestic violence decriminalized
  • presidential term limits nullified
  • human rights NGOs shut down
  • VPNs banned
  • repression of liberal opposition


The Czar

 

Democracy and civil liberties

Since 2022

  • last independent media shut down (Rain, Echo of Moscow)
  • media required to stick to info in MoD press releases
  • up to 100K ruble fine for publicly “discrediting” army
  • 15-year sentence for “knowingly false information” about war
  • FB, Twitter, Insta blocked
  • new military-patriotic education programs in schools
  • culture of denunciation is back (parents report on children, students report on teachers)


Dangerous People

A new Russia

 

An emerging state ideology

  • rejection of liberal democracy
  • militarism
  • cult of personality
  • cult of victimhood
  • defense of “traditional” values
  • neo-imperial expansionism
  • view of newly independent states (esp. Ukraine) as illegitimate, incapable of self-government
  • genocidal rhetoric


Future Soldiers

Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine, 2022-

 

Violence and Territorial Control (as of August 28, 2024)

 

Bakhmut, Ukraine (May 2023)

 

PMC Wagner mutiny (June 2023)

 

Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive (August 2024)

Welcome to the Russian Security State!

Why this course? Why now?

 

Why we are offering this class

  • Russia is back at center of U.S. foreign/defense policy
  • Russia has started the largest, most destructive war in Europe since WWII
  • regional expertise has atrophied since 1990s
  • there is a lot we don’t know
  • time for fundamental rethink?


Vladimir Putin

Who is this course for?

 

Who should take this class

  1. those with background in national security, who want to learn more about Russia
  2. those with background in Russia, who want to learn more about national security
  3. those with no background on Russia or national security, who want a crash course
  4. those with background in both, who want a deeper dive


Prospective Student

 


Who am I?

 

Yuri M. Zhukov

Associate Professor

School of Foreign Service

Department of Government

Georgetown University


Professor’s self-image

 

Tell us about yourself!


Survey QR Code

What are we going to do here?

 

What are our learning goals?

  1. equip you with the background needed to follow policy debates on Russia
    • political-economic history of Russia/USSR
    • policy and academic literature on Russia/USSR
  2. develop analytical toolkit to contribute to these debates
    • how to locate data, primary sources
    • how to do basic program evaluation, military analysis


Bullseye!

 

What topics will we cover?

  1. economic foundations of Russian national security
    • causes and legacy of serfdom
    • collectivization and forced labor
  2. internal security
    • (counter-)insurgency
    • security services, repression
  3. foreign and defense policy
    • WWII
    • Cold War 1.0
    • post-Soviet defense policy
    • invasion of Ukraine


Serfs

Gulag inmates

 

How will we learn?

  • lectures
  • class discussions
  • surveys
  • group activities
    • class debates
    • crisis simulation
  • individual projects
    • policy analysis paper, or…
    • collect new dataset, or…
    • academic research paper


Do your reading

Be ready to talk

 

What about grades?

  1. attendance/participation (30%)

  2. group activities (15% + 15%)

  3. final project (40%)


Work hard, get A

END OF FREE PREVIEW

 

To continue learning, come back in 1 week!

More info

 

  1. check out syllabus on Canvas
  1. send me any course-related questions by email
  1. sign up for my virtual office hours
  1. location and time
  • Walsh 498, TuTh 14:00-15:15