Russian Political Warfare: What It Is, What It's Not, and Why It Isn't Working

Abstract

This article defines Russia’s multifaceted approach to political warfare and analyzes its effectiveness in achieving foreign policy objectives. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is an exemplary case study to define the aspects of 21st-century Russian political warfare and analyze its efficacy as an approach to foreign policy. This case study will lend meaningful support to the claim that the utility of Russian political warfare is severely limited by the adhocratic foreign policy encouraged by the Kremlin—specifically, the lack of an overarching proscriptive foreign policy strategy and a functioning bureaucracy to enforce the pursuit of outlined objectives, definitive organizational purviews, and operational synchronization in the security and intelligence services. The Kremlin’s adhocracy generates so much internal friction as to render a holistic, whole of force approach to political warfare both unworkable in the short term and unlikely in the long term.

Keywords: Russian warfare, Putin, Ukraine, hacking, gas politics