Russia's Security Policy Under Putin: A Critical Perspective.

• Author: Hoadley, Stephen
• Position: Book review

RUSSIA'S SECURITY POLICY UNDER PUTIN: A Critical Perspective

Author: Aglaya Snetkov

Published by: Routledge, London and New York, 2015, 254pp. US$145.

This book is timely inasmuch as it promises to shed light on Putin's motives for his recent aggressiveness towards Ukraine and other neighbouring countries and, more broadly, the West.

The author traces the evolution of Russia's security policies during the period of Putin's dominance of the Kremlin. Her focus is on how Russia responded to the uprising in Chechnya and clashes in the North Caucasus, and also to the challenges of globalisation, the financial crisis and the initiatives of Western powers. She finds that during the period 2000-14 Russia evolved from an acknowledged weak state into a self-proclaimed strong state, one now attempting to play the role of a major power.

When Russia was internally divided and weak its leaders were conciliatory towards the Western powers, accommodating to China and partners such as Ukraine, Cuba and Venezuela, and co-operative in international organisations. But as Russia strengthened with oil and gas revenue windfalls and consolidation of the Kremlin's authority throughout Russia, especially in Chechnya, the leaders became more assertive of Russia's unique interests and status, and less amenable to Western norms.

However, developments in the past year seem to be anomalous. As Russia has weakened economically under pressure from the global financial crisis, falling energy export revenues, capital flight and sanctions by the European Union and the United States, Putin has not become more conciliatory, as past Russian behaviour might suggest, but more defiant. Putin's rhetoric is described by the author as increasingly nationalistic, patriotic and anti-Western. The anomaly is explained by the author's key theme, that external security policies are a function of the leader's perceptions of domestic security needs. Now that Putin has seized control of the oligarchs, the energy establishment, the political and financial structures and the media, he perceives Russia to be a strong state' domestically, despite an absence of objective confirmation, and projects that perception...