In the 21st century, Russia faced a number of challenges and opportunities, yet the approach to them became strongly related to the support of the regime. The domestic context is crucial as the initial development was related to solving inner issues and stabilizing the economy (Rumer, 2007). Most challenges are related to the economical fragility of Russia and the military and political ambitions in the context of growing powers around it.
The Russian regime uses the environment simply as a tool to address and support the existing agenda. Even though the current methods of inner politics are mostly authoritarian, there are still attempts to gain electoral support, and this is one of them (Sakwa, 2020). Looking into Putin’s speeches brings to that understanding as the only cases where the environment is addressed are when the external threats and accusations occur. These statements help to raise the support of the population, though they do not bring to any policy reforms and genuine changes in the environmental policies of the country (Martus, 2021). This may lead to critical consequences which will reveal the difference between the rhetoric and reality, and even though this rhetoric supports the regime at the moment, it might do the opposite in the future.
One of the key drivers in the military behavior of Russia is related to the will to increase the political influence in Europe. It is known that in the past, the strategy for political development heavily emphasized diplomatic and conventional military expansion. Currently, it is almost the same for Russia, yet the changes are related to the modern character of war which is usually fast and based on long-range precision weapons (Kofman, 2019). Yet, another important aspect of modern war is information supremacy. These aspects are trying to be taken into account and developed to align with the strategy in Russia. There are several reasons why there is so much emphasis on that direction in terms of military development. Specifically, Russia is not satisfied with the alliance of the US and EU and looks forward to engaging in processes that will restore Russia’s political and military significance in Europe.
References
Martus, E. (2021). Policymaking and policy framing: Russian environmental politics under Putin. Europe-Asia Studies, 73(5), 869-889.
Rumer, E.B. (2007). Russian Foreign Policy Beyond Putin (1st ed.). Routledge. Web.
Kofman, M. (2019). Drivers of Russian grand strategy. Russian Military Analysis, 1.
Sakwa, R. (2020). Russian Politics and Society (5th ed.). Routledge. Web.