ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED THERE ON MY SUBSTACK PAGE IN MAY 2026
The following is a review of my book The Russian Dilemma: Security Vigilance and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (Mcfarland Books, 2021) published in the journal Europe-Asia Studies.
Filiz Coban Oran, Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 75 (2023), Issue 10, pp. 1790-1.
Two comments on the review: I do not agree with the reviewer’s interpretation of Russian relations with the outside world as a “quest for empire.” Nor do I agree with the view that the book is simply a study of the Russian view of its foreign policy conduct. It is a study of an objectively verifiable Russian response to Western quests for empire, which in many ways gave birth to and influenced certain Russian imperial ways.
The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin
Are Westerners able to understand the quest for empire in Russian history? This book originates from the author’s unhappiness with one of the immutable historical characteristics of US foreign policy: its inability to comprehend the views of other countries. American literature sees Russian cultural differences and imperialism as the main drivers of conflict with the West. In contrast, Russian culture and politics, for Gordon Hahn, are the product of its encounters with the West, and these historical interactions helped designate the West as Russia’s self-defining parameter, its most ‘significant Other’. Thus, his book seeks to shed light on the history of Russian–Western relations from the perspective of Russian people: how they see Western influence over Russia, encompassing involvement, interventions and invasion.
Departing from the historical–cultural constructivist approach of international relations by borrowing from the ideas of Vyacheslav Mozorov and Yurii Lotman on Russian identity and culture, Hahn outlines his key concept, the ‘Russian dilemma’ (p. 10), which he defines as the binary of pochva(Russian native roots)/West in Russia’s cultural identity. This leads to the book’s central empirical thesis: this centuries-old Russiandilemma has sustained the longstanding ‘security vigilance norm’ of Russia’s political and strategic culture. Hahn defines this norm as ‘fear of military–political threats from the West externally and internally, especially fear and prevention of collusion between domestic elements with the Western enemy’ (p. 19).
Adopting Tsymburskii’s theory of ‘strategic cycles’, Hahn claims that the Russian dilemmahas repeated itself through four historical cycles in Russian–Western relations. In addition, each historical cycle has four phases. The first phase begins with Russiantraditionalism, exceptionalism and antagonism towards the West. The second phase consists of a ‘dislocation’ of Russia’s self-identity through a process of Westernisation intended to challenge the military and technological advance of the West. The dominance of the security norm of vigilance declines in this phase but is reactivated during the third phase following Western intervention in Russiansovereignty and security. In the fourth phase, Russia enters a re-stabilisation period of Russian counter-offensive recovery in which the country re-establishes the previous status quo to defeat Western powers. It returns to the first, traditionalist phase when the next cycle begins.
Based on this structure, the book is divided into four historical cycles. In this review, I will highlight Russia’s most influential interactions with the West in each cycle, as put forward by the author. The first cycle of 1505–1620s represents the medieval Muscovite RussianKingdom’s first Western encounters, which cemented Russia’s distinctive Orthodox identity against the Catholic West (Poland and Lithuania) and alienated Russia from the West. Moreover, the rebellion of Great Novgorod and Pskov boyars against the Russian church hierarchy had defined these boyars as Western-influenced religious dissidents due to the ascendancy of the security norm of vigilance. In this period, Boris Godunov’s Westernising reforms were undermined by Catholic expansion and the ‘time of troubles’ (Smuta), which caused the loss of almost ten million lives due to fighting, starvation and disease. However, the Smuta seeded a new sense of homeland, national identity and solidarity against the Catholic Church and Poland.
The anti-Latin and anti-Western atmosphere led to the second cycle of 1630–1825, which began with Mikhail I’s restoration of the pre-Smuta order. During this period, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great pushed for a systematic and institutional modernisation and transformation by emulating the Western Other’s technology, knowledge, practices and even its Enlightenment culture and ideology to prevent Western interference. Catherine’s son, Paul I, opposed the replacement of Russian values with Western ones and reinstituted harsh reactionary measures. He was killed by a Western-backed coup on 11 March 1801. Although his son Alexander I promoted the idea of constitutional monarchy in Russia, the invasion of Napoleon’s Grande Armeé on 24 August 1812 and the Decembrist revolt of 1825 revived the security vigilance norm in relations with the West.
Nicholas I’s crushing of the Decembrists triggered the anti-Western retrenchment process of the first phase of the third cycle of 1826–1922. Despite the Westernisation efforts of Alexander II and Nicholas II in the second phase, the Western support of Russianrevolutionaries strengthened the Slavophile discourse against dislocation in the third phase, which catalysed the October coup and civil war in the fourth phase. The reactivation of Russian security vigilance value resulted in the Bolsheviks’ victory in the civil war, which started the fourth cycle (1922–2008). Anti-Western discourse continued until the gradual Westernisation process at the end of the Soviet Union. However, the NATO expansion and ‘colour revolutions’ in the post-Cold War era were interpreted by Vladimir Putin as Western encroachment into Russian lands. Since Russia’s South Ossetia military incursion in 2008, the security vigilance norm has again become a foundation of Russia’s strategic culture. Based on this argument, in the conclusion, Hahn points out that Russia’s‘Westphobia’ or imperialist aggression is based on a historical behavioural reflex developed through past foreign invasions and helps to understand why Putin has responded aggressively to Western actions in Georgia and Ukraine. The book is recommended for anyone interested in understanding Russianhistory and Russia’s relations with the West from the perspective of Russia.
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MOST RECENT BOOK
EUROPE BOOKS, 2022
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OTHER RECENT BOOKS
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021
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MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.