Abstract: Against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the developing conflicts in the Middle East, the case for a resurgence of Strategic Culture studies in the contemporary era is quickly gathering strength. Historically, developments in Germany up to the end of the Second World War and the factors guiding contemporary Russian decision-making vis-a-vis Ukraine aid in understanding this concept. The influence of internal actors and ways foreign actors can manipulate strategic culture is evident in the paradigm shift Germany is experiencing, giving us yet more tangible proof of how actively it guides and steers strategic choices. Thus, it is crucial to bring strategic culture back into focus to engage in present and future conflicts with greater clarity.

Problem statement: Why is strategic culture a crucial concept in understanding and anticipating an actor’s decision-making in times of war?

So what?: An understanding of the trends and modus operandi of the region’s most impactful actors is crucial if NATO is to keep Russia’s war on Ukraine from escalating, guard against foreign influence, and ensure Ukraine’s victory. Studying the strategic cultures of friend and foe can allow the alliance to anticipate key strategic decisions and policy choices. History suggests that now is the time to bring this concept back into the discussion.

Volatility

‘Volatile’ has been a decent one-word summary of international affairs since 2022, especially in the wider Eurasian region. With the developing and (as of December 2024) still expanding war in Ukraine nearing the three-year mark and Israel’s campaign against Gaza ruthlessly stretching past its first anniversary, things appear grim at best. In Europe, NATO and its member states are working to mitigate the war in Ukraine and usher Kyiv towards victory. One will find differing ideas of what that victory means. In the bigger picture, the world appears to be balancing its focus between Ukraine and Gaza, as rounds of ceasefire talks, risks of expanded conflict, and diplomatic fallout have become the norm, and political turmoil festers from Tbilisi to Paris.

In this new era of confusion and apprehension, there is a slightly dated Cold War idea that has the potential to bring clarity to understanding and anticipating a state’s decisions: Strategic Culture. The concept manifested in the late 1970s in a RAND report by Jack Snyder as a lens to look at the USSR and its relation with military force and nuclear weapons.[1] The concept was used for the U.S. shortly thereafter by Colin Gray, and further developed by several international relations scholars, including Alastair Iain Johnston and Jeffery Lantis. Although over 30 years have elapsed since the “Unipolar Moment”, and most major actors are no longer the ones assessed in the 1970s and 1980s, this concept has largely been absent from policy discussion in this era of conflict and uncertainty.

What is Strategic Culture?

Strategic culture, simply paraphrased from Johnston, Gray and Snyder’s different iterations, is the comfort zone a nation (or alliance, or non-state actor) operates within. It is a box of normalcy and predictability, somewhere familiar and comfortable for an actor to operate, and somewhere predictable for a neighbour or opposing state to deal with. Strategic culture for a given actor is the unique combination of its geography and natural resources, geopolitical neighbourhood, domestic politics, and national collective memory.[2] The concept does not necessarily reflect national sentiment; indeed, strategic culture can be the product of only an elite circle in government as much as popular opinion. While the concept is nearly half a century old, its logic holds: to not understand the strategic culture of others is akin to jeopardising one’s peace and security; while not recognising one’s own risks one being blinded by it. Yet, since the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there has not been any real reassessment of strategic culture as a concept by any major actors or academics.

Strategic culture for a given actor is the unique combination of its geography and natural resources, geopolitical neighbourhood, domestic politics, and national collective memory.

Why Does Strategic Culture Matter Today?

Since strategic culture can inform actors about the intentions and strategic choices their opponents and allies are prone to, the concept should be invaluable today. The breakout of war in Ukraine and the intensifying war in Gaza constitute the label of strategic shock—an abrupt, extreme event with the potential to alter preconceived core beliefs and policies.[3] The response of each nation involved and/or affected by such shocks will follow a national style, irrespective of the type of strategic shock or event. Even if circumstances should cause an actor to operate outside their typical strategic environment, their strategic culture will still hold. Colin Gray gives the example that for Russia, operating at sea would be far from their traditional zone of operation, yet they will still behave in a characteristically Russian way.[4]

In this logic, Russia, in a state of open conventional warfare (or a heavily involved “Special Military Operation”), can reasonably be believed to behave in strategic ways that are characteristically Russian. The policymakers in Kyiv, Washington, or Brussels need only refer to past instances of warfare in Russia’s modern history to observe the traits and trends that remain constant in its strategic behaviour and plan accordingly.

The Bear Will Always Act Bearish: Recognising Consistencies in Russian Strategic Culture

As far as strategic planning goes, we will now see there are no great secrets or unexpected surprises in Russia’s methods for making war. While the dangers of assuming that history immediately informs the present are separate discussions altogether, there are aspects of strategic culture from the 20th century that can help us better understand Russia’s conduct today in terms of both battlefield conduct and diplomatic manoeuvring. For the strategist on the opposing side, understanding these established and developing traits, habits, and actions is crucial. Knowing these established traits and patterns is akin to the crucial skill of differentiating what an actor says versus what an actor does.

Foundations of Russia’s strategic culture arguably developed simultaneously with its international presence whilst methodically (and at extreme cost) defeating Nazi Germany from 1941-45. The shared national experience of the USSR – the largest ground war in human history, taking 27 million Soviet lives – has proved to be a cornerstone of Russian strategic culture, and can be seen in Putin’s  February 02, 2023 speech at Volgograd.[5] Acceptance of losses was a feature of Russia’s way of war in the Second World War,[6] and this element of strategic culture is still present as of the 1,000th day of war in Ukraine, as Russia’s losses exceeded 720,000.[7] In a similar vein, Russia has exhibited a now predictable tendency to deliberately target civilian settlements, infrastructure, and public buildings when faced with stalemate and strategic setbacks. This is evident and publicly visible in Russia’s campaigns in Afghanistan,[8] Chechnya,[9] Syria,[10] and now Ukraine[11]–yet as evident in each of these examples, such brutish conduct is not a guarantor of success, rather more arguably a telltale sign of desperation preceding bitter defeat.

Acceptance of losses was a feature of Russia’s way of war in the Second World War, and this element of strategic culture is still present.

Separate from the act of war itself, Russia’s strategic culture reflects that of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. A familiar tactic of ‘othering’ and war of narratives emerged amidst the Euromaidan Crisis in 2013, prior to the initial illegal annexation of Crimea and the Donbas Oblast, as Russia sought to establish its own narrative of Europe. This saw Russian officials turning to formulations such as ‘the U.S. and its partners’ and ‘NATO and its partners’ in reference to the EU,[12] and importantly, falsely characterising its annexation of Crimea and 2022’s full-scale invasion as actions undertaken to fulfil R2P, or the Responsibility to Protect, as was the case during NATO’s Kosovo intervention in 1998-99.[13]

Moscow’s strong ideas of the ‘Russian World’ and the ever-present threat of the West vis-à-vis NATO echo Soviet-era actions, slanting and controlling media and news to fit in line with the political aims of the time.[14] While the narrative pushes a focus on security and defence of Russian identity, 2022 has shown that Russia is rather a status-seeking state than a security-seeking state and has predictably behaved at the expense of other actors.[15] At international organisations, such as the UN Security Council and the NATO-Russia Council, Moscow’s rhetoric reinforces this decades-old game of narratives by pushing responsibility for tensions onto the West/NATO, deflecting blame for the 2014 Crisis onto Ukraine and NATO, and making false statements and equivalencies.[16]

Finally, in a similar vein to the rhetorical warfare and narrative-building in Russia’s strategic culture, comes the regular taunting of nuclear weapon use as a means to limit the strategic risks its opponents are willing to take. Crafty narratives and covert ground operations allowed the elimination of any intervention from the international community during the annexations of Crimea and Donbas.[17] Today, success in nuclear sabre-rattling bubbles to the surface in the anti-NATO and anti-Ukraine rhetoric of Germany’s Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party.[18] In the first two years of the war, this aggressive rhetoric arguably proved to be the Kremlin’s greatest success.[19] Russia’s rhetoric around nuclear weapon use is a tool of strategic culture seen since the Cuban missile crisis. One can connect Putin’s ‘red lines’ regarding tactical nuclear justification to then Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko’s assertions in 1962 that U.S. actions against Cuba would mean war against the entirety of the USSR.[20]

Today, success in nuclear sabre-rattling bubbles to the surface in the anti-NATO and anti-Ukraine rhetoric of Germany’s Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party.

Skipping forward to Summer 2024, the nuclear red lines painted by Kremlin rhetoric were shattered. Western observers were stunned to see the Ukrainians launch offensive operations towards the city of Kursk, echoing and drawing comparisons to a similar battle some 81 years earlier. In an instant, Kyiv had erased the Kremlin’s nuclear threats and red lines.[21] It appears that, either due to geographic proximity, commonalities in their strategic culture due to shared histories, or more than a decade of unpleasant relations, Ukrainian strategists have a better grip on Russia’s strategic culture, enabling them to recognise the difference between rhetoric and real action, as they capitalised on a variety of Western-supplied armament to spearhead this mockery of Russian territorial integrity.

By mid-November, despite the commencement of US and British-made long-range missile strikes into Russia proper, the Kremlin’s ICBM response boils down to yet another intimidation and tirade of threats rather than the dire consequences alluded to in their rhetoric. Their response to this mockery of their red lines and posturing fits neatly into their strategic culture. Instead of a nuclear Armageddon, the answer has been to continue with nuclear threats and increase conventional attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, punishing civilians for Ukraine’s military successes. It is a tragedy, a crime, something seen before, and by now highly predictable, but falling quite short of nuclear war. Despite talk of nuclear weapons being called on to defend Russian conquests, there has been no action. For now, Russia’s strategic culture has held firm; the bear has remained in the taiga, behaving predictably vicious, yet offering no surprises or stepping out of that comfort zone.

From a distance, the Russians show no signs of ceasing to strategise and operate like they always have. Russia’s strategic culture in diplomacy and conduct of warfare is on display before a global audience, and we can expect these traits to intensify in the face of increased pressure to come to a ceasefire in the face of a new Trump presidency as well as 8 December’s total collapse of Russia’s ally in Syria’s Assad regime. While NATO and supporters of Ukraine should–and likely do–recognise that Russia knows it can still play the long game and intensify its aggression rhetorically and literally, an assessment of internal strategic cultures is highly necessary to realise how Ukrainian allies can either bolster their support or better yet, bring things to a quicker and optimal conclusion.

While NATO and supporters of Ukraine should recognise that Russia knows it can still play the long game and intensify its aggression, an assessment of internal strategic cultures is highly necessary.

NATO has a diverse array of members, each with unique cultural, historical, and geographical traits; Estonia and Türkiye, for example, have quite differing historical experiences, which feed into their two quite different strategic cultures today. While the organisation does indeed have its own collective strategic culture, it still comprises thirty-two individual states that shape it. Of course, some carry more weight than others, as is the case with Germany.

Contemporary Germany, Strategic Shocks, and Manipulating Strategic Cultures

As Germany is the biggest European economy, the fifth largest arms producer globally, and a key supporter of Ukraine,[22] understanding the change in German strategic culture, and its effects on the EU and NATO, is crucial.

Germany is arguably the most interesting historical (and perhaps contemporary) example of strategic culture in general. Rewind to a point in the early twentieth century, when a very different one from contemporary Germany was alive and thriving in the nation. Germany, at this stage, was a nation living in a tough neighbourhood flanked by France, Tsarist Russia, and English control of the seas. The nation was predisposed to a particular style of warfare, a distinct Prussian culture guiding its strategic thinking through the era of the unified Germany.[23] Centuries of warfare have followed a doctrine of aiming to be kurz und vive, or ‘short and lively,’ reflecting the nation’s need for quick conflicts with clear, attainable goals to improve its geopolitical standing. This largely succeeded from the era of Frederick the Great onwards.[24]  A culture of militarism was necessary, given the neighbourhood and its resources; this aggressive kurz und vive approach to warfare at the strategic level trickled down to even the individual operators on the battlefield. This was Germany’s strategic culture until the Stunde null moment at the conclusion of the Second World War.

In the 1960s, it was decided that Germany could be once more trusted to play nice with tanks, setting the country on an almost 50-year journey to the recent dilemma of allowing Ukraine to receive surplus Leopard Main Battle Tanks (MBTs). It is a subtle irony that a nation so predisposed to multilateralism and vehemently against sending munitions, vehicles, and especially troops to active combat zones is also the one producing and deciding on the distribution of some of the most cutting-edge military equipment on the planet.

Zeitenwende and the Identity Crisis

In the half-century from the Stunde null moment – with the occupying powers pressing a metaphorical ‘factory reset’ button – Germany rapidly developed a follow-up culture of favouring multilateralism and aversion to conflict while deeply integrating its military into the NATO alliance. This integration, however, gave way to a sense of reliance on U.S. protection and the development of a cultural trait of anti-militarism. Despite this shakeup and sudden disdain for militarism and use of force, Germany existed in a similar circumstance: it still had a clearly defined enemy to one side, a reason for its military to exist and develop. Come the fall of the USSR and the unipolar moment, Germany was an Armee ohne Feindbild, an armed force with no concept of an enemy.[25] For roughly 30 years, the culture of strict multilateralism, aversion to the use of force, and aversion to even sending military aid to an active conflict[26] became Germany’s strategic culture.

Come the fall of the USSR and the unipolar moment, Germany was an Armee ohne Feindbild, an armed force with no concept of an enemy.

German strategic culture in the 21st century has witnessed the revoking of arms trades with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye due to ongoing conflict involvement and human rights violations, and in 2014’s Ukraine Crisis, standing firm in a culture of multilateralism and opposing the use of force in addressing the crisis.[27] The explosion of full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, however, ushered in a response that goes contrary to this established culture — an immediate approval of arms exports in support of Ukraine.[28] But German strategic culture is deeply engrained, evident in the chancellery’s fall into a heated debate over the shipping of Leopard MBTs and other military hardware, in addition to impassioned political and public opinion clashes.[29] As of today, Germany has broken yet another firm rule of its strategic culture and is deploying troops out of the country on a long-term basis, the first time this has happened since the Second World War.[30]

It helps, in a strategic planning sense, to understand your friends. In that vein, the group of super-friends that is NATO is witnessing one of its most robust and important friends go through an identity crisis. This sudden malleability of Germany’s strategic culture is evident in the strides taken by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), and the Kremlin to dictate this change. Indeed, domestic opposition to such a hasty pivot from pacifism to open military aid is evident in Scholz’s backpedalling from a dramatic “Zeitenwende” to carefully worded junctures to try and maintain Germany’s classic role as a strictly civilian power.[31]

Internal challenges and turmoil are key factors in this change of strategic culture.[32] This was evident in the November 06 “traffic light crisis” and calls for a vote of confidence in the new year,[33] as well as in the rising support for far right and far left political ideologies in Germany’s east. As the nation tilts towards further integration with NATO via landmark troop deployments and military support for Ukraine, pushback seen in the form of rising voices in AfD and BSW is predictable and aligns with the scholarship on how a strategic culture changes.[34] This is underscored by scholarship asserting that it is, in fact, these domestic changes that carry more weight in an actor’s international behaviour than do changes in the international distribution of military capabilities.[35] For Washington, Germany’s signals of drifting from staunch multilateralism represent a welcome easing of NATO’s reliance on the U.S. while simultaneously representing a nightmare scenario for the Kremlin based on Russian strategic culture (refer to Putin’s Volgograd speech).

As the nation tilts towards further integration with NATO via landmark troop deployments and military support for Ukraine, pushback seen in the form of rising voices in AfD and BSW is predictable.

Changing strategic culture is not easy, and to facilitate this change, Germany’s far-right and far-left political parties have become a target of opportunity for the Kremlin, as both AfD and BSW have tangible ties to Moscow, which can directly undermine the shift in strategic culture.[36] Alarming examples of such can be churned up in the exposed connections of an AfD parliamentary aid with the Fifth Service–the Russian FSB’s foreign intelligence arm–which, per Ukrainian intelligence, actively works to undermine Western military aid to Ukraine.[37] Separately, accusations spread of Russia’s financial support to the AfD as well as BSW (as well as other European nations), reinforcing fears of Russian interference with Germany and the rest of the West’s support for Ukraine.[38] Germany is the proverbial Golden Goose of European aid to Ukraine due to its economic and military assets as well as its control over which of those assets are allowed to be delivered to the nation. In effect, potential German backpedalling on support for Ukraine can revoke further aid in the form of battle tanks and other crucial military hardware.

In Germany’s case, domestic issues regarding economics and immigration have fuelled the rise of such malleable extremist parties and, by extension, spiked opposition to Germany’s open military support for Ukraine.[39] In this regard, the Kremlin can capitalise on the situation by activating Germany’s culture of guilt and “never again” to retain those cultural aspects that kept Germany on the sidelines of what happened in Ukraine in 2014, effectively stripping Ukraine of a key pillar holding its military together in a material sense.

Domestic issues spiked opposition to Germany’s open military support for Ukraine.

Evidence of the importance of understanding strategic culture is never more apparent than in this manipulation of Germany’s collective guilt by the Kremlin, working to keep Germany within the predictable box of normalcy it has acted in for the past 33 years, maintaining Germany’s Russlandpolitik[40] of the Merkel era. Depending on how impactful these far-left and far-right German voices prove to be, military and monetary support for Ukraine could end up on the proverbial chopping block in the first half of 2025. Germany’s collective memory and its decades of existence as two different nations put its strategic culture in a very malleable position, with distinct Eastern and Western interests working to guide it to their respective desirable outcomes.

How to Ensure Self-Determination amid the Realities of Today’s Wars

But what can be done to stem this virus of Russian influence creeping into the Bundestag? In theory, German collective guilt should also apply to the Ukrainians – the nation experienced as much of the Wehrmacht’s brutality and pains of warfare as did the Russians and now faces similar existential threats eighty years later. In theory, once again, the same rhetoric that enabled German participation in NATO’s campaign during the Kosovo intervention–Lantis’ “moral imperative of force”–could be mobilised to help engrain further popular support for Ukraine. However, the prevailing circumstances are different, and Germany is rightfully weary of being pulled into a dangerous proxy war with constant (if hollow) nuclear sabre-rattling.

The key to safeguarding German integrity in deciding its own course free of foreign influence may lie in the Bundestag’s ability to revitalise its relationship with NATO. The Bundeswehr is already deployed out of the country, which is a massive step forward. It is no stretch to assume that domestic voices curtailing German progress towards a normalisation of arms exports and newfound comfort with its armed forces are the same ones pushing narratives denying Ukraine its historical right to exist outside of Russia, blaming the West and NATO for provoking war. In a roundabout way, a victory of the facts reaffirming Ukrainian territorial integrity and history separate from Russia has the potential to extend to normalising military aid to Ukraine, comfort with out-of-area military deployment, and reduction of popular support for Russian-supported political parties in the Bundestag.

The key to safeguarding German integrity in deciding its own course free of foreign influence may lie in the Bundestag’s ability to revitalise its relationship with NATO.

Domestically, addressing concerns and tensions around energy, economics, and migration, all beehives of opportunity for the far right and left groups in Germany, can serve as a means to knock the foundations from proven–and effective–entry points for Russian misinformation.[41] As outlined in the literature on strategic culture, this disassociation between elites and the population in Germany negates the government’s ability to guide the nation through a change in strategic culture.[42] Regaining legitimacy and domestic support may serve to claw German politics back from the far left and right fringes and negate the Kremlin’s cherished influence on this key European power.

Finally, and quite simply, there must be an acceptance that warfare, and what constitutes ‘war’ in the modern era has changed. The breaching of internationally recognised borders with combined arms forces took two years to become a formal ‘war’ for the Kremlin; warfare by means other than military hardware and infantry has existed for and been acknowledged by the Kremlin for over fifteen years. Acceptance, acknowledgement, and transparency of the state of cognitive and information-based warfare which has been imposed on the collective West is akin to the acceptance and progress of Germany’s strategic culture towards meeting the requirements of today’s realities – that is comfort with active deterrence, military spending, and proactive use of its armed forces.[43] This is easy to write and think about, but time will tell just how easily the Bundestag can accomplish such moves.

Knowing Thyself, Thine Allies, Thine Enemies

The characteristics of a country’s strategic culture, how the talk can differ from the walk in a strategic sense, and how the culture can change over time in response to stimuli are all identifiable factors and trends that must be capitalised on if one is to succeed in contemporary warfare. The ability to understand a unique strategic culture, especially that of an opponent, can make an actor’s decision-making process much easier, allowing the actor to consider all available options much more clearly, with a better understanding of the repercussions. Likewise, in the growing games of manipulation, AI, and deepfakes are emerging, and understanding the trigger points and vulnerable issues in other nations is a key advantage—this has been evident over the course of Russia’s war in Ukraine.[44]

Knowing the strategic culture of opponents and friends reduces susceptibility to potential black swans. Additionally, it helps in reliable long-term strategising, eliminating at least some errors of judgment. It is hard to immediately tie every current development into the web of strategic culture, such as recent Russo-North Korean security agreements, the infusion of North Korean soldiers to the war in Ukraine, and Russian recruitment efforts in countries like India and Nepal.[45] However, before these examples are declared an aberration (or a new branch), understanding the established facts and trends in Russia’s and the involved nations’ strategic cultures lend a strong hand in meeting the new challenges that these developments create.

It is hard to immediately tie every current development into the web of strategic culture.

With the onset of geostrategic competition and the gradual buildup of military capabilities, a thorough analysis of strategic culture (especially by those privy to more sensitive details than academics and armchair strategists) of opponents and allies has never been more necessary. Despite this, only limited research on contemporary strategic culture in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine has emerged since its outbreak in 2022.[46]

In the late 1970s/early 1980s, more than 30 years had passed since the beginning of the Cold War, giving analysts and academics plenty of empirical examples and case studies with which to analyse the strategic cultures of Russia and the U.S. Now, a similar window of time has elapsed between today and the collapse of the USSR, with more than enough instances of strategic behaviour of every major player in today’s era of instability—Russia, the U.S., Germany, the People’s Republic of China, as well as non-state actors like NATO, the EU, and the United Nations.

The literature on strategic culture, as well as the current and historical cases we can look at, make it abundantly clear how alive and useful this concept is for strategists, researchers, and diplomats. Even in the midst of changes, as seen in Germany, potential changes still follow a predictable course based on that strategic culture, and invested actors can put effort into manipulating it to suit their goals.

The literature on strategic culture, as well as the current and historical cases we can look at, make it abundantly clear how alive and useful this concept is for strategists, researchers, and diplomats.

In a strategic sense, certain geographical, historical, and socioeconomic factors create a box of normalcy for actors to operate in–whether they realise it is another topic. In the 21st century, it is crucial to reevaluate those factors and trends–what makes actors who they are–identifying likely courses of action and being better prepared to work with them or against them. This collective reassessment of strategic cultures of the major actors in today’s conflicts and competitions could be akin to a sort of reset button on what we know and understand about allies and foes, and potentially build fresh perspectives of the particular ways in which today’s conflicts have developed. The history is there and is easy to look at. The circumstances demand we do so.

 

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Conor Mullin has a Master’s in International Relations from the Central European University and recently completed his internships with UNDP or Network 20/20. His topics of interest include transatlantic security policy, European military history, and contemporary conflict studies. The views contained in this article are strictly the author’s own.

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[1] Jack Snyder, “The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations,” Rand Corporation (1977).

[2] Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking about strategic culture,” International Security 19, no. 4 (1995): 36; Snyder, 1977; Colin S. Gray, “Strategic culture as context: the first generation of theory strikes back,” Review of international studies 25, no. 1 (1999): 51.

[3] Thomas U. Berger, Cultures of antimilitarism, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

[4] Colin S. Gray, “Strategic culture as context: the first generation of theory strikes back,” Review of International Studies 25, no. 1 (1999): 63.

[5] See Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 02, 2023, speech at Volgograd.

[6] In conversation with General Dwight D. Eisenhower of SHAEF, Zhukov is quoted saying “When we come to a mine field our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of troops instead of with mine fields.” Robert G. Kaiser, “Russia: The People and the Power,” Atheneum (1976): 207.

[7] See https://www.minusrus.com/en, statistics taken on November 19, 2024.

[8] Joseph Collins, “Soviet Policy toward Afghanistan,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 36, no. 4 (1987): 198-210.

[9] Pavel Felgenhauer, “Russian Strategy in the Chechnya Wars,” Bundesheer. At, accessed April 24, (2016): 6. “The strategy of victory by bombardment has inevitably resulted in massive war crimes, as the Russian military bombarded Chechen towns and cities with indiscriminate heavy weapons, killing civilians in total disregard of international treaties on the conduct of war that Russia signed and ratified.”

[10] Scott Lucas, “The effects of Russian intervention in the Syria crisis,” Birmingham, UK: GSDRC, University of Birmingham (2015).

[11] For a recent update, see: Benjamin Jensen and Yasir Atalan, “Assessing Russian Firepower Strikes in Ukraine,” CSIS, accessed November 19, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/assessing-russian-firepower-strikes-ukraine.

[12] Eva Claessen, “The making of a narrative: The use of geopolitical othering in Russian strategic narratives during the Ukraine crisis,” Media, war & conflict 16, no. 1 (2023): 93.

[13] Ibid., 95.

[14] John C. Pedersen, “Soviet Reporting of the Cuban Crisis,” Proceedings Vol 91/10/752 (1965).

[15] Olivier Schmitt, “How to challenge an international order: Russian diplomatic practices in multilateral security organisations,” European Journal of International Relations 26, no. 3 (2020): 923.

[16] Ibid., 934-937.

[17] Laura Smith-Spark, Alla Eshchenko and Emma Burrows, “Russia was ready to put nuclear forces on alert over Crimea, Putin says,” CNN, March 15, 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/16/europe/russia-putin-crimea-nuclear/index.html

[18] Ben Knight, “What is Germany’s populist BSW party?,” Deutsche Welle, September 02, 2024, https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-germanys-populist-bsw-party/a-69958619.

[19] Peter Dickinson, “Moscow escalates nuclear threats as Ukraine erases Russia’s red lines,” The Atlantic Council. (2024), https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/moscow-escalates-nuclear-threats-as-ukraine-erases-russias-red-lines/.

[20] Idem.

[21] Peter Dickinson, “Moscow escalates nuclear threats as Ukraine erases Russia’s red lines,” The Atlantic Council.

[22] Linus Höller, “German arms exports on track to hit record highs again,” Defense News. (2024).

[23] Robert M. Citino, “The German Way of War,” From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas (2005): 501.

[24] Robert M. Citino, The Wehrmacht retreats: fighting a lost war, 1943. University Press of Kansas, 2016: XVIII.

[25] Kerry Longhurst, Germany and the use of force: The evolution of German security policy 1990-2003, Manchester University Press, 2004: 55.

[26] The example of German aversion to aiding Turkey’s active fight against Kurdish militants. “German government bans weapons exports to Turkey,” Deutsche Welle, October 12, 2019.

[27] Hans Kundnani, “Leaving the West Behind: Germany Looks East,” Foreign Affairs. January/February 2015.

[28] Sabine Kinkartz, “Germany changes tack in ‘response to Putin’s aggression’,” Deutsche Welle, February 27, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/german-chancellor-olaf-scholz-announces-paradigm-change-in-response-to-ukraine-invasion/a-60932652.

[29] Marcel Fürstenau, “Germans split over weapons for Ukraine,” Deutsche Welle, May 02, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/germans-split-over-heavy-weapons-deliveries-to-ukraine/a-61664515.

[30] Jakob Grein, “Germany’s Military Deployment to Lithuania,” American-German Institute, July 18, 2024, https://americangerman.institute/2024/07/germanys-military-deployment-to-lithuania/#:~:text=The%20Deployment&text=The%20Bundeswehr%20will%20deploy%204%2C800,fully%20combat%2Dready%20by%202027.

[31] Axel Heck, “Ready, Steady, No? The Contested Legitimacy of Weapon Deliveries to Ukraine in German Foreign Policy Discourse,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift (2024): 23.

[32] Jeffrey Lantis, “The moral imperative of force: the evolution of German strategic culture in Kosovo,” Comparative Strategy 21, no. 1 (2002): 39.

[33] Nadine Schmidt, “German chancellor fires finance minister, collapsing coalition government,” CNN, November 07, 2024, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/06/europe/germany-government-scholz-finance-minister-intl-latam/index.html.

[34] Johnston, 1995 citing Charles Kupchan, “The Vulnerability of Empire,” Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, (1994): 90 and 487.

[35] John Mueller, “The Impact of Ideas on Grand Strategy,” in Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein (eds.), The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy (1993): 56.

[36] Hans Pfeifer, “Russia’s best friends in Germany: AfD and BSW,” Deutsche Welle. January 09, 2024, https://www.dw.com/en/russias-best-friends-in-germany-afd-and-bsw/a-70072663.

[37] Christo Grozev, Michael Weiss, and Roman Dobrokhotov, “The far-right Bundestag aide and his rapping FSB case officer,” The Insider, February 01, 2024, https://theins.ru/en/politics/268805.

[38] Erika Solomon, “Far Right’s Ties to Russia Sow Rising Alarm in Germany,” New York Times, April 15, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/world/europe/germany-afd-russia.html.

[39] Idem.

[40] Christopher S. Chivvis and Thomas Rid, “The roots of Germany’s Russia policy,” Survival 51, no. 2 (2009): 106.

[41] Arndt Freytag on Loringhoven, “Germany in the Crosshairs of Russia’s Information War,” Centre for European Policy Analysis, October 15, 2024, https://cepa.org/article/germany-in-the-crosshairs-of-russias-information-war/.

[42] Sten Rynning, “The European Union: towards a strategic culture?,” Security dialogue 34, no. 4 (2003): 491.

[43] Matthias Wasinger, “Then We Will Fight in the Shade,” The Defence Horizon Journal, December 09, 2024, https://tdhj.org/blog/post/military-comprehensive-approach/.

[44] Roma Osadchuk, “AI tools usage for disinformation in the war in Ukraine,” DFRLab, July 09, 2024, https://dfrlab.org/2024/07/09/ai-tools-usage-for-disinformation-in-the-war-in-ukraine/.

[45] “Please Save Me: The Indians Duped into Fighting for Russia,” BBC News, September 18, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly6ve2x72xo; “The Truth Behind Gurkhas in Russia,” The Gurkha Welfare Trust, December 06, 2023, https://www.gwt.org.uk/news/the-truth-behind-gurkhas-in-russia/.

[46] See, for example: Elias Götz and Jørgen Staun, “Why Russia attacked Ukraine: Strategic culture and radicalized narratives,” Contemporary Security Policy 43, no. 3 (2022): 482-497; Andrii Bahinskyi and Olha Zaiets, “Strategies of the Sides in the Russia-Ukraine War,” Defense & Strategy/Obrana a strategie 23, no. 2 (2023).