Russia's Security Policy under Putin

Snetkov’s monograph, based on a PhD dissertation at the University of Birmingham, provides a close reading of Russian security discourse from 1999–2014 through the prism of Chechnya. The author carefully documents how the Russian leadership switched from a frame of a “weak state” to a “strong state” before edging back toward a discourse of an embattled state threatened by external enemies—and their domestic collaborators—a theme that emerged by 2004. --P. Rutland, Wesleyan University, CHOICE Snetkov’s monograph, based on a PhD dissertation at the University of Birmingham, provides a close reading of Russian security discourse from 1999–2014 through the prism of Chechnya. The author carefully documents how the Russian leadership switched from a frame of a “weak state” to a “strong state” before edging back toward a discourse of an embattled state threatened by external enemies—and their domestic collaborators—a theme that emerged by 2004. --P. Rutland, Wesleyan University, CHOICE Aglaya Snetkov’s monograph largely resolves many of these complexities through a variety of analytical techniques. She sets forth a convincing periodisation of Russia’s security pathways from the time Vladimir Putin was appointed prime minister in 1999 to the key caesurae of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. She includes a running case study of Chechnya as an object of Russia’s security policies and discourses over this timeframe, thereby mitigating the pitfall of adopting an overly conceptual approach to the subject. In addition, in her comprehensive analytical framework she is attentive to desecuritisation processes, which are most clearly reflected in Chechnya’s evolution from state-breaker to state-maker... Snetkov’s volume provides a rich investigative agenda for the Russian security specialist. -- RAYMOND TARAS, Tulane University, Europe-Asia Studies