Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has become a global war against the West. Yet, in their analysis of the conflict, virtually all the experts emphasize the constraints on Russian power projection. How, then, to reconcile the Kremlin’s efforts at global power projection with the very real limits that are now placed upon Russian capabilities?
An International Footprint
In Asia, Russia has forged an alliance with China, without whose help it simply could not continue to prosecute this war. In return, it is supporting China’s military machine in a manner of ways (including by training Chinese airborne forces for future assaults on Taiwan.) Along with Chinese air and naval forces, Russia now regularly conducts military probes (i.e., submarine reconnaissance and aerial overflights) of Japan, South Korea, and the Pacific Arctic, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Kremlin has also signed a formal defense alliance with North Korea, without whose help its warmaking capabilities would be severely diminished. In return, it has rewarded Pyongyang with economic, diplomatic, and military support to the point of sending it nuclear submarine technologies. Finally, in East and South Asia, Russia’s aggression is being fueled by Indian and Chinese purchases of oil and gas.
In the Middle East, Moscow has parlayed its partnership with Tehran into meaningful Iranian assistance in the form of supplies of thousands of drones, as well as help in building an indigenous capability to build more of the same. In return, Russia is believed to have provided material support in the forms of weapons or technologies for Iran’s military and its nuclear program. This help, moreover, has trickled down to Iranian proxies, with terrorist groups like Yemen’s Houthis receiving Russian weapons and intelligence support.
In Europe, the situation is even worse. Moscow was waging a non-kinetic war throughout the continent for at least a generation before its current claims of European aggression. And that practice has continued. Apart from continental-wide attacks on infrastructure, Moscow is carrying out assassinations, arsons, attempting to blow up civilian airline flights in mid-air, recruiting organized and individual criminals to execute these attacks, spending billions to subsidize pro-Russian media, politicians, and parties, using energy blackmail, and influence operations to bring pro-Russian parties to power and disrupt if not reverse the continuing trend towards European integration.
In Africa and South America, the so-called “Global South,” Russia utilizes many of the same instruments to powerful effect. Indeed, some observers attribute Russia’s spreading influence in Africa, particularly in the Sahel and Southern Africa, to its long-running informational campaigns there. In the Sahel, Moscow has also gained leverage through its willingness to support local dictatorships against Islamic terrorist threats—first via the (ostensibly private) Wagner Group and now through its openly state-controlled Africa Corps. In return, Russia has gained valuable control over mining and raw materials in these countries—resources that enrich the Russian state and help bankroll its war machine. The ultimate prize here, though, are naval and/or air bases from which Russia can expand its influence over local politics, position itself as a global great power, and challenge NATO and US power projection and fleets. Those same campaigns are equally ubiquitous across Latin America, and aim to establish lasting influence over the politics and economics of Latin American states.
Russia’s Ideology of Warfare
Yet despite these global ambitions and the scope of Russian power, most observers tend to denigrate or belittle Russia’s capabilities. Admittedly, these are significantly constrained as a result of Western pressure. Yet Russia’s record of power projection is still quite impressive. One way to understand the apparent disparity between resource constraints and global capacity is to grasp Russia’s ideology of warfare.
First Russia has undergone a counter-revolution that has restored the patrimonial Muscovite autocracy with a service state headed by a Tsar, Vladimir Putin, who towers over his Boyar entourage. This service state—in which rank, status, and property are held on condition of loyalty and state service—has also become more repressive, and is entwined with a neo-Tsarist ideology of autocracy, orthodoxy, and Russian nationality. This system’s motor is its economic-political internal colonialism and the ideology that has arisen around it. At the same time, it has gravitated to the idea that it possesses a unique, and holy, civilizational identity. This ideology derives from Russian reactionary thinking of the XIX-XXI centuries, including Russian Eurasianism. This ideology attributes to Russia a primordial and divinely ascribed status as a holy empire that must be reacquired in order for the state to survive.
Since empire is the fundamental corollary of autocracy and intrinsically denotes the diminished sovereignty of all neighboring territories and states, Russia’s unceasing quest to regain (and force others to acknowledge) its imperial and global great power status presupposes constant war with all its interlocutors. Yet, as its rulers fully grasp, Russia remains comparatively backward in the sinews of war, e.g. economics and military capabilities except for manpower. Therefore, the current Russian government necessarily employs every conceivable instrument of war, as did its Soviet predecessor, to unhinge, derange, and destabilize governments in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. This should come as no surprise, since Russia’s current leadership represents either KGB veterans or their biological and ideological heirs.
From its inception, Putin’s Russia was forged in war—first against the Chechens and then increasingly against the West. Since his mission, as many have attested, is to “regather Russian lands,” it is no surprise that Russia under Putin has swung decisively to the embrace of an imperial ideology. Tactically too, Russian policy has moved steadily and with increasingly open coerciveness to subordinate the Caucasus, Central Asia and Belarus to the greatest degree possible.
Since the concept of empire inherently presupposes the ever-present use of force, it is to be expected that Russian security policy originates from the presupposition of conflict. Even when they are consciously lying, Russian spokesmen fully believe that Russia is constantly under siege, if not under actual threat of attack and even extinction.
Furthermore, because they believe in this threat, preservation of the governing system becomes inextricably linked to the restoration of empire. Catherine the Great reportedly declared in her day that she had no way to preserve her frontiers other than to expand them. That opinion holds true today.
The Parameters of War
On this basis, we can see how Russia—in spite of all of its present problems—can nonetheless represent a global challenge. Since Russia’s strategic borders, as presented in official statements (rather than reality or international law), impinge on Europe, Central, and Northeast Asia, and the greater Middle East, it consistently demands a voice in those regions—whether or not such status is warranted.
Third, the nature of the state allows it to posit itself simultaneously as aggressor and victim, as colonizer and colonized. And it permits it to assert itself, via incessant propaganda, as the leader of a great cause, notwithstanding the venality of its motives.
Fourth, since its leaders can never be satisfied with their gains, Russia has long since globalized its interests and capabilities. Since 1917, its military thinking and state behavior, often manifested through proxies like the Comintern, Wagner, and its current network of Eurasian proxies, has developed previously unimagined instruments of power that extend the Kremlin’s capabilities and promote its interests abroad. These manifestations can be seen today in the so-called hybrid attacks plaguing Europe, and in Russia’s reinvigorated weaponization of disinformation and false narratives to change global perceptions about itself and its objectives.
The innovative nature of Russian thinking concerning war and peace enable it to punch above its weight globally. Russia is generating new sources and methods of power, and thereby greatly expanding the terms of reference for contemporary warfare. To the degree that we continue to discount, overlook, and ignore Russia’s capabilities and the ideology underpinning them, we will continue to be surprised when Moscow behaves in unpredictable ways. That, in turn, is precisely what Moscow wants.
Stephen Blank, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). This article originally appeared in the December 2025 edition of the American Foreign Policy Council’s Defense Dossier e-journal.
