Read more
Updated to cover the 2022 Russo-Ukraine war and its fallout, this new paperback edition Russia's hybrid war on the West is only beginning to be understood, but it has changed politics in all affected countries. Those changes are most visible in the lands in between, countries that today lie in between Russia and the European Union, on top of an emerging geopolitical fault line in Europe. This book shows that we can learn important lessons from these lands in between about how hybrid war affects our own politics at home.
List of contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Russia's Hybrid War on the West
- 3. The West's Belated Response
- 4. Polarizing the Lands in Between
- 5. Contesting Central and Eastern Europe
- 6. Destabilizing the Developed West
- 7. The New Politics of Hybrid War
About the author
Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Eurasia Program. He is the author of three prize-winning books on postcommunist transitions and co-author of From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Reform in Postcommunist Countries (with Hilary Appel).
Summary
In 2007, Russia launched a hybrid war on the West to preserve its influence in the “lands in between” Russia and the European Union (EU), countries that had left the Soviet Union and gravitated towards an enlarged EU and NATO. Since Russia's meddling in the US presidential election in 2016 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this conflict has altered the politics of all countries involved. Just as the lands in between face a civilizational choice between a future in EU Europe or a revived Russian empire, Western countries must choose between dictatorship and democracy. Yet some politicians benefit from maneuvering between both sides in a conflict that seems to demand loyalty, but often rewards flexibility. This book shows that studying the polarized politics that have afflicted the lands in between for decades helps us to better understand the paradoxes of Western politics in an age of hybrid war.
Additional text
The Lands in Between is a seminal study of the post-Cold War political rivalry between the West and Russia. With his unmatched scholarship as a historian, Mitchell A. Orenstein discusses Russia's hybrid war on the West from all possible angles." The Washington Book Review
