Guns, Oil, and Diamonds: Russian Foreign Interventions in the Middle East and Africa

Abstract

For the past 20 years, Vladimir Putin has embarked on a mission to revive a Russian Federation reeling from the fallout of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It soon became apparent that this country was resuming its traditionally adversarial behavior towards the United States and Europe, as Russia began conducting foreign military interventions on European sovereign territory. Since the mid 2010’s, Russia has shifted its focus from Eastern Europe, and has now commenced similar operations in the Middle East and Africa. Now, however, it has updated its tactics, presenting the U.S. and its allies with new problems. My thesis argues that, throughout the course of Vladimir Putin’s tenure as president, he has developed and deployed a three-pronged strategy which utilizes Russia’s military, private military companies, and disinformation warfare capabilities to disrupt the operations of its adversaries and destabilize volatile regions of the world to create a political climate conducive to increased Russian influence beyond the former Soviet Republics.