LAUSR

The constructivist concept of obraz vraga (‘image of the enemy’) is invoked to analyse the 2004–2008 period when Putin was holding Russia up as a strong state. Snetkov persuasively contends that this frame captured the nature of the Kremlin regime in the years following the defeat of the Chechen separatists but before the one-term presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. At that time Russia had become concerned with the West’s rapidly expanding role in international affairs, spearheaded by President George W. Bush’s administration, and with the colour revolutions emerging in the post-Soviet space. ‘In response, the regime widened its obraz vraga to include any actor or group—domestic or foreign—that questioned the course and direction chosen for Russia by the Putin regime’ (p. 106). This particular use of a social construction holds much explanatory potential, and it might have proved especially illuminating had the author also applied it to the tumultuous events of 2014. Snetkov’s volume provides a rich investigative agenda for the Russian security specialist. Topics include the modernisation thrust that Medvedev favoured while in power; the resecuritisation of Russia’s internal space implemented by Putin on his re-election to the presidency in 2012; and the emergence of Ramzan Kadyrov as the strongman of the Caucasus and the ‘Ramzanification’ programme that divided the region. The author’s contention that images and self-images of Russia and Chechnya changed dramatically between 1999 and 2014 is unassailable. While in all likelihood this owed more to Russia bombing Chechen rebels into submission, that is, use of hard power—an issue underemphasised in this book—than to shifting threat perceptions or variable social constructions of the Other, Snetkov’s research unambiguously signals how valuable it can be to study Russia’s security challenges using multiple analytical lenses.