Russia's strategic goals in African and Middle East shatterbelts: a competition with the West

Schwarzer, Jiří

This thesis focuses on Russia's strategic goals in Africa and the Middle East. To help gain deeper understanding of Russia's behaviour in these two regions, the author utilizes the concept of shatterbelts developed by Saul B. Cohen. Shatterbelts are regions that are highly fragmented by civil wars and other internal issues while also at the same time destabilized by two or more competing great powers. Africa and the Middle East both fit the definition of a shatterbelt. Apart from the research question concerning Russia's strategic goals, two hypotheses are presented. The first one asks whether Russia is currently reviving the Soviet Union's Cold War strategy for the two shatterbelts in order to restore its first-power status. The second hypothesis questions whether Russia utilizes military power as a main tool to achieve its objectives in both shatterbelts. In order to answer the research question, a qualitative approach is utilized, and two case studies are selected, each concerning the country of one of the shatterbelts where Russia has seen the most success: the Central African Republic and Syria. This study concludes that Russia mostly targets states that face dire security issues and are largely dysfunctional. Moscow's goals are grouped into four main categories: geostrategic, economic,...

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