Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 72

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
Russian identity and perception. It is
Putin, who skillfully exploits, manipulates,
and reinforces power politics,
propaganda, and the malleable psychological
internal workings of the collective
Russian society.
The purpose of this study is to
examine how Putin and his collaborating
governmental apparatus has unified
Russian society and expanded its sphere
of influence by deliberately cultivating
and integrating humiliation, identity
activation, and image manipulation
with more traditional sources of influence.
This study argues that Vladimir
Putin’s and various Russian pro-government
apparatuses’ current domestic/foreign
policy success, including
the degradation of Western credibility,
is a result of the comprehension, exploitation,
and reinforcement of select
psychological theories and traditional
concepts of propaganda. This research
intends to dissect the particular strategy
and intentions of the Russian leader
over the last two decades. It conducts a
pre- and postmortem of operationalization
and manipulation efforts relating
to the preferred Russian power apparatuses
psychological theories of choice.
The conclusions and the data
drawn from this research aim to add
to the knowledge that serves both international
relations and political psychology
interests. Scholars and practitioners
around the globe currently find
themselves in a time period when it is
easy to incorrectly surmise that Russian
leadership is merely attempting to recreate
the Soviet Union (Crosston 2018).
It is wrong for theorists to simply dust
off rigid and simplistic theories and
paradigms. It is essential to examine in
detail various constructivist lenses and
theories that explain internal factors,
motivations, and perceptions that end
up having impacts on actions, policies,
and attitudes. This research intends to
advance the overall conversation about
Russia’s deliberate manipulation within
its growing sphere of influence by
combining various psychological theories
and reinforcement techniques. This
research showcases the comprehensive
and synchronized approach that Russian
leadership has engineered in an attempt
to achieve a spectrum of foreign
policy goals and degrade Western power
and stability.
Examining an Orchestrated
Russian Resurgence
Traditional theories of international
relations would lead one
to believe that most politics involve
the rational pursuit of self-interest.
However, “a more accurate picture
of human beings as political actors is
one that acknowledges that people are
driven or motivated to act in accordance
with personality characteristics, values,
beliefs, and attachment to groups” (Cottam
et al. 2010, 1). Individuals are not
robots, but rather imperfect information
processors who are influenced and
manipulated as they try to find stability
and purpose in a complex world. To put
it in less sophisticated terms, “people
are driven to act by internal factors such
as personality, attitudes, and self-identity,
they evaluate their environment and
others through cognitive processes that
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