The Russian Hybrid Intelligence State

How does intelligence shape Russian domestic politics and foreign and security policy? Contemporary Russia is often characterized as a ‘KGB state’. Current and former intelligence officers, including President Putin, increasingly dominate politics and economy, bringing with them the culture, world-view, networks, and methods of the Russian intelligence community. This is widely acknowledged, but there is little systematic and theoretically grounded knowledge of how intelligence actually impacts Russian politics. To change this, RUSINTELSTATE enlists a team of carefully selected international Russia experts from the fields of intelligence studies, cultural studies, contemporary history, and international relations. Anglo-American intelligence studies (not to mention political science and international relations) traditionally separate politics and intelligence, regarding intelligence as a specific type of politically neutral knowledge whose role is to support decisionmaking. We argue that this normative approach is poorly adapted to Russia, an authoritarian, personalistic state with a distinct history. RUSINTELSTATE will study intelligence in a wider sense; as actors, activities, and culture. Intelligence actors (services/networks) vy for influence by positioning themselves in the political struggle. Intelligence activities (knowledge production) may both be heavily influenced by political considerations and influence these considerations. Intelligence culture, i.e. propaganda narratives, deep-seated beliefs, and everything in between, shape the views of and are also shaped by the actors. Further, we argue that neither the Russian state nor its intelligence can be understood in isolation from each other. Our concept of the ‘hybrid intelligence state’, highlighting the mutual influence of politics and intelligence in Russia, makes us better equipped to understand Russian foreign/security policy, and to deal with its challenges to our security.

How does intelligence shape Russian domestic politics and foreign and security policy? Intelligence is ubiquitous in Russia. Current and former intelligence officers, including President Putin, increasingly dominate politics and economy, bringing with them the culture, world-view, networks, and methods of the Russian intelligence community. This is widely acknowledged, yet how it impacts Russia’s foreign and security policy is still poorly understood by academics. Both intelligence as such and its role in IR remain under-theorized, and research on Russian intelligence is highly compartmentalized. To change this, RUSINTELSTATE enlists a team of carefully selected international Russia experts from the complementing fields of intelligence studies, cultural studies, contemporary history, and IR. Moving beyond the models of ‘the KGB state’ on the one hand and ‘intelligence-as-a-tool’ of the state on the other, we advance the novel theoretical perspective of the Russian Hybrid Intelligence State. This allows for a nuanced and culturally and contextually sensitive approach based on the recognition that neither the Russian state nor its intelligence can be understood in isolation from each other. Contrary to the traditional and often normative notion of intelligence as a specific type of knowledge, we employ a wide definition of (state-centered) intelligence as actors, activities, and culture, which allows us to analyze the different ways in which intelligence and politics influence each other: a) actors (services/networks) vying for influence by positioning themselves; b) activities (knowledge production) that may both be heavily influenced by political considerations and influence these considerations; and c) culture, i.e. both narratives created for propaganda and deep-seated beliefs of the intelligence services, as well as everything in between. This makes us better equipped to understand Russian foreign/security policy, and to deal with its challenges to our security.