The Russian Stand on the Responsibility to Protect: Does Strategic Culture Matter?

AuthorDogachan Dagi
DOI10.1177/2347797020962667
Published date01 December 2020
Date01 December 2020
Subject MatterResearch Article
The Russian Stand on
the Responsibility to
Protect: Does Strategic
Culture Matter?
Dogachan Dagi1
Abstract
Though Russia has approved the doctrine of responsibility to protect (R2P) in
the UN platforms it has often been placed rightly in the ‘sceptics group’ of states
that are not at ease with the premises and practices of R2P. What is the basis of
the Russian discontent? This article suggests the relevance of strategic culture
in explaining the Russian position on R2P. It is based on the assertion that, in
addition to humanitarian and moral aspects, responding to mass atrocities within
the doctrine of R2P takes place in a context of security considerations since,
in severe cases, it involves, among others, a military component under a UN
Security Council mandate. As such the use of force, approving or disapproving,
it is all related to the realm of security even if the motive and objective may be
humanitarian. In the security domain, this article argues that Russian strategic
culture, in interaction with its national identity, historical experiences and
prevailing narratives, forms a loose code of conduct and a context within which
strategic decisions concerning the use of force in responding to a humanitarian
crisis are made. It is, thus, concluded that Russian strategic culture by constraining
decision-makers, defining appropriate behaviour and reflecting insecurities and
aspirations explains Russia’s approach to R2P’s normative propositions, legal
standing and implementation in practice.
Keywords
Responsibility to protect, humanitarian intervention, strategic culture, Russian
strategic culture, Russian foreign policy, norm contestation
1 Department of Politics and International Studies, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
Corresponding author:
Dogachan Dagi, Department of Politics and International Studies, The University of Warwick, Coventry
CV4 7AL, UK.
E-mail: dogachan.dagi@warwick.ac.uk
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
7(3) 370 –386, 2020
The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/2347797020962667
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Research Article
Dagi 371
Introduction
The post-Cold War cases of intervention in humanitarian crises, even if driven by
moral concerns, were put into a legal cloth by arguing that such crises posed a
threat to international peace and security. Based on this premise, the UN Security
Council resolutions on Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia and Haiti
authorised the use of force since the situation in the respective cases constituted a
threat to international peace and security. Similarly, Resolution 1973, the first and
the last case that specifically implemented the coercive element of responsibility
to protect (R2P), authorised use of force to protect civilians in Libya referring that
the situation on the ground threatened international peace and security.
This linkage established by the Security Council between humanitarian crises
and maintaining international peace and security bears witness that responding to
such crises is not only a moral issue but also a decision that carries a security
dimension. Simply because such responses under a UN mandate involve a military
component, and they are deemed legally justified on the ground to maintain
international peace and security by coercive means as envisaged in the UN
Charter. Yet, the literature on humanitarian intervention and, more recently, R2P
overlooks security paradigms of states within which decisions about humanitarian
or R2P-based interventions are made. The conditions for the success of a military
intervention in a humanitarian crisis and possible repercussions of it on the ground
in explaining states’ involvement or non-involvement in the humanitarian
intervention cases have been widely discussed (Kuperman, 2013; Paris, 2014).
Besides, states’ inclinations to use humanitarian intervention to expand their
interest or their refrainment from taking part due to their calculation of costs and
benefits have also been debated (Chandler, 2004; Kurtz & Rotmann, 2016). But
the relationship between states’ position on how to respond to humanitarian crises
and their strategic culture has not been explored. States’ actions or no-actions in a
humanitarian crisis in terms of a military intervention sanctioned by the doctrine
of R2P is likely to be influenced by their strategic culture since such decisions are
not only a moral one but also involves a security dimension. In the security realm,
the prevailing strategic culture constrains decision-makers, defines appropriate
behaviour and reflects insecurities and aspirations. Thus, to understand the states’
approach to humanitarian crises that call for military intervention within R2P a
perspective that brings strategic culture in will shed new light onto the debate.
This article will pursue this with reference to Russia’s stand on R2P. Russia,
though approved R2P at its outset in principle and cooperated with the Western
world to elevate the idea, has gradually come to be sceptical if not oppositional to
the doctrine (Bellamy, 2009, p. 113; Ziegler, 2016a, p. 75). The Russian position
has evolved arguing that the adaption of R2P as a norm would result in weakening
state sovereignty, undermine international order and enhance the dominant
position of the West with significant damages on Russian national interest. The
legacy of the Cold War and growing confrontational politics between Russia and
the West during the Putin era has enhanced the Russian scepticism about Western

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