THE IMPACT OF THE BUSH DOCTRINE ON RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY
THE IMPACT OF THE BUSH DOCTRINE ON RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the issue of the Bush Doctrine as the basic geopolitical code that dominated American foreign policy in the first decades of the 21st century. It aims to explain the impact of this code and doctrine on Russia's aggressive policy in Ukraine. The author examines the key elements of contemporary US security strategy, noting the way in which the US geopolitical code has been read by Russian political elites and how this has impacted Russian behavior in international relations. It is pointed out that the “idealistic” attempt to spread democratic values embodied in the Bush Doctrine has been read by Russian elites as a “realistic” instrument of geopolitical expansion. The author explains the consequences related to the Russian reading of the processes taking place in the international environment, which in the Russian symbolic-political space have been identified with the US implementation of the Bush Doctrine. The author's thesis is that among the reasons for the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine one can point to a specifically Russian interpretation of the Bush Doctrine.

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