*Originally published in 2022 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will lead to a revival of realism in international relations discourse with an emphasis on power politics and inter-state conflict. However, it should also reaffirm the need to understand the psychology of political leaders and a key component of this is legacy. While Putin’s efforts to reinstate a so-called Russian sphere of influence can be framed within structural realist conceptions on the balance of power, this state-centric, materialist, unitary rational actor theory provides an insufficient explanation of his actions, which have inflicted significant economic, military and social costs on the Russian state, with limited material gain (Waltz, 1979).  Rather, it comes down to the more intangible issue of cementing Putin’s status and legacy.

The role of status is well-recognised in IR debates (Götz, 2021). Notably, the theory of status dissatisfaction holds relevance in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by noting that states initiate conflict when there is a mismatch between the status a state believes it deserves and the status that others confer upon it (Renshon, 2017). However, this rational-instrumentalist approach is largely based on material capabilities rather than ideational considerations, such as historical and cultural context, which is key in understanding Putin’s quest to re-create a so-called ‘New Russia’ (Novorossiya) / ‘Russian world’ (Russky Mir) (Kolesnikov, 2015). Moreover, it fails to account for why states seek to achieve status through conflict as opposed to lower risk non-military actions. In this context, it is important to understand the role of the legacy in the decision-making of political leaders.

Legacy considerations are most prominent in autocratic states where leaders face limited checks and balances on their rule and start believing their own hype and hubris, particularly when it is combined with a belief that they alone can correct historical injustices that have been committed against the Motherland. Legacy considerations often gain momentum in the latter years of a political leader’s rule when they have consolidated power at home and it can become particularly pronounced towards the end of their tenure.

This explains Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which comes over two decades after Vladimir Putin assumed power. Although Putin has amended the constitution so he can conceivably stay in power until 2036, he will turn 70 this year and there has also been speculation about his health (Neuman, 2020; Reynolds, 2022). While the launch of Russia’s military action against Ukraine caught many by surprise, this should not necessarily have been the case when framed in the context of Putin’s worldview that sees the disintegration of the Soviet Union as the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe’ of the 20th century, which has fuelled efforts to push back NATO expansion and so-called Western-sponsored colour revolutions in its near abroad (Associated Press, 2005). This explains Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008, recurring interventions in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent interventions in the Donbas region, and the military deployment to Kazakhstan following anti-government unrest there in January 2022 (Umarov, 2022). In this context, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 can almost be seen as a forgone conclusion.

To be sure, legacy considerations can also be applied to democratic states with long-ruling leaders, particularly where they face weak opposition (although their actions typically fall short of war given the constraints imposed by their political systems). This is the case in India under the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which partially explains Modi’s decision to rescind the special status (Article 370) of Kashmir in 2019 (BBC, 2019). It was also relevant in Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with his concerted (but ultimately failed) effort to push for a resolution of the longstanding territorial dispute with Russia over the Northern Territories/ Southern Kuril islands (Banyan, 2019). While political ideology (such as the Hindu nationalist agenda of India’s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)) and personal experience (such as Shinzo Abe following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather in seeking to resolve the territorial dispute with Russia) may be the direct triggers for these actions, it ultimately comes down to the issue of cementing legacy for these political leaders (Banyan,........

© E-International