Entre ataque e defesa: intervenções militares russas no século XXI

Abstract

The importance of researching the motivation of Russian military interventions in the twentyfirst century is not only intended to understand the “whys”, but goes beyond proving the possibility of seeing them from the Russian lens. To this end, it was sought to answer whether Russia's military intervention in the cases of Georgia, Ukraine and Syria proceeded from the nature of an offensive or defensive Russia, assuming that Russia sought to defend itself from Western attacks in its area of influence, where their main Russian vital interests are inserted. In order to carry out the research, the inductive method was used by means of the case study. Counting on the insertion of the theory of realism of international relations in its defensive form by Kenneth Waltz, implementing the idea of threat balancing of Stephen Walt and in its offensive form, originating of the efforts of John Mearsheimer. As a result, the hypothesis that underpinned the research was confirmed from the understanding of a Russia threatened by the variation in the balance of threat resulting from the western invaders in the three cases, and fearful of the change of its level of influence and security.