The Lands in Between : Russia vs. the West and the New Politics of Hybrid War

Updated to cover the 2022 Russo-Ukraine war and its fallout, this new paperback edition Russia''s hybrid war on the West is only beginning to be understood, but it has changed politics in all affected countries. Those changes are most visible in the lands in between, countries that today lie in between Russia and the European Union, on top of an emerging geopolitical fault line in Europe. This book shows that we can learn important lessons from these lands in between about how hybrid war affects our own politics at home.

In 2007, Russia launched a hybrid war on the West to preserve its influence in the “lands in between” Russia and the European Union (EU), countries that had left the Soviet Union and gravitated towards an enlarged EU and NATO. Since Russia''s meddling in the US presidential election in 2016 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this conflict has altered the politics of all countries involved. Just as the lands in between face a civilizational choice between a future in EU Europe or a revived Russian empire, Western countries must choose between dictatorship and democracy. Yet some politicians benefit from maneuvering between both sides in a conflict that seems to demand loyalty, but often rewards flexibility. This book shows that studying the polarized politics that have afflicted the lands in between for decades helps us to better understand the paradoxes of Western politics in an age of hybrid war.