Gudrun Persson, "Russian Military Thought: The Evolution of Strategy Since the Crimean War" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

Mar 15, 2026

Gudrun Persson, associate professor of Slavic studies at Stockholm University and expert on Russian military history, guides listeners through Russian strategic thinking from the Crimean War to 2022. She examines archival research, the interplay of state identity and military doctrine, debates from Soviet innovation to post‑Soviet shifts, and how history, repression, and hybrid tools shape Russia's strategic choices.

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INSIGHT

Russian Strategy Sees War As A Holistic State Tool

Russian strategy is holistic and prioritizes why to use force over precise operational methods.
Gudrun Persson shows doctrine mixes political, economic, cultural, and military tools, with history and domestic fears shaping choices.

ANECDOTE

1979 Afghanistan Decision Overruled Military Warnings

The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan proceeded despite Chief of the General Staff warnings against it.
Persson recounts Nikolai Agarkov advising diplomacy, then being overruled by Politburo decisions to execute the invasion.

INSIGHT

Soft Factors Trump Hardware In Russian Doctrine

Soft factors like leadership decisions and historical memory often outweigh technical factors in shaping Russian doctrine.
Persson notes nuclear weapons mattered, but over the long run policy, history, and identity dominated strategic change.

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The development of the Russian military's strategic thought is an understudied and thus misunderstood subject in the West. Strategy in Russia encompasses the broader context of foreign and domestic policy as well as the military's ties to the country's leadership. The military's strategic thought is closely linked to Russia's existence as a state and explains patterns of Russian confrontation.

In Russian Military Thought: The Evolution of Strategy Since the Crimean War (Georgetown UP, 2025), the renowned scholar Gudrun Persson offers novel insights into Russian military thought on doctrine and strategy, from the Crimean War to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Persson dismantles the simplistic notion that Russian military thought is "backward," instead presenting a deeper analysis of the drivers that influence the changes in Russian military strategy. Through archival research based on Russian language sources, Persson offers a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on theoretical insights from history and political science that enable her to make a nuanced, qualitative analysis.

This book will be essential reading for practitioners, scholars, and students who seek to understand the mind-set of the current Russian leadership and the constraints that shape Russia's future possibilities.
Gudrun Persson is an associate professor of Slavic studies at Stockholm University. She is the author of Learning from Foreign Wars: Russian Military Thinking 1859–1873 and a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of War Sciences, Chatham House, and the Swedish Writers' Union.
Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review.

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