Inciting Fears of Russian Invasion
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Great Game
12 min read
The article directly references the 'Great Game' as a British invention and 19th century imperial obsession about Russia threatening India. Understanding this historical rivalry between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia provides crucial context for the article's argument about recurring patterns of inflated Russian threat perceptions.
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French invasion of Russia
17 min read
The article references the Napoleonic Wars and 'French Europe's invasion of Russia' as an example of Russia being invaded rather than being the invader. This 1812 campaign is central to understanding Russian defensive historical consciousness and Tolstoy's War and Peace, both mentioned in the article.
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Alexandra Kollontai
13 min read
Kollontai appears in the article's key terms and was a pioneering Soviet diplomat who served as ambassador to Sweden. Her diplomatic career offers a historical counterpoint to claims of Russian diplomatic aggression, showing Russia's capacity for conventional diplomatic engagement.
First things first, thank you for joining me on the Burning Archive. And best wishes for the festive season and, in the Southern hemisphere, the summer holidays.
This will be my last post until after the Christmas-New Year period. I will return on 3 January and begin the 2026 program that I outlined earlier this week.
I explain later in this post how I will round off the Russian leg of the World History Tour, with two more posts on the Gorbachev inheritance and the Putin prospect.
I am sorry that, at this time and after the tragedy at Bondi this week, I am writing again on questions of war and peace.
Today we examine the Invader Obsession, Chapter 8 of Mark B. Smith, The Russia Anxiety, “Does History Make Russians Seek Peace or War?”
The Spectre Haunting Europe
On 15 December 2025, Britain’s newly minted spy chief, Blaise Metreweli, invoked the spectre of Russian invasion. Britain, NATO, Ukraine and the world, she said, were harassed by “the menace of an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia.” “Putin’s Russia” was the spider at the centre of an “interlocking web of security challenges – military, technological, social, ethical even.” This spectre haunting NATO’s strategists threatened more than physical invasion by Russian tanks.
Our world is more dangerous and contested now than it has been for decades. Conflict is evolving and trust eroding, just as new technologies spur both competition and dependence. We are being contested from sea to space, from the battlefield to the boardroom. And even our brains, as disinformation manipulates our understanding of each other and ourselves. . . . We are now operating in a space between peace and war.
Speech by Blaise Metreweli, Chief of SIS, 15 December 2025
Her artfully articulated fears were more than lurid propaganda. They were the chiselled certainties of the NATO doctrine of permanent attrition war - as brilliantly analysed by Nel Bonilla - not just in physical reality, but the psychological warfare of our minds.
The export of chaos is a feature not a bug in this Russian approach to international engagement; and we should be ready for this to continue until Putin is forced to change his calculus.
Speech by Blaise Metreweli, Chief of SIS, 15 December 2025
Does their history make Russians seek peace or war?
The Black Legend of Russian History presents Russia as ...
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