Contesting liberal peace: Russia’s emerging model of conflict management


 Russia has begun to promote itself internationally as a mediator of conflict and as a ‘peacemaker’. Russian officials cite its extensive experience in managing numerous post-Soviet conflicts and its more recent experience of intervention in civil wars in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia considers all these activities forms of ‘peacemaking’, but its approach differs radically from the model of liberal peacebuilding that has dominated international practice in the post-Cold War era. It prioritizes authoritarian stability over justice, human rights and democracy and advocates short-term goals of conflict management over long-term goals of conflict resolution. In this article I explain why Russia's norms of peacemaking and conflict management diverged so markedly from liberal peacebuilding norms. I argue that Russia is no longer simply contesting western norms, but developing its own distinct model of conflict management. This model accepts the use of force as an integral element in peacemaking, engages in ‘coercive’ mediation by authoritative actors, and views the West as a geopolitical and normative opponent. This debate over Russia's approach to peace and conflict also offers wider insights into how Russia challenges the norms and practices that underpin the liberal international order.

International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 to peace and conflict.Second, I analyse how Russia's involvement in a series of conflicts since the 1990s has both engaged with but ultimately contested the underlying norms of liberal peacebuilding.Third, I trace the emergence of an alternative Russian paradigm of conflict management through two case-studies: Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh.These cases are selected to demonstrate a particular pattern of Russian behaviour across conflicts in different geographical regions and with different security and geopolitical logics.I then summarize in brief a long list of other cases that might challenge or support the argument.I conclude by discussing Russia's claimed identity as a peacemaker and its relevance in the context of broader trends in its foreign policy.

Contesting liberal norms
In his detailed account of Russian attitudes towards military intervention, Roy Allison argued that a growing divide between the West and Russia is best explained by 'normative friction', the divergence between their ideas about the appropriate behaviour for states in the international system. 5Other recent work has also highlighted norm contestation as critical to understanding Russia's military interventions. 6A similar norms-based approach can help to explain divergence between Russia and the West on the fundamental question of how states and the international community should respond to internal conflicts and civil wars.This question draws on a wider set of norms covering whether the international community should intervene to halt internal conflicts, how states should manage and resolve armed conflicts and insurgencies on their territory, and how conflicts can be overcome through peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction.
For brief periods in the 1990s and early 2000s it appeared that Russia and the West might forge a common approach to managing and resolving deadly conflicts.But instead of adopting liberal norms, Russia increasingly diverged from western approaches to conflict management and peacebuilding.Moscow has challenged the tenets of so-called liberal peacebuilding, according to which armed conflicts can be resolved through inclusive peace processes and liberal state transformation, including democratization and good governance.This package of measures was supported by an array of interventionist international actors-including democratic states, multilateral actors and civil society groups. 7Instead, Russia has argued for the primacy of sovereignty norms, the need for strong states and political order, and the rights of governments to suppress internal conflict using any means necessary.
Why did it prove so difficult to develop a common approach to the norms of conflict management in the post-Cold War era?A first generation of norms schol-5 Roy Allison, Russia, the West, and military intervention (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 208. 6Derek Averre and Lance Davies, 'Russia, humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: the case of Syria', International Affairs 91: 4, 2015, pp.813-34; Moritz Pieper, '"Rising power" status and the evolution of international order: conceptualising Russia's Syria policies', Europe-Asia Studies 71: 3, 2019, pp.365-87. 7See Madhav Joshi, Sung Yong Lee and Roger Mac Ginty, 'Just how liberal is the liberal peace?',International Peacekeeping 21: 3, 2014, pp.364-89.
International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 arship in the 1990s assumed that the diffusion of norms such as the observance of human rights and the peaceful resolution of conflicts was a difficult, but largely one-way process of gradual socialization. 8Norms researchers argued that even when states denied the validity or applicability of norms, they could still advance through a 'spiral', in which initial rejection of norms would nevertheless lead to tactical concessions, adoption of formal rules and laws ('prescriptive behaviour') and ultimately internalized rule compliance. 9The path from denial to acceptance might prove a long one, but eventually norms would enter a 'norm cascade', in which a norm reached a tipping point as it was adopted by a critical mass of states. 10nitially, it appeared that Russia might follow this virtuous spiral-from denial to compliance-in its approach to conflict management.When Russian troops deployed to control early post-Soviet conflicts around Russia's periphery, there was no clear national peacekeeping doctrine. 11Policies often evolved as the result of ad hoc attempts by local Russian military commanders to respond to events on the ground. 12These early operations demonstrated a divergence from UN concepts of impartiality and minimum use of force in peacekeeping: 'Legitimacy remained dubious, mandates were broadly defined, and rules of engagement were never clearly spelled out.' 13 Russian peacekeeping operations were at least partly designed to maintain the country's regional primacy and assert its great power status. 14t the same time-as the norms literature would suggest-Russia could not ignore the growing influence of new thinking on peacekeeping and peacebuilding.Russia had supported the 1992 UN Agenda for Peace initiative and backed a raft of new UN peacekeeping missions in the late 1980s and early 1990s.The Russian military failure in the conflict in Chechnya in 1994-6 undermined the Ministry of Defence's monopoly on peacekeeping doctrine and encouraged a shift towards International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 more international cooperation. 15In Tajikistan and Georgia, CIS-mandatedbut effectively Russian-peacekeeping forces operated relatively successfully in cooperation with UN missions, although relations worsened in later years in Georgia. 16he boldest attempt to align with the West and the emerging norms of liberal peacebuilding came in Russia's deployment in UN peacekeeping missions in the Balkans under NATO command. 17At the time, some viewed this as a blueprint for future cooperation between Russia and the West.But there were frequent tensions with NATO during Russia's deployments in the UNPROFOR, SFOR and KFOR missions.The Russia-NATO dispute over the latter's military intervention in Serbia/Kosovo in 1999 highlighted the fundamental political differences between the two sides. 18In 2003 Russia withdrew its peacekeeping contingents from Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.Regina Heller explains the disputes over Kosovo as driven by Russia's 'quest for respect'-its desire to achieve recognition as a great power and as an equal partner with the West. 19The rise to power of Vladimir Putin further prioritized the importance of sovereignty and great power status in Russian foreign policy, making a junior partnership with NATO in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans untenable for Russia's emerging selfidentity.
A similar case in which western norm diffusion ultimately challenged Russia's status can be observed in Chechnya.The first Chechen war (1994-6) was a military and political debacle for Moscow.Under pressure from the EU, the Russian government negotiated a ceasefire with Chechen rebels at Khasavyurt in 1996.The Khasavyurt accords internationalized the conflict: an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) assistance group had been set up in 1995 as a condition of Russia joining the Council of Europe, and its officials helped broker the Khasavyurt peace deal. 20This agreement halted the fighting, but left Chechnya as a de facto independent state, run by a mix of Islamist radicals, criminal groups and Chechen nationalists.Not only did Khasavyurt fail to resolve the conflict, thus leaving Russia's security concerns unaddressed, but it was seen by many Russians as a humiliating capitulation-not just to the rebels, but to the West.Consequently, for Russian officials, the diffusion of liberal norms International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 promoting international conflict resolution came to be viewed both as an assault on Russia's identity as a sovereign state and also as a threat to national security. 21he second Chechen war-as discussed below-would be run according to very different norms.
The disputes over Balkans peacekeeping and the first Chechen war seemed to suggest to Russian elites that liberal norm diffusion was not a benign process that promoted progressive norms but an instrument of power politics which undermined Russia's international status and threatened its security.Ayşe Zarakol argues that the diffusion of liberal norms can also be read not as a peaceful process of socialization but as a 'global story of coercion and stigmatisation', which engenders a range of responses and behaviours-including both reluctant compliance and outright norm violation. 22An extensive literature has traced how the use of shaming and stigmatization by norm entrepreneurs has often provoked defiance rather than compliance among target states. 23In such cases, norm violation becomes an 'expression of national identity and resistance'. 24Contestation of liberal norms contributed to Russia's identity as a power that defied the West and challenged US dominance of the international order. 25orm contestation was not an unambiguous, linear process, but a complex mix of partial acceptance, adaptation, localization and rejection of norms.For a short period in the early 2000s, Russia still appeared open to some evolution in international law and norms on the use of force.At times its official statements were even marked by 'a definite solidarist tone', a contrast to its traditional 'pluralist' view of state sovereignty. 26Russia remained largely supportive of UN peacekeeping operations.Contingents of Russian troops and helicopters served in the UNAMSIL peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone between 2000 and 2005, and in UNMIS/UNMISS in Sudan/South Sudan in 2006-12.At the UN World Summit in 2005, Russia acquiesced in the language of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm (albeit reframed in narrower terms).
In reality, however, Russia's thinking on international security was already moving in a different direction, fuelled by both domestic and international factors.Its rhetorical acceptance of R2P was grudging and highly qualified.As Natasha Kuhrt argues, the roots of this divergence on R2P lay in earlier confrontations International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 with the West over Yugoslavia, but it was intensified by Russia's perception of 'colour' revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia in 2003-2004 as a challenge to its primacy in its neighbourhood and as a deliberate western instrument of destabilization that might also be used against the country itself. 27Russia's opposition to R2P was thus deeply informed by its own concerns over domestic political order and national sovereignty. 28The last opportunity for some mutual agreement on R2P norms came in 2011, when Russia abstained on the vote on UNSC Resolution 1973, which mandated a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Libya.Putin, who was prime minister at the time, strongly opposed the decision by President Medvedev not to veto the resolution, viewing the evocation of humanitarian concerns as simply a fig-leaf for western-backed regime change. 29The subsequent descent of Libya into civil war only strengthened Russian criticism of NATO's intervention.
The Libyan case contributed to a growing international debate over the efficacy of western military intervention and liberal peacebuilding.The norms and practices of the liberal peace had come to dominate international policy-making.A whole industry of peacebuilders worked in conflict-affected countries, aiming to prevent or halt conflict, engage in post-conflict reconstruction, or address the underlying root causes of conflict through governance reform and building civil society. 30Yet international interventions and peacebuilding missions often failed to resolve conflicts; at times, indeed, they generated new cleavages and divisions. 31fter liberal peacebuilding initiatives, countries often broke down into renewed armed conflict.Few emerged as sustainable democracies. 32Governments increasingly turned to military solutions rather than peace processes to end insurgencies. 33iberal ideas of peacebuilding also became discredited by association with the military interventions and nation-building policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.Contradictions between liberal norms and the illiberal practices of the US-led global 'war on terror' fuelled accusations of hypocrisy.In this contested normative landscape, the growing power and influence of states such as Russia and China provided diplomatic backing for states that challenged the norms and practices of the liberal peace.

Modes of contestation
Closer to home, Russia's involvements in successive conflicts in Chechnya (1999-2003), Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014) all provided fertile ground for norm contestation.Again, this was not a zero-sum process of compliance or rejection.Instead, different modes of contestation can be identified across these conflicts, building on the categorization developed by Bettiza and Lewis. 34First, Russian officials engaged in 'liberal mimicry', the misuse and misapplication of liberal norms in ways that questioned and destabilized the original concept. 35In the Georgian case Russian officials deployed the language of R2P, but with a very particular meaning of protecting their own citizens abroad. 36Russia's script on the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was also 'interlaced with a pastiche of norms ranging from the responsibility to protect Russian citizens abroad [to] the absolute sanctity of the principle of local self-determination'. 37Some scholars argued that Russia's deliberate misapplication of the R2P norm might strengthen the original concept, 38 but Burai's conclusion is more convincing: misuse delegitimized the original norm, by framing the original discourse as just 'one possible, socially constructed and validated reality-making script which can potentially be exposed and delegitimised'. 39 second mode of Russian contestation involved arguments for a regionalization of norms, or what Bettiza and Lewis call 'civilisational essentialism'. 40'Civilizationists' argue that norms claiming universality have no automatic validity in Russia's neighbourhood.On the one hand, this is a cultural claim, arguing for a different set of shared norms regarding conflict and peace in societies across the Eurasian space.This claim is disputed, although there is evidence that some post-Soviet societies prioritized norms such as order, stability and authority over individual freedoms and human rights. 41More controversial was a second set of norms regarding the roles and duties of Russia as a great power in its neighbourhood, which underpinned the country's claims to primacy in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region. 42These normative claims were inevitably International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 controversial among Russia's neighbours, ensuring that the region became 'a theatre for contested norms', in which 'Russia struggled to achieve collective understandings with CIS states over ... basic principles'. 43ussia's conflict in Chechnya, however, illustrated a third mode of contestation, which Bettiza and Lewis call 'counter-norm entrepreneurship', in which states no longer simply contest liberal norms but promote alternative normative frameworks. 44In Chechnya, Russia began to evolve its own model of stabilization and conflict management.The principles underpinning its campaign would influence its subsequent campaigns in Syria and elsewhere.Analysts began to talk of a 'Chechen model', based on ideas of 'illiberal peace', or what Lisa Baglione described as 'authoritarian peacebuilding'. 45Stanislav Tkachenko calls the 'Chechen model' a 'unique and successful model of coercive diplomacy', which would be replicated with some adjustments in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. 46he Chechen campaign was a top-down, state-centric imposition of a political order that rejected liberal norms and pluralistic politics as destabilizing and insecure.It was constructed through a set of norms that valorized sovereignty and hierarchical authority over any claims to justice or human rights.The conflict was no longer internationalized.Russia rejected any of the external involvement in the war that had been evident in the 1990s.Violence became the central ordering dynamic underpinning political order, deployed both by Russian forces and Chechen proxies. 47Informal negotiations and amnesties were also intertwined with violence.These were nothing like the Khasavyurt talks: rebel commanders and their followers were offered amnesties if they joined pro-government forces, but a refusal often resulted in extrajudicial killings or attacks on and abduction of relatives. 48ussia was not only denying the applicability of liberal norms regarding the rules of war and human rights, but also claiming that its stabilization strategy had a positive, moral value.Russia regained 'sovereign' control of the discourse, framing the conflict not as a Chechen rebellion provoked by legitimate grievances, but as a counterterrorist operation, which defined Chechen rebels as both illegitimate and controlled or manipulated by external forces.When European politicians criticized Russia's use of force in Chechnya, Moscow responded with a narrative that claimed an alternative, honourable national identity.Putin argued that 'Russia is really standing at the forefront of the war against international International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 terrorism.And Europe ought to fall on its knees and express its great thankfulness that we, unfortunately, are fighting it alone.' 49olstered by the success of its Chechen campaign, in the late 2000s Russia became increasingly confident in sponsoring its self-identity as a peacemaker and as a promotor of new norms of conflict management.When Russia sent forces into South Ossetia, Georgia, in 2008, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted 'the credibility of Russia as an effective guarantor of peace and humanitarian security' in the conflict. 50According to Alexander Lukin, Moscow's response 'marked a departure from its practices of the 1990s, when it had to abide by the rules of the game that were incompatible with Russia's vital national interests'. 51Instead, Russia was now increasingly a rule-maker and a norm-shaper in its approach to issues of peace and conflict, promoting 'values-based narratives which fundamentally challenge western liberalism'. 52Although Russia's normative stance gained little traction in the West, its wider normative challenge to liberal peacebuilding was gaining more international support.Russia backed states such as Sri Lanka, which rejected liberal peacebuilding models and instead turned to alternative modes of 'illiberal' or 'authoritarian' conflict management that challenged the hegemony of liberal peacebuilding. 53Russia consistently supported these countries in the UN Security Council, blocking attempts by western powers to censure their actions.In doing so, it began to shape an alternative set of norms that was not only applicable in its immediate neighbourhood, but had resonance for a much wider range of international conflicts.

Pax Rossica: Russia's model of conflict management
In the remainder of this article I trace how Russia built on its counter-norm entrepreneurship in conflicts such as that in Chechnya to develop an alternative framework for conflict management and stabilization.The emergence of this model is still in its early stages.It lacks sophisticated theorization or a developed doctrine.Yet there are sufficient common features across a range of cases in which Russia has been involved as a major actor to suggest the outlines of a new model.A long list of recent conflicts where Russia has been involved in some capacity might include eastern Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan), CAR, Afghanistan, the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), Yemen, Mozambique and Mali.In two of these cases (Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh), Russia deployed formal military forces with the consent of the host government.In Georgia and Ukraine, by contrast, its intervention was directed against the central government.In other cases, its role varied from diplomatic mediation (Yemen, Afghanistan, MEPP) to the deployment of unofficial auxiliary forces (CAR, Libya, Mozambique).I first examine two very different case-studies-one outside Russia's traditional sphere of operations (Syria), the other in its neighbourhood (Nagorno-Karabakh)-to assess common features of Russia's engagement in conflict management.I then re-examine other cases in the long list to establish whether they contradict or support the overall thesis.

The Syrian laboratory
The most important case for Russia's counter-norm entrepreneurship in conflict was its campaign in Syria-its first major military intervention outside its own neighbourhood since Soviet times.Russia had supported President Assad diplomatically as peaceful opposition protests developed into armed resistance after 2012, but in September 2015 it intervened in the war with a sustained air campaign against rebel forces that proved crucial to the survival of the regime. 54Although framed primarily as a counterterrorist campaign, from the beginning President Putin argued that the aim was wider: to 'stabilize the legitimate authorities and to create conditions for the search for a political compromise'. 55Military briefings explained how 'the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to assist the peace process in the Syrian Arab Republic' and asserted that 'the political will, shown by Russia and its partners ... played a decisive role in ceasing bloodshed and ensuring the transition to a peaceful life in Syria'. 56s Pieper argues, the Russian intervention was partly driven by Moscow's desire to emerge as a 'co-shaper' of global norms, promoting regime stability and non-interference against ideas of democratization and regime change. 57But the extent of Russian norm entrepreneurship was not limited to claims about the ethics of intervention; it extended to its evolving model of conflict management.Russia's approach sought to build a vertical model of peace enforcement, in which the initial counter-insurgency campaign and the subsequent period of peace consolidation used many of the same instruments, incorporating violence, mediation and regional diplomacy into an integrated conflict management strategy.
Russia combined the use of force with asymmetric mediation, developing proxies under its direct influence, such as the Tiger Force or the Liwa al-Quds militia, in which it embedded its own forces and trainers from private military International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 companies. 58The counter-insurgency was conducted in parallel with talks with rebel forces, conducted through the Centre for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides and Refugee Migration Monitoring in the Syrian Arab Republic (CRCSS), which Russia set up in February 2016 after ceasefire negotiations with the US. 59These talks with rebels were very different from the ideas of negotiation among equal parties promoted in western theories of conflict resolution.Negotiations were preceded by tactics of siege and aerial bombardment designed to persuade fighters to agree either to surrender to government forces or to leave the area and move to designated de-escalation zones.Eventually, most fighters ended up in Idlib as other de-escalation zones were overrun by government forces. 60his interweaving of violence and negotiations was not a temporary phenomenon; it became the central dynamic of Russia's coercive mediation strategy.Russia-and later Turkey-carefully negotiated the use of violence by their proxies to alter battlefield dynamics and to shape political negotiations among different groups.Samer Abboud points to the apparent paradox in which 'as Guarantor powers, Russia, Iran and Turkey seek to achieve a reduction in violence through its constant use'. 61Selective violence demarcates zones of influence and de-escalation zones, and deters rebels-and their regional backers-from seeking to expand their allocated spaces on the battlefield.The Astana process allowed the tripartite powers (Turkey, Iran and Russia) to use force to discipline the different parties to the conflict in ways that reduced the level of armed confrontation.But in doing so, it made violence and political exclusion constituent elements of an emerging political settlement. 62ussia also used humanitarian aid to stabilize its control over territory.It developed its own aid network inside Syria, managed by the CRCSS.A critical analysis concludes that Russia's distribution of aid aimed primarily 'to buy loyalty and showcase its soft power', 63 but 'buying loyalty' and co-optation were central goals of the country's stabilization campaign.Alongside the CRCSS, at least 25 other Russian entities-mostly religious organizations or state-linked NGOs-were also active, creating 'a shadow aid system' that reinforced Russia's management 58 See Reinoud Leenders and Antonio Giustozzi, 'Foreign sponsorship of pro-government militias fighting Syria's insurgency: whither proxy wars?', Mediterranean Politics, publ.online 24 Nov. 2020, pp.1-30, doi: 10.1080/13629395.2020.1839235. 59The CRCSS evolved into an important institution in Russia's conflict management efforts.In addition to managing local negotiations, its mandate also included managing refugee return from other countries and internal displacement; humanitarian assistance; infrastructure reconstruction efforts; and mine clearance.longside its campaign on the ground, Russia pursued intra-Syrian political negotiations and a diplomatic track.The Astana process (launched in the Kazakh capital in January 2017) brought together Turkey, Iran and Russia as guarantor states to preside over a series of meetings with members of the armed opposition and government delegates. 66A series of UN-backed peace talks in Geneva followed classic liberal peacebuilding models based on inclusive power-sharing, a negotiated ceasefire and humanitarian corridors. 67The Astana process, however, represented 'an altogether new approach to peacebuilding', in which regional diplomacy and national-level peace talks were intertwined. 68ussia's negotiations were based on different principles from the Geneva talks: they excluded certain opposition groups from the talks completely; they used military force to persuade other groups to participate and comply; and they linked intra-Syrian talks to regional diplomacy.Rather than a bottom-up negotiation that included all interested parties, Russia's negotiating format aimed to limit the agency of insurgents, and instead reduce them to being proxies of regional players-notably Turkey.In doing so, Russia did not simply work with the existing geometry of power, but actively worked to construct an opposition-through the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue-with which the Syrian government might be able to conclude a political settlement. 69A constitutional committee was established under the auspices of the UN Geneva process in January 2018, but it made little headway, partly because the Syrian government had little interest in compromise with the opposition once it came to believe that a complete military victory was possible. 70Although the Astana process did not produce a final political settlement, it undercut alternative talks and effectively derailed attempts to unite rebels in a coherent opposition to the Syrian government.
International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 Andrey Kortunov points to Russia's regional diplomacy-based on 'interests, not values', as he sees it-as key to its successful intervention in Syria, in contrast to the failure of US intervention in Afghanistan. 71Russia's diplomacy around Syria reflected what Fyodor Lukyanov calls the 'new multilateralism', a shift away from western-dominated diplomatic coalitions towards flexible constellations of non-western regional powers, often with contradictory interests, in the immediate vicinity of a conflict. 72The coalition in the Astana process included Iran and Turkey-two powers on opposite sides of the war-and used the capacity of each regional power to control armed forces on the battlefield to achieve and police a ceasefire.After 2016 Russian-Turkish relations became the fulcrum of the conflict, with the two countries negotiating their competing interests in northern Syria through bilateral talks. 73The Sochi Agreement of September 2018-and subsequent bilateral deals-did not resolve the status of Idlib, but persisting tensions were managed through frequent high-level talks between Putin and Erdogan.The Russian-Turkish accommodation stabilized the conflict and sidelined western powers, who increasingly were forced to deal with Russia as the key interlocutor on Syria.

Nagorno-Karabakh
At first glance, Russia's deployment of a peacekeeping force to Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020 might seem very different from messy counter-insurgencies in the Middle East.But the peacekeeping deployment relied on many of the same principles of Russia's stabilization model: insertion of military force to prevent a resumption of fighting and to control the peace process; high-level, top-down negotiations with key parties, on Russia's terms; control of the information and humanitarian space; and active regional diplomacy that excluded the West.
Moscow deployed its specialized peacekeeping force, the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (SMRB), as part of a ceasefire agreement it negotiated to halt six weeks of fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenian forces in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. 74 The peace deal of 9 November set a cap on Russian forces at 1,960 personnel to police the remaining territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor, but the full complement was probably closer to 4,000, including humanitarian workers and reconstruction crews. 75Russian forces could also be International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 quickly reinforced from the Russian 102nd Military Base in Gyumri, Armenia, if necessary.
The Russian peacekeeping operation followed the main precepts of its emerging approach to conflict management.It asserted a monopoly of control over humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts.Russia replicated aspects of its Syrian model, setting up an Interagency Humanitarian Reaction Centre (IHRC) to manage humanitarian aid, refugee returns and reconstruction. 76Russian peacekeepers maintained complete control over the only entry-point into the territory and were able to dictate the movements of aid workers and NGOs.Among international organizations, only the Red Cross was active on the ground in mid-2021, with UN agencies embroiled in complex status disputes.Russia also maintained a virtual monopoly on information about its peacekeeping force and reconstruction efforts, reflecting its emphasis on complete of communications and information in its military deployments.Russian forces regularly refused entry to foreign journalists wishing to visit Nagorno-Karabakh and established their own media operation inside the territory. 77s in other conflicts, Russia pursued high-level, state-centric mediation, using the threat of force to exert leverage over the parties.During the war, Russia used military force to signal its red lines to Turkey and Azerbaijan.In October, as the fighting intensified, Russia held military exercises in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan, and Russian air strikes twice hit pro-Turkish rebel camps in Syria. 78fter six weeks of fighting, President Putin persuaded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliev to agree to a ceasefire on 9 November.Russia's dominance of the mediation process marginalized the role of western states.The Minsk Group of the OSCE, headed by three co-chairs (Russia, France and the United States), had worked unsuccessfully to resolve the conflict for 25 years.When Russia intervened, the other Minsk Group co-chairs were hardly consulted during the negotiations and had little choice but to accept the Russian-brokered ceasefire.The co-chairs offered to facilitate bilateral negotiations without preconditions in July 2021, 79 but in reality only Russia had the capacity and political will to remain engaged in managing the conflict.
As Laurence Broers argues, the agreement reflected 'the sweeping aside of the multilateral diplomacy represented by the Minsk Group by multipolar power dynamics'. 80These multipolar dynamics were critical to the outcome, since Turkey had openly backed Azerbaijan's military offensive.Russia and Turkey International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 held bilateral talks about the resolution of the conflict, but Turkey was not a signatory to the ceasefire agreement and Russia quickly quashed ideas of a joint peacekeeping force.In late January 2021 Russia and Turkey opened a joint centre to monitor the ceasefire remotely from a base in Azerbaijan, but that was the extent of formal Turkish involvement in the peacekeeping operation. 81In popular commentary, the two countries were often viewed as being on opposite sides of the conflict, with Turkey providing extensive military and political support to Azerbaijan while Russia backed its ally Armenia.Yet normatively, the two states were aligned: both rejected the liberal peacebuilding model promoted by the OSCE and in its place advocated alternative, 'illiberal' approaches to managing the conflict and diplomatic formats that sidelined the West. 82 emerging model?These two case-studies represent very different forms of Russian intervention but demonstrate common elements to Russia's approach to mediation and conflict management.Many of its features can also be identified in other Russian interventions.In Libya and the CAR, Russia experimented with a new version of military power projection into a conflict zone: the deployment of personnel from a private military company, the Wagner Group. 83In Libya, at least 2,000 Wagner contractors backed Khalifa Haftar's rebel army, ensuring Russia had a stake in the conflict and leverage in the subsequent peace process. 84As in Syria, so in Libya Russia attempted to use regional diplomacy to cement a peace deal, although with less success.In the CAR, Russian security contractors associated with Wagner protected the regime of President Touadéra against rebel insurgency, using many aspects of the Chechen counter-insurgency model, including asymmetric negotiations.
Russia's engagement in conflict was not confined to scenarios where it deployed military force.It also used its extensive diplomatic networks and position in multilateral forums to promote its role as a diplomatic mediator.In the Yemeni civil war, Russia maintained links with all parties, juggling its close ties with Iran with its growing cooperation with Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia.Russia maintained good relations not only with Israel but with Hamas and Hezbollah, although its attempts to mediate in the MEPP have seldom had much impact.In 2019 Russia proposed a Gulf Collective Security arrangement, offering a regional International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 peace deal to complement its own national-level initiatives. 85None of these initiatives produced direct results, but they strengthened Russia's self-identity as a mediator in the region and demonstrated its willingness to talk to any party which had influence over a particular conflict, regardless of their ideological position.
In Afghanistan, although it did not deploy military force, Russia addressed the conflict in accordance with the broad principles of its conflict management elsewhere.It bought itself leverage in the conflict by providing covert financial and military support to the Taliban, and by engaging with a network of other power-brokers and armed groups on the ground.It pursued the same two-level negotiating framework as in Syria: it sought a consensus among regional powers in the so-called 'Moscow format' diplomatic platform, and it promoted talks between Afghan politicians and the Taliban.In contrast to western initiatives, which sought representation of women and civil society in negotiating formats, Russia invited only male Afghan power-brokers to meet with the Taliban at talks in Moscow in February and May 2019.For Russia, understanding and shaping power politics, not democratic principles of representation, were the key to successful negotiations. 86Its engagement did not translate into significant influence on the Taliban after they seized power in August 2021, but it ensured that Russia retained a role as diplomatic mediator in the aftermath.
Although it is difficult to summarize these very diverse cases, four underlying principles are evident in Russia's approach across this range of situations.The first is that the use or threat of force is integral to successful conflict management.Without some leverage on parties in the conflict through military force, it is difficult to force them to stop fighting.Russia's most successful mediation efforts have combined talks with coercion.Second, military force on its own is not sufficient: negotiations should be conducted with multiple actors regardless of ideology, but from a position of strength.Mediators should be interested, powerful actors who can impose solutions, not neutral third parties.Third, the key actors in resolving conflicts are states, not international organizations and civil society.Russia's peacemaking seeks 'multipolar' deals with regional states, not multilateral, internationalized initiatives with multiple stakeholders.Fourth, the West is part of the problem, not the solution; its involvement should be managed and minimized.This is not simply a geopolitical claim, but a normative one: in Russia's view, western pluralist, liberal peacebuilding efforts have proved to be destabilizing and ineffective in halting conflict.Russia instead advances a set of counter-revolutionary norms that directly contradict liberal political values and promotes order as a moral priority over justice, reflecting longstanding traditions in Russian political thought. 87

Peacemaking as a foreign policy idea
As Russia has become more deeply involved in a wider array of conflicts, its officials have begun to articulate the country's alternative mix of counter-norms and peacemaking practices as a significant foreign policy idea.Among the changes to the constitution introduced in 2020, a little-noticed amendment to article 79.1 mandates Russia 'to adopt measures to support and strengthen international peace and security, the peaceful coexistence of states and peoples, and to prevent interference in the internal affairs of states'. 88The formulation combines Russia's growing self-identity as a security provider with its normative stance on how peace and stability can be achieved.At the Valdai conference in 2019 President Putin argued that 'the Syrian settlement' could become 'a model for resolving regional crises'.Putin argued that Russia could contribute original, innovative approaches to both new and longstanding chronic conflicts: 'I am convinced that these approaches can be used to resolve other existing problems in the world, including in Asia, such as, for example, the situation on the Korean Peninsula.' 89In an address to the Moscow Security Conference in 2021, Putin argued that Russia was actively assisting in settling regional conflicts, citing its 'liberation' of Syria from 'international terrorists' and its 'political and diplomatic work within the Astana format'.He added that Russia's 'decisive contribution helped to stop the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict', where 'Russian peacekeepers reliably guarantee peace and security in the region'. 90ussian commentators suggested that Moscow was increasingly looking to export the 'Syrian model of pacification [umirotvoreniya] of political, inter-ethnic and inter-confessional conflicts to any area that needed it'. 91Russian experts began describing international security as a market, in which Moscow could act as a major provider of security services-from counterterrorism to conflict mediation. 92Even Russian sales of air defence systems and cyber security might be added to the list. 93ergei Karaganov and Dmitry Suslov argued that Russia should position itself as 'an effective and successful peacemaker' and should 'increase the significance of peacemaking [mirotvorchestvo] and the management [uregulirovaniya] of armed conflicts in foreign policy discourse'. 94A team of academics argued that Russia should 'promote its image as an effective peacemaker [mirotvorets]', building on its existing experience in which 'it is playing a critical role in managing [ureguli-International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 rovaniya] numerous conflicts'. 95This Russian alternative paradigm is presented as part of a wider geopolitical and ideological competition with the West.Kostelyanets points to Russia's 'promotion of models of international conflict mediation ... as alternatives to the ones proposed by Western countries'.The driver, he argues, is 'full participation in the new geopolitical competition', in which Russia 'explores the avenues for developing sustainable yet affordable mechanisms for protecting and advancing its interests in the world'. 96n even broader line of thought in the country's conservative thinking frames Russia as a peacemaker in terms of its role in world order as a strategic opponentor balancer-of the West.Engström argues that the foreign policy doctrine of 2013 describes a Russia that sees itself 'as a unique restraining factor in the world of increasing chaos'. 97The doctrine highlights 'the unique role our country has been playing over centuries as a counterbalance in international affairs and the development of global civilization'.Russia is 'fully aware of its special responsibility for maintaining security in the world both on the global and regional levels'. 98In this way of thinking, Russia is returning to a traditional historical self-perception as the restraining or balancing power, represented in Orthodox theology by the figure of the katehon, the biblical figure which holds back the Antichrist. 99This echoes the thinking of Russian conservatives, who talk of a 'shield ideology', in which the country acts as the defence against evil, destabilizing forces-usually emanating from the West.Conservative commentator Yegor Kholmogorov calls this a 'Pax Rossica' in which Russia plays 'the role in the global system of a force constraining the establishment of a world order that is equivalent to world lawlessness'. 100By contrast, US foreign policy is widely characterized by Russian commentators as a strategy of 'managed chaos' (upravlyaemyi khaos), marked by 'colour revolutions', military interventions and covert support for anti-government rebellions. 101Consequently, Russia, in holding back these experiments in liberalism and democracy, is also promoting peace.

Conclusion: a revisionist peace?
Western efforts to socialize Russia into a wider set of liberal peacebuilding norms have failed.Instead of following a virtuous spiral towards norm compliance, Russia has pursued a spiral of norm contestation, which has led to the development of counter-norms and an alternative paradigm of conflict management.This is far from being a fully fledged blueprint for a new global peacebuilding order: International Affairs 98: 2, 2022 Russia's policies are always context-specific and responsive to competing sets of institutional, security and political logics.But Moscow's prioritization of order over justice, of the state over civil society, and of authority over representation reflects a normative position that is clearly distinct from the responses to conflict promoted by liberal democracies since the 1990s.
Russia's norm contestation was driven by both a logic of status and a logic of security.Active norm diffusion by western actors came to be viewed as a profound challenge to Russia's desired status as a great power, capable of shaping norms and rules, not only in its neighbourhood but in the global order.At the same time, western attitudes to the war in Chechnya, interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and the track record of liberal peacebuilding elsewhere suggested that western approaches to peace and conflict posed a security threat to Russian national interests.Russia's promotion of an alternative set of norms sought to address both these dynamics.It reasserted Russia as a rule-shaper and norm-maker in international affairs; and it offered a legitimating discourse for measures taken by the country to defend its perceived security interests.
Although Russian conflict management poses a challenge to existing international norms and practice, the extent of this challenge is not yet clear.On the one hand, Russia remains committed to the central role of the UN Security Council in peacekeeping and conflict management, and continues to support UN peacekeeping operations-despite some misgivings over mandates.This might suggest support for Richard Sakwa's concept of neo-revisionism, in which Russia rejects US hegemony in the international system, while affirming its support for many international institutions, including the UN system. 102Yet Russia's emerging model of stabilization does not reaffirm, for example, traditional UN norms of impartial peacekeeping or neutral mediation.Moreover, Russia's support for UN involvement in conflicts is often selective and instrumental, usually preceded by attempts to achieve informal regional deals-as in Libya or Afghanistan.Arguably, Russia's behaviour is better understood in terms of the 'reactionary' revisionism described by Andrej Krickovic, seeking a return to 'the rules, norms, and institutions of great power politics'. 103n this sense, Russia's model of conflict management reflects the norms and practices we would expect from a great power pursuing a 'realist peace'-a top-down, hegemonic approach to conflict that privileges statist order and regional hegemons but is pragmatic about tactics and partners. 104In an international system that accepted such roles and identities for great powers, Russia's approach could result in an agreement on new rules of the game.However, Russia's current thinking about peace and conflict has emerged through a process of contestation of liberal norms and in competition with the West.Hence, Russia's approach to While promoting its own aid network, Russia strongly resisted cross-border UN aid flows to rebel-held areas, insisting instead on cross-line deliveries from Damascus to reinforce Syrian sovereignty and central government control.In a series of showdowns in the UN Security Council in 2020-21, Russia forced the closure of several cross-border aid routes from Turkey, leaving just the Bab al-Hawa border crossing open to provide aid to millions of civilians.