In the nineteenth century, Carl von Clausewitz famously observed that “war is merely the continuation of politics by other means.” Had he lived in the twenty-first century, he might well have reversed this dictum, suggesting that “politics is merely the continuation of war by other means.”

No matter how extensively a state equips its armed forces or trains its soldiers, national security cannot be assured if hostile actors succeed in penetrating the core of state power and manipulating the political process from within. It is precisely this form of political subversion that has become a growing concern for major Western countries today. Russia, whose confrontation with European states has deepened in recent years, has sought to compensate for its relative military disadvantages by cultivating sympathetic political forces within European countries and undermining them from the inside. Alternatively, it has endeavored to encourage the establishment of governments more inclined to cooperate with Russia, thereby reshaping the international order in ways more favorable to its own interests.