Freedom to Fracture: Universal Human Rights as a Security Threat to a Multi-ethnic Russian Federation

Abstract

This paper explores universal human rights as a security threat, as identified by the Russian Federation in security doctrines created during Putin’s third presidential term. Unlike other analyses of Russian security concerns, it draws attention to the relationship between Euro-Atlantic values of liberal democracy and institutionalized norms of universal human rights. By placing human rights concerns in the historical context of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, it points to Russian fears that a more democratic, decentralized, and free Russia will also fracture. Paralleling these fears is a Euro-Atlantic security order that increasingly defends human rights at the expense of traditional state sovereignty. Cases such as Yugoslavia and Libya show how the line between interfering in a sovereign state’s political structure and intervening for human rights has blurred.