Political Warfare and Subversion in the Name of Democracy: Eastern Europe as a Geopolitical Shatterbelt

Modern forms of standardised political warfare and subversion appeared in the form of the Colour Revolutions. However, Russia is gradually recovering its state power and influence capability and capacity and has begun to more actively resist the incremental US encroachment. Eastern European countries, such as Georgia and Ukraine are weak and divided countries, the influence and control of which is being contested by other powers. Although the nature and goals of the political warfare and subversion currently underway in Georgia and Ukraine do differ from each other in significant and meaningful ways. This is seen in the current attempt to force the Georgian government to scrap the foreign agents’ law that would render it an object of US geopolitical intrigues, most likely against Russia. It is also seen in the bloody ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has a long history of foreign interference that has rendered it an object of international relations by at least 2022, and where the conflict not only concerns the welfare and future of Ukraine and Russia, but also Europe more broadly. This is symptomatic of the established geostrategic imperatives of the US that are intended as instruments of the maintenance of their hegemonic status.