March, Luke. "Is Nationalism Rising in Russian Foreign Policy? The Case of Georgia". The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol.19, no.3 (2011): 187-207.

March, Luke. "Is Nationalism Rising in Russian Foreign Policy? The Case of Georgia". The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol.19, no.3 (2011): 187-207.

• Russian foreign policy since the Putin era has become increasingly nationalistic and aggressive both domestically and internationally. Some scholars have described this as a Russian reaction to "rebelling against a system that it felt no longer met its interests and had been imposed on it during a moment of temporary weakness" (188).
• This paper specifically examines claims that the 2008 Russo-Georgian War is an expression of heightened Russian nationalism, and challenges the typical 'good' West vs. 'evil' East narrative.
• Russian nationalism is usually conservative and intensely statist, leading towards pragmatic decisions more than ideology. Typically the Russian state has tried to insulate foreign policy from domestic nationalism, but recently the 'civilizational nationalism' epitomized by the Russkii Mir is harder to ignore as a force in foreign policy (189).
• The Georgian war represents a outpouring of this civilizational nationalism into foreign policy decision-making on a previously unprecedented level. Some return to the status quo occurred after 2009, but this represents a new factor in Russian foreign policy (189).
• An overview of Russian nationalism -- including a source mine -- is available from 190 to 196.
• "The infusion of formerly marginal civilizationist sentiments into mainstream Russian thinking in the 2000s began strongly to frame elite thinking toward Georgia. This led to a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby Georgia was repeatedly denigrated as itself an aggressive, nationalistic, weak, untrustworthy and profoundly hostile state and a pawn of nefarious Western geopolitical interests. The Russian elite became predisposed to seeing the worst in Georgian intentions and to preparing accordingly" (194).
• Russian interests in Georgia were defined by a conception of Georgia as an aggressive Western puppet, requiring the intervention of 'Great Russia' to save the benighted republics of Abxazia, Ossetia, and Adjara. This view became more mainstream with intense media coverage (194). 
• This style of discussion became more common as Russo-Georgian relations deteriorated. The civilizationalist nationalism seemed to be used when the Kremlin has all out of other options (196).
• Had President Mendvedev not intervened on behalf of Russians and Russian-allied peoples in Georgia, his political career -- which was already shaky b/c of his past Liberalism -- would have collapsed under domestic pressure from nationalists (197).
• In this, Russian civilizational nationalism played a direct role in provoking domestic sentiments to which the Kremlin felt it had to respond. Nationalist and Eurasianist groups, as well as radicals such as the LDPR funded the militias and organized domestic support (197).
• A table detailing Western and Russian opinions on the 2008 Russo-Georgian War can be found on page 200, it has useful information and might also be a source mine on the topic.
• Nationalist rhetorical, particularly in terms of defense of national values, has always been a useful tool in Russian politics. However, following a curtailing of Liberal voices in Russia by the mid 2000s, ideas of civilizational nationalism have begun to directly affect Russian foreign policy, where the beasts of jingoism cannot be contained once distributed on official media (202).