Exploring Russia’s Postponed War Against Ukraine: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Strategic Studies Institutes’ Publications from 1991 to 2014

Abstract

The article conducts a corpus study of official reports and papers from the Strategic Studies Institutes of the United States, NATO, the European Union, Ukraine, and Russia up to and including 2014 to determine how Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine was represented and how postponed it proved to be. The US, EU, and NATO were very cautious and slow in establishing relations with Ukraine, either because they considered its integration with Russia very likely or because they did not want to destroy lucrative economic relations with Russia given the unstable and inconsistent foreign policy. The US, EU, and NATO were well aware of Ukraine's vulnerabilities and had been documenting various forms of Russian pressure on Ukraine since the 1990s (the preparatory phase of hybrid war) as well as the high likelihood of Russian military aggression since that time. Therefore, based on the institutes’ predictions, the Russia’s war against Ukraine was unavoidable, yet has been postponed for at least 20 years.