Russian threat through the prism of British competitive liberalism

Abstract

1 CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Political Studies Department of Security Studies Master's Thesis 2023 Artem Samborskyi 2 CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Political Studies Department of Security Studies Russian threat through the prism of British competitive liberalism Master's thesis Author: Artem Samborskyi Study programme: International Security Studies Supervisor: doc. Martin Riegl, Ph.D. Year of the defence: 2023 3 Abstract The thesis is aimed at addressing the existing lack of academic understanding of the United Kingdom's foreign policy towards the Russian Federation, which stems from insufficient conceptualization of the current posture of Britain on the international stage and lack of in- depth research of the reasons behind the apparent animosity between London and Moscow. Specifically, the work answers the question of why the Russian Federation is designated the most acute direct threat to the United Kingdom and its "most urgent" foreign policy priority. The thesis is comprised of three major parts, each dedicated to a specific source of explanations of the mentioned research problem. Namely, the first two chapters constitute a document analysis of governmental, publicly available British thinking on the matter and academic literature...