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Linking colour revolutions and USA strategic doctrines (late twentieth century to 2014)

© Anna Igorevna Filimonova PhD Candidate in Historical Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations and Diplomacy, Faculty of Economics, Management and International Relations, Moscow University for the Humanities 5, Yunosti Str., Moscow, 111395, Email: annafilimon@yandex.ru, ORCID 0000-0002-0857-8240

After the collapse of the USSR, fundamentally new phenomena emerged on the world stage, which became a watershed separating the bipolar from the monopolar order associated with the establishment of global US hegemony. Such phenomena were the events most commonly referred to as "revolutions" because of the scale of the changes produced: the "velvet revolutions" in the former Eastern Bloc, and revolutions of a different type that ended in the change of the current regimes with such serious consequences that we are also talking about revolutionary transformations. These are the technologies of "colour revolutions" that allow organizing artificial and seemingly spontaneous mass protests leading to the removal of the existing legitimate authorities in the country, in fact, to the seizure of power by a pro-American set, which ensures the westernization of the country and the implementation of "neoliberal modernization", which essentially means the opening of national markets and giving natural resources into the undivided use of the Western factor (TNCs and TNBs). "Coloггr revolutions" are inseparable from the strategic documents of the United States, in which since the end of the 20th century, even before the collapse of the USSR, two main trends can be seen: the expansion of the right to unilateral use of force up to a preventive strike, which is inextricably linked to the ideological justification of the "missionary feature" of American foreign policy, the right "to assess" the internal situation in countries and change it to "democratic format", that is, "democratization". "Colour revolutions," although not explicitly mentioned in strategic documents, but as a "technical package of actions," are directly derived from the right assigned to itself by Washington to the unilateral use of force, which is gradually expanding from exclusively military action to a comprehensive impact on the opposing country, which, in fact, is a hybrid war. Thus, the "colour revolutions" clearly fit into Washington's strategic concept of using force across the spectrum (conventional and unconventional warfare) under the pretext of "democratization". The article examines the period of the establishment and expansion of the US right to influence by force (which under current international law is a crime without a statute of limitations) in the period from the late twentieth century to 2014, filling the meaning of the need for "democratic transformation" of other states, with which the United States approached the key period of the "Arab Spring" and "colour revolutions" in the former Soviet Union, the last and most extensive of which was the "Euromaidan" in Ukraine in 2014. The article provides material for preparing lectures and seminars within the training areas "International Relations" and "Political Science".

National security strategies play a key role in shaping US foreign policy, its directions, approaches, ideology, and practical methods for implementing the tasks set. During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, several National Security Strategies were developed in Washington. They were the first stage that formalized the US right to unilateral military action to "democratize" and assert "American values" in other regions of the world to eliminate threats to US national interests and its plans for global dominance.

Today, there is no single definition of hybrid wars. In our view, the most complete characteristics of hybrid war are in the following attributes. Hybrid war is cross-border, opens up many "invisible fronts" in the territory of the enemy and affects virtually all aspects of the life of the opposing state - political, social, economic, and spiritual. Hybrid war can be combined, combining classical force (conventional war) and irregular forms (unconventional war). It is aimed at exhausting the enemy to the point of inability to continue resistance. Irregular forms of influence are organized pressure on state power from within through the activities of the "fifth column", "colour revolutions" technologies, extremist, and terrorist movements. The goal of hybrid wars is a country's losing sovereignty, establishing an external control regime, and using all its resources [2].

Thus, hybrid war is a concept that encompasses the whole range of traditional (conventional) and non-traditional (unconventional) US influences on the "unwanted" country.

"Colour revolutions" have as their main goal the overthrow of the existing regime in a particular country, a legitimate regime, without socio-economic transformation of the state in the interests of its people (peoples). The only condition for transformation is its Westernization, "neoliberal modernization," which actually means opening the national market to Western TNCs and TNBs and establishing a regime of external management of political processes. "Colour revolutions" are a set of technological methods that influence the consciousness and behaviour of people to organize artificial mass riots as a tool to change power. "Colour revolutions" are one of the main links in a hybrid war to undermine the sovereignty and political independence of the state - an opponent of the United States.

For citation:
© Anna Igorevna Filimonova, Linking colour revolutions and USA strategic doctrines (late twentieth century to 2014). Academic Council. 2021;8.
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