Project Russia: The Kremlin's Playbook for Undermining Democracies
The Kremlin's "Project Russia" poses a potent framework for mobilizing illiberal forces against the United States and its allies — and it's all but unknown to Western analysts.
You've heard of Project 2025, but there's another framework that may be even more important for understanding the current assault on Western democracies.
"Project Russia" is a series of books published in Russia between 2005 and 2010. They outline a comprehensive framework for undermining the West through a kind of spiritual warfare — and it appears to be the basis for the Kremlin's current war on democracies globally. Frankly, it's the most important set of texts you've never heard of.
In my new Wide Angle column for The Washington Spectator, I outline the threat posed by Project Russia, what it means for the United States, democracies, and the dollar, and crucially, why we may not be able to counter it. If we do not act soon, we may see Putin's plans for a 'supranational autocracy' advance very quickly — with Elon Musk effectively acting as King of America.
It sounds bizarre and unbelievable. But take a moment to learn about Project Russia and I think you'll see it poses an active threat. Western chauvinism has simply blinded us to a very clever assault posed by a stubbornly persistent alternative worldview.
Dave Troy
One of the challenges faced by Western analysts looking to understand the Project Russia source material is that it is in Russian, with little to no English translations available. To overcome this barrier, I've relied on the help of Russian speaker friends, an excellent academic paper by Lynn Corum, as well as Google's NotebookLM, which is able to ingest and analyze texts in other languages. Using these tools, I've also prepared a companion podcast episode of Dave Troy Presents that covers multiple aspects of the Project Russia texts in ways that should be more accessible to Western listeners.
Covering this topic has been a huge challenge, as it requires getting into the Project Russia mindset and translating that worldview for Western audiences. The most significant strategic failure of the United States and NATO is that we persistently project Western worldviews onto our adversaries, and fail to take the time to thoroughly understand their motivations and ideology. I hope my work in this area can help bridge the gap.
Even as Project Russia may arguably loaded with fallacies and based on bad-faith assertions, it still provides a potent framework for mobilizing illiberal forces globally against the United States and our democratic peers. We urgently need to wake up to the threat posed by the spiritual warfare its authors promote — even as we see more of it unfolding around us every day.
Please share this with your friends and let's create a tipping point of our own — where Project Russia is at least as well known as Project 2025. There is no time to lose.
