The author describes the development of geopolitical studies in Russia after the Soviet breakup. He identifies two main schools of geopolitical analysis, Traditionalist and Revisionist. Traditionalism is inspired by old European and Russian geopolitical theories and views the world through the lenses of confrontation over power and resources. The revisionist school, on the other hand, adopts a considerably broader definition of what constitutes geopolitics by proposing to study various forms of organizing space on a global scale. According to the paper’s central argument, the Russian geopolitics, while having emerged as a vocation, it is yet to turn into a full-fledged academic discipline. It continues to lack coherent and scientifically testable theoretical propositions and needs a broad discussion of its issues with the participation of both traditionalists and revisionists.

The article describes the progress in Russian theoretical thinking about the world. The author reviews the post-Soviet IR discussions and traces how they progressed from one paradigm to another in response to shifts in social issues and political agenda. The paper concludes that although realism has emerged as a prominent theoretical paradigm, Russian IR is still in process of its self-definition and remains widely open to various intellectual influences.