ECONOMIC WARFARE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: FROM STATE-CONTROLLED CRIMINAL ACTIVITY TO SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION AS A HYBRID WEAPON

Abstract

This study proceeds from the hypothesis that contemporary Western socio-political movements – including radical interpretations of neoliberalism, LGBT rights and the ecological transition – are not the product of direct Russian intervention. Instead, they function as a functional extension and natural evolution of the strategic doctrine of “state-controlled criminal activity” developed by the USSR during the Cold War.
The main goal of this study is to demonstrate the strategic continuity in the methods of economic and hybrid warfare waged by Russia (as the successor to the USSR) through a comparative analysis of:
• The historical toolkit focused on state-controlled drug trafficking during the Cold War, viewed not simply as a criminal activity, but as a purposeful strategy to demoralize the adversary by undermining public health and work ethics, creating parallel economies to finance subversive activities and corruption, and compromising public and state institutions;
• The modern toolkit focused on amplifying social divisions in the 21st century, where polarizing themes such as the radical green transition, identity, and neoliberal globalism are used as weapons to achieve the same strategic goals - social disunity with the breakdown of social capital and public consensus; political paralysis through blocking effective decision-making by devolving public debate into fruitless, emotionally charged conflicts; economic weakening, resulting from directing public resources and public energy towards internal conflicts, at the expense of economic competitiveness and geopolitical influence; legitimizing authoritarianism as a "stable" and "traditional" alternative to the "chaotic" and "decayed" West.
Additional objectives of the study are to identify operational parallels between the two approaches: the use of intermediaries (then – criminal groups, now – marginal activists and extreme political groups), the role of intelligence and propaganda; to explain the evolution of tactics in response to changing technologies and political realities; to argue that viewing these contemporary phenomena only as internal Western problems is insufficient, and that they must also be analyzed in the context of channels for targeted external hybrid attacks.
Achieving this goal will allow for a better understanding of the nature of contemporary threats to national security, which no longer come only from conventional armies, but from the systematic weakening of the resilience of society from within – a result of both the action of internal policies and their skillful external use.
To achieve the set objectives, the study uses two main scientific methods – historical analysis and comparative method.
Through historical analysis, the following literary sources were examined:
• Primary: Documentary publications of intelligence services such as declassified documents, memoirs of key figures, official decisions of Soviet bodies.
• Secondary sources: Academic works on the history of the Cold War, specialized studies on Soviet hybrid operations, as well as historical analyses of the Opium Wars as a precedent for economic warfare.
The objectives of the historical analysis are to reconstruct the strategic thought of the USSR by identifying the goals, mechanisms and expected effects of the drug operation; to establish the institutional framework – which services were involved, how the personnel were trained and how the management was carried out; to identify the goals directly stated by Soviet strategists, which will serve as a basis for comparison.
For the comparative method, the object of comparison is the two phenomena – the Soviet drug strategy in the past and the Russian exploitation of social divisions in the present. The main categories for comparison are strategic goals, operational principles, tactical means and target effects.
By applying these methods, the study demonstrates continuity with a change in the adaptation of means to the new era, a generalized model of the Russian (Soviet) strategy for indirect weakening of a geopolitical adversary is formulated, which can be applied to the analysis of future interaction. The similarities identified through the comparative method serve as an evidentiary basis to support the main thesis that modern phenomena can be considered as a functional analogue of the historical methods of economic and hybrid warfare.
This methodology allows for a systematic and objective tracing of the evolution of one type of threat, moving from specific historical events to an analysis of contemporary, more difficult-to-capture processes.
The main conclusion is that if modern hybrid attacks are an evolution of the historical strategy for weakening the adversary, then the response must be equally deep and systematic. It should not lead to a purposeful restoration of the health of society itself.