Using siege mentality as a strategic heuristic

Personifying a state is a limited analytical device, since a country does not literally have one mind. In this interpretation, Soviet and later Russian strategy is strongly shaped by fear of siege and a desire to control the terms on which outsiders enter its political or security space. The Second World War reinforces that outlook in Russian memory, although the Soviet partnership with Nazi Germany and the partition of Poland preceded the German invasion of the USSR. Russia is not alone in acting from fear, and no state is perfectly rational. The heuristic helps explain why defensible borders, buffer zones, and controlled maritime access recur in the later GIUK Gap analysis.