Ideological Aggression and International Law: Soviet and Russian Malign Influence within Legal Domains (MILDs)

Abstract

This article offers a trans-disciplinary legal analysis of the evolution of aggression under international law. It asserts Soviet leadership in the establishment of the definition, but notes that some proposed conceptions of the Soviet theory were not officially adopted. This research also analyzes the 2019 work of Doctor Chernichenko of the Russian Federation and his assertion that the Soviet notion of ideological aggression should be resurrected given the unique and propagandistic tendencies of 21st century interstate conflict. Ideological aggression was originally a Soviet proposal first introduced to the United Nations Special Committee on the Question of Defining Aggression in 1953. This study asserts that any attempt to implement such a concept will be dangerous and particularly damaging to the rule of law, both domestically and internationally. Such a concept will offer practitioners a method to avoid responsibility for international transgression by claiming, inter alia, primacy in the employment of ideological aggression. This concept will also offer justification in the dismantling of coveted principles such as freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Those who employ such tactics do so duplicitously; simultaneously cherishing and subverting the international norms and principles that the greater international community holds dear. Finally, it will offer the practitioners of Malign Legal Operations, also known colloquially as lawfare, yet another instrument with which they may contain and exploit competitors under the auspices of international law. This amounts to Malign Influence within Legal Domains (MILDs), which is the ultimate form of asymmetry. The motives behind such a proposal to resurrect ideological aggression must be dually understood before any discourse surrounding ideological aggression may proceed in a serious manner.

Keywords

• malign influence within legal domains; lawfare; malign legal operations; international law; aggression; ideological aggression; great power competition; malign influence