One might ask why the Soviet Union so adamantly promoted the definition of aggression and aggressive war while, as many have noted, conducting military actions that appeared to violate the very definition they espoused in international treaties and conventions. Lawfare: Use of the Definition of Aggressive War by the Soviet and Russian Governments demonstrates that through the use of treaties the Soviet Union and Russian Federation practiced a program of “lawfare” long before the term became known. Lawfare, as applied in this work, is the manipulation or exploitation of the international legal system to supplement military and political objectives. This work is unique in that it not only traces the evolution of the definition of aggression and aggressive war from the Soviet and Russian Federation perspective, it looks at that progression both from the vantage point of leading edge legal legitimacy and its concurrent use as a means of lawfare to control other states legally, politically and equally as important, through the public media of propaganda.
