Legacy Media Misses Disturbing Russian Lingo Emanating from the Pentagon

It sounds better in the original Russian, Pete

Over the weekend, The Washington Post broke an interesting story about an internal guidance memo issued by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, which lays out the military’s priorities. The legacy media’s biggest takeaways has been twofold: Hegseth’s priorities seem to be focused on deterring China from seizing Taiwan, while leaving our European and Middle Eastern allies out in the cold; and lifting some language in the memo word for word from Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank behind Project 2025.

But something else caught my eye that the legacy media seems to have missed — something that is immensely troubling to those of us who are steeped in post-Soviet history. And it raises serious questions about who is in Hegseth’s ear, using idiomatic Russian expressions translated into English for his consumption.

Per the Washington Post:

Hegseth’s guidance synchronizes the Pentagon with some of Trump’s international fixations, describing undetermined threats from the “near abroad.” U.S. forces, he wrote, must be “ready to defend American interests wherever they might be threatened in our hemisphere, from Greenland, to the Panama Canal, to Cape Horn.”

Focus on the words “near abroad.” In the original Russian, which is where this phrase comes from, it is called “ближнее зарубежье” (transliterated as “blizhneye zarubezhye”). It is how Russia refers to the other former fourteen Soviet Republics that once comprised the Soviet Union, whose collapse Russian President Vladimir Putin called the demise of "historical Russia” and “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” It is the part of the world Putin insists should be wholly within the Russian sphere of influence — if not eventually part of Russia proper.

This is not a phrase that Americans have ever historically used to refer to anything, so it is worth asking why it ended up in a memo authored by Secretary of Defense. Are we to assume that Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, is part of the American “near abroad?” How about Panama, a sovereign nation that is not contiguous to the United States, or Cape Horn in southern Chile? Are these countries to be treated the way Putin treats Russia’s “near abroad?”

Here is a short (and not remotely exhaustive primer) on how Russia treats its “near abroad” neighbors. In 2008, Russia launched the first European war of the 21st century when it supported separatist movements in Georgia and eventually launched a full-scale invasion of the country. In 2014, it seized the Crimean Peninsula from its “near abroad” neighbor Ukraine. And in 2022, it invaded Ukraine, where it is now engaged in a genocidal war of attrition.

It is remarkable — and deeply troubling — that Hegseth has taken to referring to countries located in the western hemisphere as “near abroad” too. That language is not a coincidence. It shows that somehow, in some way, Russian talking points and ideology have seeped into the brain and the rhetoric of the Secretary of Defense.

The substance of Hegseth’s memorandum bears this out. For the first time since the NATO alliance was forged in the wake of World War II, the United States will not prioritize Europe’s defense if it is attacked by Russia. The guidance suggests that the United States will continue providing its nuclear umbrella to Europe but will only provide forces that are not essential to its Chinese mission or to protecting the homeland. Ostensibly, protecting the homeland also includes defending American interests in our own “near abroad,” from “Greenland, to the Panama Canal, to Cape Horn.”

This is not just an affirmative plan to finish off the NATO alliance, which has relied on collective security as its bedrock principle. It is putting the final nail in NATO’s coffin by using language peddled by the successor nation of the very superpower NATO was created to counter.

I have no idea whether Hegseth is trolling NATO by using Russian terminology or whether this is something more nefarious. Whatever the reason, add it to the long list of others that raise serious questions about the Kremlin’s influence on this administration.

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Further Reading:

The Washington Post: Secret Pentagon memo on China, homeland has Heritage fingerprints

The Heritage Foundation: The Prioritization Imperative: A Strategy to Defend America’s Interests in a More Dangerous World

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: The End of the Near Abroad

Reuters: Putin rues Soviet collapse as demise of 'historical Russia'

NBC News: Putin: Soviet collapse a 'genuine tragedy'