Even if Russia is a threat, only desecuritizaiton solves---it opens the pathway for achieving long-term peace---securitization is unsustainable, so it's try or die.

At the beginning of this paper a question was posed: What is the logic of the Russian “threat”, and are there any “cures” suggested in mainstream media coverage? Before, this is answered in full, the bits of the complex puzzle need to be brought together in order to make sense of the bigger picture. Firstly, is the role of journalism and the mass media. This institution has managed to create a branded myth around itself as being a fourth estate, an institution that checks and balances the political power in the name of public interest. However, there are concerns and evidence that journalism’s role has become co-opted by economic and political interests. This is precisely because of the assumed power to influence perception and shape public opinion. The mainstream mass media are indelibly tied to the interests of the hegemonic system of liberal democracy acting in the capacity as their information gatekeeper and watchdog.

Currently, that system of liberal democracy is experiencing a multi-levelled crisis in terms of public trust and legitimacy owing to what has been labelled as being the populist challenge. This has been seen in the US elections when Trump beat his rival and the anticipated winner (by mainstream politics and mass media) Hillary Clinton, when the favoured liberal contender was beaten by someone that rhetorically stood against the liberal system. There were also similar challenges found in BREXIT, the French and German elections. Another problem of contemporary politics is found in the competition for increasingly scarcer governmental financial resources. As a result, a common communication strategy seems to have been developed using a “cookie cutter” approach in order to attain these political and economic objectives. After some years of not being the global folklore devil, Russia has been re-elevated to this status, which may be in part through the ability of the moral panic communicators to link the supervillain brand of the Soviet Union from the Cold War to the Russian Federation. Thereby, the brand has some pre-existing level of recognition and status to the target audiences.

Rather than taking the strategy of a longer term and somewhat unpredictable path of either reforming the system of a reasoned and rational form of communication, a shorter-term approach of using emotionally based messaging that intends to induce fear in the target audience. When fear is induced, the logic works differently insofar as there is less critical reflection on the quality of the logic and evidence being presented. Therefore, inducing a moral panic can adequately meet the organisational objectives. Traditionally, moral panics have been associated as a means of ethical or social regulation and control within society. This study presents an indicative case where moral panic is used to regulate and control politics and economics in a given society or system in order to fend off challenges to their continued hegemony and in order to justify policy that may otherwise be difficult to pass.