CIAO DATE: 10/00

International Affairs:
A Russian Journal

No. 4, 2000

Russia’s New Military Doctrine

By V. Manilov _*

The new military doctrine of Russia was enacted by a presidential decree of 21 April, 2000. This document belongs to the context of the conceptual, political and normative-legal instruments ranging from the Constitution of Russia to the president's annual messages that formulate the basic ideas for the country. They shape Russia’s military policy—to different degrees they also ensure its realization. The new document stems from them all. It is an heir to the 1993 military doctrine, it develops the main things and adjusts them to the radically changed military-political and geopolitical situation. At the same time the new doctrine is correlated with the National Security Conception which discusses, more or less widely, Russia's national interests, its place and role in the contemporary world. The doctrine specifies them as applied to the military sphere.

The new documents consist of an introduction of fundamental importance, which explains the conceptual novelty of the military-political principles (1st part), the military-strategic principles (2nd part) and the military economic-principles (3rd part). This is predetermined and reflected by the definition of the military doctrine as a sum-total of the officially accepted opinions of the military-political, military-strategic and military-economic principles of military security. Naturally enough, the doctrine deals in detail, yet conceptually and in a succinct form, with Russia's approaches to military and military-technological cooperation. The document proclaims the same generally accepted principles of equality, mutual advantage, and fulfillment of the international obligations Russia has shouldered under international treaties and agreements. The corresponding part of the doctrine says: All enterprises, organizations and structures of all property forms should be included into the process with due account of the market economy. This is a small section, which completely embraces the entire sphere on the conceptual level. It deals with setting up, strengthening, and improving the military-economic basis of the state's military organization to make it an efficient instrument designed to protect the country's national interests, to ensure stable peace, and military, military-political, and military-technological cooperation.

The introduction points out that the new doctrine, just as its predecessor, is a doctrine of the period of transition. First, the world is still in the process of creating, in a dynamic and active way, its new geopolitical and military-political image. Second, Russia is building up its political and socioeconomic system. The process is still going on. Political parties are being formed, the system of state power is acquiring its final shape, and the branches of power are delimiting their fields of authority. Third, Russia's military organization and all its components have just entered a period of reforms. It is an uphill job because the disintegration tendencies have already affected the army and its organization. There are numerous parallel, and absolutely superfluous, structures which waste the meager resources. It is hard, yet possible, to overcome these trends. The period of transition, a long and difficult one, will be completed as soon as these trends are eliminated. I reckon this will, at best, take not less than ten years. We have to stabilize the internal system, to give it a new shape. This will complete the main job of setting up the military system. As a document of transitory period it allows certain partial amendments in the doctrine's architectonics; certain elements can be replaced with new ones which will better suit possible qualitative changes.

As for the conception of military development, which is a military policy as pursued by the state (which we adopted in 1998), it became part of the Military Doctrine in its entirety, with its ideology, the system of views, approaches and attitudes. Both the conception and the doctrine contain a strategic principle of setting up and maintaining an efficient unified military organization. The doctrine describes the ways, methods, and means to be employed in a very concrete and exact manner; it specifies how the military organization and each of its components should cooperate in a maximally efficient way with minimal costs.

The new document gives a qualitatively new definition of the military doctrine, which describes its subject. This is of fundamental importance. In the past the definition was too vague and too traditional. Today, the doctrine describes military security as its subject. It was heatedly discussed for a long time—and proved—that the military sphere and military security are the most general part of defending the national interests against all sorts of threats. The sphere of defense is part of the military sphere, which presupposes defense against armed aggression in the first place, as well as defense security, which calls for a system of measures, forces and means needed for defense.

Thus, the military sphere is a wider sphere, which involves the forces, means, and resources that would ensure not only defense but also identification or parrying of threats at the earliest stage possible. If this fails the military threats should be neutralized and stemmed.

In line with this conceptual approach the doctrine contains provisions which, once approved by the president according to the Constitution of Russia will acquire obligatory nature for the executive power structures across Russia. There was a discussion about the nature of a doctrine: is it a declarative or a normative and legally binding document? The new Military Doctrine is a blend of both simply because it brought together the official ideas of and official views on the military-political, military-economic and military-strategic foundations of the country's security. They are concentrated and exposed in a systematized and structured manner rather than being scattered in numerous loose documents. This makes the document a political declaration. This makes the military doctrine a well-structured system of official views. It is also a concentrated system of official instructions of how to assess the military-political situation, parry threats, concentrate forces, means and resources so that to efficiently protect the national interests in the best way possible at the lowest cost.

At the same time the new Military Doctrine of Russia contains a system of views and assessments related to the state and prospects of the military-political situation at the turn of the twenty-first century, that is, between the second and third millennia. This is especially important; it is also necessary to adequately grasp, reflect and put into words in the doctrine the specifics and features of the contemporary military-political situation and its aesthetic traits. The document presents, structuralizes and classifies the main features of the contemporary military-political situation and offers, in a structuralized way, the destabilizing factors. These factors are most important if one takes into account the subject of the military doctrine.

Today, economic processes are being globalized, the role of the state is objectively decreasing while the role of inter-state, supra-state and other alliances is increasing. Multinational and transnational corporations are controlling financial flows, price formation, etc, which are less dependent on state control than before. This underlies all threats, military threats including. Here I am talking about what should be reflected as a conception in the military doctrine: this document should not contain any profound deliberations or describe the original sources of threats (which should appear in other documents). The doctrine serves other purpose—its should offer conclusions: which threats, potential or real, exist or may appear and what should be done to identify them and repulse, or if this fails, to neutralize, localize or stem. This is the most important task. We are proceeding from the consideration that the idea of sustained development is part of the conception of security and military security which means that the state, society and individuals are well protected against military threats. This can ensure sustained development of society, the state, and the individual.

The first paragraph of the doctrine that comes immediately after the introduction contains the most important conclusion. It says that the military-political situation and its main development trends imbibe the latest scientific and technical achievements; to a great extent they extrapolate them to the state's military organization and inter-state relations in the military sphere. Wars and armed conflicts in which the latest means of warfare are used are fraught with the consequences that make prevention of wars an imperative of our time. This is the first, and the key one, postulate of the Military Doctrine of Russia, which runs through the entire document.

Sun Tzu, great Chinese thinker and military leader of ancient times, wrote that the supreme art of any soldier was to prevent a war rather than to win it. It should be said that the Military Doctrine agrees with the political approaches of the majority of the leading countries' military doctrines. In this respect it has something in common with the new NATO strategic conception. Recently in London I offered a systemic analysis of contemporary military doctrines and demonstrated their common features with and distinctions from that of Russia's. It turned out that we shared common approaches to many issues, especially in the political part. True, we often crossed swords over details that we tended to regard as all-important.

How can one describe the key contradiction of our time that is present in the military sphere, the military-political situation? It is a confrontation of two objectively existing trends, not the evil will emanating from Moscow, Washington or European capitals. It is an objective course of social development created by certain states that wanted to fish in the troubled waters of chaos and uncertainty brought about by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty disintegration.

The most prominent trend was towards a unipolar world led by the only superpower and an attached group of states. I want to say once more: this is no accusation but a statement of an objective fact. At the same time, political ambitions and attempts to realize the new possibilities and create new centers of force were spurred on when the bipolar system, the dumb-bell that for many years had been preserving strategic balance and maintaining a relative stability in the world, disappeared. This is true of Europe, China and the Pacific region in general. The Islamic world is showing a desire to consolidate and strengthen its mounting influence in the world. There is another trend leading towards a multipolar world.

The opposition between them is, in fact, the main threat to stability, security and peace. This is an objective process the outcomes of which should be correctly assessed and registered in the military doctrine. The main thing is that the system of threats in the military sphere proper is changing; they are transforming into non-military threats and, quite often, present a bigger threat to stability than military threats. The global military confrontation is a thing of the past, which could have destroyed mankind in case of two systems' global clash. A threat of a large-scale war with the use of the latest means of warfare (at least, in the foreseeable future) has diminished. It is being replaced with the threats that will shape the next millennium or the twenty-first century: separatism, ethnic and religious extremism which, as an attentive observer can see, are blending with terrorism, and the terrorist means of securing political aims. In fact, it has become the main threat.

From this it follows that local wars and armed conflicts fraught with unfolding into larger wars present a real and increasing danger. The world has become globalized to the extent that these conflicts may escalate if nothing is done by concerted efforts to stifle them at the beginning.

This gives birth to double standards in politics, a possible devaluation of the security mechanisms and structures the world community has set up. I have in mind the UN and its Security Council, OSCE and other structures designed to ensure mankind's security in various spheres.

Thus, the first trend is a gradual transformation of the military threats into non-military ones while the latter are gathering weight and priority importance for stability and security in the world. There is a second trend, which is the changed structure of security in which the defense component is shrinking while the security component is increasing. This is another objective process.

The above can be amply illustrated by NATO's developments. Set up in 1949 the mightiest military alliance remained constitutionally the same organization with the Washington treaty fixing its function as a collective defense body. Today, there are no military threats, which by their scope or importance can be a menace to the NATO members. Yet, there are threats on the military fringes, armed conflicts triggered by ethnic and religious contradictions of which nothing is said in the NATO treaty. To survive as a military alliance the bloc has to invent new tasks ill-suited to its functions and contradicting its design.

So we have what we have: this is what the military-political situation today is about. There was an air operation in the Balkans in which NATO realized its new strategic conception by employing, without a UN sanction, its joint military force outside the sphere of competence against a sovereign state. Neither the military-political nor the military-technical nor any other aims have been achieved—the operation has contributed to European and world destabilization.

The share of the defense-related problems and tasks in the security structure is diminishing to give place to the security-related problems and tasks. This means that we have to make adequate decisions and take adequate measures to parry the threats in the security sphere. To do this we need corresponding structures; the role of the United Nations should increase rather than decrease together with the role of such organizations as OSCE, the European Union, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and others. They should work according to a new formula of prevention of wars and armed conflicts, that is, to address the tasks of creating a common and universal security system.

By a common security system I mean a system that would cover all states not only those inside a closed military bloc. By universal I mean a system able to parry all types of threats—political, economic, information, ecological and others, including military threats but not as a priority. All this, in a concentrated form, became the basis for an assessment of the military-political situation and conclusions to be employed in other sections of the Military Doctrine of Russia. From this it follows that prevention of a new war is the task of primary importance. In this sense the Doctrine can be called a doctrine of war prevention: the entire system of views is oriented on preventing a war, an aggression or a conflict. We proceed from the absolute priority of political, non-military methods of crisis and conflict settlement that requires no use of force. This is registered in the doctrine.

The second Military Doctrine of Russia is not only a doctrine of war prevention—it is a doctrine of deterrent . What we have in mind is not merely nuclear deterrent but deterrent in general: deterrent of escalation, growing tension, regional and global arms race, unjustified use of force, including nuclear force, etc. Naturally enough, we pay particular attention to nuclear deterrence and the new provision related to the use of nuclear weapons. The new doctrine offers nothing that differs fundamentally from the 1993 doctrine. All the guarantees in their completeness, including the "negative guarantees" which Russia, as one of the nuclear powers, has undertaken in the UN have been entered into the new doctrine.

It says: "The Russian Federation has reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other mass destruction weapons against it and (or) its allies, and also in response to a large-scale aggression with the use of conventional weapons in situations critical for the Russian Federation's national security." In other words, if an aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons creates a danger for Russia's continued existence as a subject of international law and international relations, that is, the continued existence of the nation of Russia as part of socium, Russia will deem it right to employ all the means at its disposal, the nuclear armaments included. It should be noted that this use can be provoked only by aggression—other interpretations come straight from the devil.

The Military Doctrine of Russia is a doctrine of deterrent. Russia is developing and strengthening, in a balanced way, general purpose forces together with developing, strengthening and improving its strategic and nuclear forces strictly within its responsibilities, international agreements and treaties on elimination, limitation and reduction of armaments, strategic and nuclear included. The doctrine says that the deterrence potential and the development and qualitative improvement of the general purpose forces, the combined units, units and structures in operational readiness, are two key priorities.

The doctrine of partnership is the third feature of the Military Doctrine of Russia. It says that Russia regards as its primary obligation of fundamental importance to treat all the states of the world operating within the UN Charter and not nurturing or realizing aggressive plans against it as its partners in strengthening security, peace and stability. The doctrine has identified the main criteria of partnership. It should be added that in this sphere our ideas differ from those of our colleagues in NATO and the leading countries. A discussion on the issue is under way. There are three criteria of partnership as it is interpreted in Russia, which are of general humane importance.

First. As applied to the military sphere partnership presupposes a joint participation and equal roles in assessing and analyzing military-political situations or any crisis in the security sphere. The most important thing is to produce an assessment adequate to the ideas of all participating states. This is a complicated process yet no adequate and balanced assessment is possible outside it. Second. All states are entitled to an equal participation in decision-making on neutralizing, localizing and stemming crises in the sphere of security. Third. The states should be equally involved in realizing their joint decisions made on an equal basis.

These three simple elements make partnership a genuine one, something that Russia is ready to accept. Close and full-scale partnership with the North-Atlantic Alliance and with all the states Russia regards as its partners is possible on the basis of these elements and after a transformation of NATO into a political military organization. Finally, the doctrine has formulated a complete and absolutely novel classification of wars and armed conflicts. It serves the starting point for a system of prevention, deterrence, and in case of war of neutralization and stemming.

There are three principles on which the classification of contemporary wars and armed conflicts is based.

First—the military-political aims pursued in wars and armed conflicts. According to them the wars can be described as just, that is, corresponding to the UN Charter, waged to protect sovereignty, territorial integrity, the system of rights and freedoms, human rights included, and all other things within the UN Charter and to repulse aggression. There are unjust wars according to the UN Charter, the system of generally accepted norms and the principles of international law. These are aggressive wars waged to achieve political aims through the use of force.

The second principle applied to the classification of wars and armed conflicts is the forces and means employed: nuclear and other mass destruction weapons and conventional weapons. The third principle is the scale of wars and armed conflicts. The wars may be local, regional, and large-scale, that is, spilling over the boundaries of regions or very large regions such as, for example, the Asian Pacific Region.

The doctrine says in so many words that the military organization of our state and the armed forces as its core and the linchpin of military security should be ready to wage a war and repulse the largest-scope threats. The document gives the details of how to ensure such readiness from the point of view of equipment, mobilization, troop training and troop stationing, etc. There is no use to be ready for the war, which we failed to localize. It can develop into another war, which we would not be ready to wage. This is inexcusable for any state—let alone for Russia, which has learned many bitter lessons of history.

The content, range and the types of tasks that the military organization of the Russian state is facing are determined by the content of the key features of wars and armed conflicts (which can be classified in their turn as international and domestic) described in the military doctrine in a systemic way. The new Military Doctrine is orientated on and subordinated to the fulfillment of the most important task of consolidating all forces, means and resources of all branches of power, all organs of power and the entire nation to parry the threats in the military sphere. Setting up and developing a single integral military organization of the state does this. It is, at the same time, the fundamental difference between the new Military Doctrine of Russia and the previous documents. Everything that the Military Doctrine says about the tasks, official approaches, and so on, is designed to ensure military security through the functioning, development and use of a unified military organization. This is a unified system because its system of command and control, bringing up to strength, operational planning is unified in the same way as the system of all types of procurement. The doctrine set up a common platform for the functioning of all components of the military organization, the armed forces of other troops (the forces of the Interior Ministry, border guards, the troops of the federal service of government communication and information, and others) within the single system of coordinates. This is what makes the new doctrine totally different from the previous and still valid documents.

The new Military Doctrine also describes the military organization as a centralized system of control and command starting with the President as the Supreme Commander and ending with the system of unified regional headquarters and carrying out the general and particular tasks by all the components of military organizations with the rational use of their resources. The doctrine prescribes a complex approach to formulating and carrying out all the tasks in the sphere of defense and security, in particular, those tasks which we have regrettably to deal with in the Northern Caucasus. The Military Doctrine has taken into account the previous and present campaigns there. If the law enforcement bodies and the state are confronted, in a domestic armed conflict, with an organized, numerous, well-equipped and well-armed force the armed forces have to destroy it in close cooperation with all other structures and components of the military organization. This is what is being done.

The doctrine points out that the threat of a direct military aggression in its traditional forms against the Russian Federation and its allies has decreased due to the positive developments on the international scene, active peaceful foreign political course and (this is of fundamental importance) maintaining on an adequate level of the Russian military potential, the nuclear deterrence potential in the first place. The doctrine also points to non-traditional threats; it does not exclude a possibility of their realization and mobilizes for their repulsion. Such threats can be realized in non-traditional forms, without contacts, at a distance, in the information sphere. This is very serious. The doctrine also says that in some sectors there are potential foreign and domestic threats to Russia's security and its allies. They are growing. This means that at certain sectors there are growing threats along the borders, in the areas of local wars or armed conflicts. Certain forces are setting up and training illegal armed units to be sent to Russia. This is what happening in the Northern Caucasus.

There is also regional arms race in certain strategic sectors, which can develop from challenges to risks, from risks to a danger, and from a danger to a threat. There are also claims on Russia's territory and these threats are real. Some of them are concealed, others are not open, but certain wild extremists openly pronounce their threats.

The doctrine states in a clear and tough way that one of the priorities of Russia's military security is an all-round cooperation and partnership with the CIS members, in the fields of security and collective defense as well. The Union of Russia and Byelorussia is specially mentioned. The Doctrine says that the tasks of ensuring military security in the interests of Russia and its allies, members of the Collective Security Treaty are very important which means a system of the treaty, the structures, headquarters, united armed forces, joint actions, cooperation, joint planning and setting up ad hoc groups. This is all clearly stated in the Doctrine which treats the problems of planning, development and functioning, and the use of military force.

Everybody knows why we froze the relations with NATO. We had reached a lot and signed the Founding Act. This was a compromise yet a positive compromise. Regrettably, the Balkan tragedy threw us back to where we started, or even further back. Life has shown that the joint declarations in the Founding Act are viable so the document needs not to be revised. What we should do is to add practical content to the declarations. From the very beginning we wanted precisely this yet had to trust words and agree on friendship, mutual consultations, joint decisions. We set up the Joint Standing Council. Regrettably, the Balkan tragedy showed that the NATO leaders pushed the declarations aside when taking a political decision on an air operation against Yugoslavia.

From this it follows that the task of the day is to add the content, on three positions, to the declarations on partnership. We had serious negotiations about this with NATO Secretary General Robertson and other representatives on the multilateral and bilateral basis. There is no doubt that there is an understanding that otherwise the crippled partnership cannot be restored. This is not an associated membership in NATO because we clearly distinguish between the problems of defense and the problems of security. We are not encroaching on NATO's sovereign rights as a military-political alliance and on sovereignties of its members. Russia does not aspire to decision-making, assessment of situations and carrying out decisions in the field of collective security. We do not claim the right of veto, the cornerstone of the consensus in NATO because this has nothing to do with the system of defense. We are talking about security, the problems of security and the crisis situations in Europe. We believe it absolutely necessary and indispensable that Russia should not be kept in the lobby, pushed aside and assigned a passive role. We want Russia to contribute to decision-making on an equal basis, to realization of decisions in the field of security, prevention and neutralization of crises, etc.

Vladimir Putin said that at some time in future Russia could join NATO—I do not see any reasons why it cannot do this. This will become possible when NATO stops being the political and psychological remnant of the old epoch. We have been talking about it a lot. As soon as NATO stops being a system designed for collective defense against a non-existent (in scope, content, and vector) adversary and transforms into a political military organization able to deal with the security problems within UN and having adequate institutes for this. Naturally enough, Russia could become a full-fledged member of such organization. We proceed from the assumption that NATO, with its huge potential and an experience of collective actions and decision making, could become a very important component of a general and all embracing system of European security together with such structures as the European Union, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and many other successfully functioning institutions.

 

Endnotes:

*: Valerii Manilov is First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, Colonel-General, and Doctor of Political Sciences.  Back.