Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, November 28, 1996

Military Doctrine

What Russia needs today is a comprehensive military-political orientation and a clear definition and straightening of our national interests and positions, taking into consideration the new outside and internal military-political and other factors.

Our military doctrine should be well known to our friends and foes alike. No one may be permitted to interpret ambiguously the strategy and tactics of our domestic and foreign military policy and the methods of assuring our national defense.

It is also important that Russia's new military doctrine should reflect the realistic tasks which we set before ourselves at present and in the long-term perspective.

I am absolutely sure that our military doctrine will reflect, as ever, our country's peaceable policy. Russia is not going to attack anyone or to be the first to use military force. The task of its armed forces is to protect its national interests, territorial integrity and independence and repel a possible aggression. The maintenance of peace remains our priority objective.

But being one of the world's largest countries, Russia has its own global and regional stakes. I am surprised that we have been too shy for some reason to declare our strategic interests in the past few years. The US, for its part, boldly declares its worldwide strategic priorities as a long-term and unchangeable components of its foreign policy.

The vastness of the Russian Federation, which lies in Europe and Asia, predetermines its vital interests on the Eurasian continent. The sphere of its strategic interests covers, first and foremost, the new independent states, CIS countries, which used to be the constituent republics of the Soviet Union not very long ago. Relations with these states are of prime importance for us in the politico-economic and military areas. The all-round expansion and strengthening of integration processes in the military sphere completely corresponds to Russia's strategy course with regard to the members of the CIS countries.

The expansion of military cooperation and integration within the Commonwealth of Independent States should be regarded as a major component of strengthening our national defense and security.

It is absolutely clear that cooperation in this strategically important sphere plays a special role against the background of the alarming trends that are developing in some CIS countries and near their borders. There is hardly any need to prove that it is easier for any CIS country to protect its national interests collectively than on its own.

However, we have to state openly that Russia's efforts towards expanding military cooperation meets with open and secret opposition from our enemies. The strategy of setting Russia and other CIS countries at loggerheads and undermining our positions in these countries have been pursued for quite a time now. It is particularly noticeable in the friendly Trans-Caucasian and Central Asian countries of the Commonwealth.

Certain internal and outside forces increasingly actively strive not to allow Russia to pursue its strategic interests in those regions. They actively use separatist and nationalistic sentiments for this purpose. The intelligence and other secret services of some Western countries have long since started coordinating their efforts in the drive to use as effectively as possible the differences and contradictions which exist between the CIS countries.

It is only natural that Russia, as a European country, has its stakes in the East European countries which neighbour on the CIS, including the former Warsaw Pact members. We cannot but state that the admission of these countries to military-political groupings or blocs that are aimed against Russia either directly or indirectly will tangibly impair its security and can seriously affect its military-strategic position. It is more likely than not that the NATO factor will continue to largely precondition the character of our efforts towards the creation of a new national defense system. One of the main problems in this respect is the expansion of NATO to the East.

NATO

As a result of joint efforts and thanks to joint readiness for compromise, Russia and NATO have accumulated in the past few years considerable experience of cooperation, including cooperation under the Partnership for Peace program. I want to emphasise in particular that all this has been done and continues to be done without the expansion of NATO. At present, however, instead of jointly building a continent-wide system of collective security, Europe can roll back to the times comparable to the sorrowful Cold War era.

The NATO leadership has announced the possibility of the bloc's enlargement by the admission of new members. It has happened at the time when the West officially admits that no security threat is coming from the Russian Federation. In other words, there is no strategic need not only for NATO's expansion to the East (which is exactly the issue at hand in the first place), but for the preservation of that bloc in its present form. We have to admit that in this case we are reaping the bitter fruits of our former foreign policy which lacked any principles, as well as our own credulity. When the decisions on the withdrawal of our troops from Germany, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia were made, the question of the inadmissibility of NATO enlargement in response to our peaceable actions was raised. Although verbal guarantees of non-enlargement were given, they were not codified in any treaty or other document.

As a result, we have a paradoxical situation. The defensive organisation of the Warsaw Pact countries has ceased to exist, while NATO still has tremendous military might and not only continues to build it up by providing its troops with newest and more effective weaponry but tries to expand eastward up to the borders of Russia.

We cannot but be seriously alarmed by such a prospect. In Bergen, Norway, and during my meetings with the defense ministers of the US, India, Italy, South Korea, Britain, Slovakia and Ukraine I more than once emphasised that the expansion of NATO to the East is unacceptable for Russia. This position is in line with the instructions of the Russian President and Prime Minister and is completely shared by the Foreign Ministry.

NATO enlargement would reanimate the situation similar to the Cold War era, when the bloc's military groupings would directly confront Russian troops, in particular in the Kaliningrad region. The putting of a ramified network of airdromes under the command of NATO (even hypothetically) would considerably expand its possibilities, allowing its planes to reach targets along the Smolensk-Bryansk-Kursk and Petrozavodsk-Yaroslavl-Belgorod lines. As a result the Europe-based tactical nuclear weapons would actually become strategic weapons, which would jeopardise the START-1 and START-2 treaties and call in question the possibility of concluding the START-3 treaty. In addition, the admission of the Baltic states would give NATO strategically important naval bases and unilateral military advantage, while the activities of the Russian Baltic fleet would be largely restricted.

President Boris Yeltsin has recently set forth an altogether new approach to the problem of NATO enlargement. He offered first to conclude a special treaty between Russia and NATO and then adopt the decision of the bloc's expansion. The signing of such a treaty could help to remove many anxieties and determine conditions under which the bloc's expansion would not cause serious alarm among Russians and their allies. Categorical No has been the answer to this proposal. A real threat to Russia's security appears. So, in case of NATO's expansion to the East, we will be objectively faced with the need to take adequate measures. We may have to do the following:

1. revise the key provisions of our military doctrine, proceeding from the changed situation;

2. build up efforts aimed to put together a defensive alliance comprising not only the Commonwealth countries, as a response action;

3. considerably strengthen our southern, western and northwestern groups of troops, contrary to the CFE treaty;

4. build up tactical nuclear weapons along our western borders, as an objective necessity. Things can go as far as re-targeting of our missiles to certain European countries, which would have become NATO members (especially if they agree to get nuclear weapons deployed in their territories);

5. back out from our commitments under the START treaties.

I think that it would be more logical if, in adapting itself to new geopolitical conditions, NATO were working to become an organisation oriented to the prevention and settlement of crises and collective peacemaking activities on the mandate of the UN Security Council and the Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), rather than enlargement.

The development of working relations between Russia and NATO is a task of special importance for the immediate future. There are vast reserves for such cooperation in such areas as the prevention of the proliferation of mass destruction weapons, the combating of organised crime and the illegal narcotic drugs business, and the elimination of the consequences of natural calamities, technogenic catastrophes and the ecological aftermaths of military activities.

Russia and NATO countries can, in my opinion, fruitfully cooperate in the military sphere on a bilateral basis. A vivid example of this are the recently signed agreements on cooperation in the military-technical and defense spheres between Russia and Italy. These documents once again convincingly prove that it is possible to cooperate without resorting to the expansion of the North Atlantic alliance. We intend to sign similar agreements with Britain, Slovakia and other European countries in the foreseeable future. These documents will contribute to the further strengthening of security and good-neighbourliness in Europe.

Thinking of the NATO factor in the context of objectively necessary changes in the system of our defense, I come to the conclusion that it is more necessary than ever before to coordinate the efforts of the Russian Foreign and Defense Ministries in the drafting of joint proposals for the country's president and government with regard to the strategic issues of its foreign policy. The more successful this coordination is, the less money will be spend for military preparations.

Whence the Threat to Our Security?

Many countries would not mind expanding their territories at somebody else's expense. Numerous territorial disputes have not been settled yet. Russia must be ready for all this.

The objective appraisal of threats to Russia's security prompts us to take into account the fact that there are more than 70 hotspots of tension on our planet and over 20 regions of the world are regarded as zones of potential crises. The majority of the seats of conflicts are in the territory of what used to be the Soviet Union. This creates a direct threat to the security of our country.

We all see where a belated or inadequate reaction to the threat to the unity of the state and an inefficient evaluation of a military-political situation in a hotspot of tension can lead. I mean the events in the Chechen republic, first and foremost. These events have laid bare the situation in our armed forces and the degree of their preparedness to act jointly with other "power" structures. All this prompts the urgent need to revise the conceptual approaches to the organisation of the country's security system.

What Is Defense?

It is time to revise the notions "defense" and "the quality of the country's defense". First of all, we must say that defense should be affordable for the country's economy; it should not be too burdensome on it. At the same time, it cannot be too easy. Defense should be sufficient.

It should be sufficient so that the country could adequately react to any threats to its security. If such threats grow, the defense capacity of the country should also grow. In other words, defense should be flexible and mobile.

Proceeding from the present realities, I think that our defense should be based on the principle of deterrence.

A major aspect of restructuring our defense is the establishment of a strict order in the system of mobilisation resources (account, training and retraining of draftees, the correct estimation of mobilisation capacities, creation of the necessary reserve of military hardware, food and ammunition, elaboration of plans for their deployment in a special period, etc.). This aspect has been neglected more than the others, especially, taking into consideration that large-scale privatisation and the transition of economic relations to market principles extremely undermined the former system which worked smoothly under strict control from the state.

The new type of our defense should rely on a powerful military-technical base. I do not think that it is necessary to prove that the quality of armaments has the key role to play in the condition of cuts in the troops. This will naturally require a cardinal reform of the system of personnel training and retraining with regard to all the categories.

The management of the country's defense should be centralised and have a single brain trust and uniform levers. Each "power" department should have a clear-cut plan of action within the system of national defense and security, depending on the degree and kind of threat.

Defense and the General Staff

There is the ground to state that Russia has several independent armies. However, the managerial functions of the General Staff cover only the army and the navy. There are other "armed forces" beyond the control of the Defense Ministry. It becomes a kind of fashion in Russia that many ministries keep their own military units.

If we do not reaslise right away and do not agree that this sphere needs to be urgently reformed, our defense expenditures will considerably grow. What is more, all the military formations should be under the control of the General Staff.

What Lies in Store for the Army?

Major attention has been for some reason paid in the past few years to the preparation of the army and the navy for local and regional wars and small armed conflicts. I think that it is a gross mistake. Armed forces should be prepared to repel an aggression of any kind and on any scale, including to take part in a large-scale war.

So, when reforming the Russian army, we must first of all set straight our priorities: what we will have to sacrifice completely and what partly, and what is to be preserved. Taking into consideration the financial and economic difficulties of the armed forces reform, we have determined the following guidelines:

1. Assuring guaranteed deterrence with regard to a potential aggression against Russia;

2. Optimization of the numerical strength of the armed forces in keeping with existing and potential threats to Russia's security and the tasks stemming from it; improvements in the composition and organisational structure of the armed forces;

3. Concentration of financial allocations in the most important areas of R&D work aimed to create state-of-the-art weapons and other types of military hardware and equip the armed forces with them;

4. Improvements in the system of the management of the armed forces and operations-strategic groupings;

5. Adoption of necessary measures to ensure the social protection of servicemen and enhance the prestige of military service.

The strategic formula of the armed forces reform is simple and understandable: we must assure a higher quality of national defense with a smaller number of troops. With all the cuts in the numerical strength of our armed forces, we must keep our strategic nuclear and military-space forces and ensure the goal-oriented implementation and development of extremely important military-technical programs projected into the future.

We need a smaller but a genuine army, rather than hundreds of thousands of irritated armed people in dire straights who are indignant with the troubles and hardships of their service.

The reformation of defense required the most precise synchronization and coordination of the efforts of all the "power" structures. It would be unwise to reduce the managerial structures, which dub services and general's positions, in one department, while allowing the same structures grow in another. This is why the Defense Council is to play the first fiddle at the present stage of the reform. It is to be the brain trust and coordinator of decision-making on the entire complex of defense issues.

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David Johnson

Research Director

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