Russian Doctrine Again Under Revision

Rather than specifically identify NATO and the US as threats, the more vague language in their latest doctrine rewrite gives them much more flexibility for mischief.

In a marked departure from Soviet precedents, Russia’s newly approved military doctrine specifies that Russia’s “opponent is not NATO or the United States in general” but rather the extension of the activities of the two into the region around Russia and the “adjoining seas,” according to a leading Moscow military commentator.

In an article in today’s “Novaya gazeta,” Pavel Felgengauer says that the new document, required by the 1993 Constitution and replacing the military doctrine Vladimir Putin approved in 2000, represents not only a major change in Moscow’s thinking but is “better” in other ways as well.

Not only is it 20 percent shorter and thus easier to read than the 2000 version, Felgengauer notes, but it is far clearer. The Putin document was a “transitional” one and thus was not nearly as specific. Thus it talked about “the broadening of military blocs and unions” in ways that would “harm the military security of the Russian Federation and its allies.”

While everyone understood that these words referred to NATO “and not, let us say, to the United Arab Emirates,” the lack of specificity was “impermissible” in a document that was supposed to guide the country’s military planning. The new doctrinal statement in contrast is very clear about who the “opponent” is – and that “honesty” is its “main achievement.”

According to the new doctrine, Felgengauer writes, “the chief foreign danger” to Russia is clear. It consists of “the striving to give the force potential of NATO global functions, which are being realized in violation of the norms of international law and to extent the military infrastructure of the NATO countries to the borders of Russia, including by expanding the bloc.”

Such expansion of NATO, the doctrine says, also includes the placement of military contingents in states neighboring Russia, the development of anti-ballistic missile systems which affect Russia’s forces, and “territorial claims against the Russian Federation and its allies, [including] interference in their internal affairs.”

“Of course,” Felgengauer concedes, what the doctrine is talking about concerns “not only the US and NATO but also let us say the poor Georgians who have pretentions and attempt to interfere in the internal affairs ‘of Russia and its allies.’” But what matters are “not Georgian peasants,” but NATO and the US.

By: Brant