October 28, 2003 © New York University. All Rights Reserved. Russia's New Military Doctrine By Colonel (Ret.) Mikhail Pogorely Global Beat Syndicate (KRT) MOSCOW —Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov recently made history when he unveiled the Russian Federation's new military doctrine. Dubbed the "White Book on Defense," it marked the first time in Russian history that an official document publicly clarified national security strategy, goals and intentions, assesses plausible threats and means to deter them, and spoke of social problems in the armed forces. The military doctrines published in 1993 and the slightly modified 2000 version were mostly compiled political propaganda slogans. They claimed that Russia "has no enemies anywhere in the world," which made questionable the very existence of Russia's military establishment. Until now, not a single post-1991 Russian military doctrine or other official political document mentioned the United States by name as a real or potential enemy, or as current or potential ally or partner of Russia. The new White Book is the first high-level official publication acknowledging that Washington is Moscow's strategic partner, at least in such areas as combating terrorism, countering WMD proliferation, peacekeeping activities, and so on. Importantly, President Vladimir Putin personally attended its ceremonial presentation in the defense ministry. The document is also the first in modern Russian history that analyzes possible threats from external aggression and offers a reaction options to those threats. It also named sources of internal to national sovereignty, the most dangerous of which are separatist movements of the size and scale of Chechnya. The White Book breaks with the Communist President Mikhail Gorbachov's declaration that the Soviet Union would not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. The author's of this doctrine called for "restoring the force of nuclear deterrence" by reviving the notion of using nuclear weapons in a combat environment, making them a workable military option, not just objects with symbolic political meaning, as they were by the year 2000. On the positive side, Russian military analysts point to the doctrine's heavy emphasis on social aspects of the military service, including such sensitive issues as salaries, pensions, living quarters, education and career prospects for Russian servicemen. The White Paper has weak points as well. It says nothing about the economic basis upon which the nation's professional army is to be built to adequately meet the challenges of the new century. At present, Russia faces many social and economic problems with no visible prospects of how to solve them in the near future. It is one thing to understand problems and quite another to cope with them. A doctrine such as this one is designed to provide a broad overview of the ruling circles' ideas and perception of global and domestic issues related to national defense and international security. Implementing the measures outlined will take a lot of law-making activities. President Putin, in his annual address to Parliament last spring, presented three magnificent nationwide goals: overcoming poverty, doubling the Gross Domestic Product, and reform in the armed forces. All of the three seem like long-term srategic goals rather than programs for immediate implementation. In the 1996 election campaign and for awhile after that, President, Boris Yeltsin made a few public decrees designed to create modern armed forces by 2000. But those decrees have long been forgotten, or are simply remembered as examples of Russian-style political campaign rhetoric. What is most important about the new White Book -- in addition to its unprecedented level of openness in describing the nation's situation on basic defense issues -- is that it represents a second break with the past as well. This new military doctrine has very good chances of becoming a sound basis for a high-quality military reform program. ABOUT THE WRITER Mikhail Pogorely is director of the Center for War and Peace Journalism in Moscow. © 2000 New York University. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat Syndicate, a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, provides editors with commentary and perspective articles on critical global issues from contributors around the world. For more information, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/. Home | About Archives | Advisors | Staff