Russian Military Politics and Russia's 2010 Defense Doctrine

The fact that a state lays down the safeguarding of its continuation in a national security policy is a broadly accepted principle. The objective of this policy is to ensure independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, welfare, and stability by taking political, economic, social-cultural, and military measures. Each state has specific interests. The use of armed forces is especially determined by the perception to which degree these interests are threatened. The conversion of interests into objectives takes place at the highest decision-making level, the political or grand strategy. Russia’s political strategy—formerly National Security Concept and now National Security Strategy—explains that the Russian Federation (RF) has military, diplomatic, international-legal, information, economic, and other means at its disposal to meet its objectives. The political strategy enlightens Russia’s interests and the measures to deal with threats that could prevent meeting its objectives. From the political strategy, as the principal security document, doctrines and concepts are drawn. The most important documents for clarifying Russia’s security policies are the Military Doctrine and the Foreign Policy Concept (FPC). At the military strategic level, security policy is converted into the use of military power by guidelines laid down in a military doctrine. Military doctrines can be divided into three categories. The most detailed are service doctrines, e.g., those of army, air force, and navy. On a national level we find the joint armed forces or military doctrine, which includes all services. Finally, we can establish multinational or alliance doctrines, e.g., that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This chapter describes only the military doctrine at the national, Russian-state level. Russia’s military doctrine is more abstract and has more politics in it than is the case with doctrines of Western states, which usually concentrate on guidelines for military action. As a result, the Russian doctrine is closely associated with the political-strategic level. Russian military doctrine usually defines itself as a set of officially approved state views concerning war and its prevention, force generation, preparation of the country and the armed forces for suppression of aggression, and methods of warfare to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The doctrine provides guidelines in two directions. First, it deals with the needs of the armed forces in the field of organization, personnel, and equipment. Second, the doctrine provides guidelines for waging wars/armed conflicts. Russia’s military doctrine provides political guidelines for the direction of all armed forces and troops, i.e., the armed forces of the Ministry of Defense (MoD), as well as the other troops of the so-called power ministries, such as the troops of the security service (FSB) and those of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).