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"Though we have acheived progress, our work is not over. That is why I support the mission of the Arms Control Association. It is, quite simply, the most effective and important organization working in the field today." 

– Larry Weiler
Former U.S.-Russian arms control negotiator
August 7, 2018
Arms Control Today

Official Projections of NMD Costs Rise by Billions

May 2000

By Wade Boese

With President Bill Clinton scheduled to decide later this year on whether to deploy a limited national missile defense (NMD) system, government estimates released in April show that costs for deploying the proposed defense could total nearly three to five times the amount commonly reported by the Pentagon. The Defense Department publicly announced cost estimates covering the first phase of a limited defense over a 35-year period, while the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated total costs for an expanded defense through 2015.

After months of providing only the $12.7 billion figure budgeted for NMD deployment from 1999 to 2005, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters April 4 that life-cycle costs of the system from 1991 to 2026 for 100 interceptors at a single site will total $30.2 billion. If inflation is taken into account, the estimate rises to $36 billion.

Shortly thereafter, on April 25, the non-partisan CBO estimated the 100-interceptor system would total $29.5 billion through 2015 and that operating costs would subsequently run about $600 million annually. Deploying a second site with 125 interceptors and adding SBIRS-low satellites, to be used in tracking incoming warheads, as well as in discriminating between warheads and decoys, would push projected costs to nearly $60 billion by 2015.

Answering why the Pentagon estimate was half that of the CBO total, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon on April 25 described the comparison as one between "apples and golden apples." The Pentagon did not calculate costs for a second site or include costs associated with the satellite system. A spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which oversees U.S. missile defense programs, explained that the Pentagon estimate did not account for the satellite system because it will be deployed regardless of whether an NMD is deployed.

CBO assumed the system will require 82 additional interceptors (beyond the 100 to be deployed) for testing and spares, whereas the administration assumed only 47 will be needed. In addition, CBO assumed that after initial deployment, 30 operational tests would be needed over the system's first five years, rather than the 10 tests that are planned.

In reviewing similar missile development programs, CBO also found that, on average, actual costs exceeded projections made at this stage in program development by about 20 percent, and made a similar assumption for the NMD program. Using construction costs of the early 1970s Safeguard missile defense site, which is no longer operational, as a base, CBO also estimated that construction costs for the necessary facilities in Alaska will be more than $1 billion higher than administration calculations.

Echoing other reviews of the NMD program, CBO cautioned that having concurrent development and production schedules could cause "significant problems." Noting that a procurement decision on the interceptors is scheduled for 2003, CBO observed that moving the decision back to 2006 would allow program managers to have "information from significantly more developmental test flights."

CBO also observed that NMD program managers have decided on a third path for dealing with flight-test failures. Rather than replacing subsystems that may have caused a failure or fixing the problem and flying the exact same test mission again, NMD managers—after the last intercept attempt missed the target on January 18—have opted to proceed with their planned flight-test schedule but to pay increased attention to quality control. While reserving judgment on this decision, CBO noted other missile programs have historically used one of the first two approaches.

The next NMD developmental flight test, the third intercept attempt of a planned 19, is scheduled for June 26. Shortly after the upcoming test, the Pentagon will make its recommendation to the president on whether to deploy the system.

Official Projections of NMD Costs Rise by Billions

Putin Signs New Military Doctrine, Fleshing Out Security Concept

May 2000

By Philipp C. Bleek

The Russian Security Council approved and President Vladimir Putin signed a new military doctrine April 21 that replaces the doctrine adopted in 1993 and "fleshes out" the military policy elaborated in Russia's 2000 national security concept, formally adopted in January. (See ACT, January/February 2000.) Like the security concept, the new doctrine appears to lower Russia's threshold for using nuclear weapons when attacked with conventional weapons. It also explicitly states that Russia's nuclear deterrent can be used to respond to all "weapons of mass destruction" attacks and reaffirms Russia's negative security assurances to non-nuclear- weapon states. (See document.)

The military doctrine, an 8,000-word document addressing a wide range of military issues, reaffirms the 1993 doctrine's call for a substantial Russian nuclear deterrent and authorizes the use of nuclear weapons to respond to "large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation. " Like the nuclear policy elaborated in the 2000 security concept, this statement appears to permit the use of nuclear weapons in a broader range of circumstances than the previous version of the security concept, which was issued in 1997 and allowed nuclear weapons use only "in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation."

The doctrine also says Russia "reserves the right to use nuclear weapons" when responding "to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against [Russia] and (or) its allies." This statement, which appears to mirror the implied U.S policy for using nuclear weapons, marks the first time Russia has explicitly permitted the use of nuclear weapons to respond to "weapons of mass destruction" attacks. In 1993, Russia abandoned its declared policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict under any circumstances.

In addition to addressing the use of nuclear weapons, the doctrine also includes a statement on negative security assurances, which delineate situations in which nuclear weapons will not be used. The doctrine states that Russia will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) except in the event of an attack on Russia, its armed forces, or a Russian ally that is "carried out or supported" by a non-nuclear-weapon state "jointly or in the context of allied commitments" with a nuclear-weapon state. This statement closely parallels assurances given by the United States in 1995 and reaffirmed in 1997.

Earlier drafts of the doctrine did not contain negative security assurances, which Russia included in its 1993 military doctrine and reaffirmed at the 1995 NPT review and extension conference. A senior Russian official confirmed that the assurances had been intentionally removed from initial drafts of the new doctrine. They appear to have been reinserted into the doctrine following circulation of an earlier draft.

The new military doctrine, like the 1993 doctrine, also extends Russia's nuclear umbrella to Russia's allies. In an April 25 news conference, Colonel General Valery Manilov, senior deputy chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, stated that allies referred to in the doctrine include Belarus and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States that have entered into alliance agreements with Russia.

Russian officials have emphasized that the new doctrine is fundamentally defensive. Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov stated in a recent Russian television interview, "If there is no aggression against Russia and its allies, there will be no use of nuclear weapons." However, in an April 24 interview with the Russian Itar-Tass news agency, Chairman of the Duma Committee for International Affairs Dmitry Rogozin stated that under the new doctrine, "Russia will not be waiting for the aggressor to seize a part of its territory or to destroy its nuclear potential. It will deal the necessary strike itself."

U.S. response has been limited, but in an April 21 press conference, State Department spokesman James Rubin said the administration did not believe the new doctrine indicated a shift in Russia's nuclear weapons policy. "So far we've not seen anything that indicates a dramatic new departure," he said.

Putin Signs New Military Doctrine, Fleshing Out Security Concept

Russia Proposes Global Regime On Missile Proliferation

May 2000

By Matthew Rice

Offering an alternative to missile defense as a means to deal with missile proliferation, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov urged consideration of a Russian proposal for a global missile confidence-building and non-proliferation regime April 25 at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in New York. Combined with further reductions in nuclear arsenals, the regime would enhance international security and existing arms control arrangements by offering a "real alternative to the destruction of the ABM Treaty," Ivanov said.

Formally known as the Global Control System for the Non-Proliferation of Missiles and Missile Technology (GCS), the proposed regime was initially introduced by then- Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the June 1999 G-8 summit in Cologne, Germany. It was then discussed in Moscow March 16 at an expert-level meeting convened by the Russian government and chaired by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov. In attendance were representatives from 46 countries and the United Nations, including Iran and large delegations from China, India, and Egypt. The United States sent an observer but did not participate.

The GCS would increase transparency and reduce the risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding by requiring nations to provide notification of pending missile or space-launch vehicle (SLV) test-launches. To discourage proliferation, the GCS would offer incentives to members of the regime that forswore the use of missiles as delivery mechanisms for weapons of mass destruction, including security assurances against the use of missile systems and assistance from the UN Security Council if such weapons were used. In addition, referencing Article IV of the NPT, the regime would provide for assistance in the peaceful uses of space for members that gave up missiles as weapons.

Modest international support has emerged for a stronger missile non-proliferation regime. The Russian statement at the NPT conference noted that Australia, Britain, Canada, and France had all made preliminary proposals on the topic throughout the 1990s. As Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy explained April 25, "There exists no treaty, no code of conduct, no set of guidelines defining responsible behavior in these areas. This is a matter that must be addressed."

The only current restrictions on the transfer of missile-related technology are embodied in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), created by the United States and its G-7 allies in 1987 to stem the proliferation of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Unlike the NPT, the MTCR is a voluntary, non-binding agreement and membership is restricted. The regime currently has 28 members.

Western countries have expressed a preference that preliminary discussions of a broader system take place within the confines of the MTCR. At an MTCR meeting held in Paris April 23-24, the United States, Britain, and France each offered steps to curb missile proliferation that would reinforce MTCR export controls. Proposed measures included increased dialogue with non-MTCR parties, pre-launch notification for missile and SLV launches, and international standards in the missile field. The proposals will be synthesized for discussion at an MTCR meeting in September to prepare for the regime's October plenary session.

U.S. officials responded to the Russian GCS plan during a January trip to Moscow by State Department Senior Adviser for Arms Control and International Security John Holum, according to documents leaked to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and first made public April 28. (See document.) While expressing general interest in the proposal, the United States was critical of specific elements in what it said were the proposal's four main points.

First, while supporting the multilateral exchange of test-launch data, Washington expressed concern that the GCS plan could "legitimize the missile programs of rogue states." Second, it maintained that assuring the security of countries that renounce their missile programs is "unfeasible." Third, the United States argued against using "one-size-fits-all" incentives to encourage states to forgo missile programs at the expense of targeted bilateral efforts, and expressed particular concern that aid to peaceful space programs could be readily applied to military missile programs. Finally, the United States said that the MTCR should remain the only forum for discussing such matters. "We do not believe that broad multilateral discussions will be productive at this time," the U.S. documents state.

Both Russia and the United States have expressed interest in continuing discussion on the GCS. While the Russian government has stated its intention to open the proposal for debate at the "millennium session" of the United Nations General Assembly, which begins September 5, it remains to be seen whether it will be on the agenda for the June summit meeting between Presidents Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin.

Russia Proposes Global Regime On Missile Proliferation

Russian Duma Approves Test Ban Treaty

May 2000

By Philipp C. Bleek

A week after approving START II and only days before the opening of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, the Russian Duma approved the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by an overwhelming majority. Once it formally ratifies the treaty, Russia will become the third nuclear-weapon state, after France and Britain, to join the test ban. The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty last October, and China has submitted the test ban to the National People's Congress but has not indicated when it might approve the accord.

In a statement on the day of the April 21 vote, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov praised the Duma for taking a "very important first step…in the interests of Russian security and…international stability." The Russian lower house of parliament approved the test ban by a vote of 298-74, with three abstentions. In a necessary but largely symbolic step in the ratification process, the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, is likely to vote on and approve the CTBT in the coming weeks. President Vladimir Putin is expected to formally ratify the treaty shortly thereafter.

President Bill Clinton said that he was "pleased" that the Duma had approved the treaty. Administration spokesman Joe Lockhart called the vote "an important step," adding, "We hope that as time goes on…our Senate will follow the lead of many other countries around the world and ratify an important treaty."

Completion of negotiations on a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty by 1996 was one of the conditions, formalized in a "principles and objectives" document, for indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995. The test ban is seen by the non-nuclear-weapon states as a litmus test of the nuclear-weapon states' commitment to eventual nuclear disarmament. The Duma's approval of the CTBT, together with Russia's recent ratification of START II, is likely to deflect criticism of Russia at the NPT review conference, being held in New York April 24-May 19, for the nuclear-weapon states' lack of disarmament progress.

Criticism of the United States for its failure to ratify the test ban last fall resurfaced in the first week of the NPT review conference. Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy echoed the concerns of many diplomats in his April 25 opening statement to the conference when he expressed anxiety about a U.S. "drift towards unilateral options," and called the Senate's rejection of the CTBT "a significant step backwards."

Since being opened for signature on September 24, 1996, the CTBT has been signed by 155 countries and ratified by 56. Of the 44 nuclear-capable states that must sign and ratify the treaty before it can enter into force, 41 have signed and 28 have ratified the treaty. The three signatory hold-outs are India, North Korea, and Pakistan.

The treaty's newest state-party is Morocco, which formally ratified the test ban April 17. On April 27 at the NPT conference, Belarus announced its parliament had approved the CTBT, but the instruments of ratification have yet to be deposited with the United Nations. The Chilean Congress approved the CTBT on April 5, and according to press reports, the Chilean government plans to file its ratification document with the UN soon. Belarus and Chile are two of the 44 states whose ratification is required for the CTBT to enter into force.

Russian Duma Approves Test Ban Treaty

Israel Rebuffs U.S. Demand To Cancel China Arms Deal

May 2000

By Wade Boese

Despite strong public opposition from the United States, Israel is proceeding with the sale to China of an advanced airborne early-warning (AEW) radar system, which U.S. officials warn could affect the strategic balance between China and Taiwan. After April meetings with Defense Secretary William Cohen and President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak would say only that Israel would continue discussions on the deal with the United States.

In a 1996 deal with China worth approximately $1 billion, Israel agreed to equip four Russian-supplied aircraft with the Phalcon system, a state-of-the-art, long-range radar capable of simultaneously tracking multiple airborne and surface targets. U.S. government officials believe, and Israeli officials insist, that no U.S. technology is involved.

If delivered, the Phalcon system—previously supplied to Chile—would provide China's first airborne early-warning and control capability. Taiwan's inventory includes four U.S.-made AEW Hawkeye aircraft, and two more are scheduled for delivery in 2004.

Informed of the sale in June 1996, U.S. opposition only became public last fall. State Department and Pentagon officials contend that Washington has voiced its concerns through diplomatic and military channels since 1996. A National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson said the administration has raised the issue "regularly and repeatedly."

Meeting with Barak on April 3 during a 10-nation visit to Africa and the Middle East, Cohen told a joint press conference, held with the Israeli prime minister, that the United States objected to the Phalcon deal because of its "potential of changing the balance" in the Taiwan Strait. A week later, Cohen repeated Washington's strong opposition and described the sale as "counterproductive" because the technology could find its way back to Israeli rivals in the Middle East.

Barak told the April 3 press conference that Israel was "aware of the sensitivity in the United States with regard to China." However, he said Israel was also "aware of [its] commitments in the contracts that [it has] signed." Barak finished by saying Israel understood the need for "close coordination and contact" with the United States. A senior U.S. administration official reported that Barak repeated similar sentiments in an April 11 meeting with President Bill Clinton in Washington and that discussions would continue.

Barak later met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Israel during the first-ever visit to that country by a Chinese head of state. At a joint press conference April 13, Barak intervened twice to answer questions addressed to Jiang about the deal. While again noting U.S. concerns, Barak described Israeli credibility and Israeli relations with China as being of "high importance."

Israel is concerned about canceling the deal and upsetting China, which Israeli officials worry could lead China to increase weapons exports to countries hostile to Israel. In addition, Israel is reluctant to forfeit a profitable deal with a long-time arms customer that could be picked up by British or French companies that competed for the original sale.

An official for BAE Systems, a British company that manufactures AEW systems, said talks with China have been dormant for several months and that BAE is not currently pursuing any deal. The NSC spokesperson remarked that the United States is "prepared to engage other countries in expressing our concerns about issues that could affect the stability of the Asia- Pacific region." When asked, a U.K. government official said he was "not aware of any direct U.S. government lobbying effort on this particular issue."

In his proposed fiscal year 2001 budget, Clinton requested a total of $2.82 billion in military aid and economic support for Israel. Representative Sonny Callahan (R-AL), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, indicated he would put a hold on $250 million—the value of one Phalcon system—of the proposed aid unless the Pentagon certifies that the Israeli deal does not jeopardize U.S. national security interests. State Department spokesman James Rubin, however, said April 10 that the radar deal should not be tied to U.S. foreign aid.

Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. aid, is also seeking a security package worth approximately $17 billion, involving arms, as well as greater intelligence and early-warning cooperation with the United States, as part of a potential Israeli peace deal with Syria. With the Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations currently stalled, talks on the proposed U.S. security package have been put on hold.

Israel Rebuffs U.S. Demand To Cancel China Arms Deal

NPT Review Conference Opens

May 2000

By Matthew Rice

Marking the first assessment of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since it was extended indefinitely in 1995, delegates of the treaty's states-parties gathered April 24 at United Nations headquarters in New York to open the 2000 NPT review conference. The four-week conference will address the progress made during the last five years on a number of divisive issues, including nuclear disarmament and universal adherence to the treaty.

Disarmament was the top item on the agenda in the conference's first week, with virtually every country bemoaning the nuclear-weapon states' lack of progress toward meeting their obligations under Article VI of the treaty. That goal was reinforced at the 1995 treaty review and extension conference in a document on "principles and objectives," which called for "systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons."

Progress toward this goal was waylaid largely by Russia's slow ratification of START II and seems hindered by the continued reliance of Russian and NATO military doctrines on nuclear weapons. Matt Robson, New Zealand's minister for disarmament and arms control, said that the nuclear-weapon states "sound too tentative when describing [disarmament] as an 'ultimate goal'" and expressed concern that "nuclear weapons are claimed to be required for security into the 'indefinite' future." New Zealand is a member of the New Agenda Coalition, a group of states that has demanded faster progress toward disarmament.

Disappointment was also expressed concerning the other benchmarks laid out in the "principles and objectives" agreement: completion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the start of talks on a treaty halting the production of fissile material for weapons purposes. While the CTBT was completed in 1996, it has yet to enter into force, and the treaty's rejection last fall by the U.S. Senate has called its future into question. Negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty have yet to be started at the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament.

The argument of the nuclear-weapon states, notably the United States and Russia, has been that the START process offers the best path toward the eventual goal of disarmament. This claim was bolstered by the Russian Duma's April 14 approval of START II. "The Russian Duma's recent action on START II undercuts the claim that the bilateral strategic arms reductions process has no future," U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said April 24, noting that the United States approved the treaty in 1996.

In addition, Britain and France have taken steps to reduce the size of their nuclear forces. Britain's 1998 Strategic Defense Review substantially reduced its operational nuclear warhead stockpile to under 200 and reduced the warhead load of each strategic missile submarine from 96 to 48. France has also taken steps to eliminate all land-based nuclear forces and to reduce the size of its sea-based nuclear arsenal.

But other parties openly expressed concern that U.S. pursuit of missile defenses at the expense of the ABM Treaty could spell an end to even this slow progress. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sounded a warning that "the growing pressure to deploy national missile defenses…is jeopardizing the ABM Treaty…and could well lead to a new arms race, setbacks for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and create new incentives for missile proliferation."

The United States came under particular fire from Russia and China. "The collapse of the ABM Treaty would…undermine the entirety of disarmament agreements concluded over the last 30 years," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said April 25. Sha Zukang, China's representative to the review conference, said April 24 that U.S. development of a missile defense will "impede the international disarmament process, thus shatter[ing] the basis for international nuclear non-proliferation."

International condemnation of U.S. missile defense plans was not unexpected, though U.S. officials have worked to convince states-parties that the NPT review conference is not an appropriate forum to address the ABM issue. "We are…trying to see if we can find an approach that would allow us to leave our differences on this issue outside the conference room," U.S. representative to the conference Norman Wulf said April 21, expressing hope that the issue would not prove to be "a deal buster at the conference itself."

 

Universal Adherence

Renewing a controversial debate, Egypt and other Middle East states have demanded that pressure be brought to bear on Israel to join the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state. Several states, including Brazil, have joined the NPT in the past five years, leaving only four countries—Cuba, India, Israel, and Pakistan—outside the treaty regime.

The 1995 review conference recognized these concerns in its resolution on the Middle East, which called for universal adherence to the treaty in the region and the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. In its opening statement April 25 and a working paper submitted April 28, Egypt restated these concerns, calling for states-parties to exert influence on Israel to accede. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egypt's representative to the conference, argued that universality is required for the continued viability of the treaty. "The NPT cannot have any credibility with the states of the region as long as one state is exempt from its provisions," he said.

But with the 1998 nuclear tests of India and Pakistan, the question of universal adherence has grown, extending beyond the immediate concerns of Israel's neighbors. The United States would like to see a consensus statement that encourages universal participation by all parties, not just Israel. "The United States does not oppose attention in this year's conference to universal adherence in the Middle East, [but] we believe it should be fair and balanced within the region and with other serious issues outside the region," Albright said.

 

Moving Forward

As the review conference proceeds through the next three weeks, one issue will be whether it can produce a consensus document—a goal only two of the treaty's five review conferences have achieved. Jayantha Dhanapala, UN undersecretary-general for disarmament affairs and president of the 1995 NPT conference, said in an April 19 telephone briefing that the outcome of the 2000 review conference will be an important indicator of the regime's continuing vitality.

"This conference is an extremely important barometer of the level of satisfaction amongst the states-parties with the performance of the treaty. If we, for example, do not have a consensus document, that would imply that there is some malaise within the treaty, and that augurs badly for the future of the treaty," he said.

NPT Review Conference Opens

Lockheed Martin Charged With Sharing Rocket Data With China

May 2000

By Wade Boese

On April 4, the State Department accused Lockheed Martin of violating arms export control laws by supplying sensitive rocket information to a company partially owned by the Chinese government. Lockheed Martin allegedly provided Asia Satellite Telecommunications Corporation (Asiasat) with a technical assessment of a solid-fueled kick motor that was later used in the launch of the Asiasat-2 communications satellite, which had been purchased from the U.S. aerospace firm.

The satellite was launched in 1995 on a Chinese Long March rocket, a model that had failed twice in 1992 to deliver satellites to their targets. In 1994, at the behest of Asiasat, a Lockheed Martin team visited a test-launch facility in China and conducted an examination of the rocket's kick motor. The State Department contends that the transfer of the technical assessment produced as a result of the visit violated prohibitions on transfers of such information to the Chinese government.

The United States is concerned that the Lockheed report may have identified weaknesses that could help China's ballistic missile development and testing program. "We would be concerned at any…access to technology that we feel could be used against the United States," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral Craig Quigley explained April 6.

Lockheed Martin claims that Commerce and State Department licenses specifically allowed the transfer of its report to the respective parties. "The actions taken in 1994 were consistent with the licenses in place at that time," said James Fetig, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson.

The State Department maintains that additional licenses were required for technical details contained in the assessment and that Lockheed Martin released the report to Asiasat before the Defense Department had edited it to remove sensitive material. (Pentagon officials reportedly blacked out 45 pages of the 50-page document.) Lockheed Martin is also charged with sharing the edited version of the report with the state-owned China Great Wall Industry Corporation, which produces ballistic missiles for the Chinese military.

A China Great Wall Industry Corporation spokesman denied April 12 that the corporation had received any help from Lockheed Martin. "China has developed the satellite perigee kick motor entirely by relying on its own efforts. We have never acquired from Lockheed Martin or any other party technical assistance of whatever form in this regard," he said.

The State Department action was praised by Representatives Christopher Cox (R-CA) and Norman Dicks (D-WA), who headed a bipartisan select committee in 1998 to investigate similar allegations against two other U.S. companies, Hughes Space and International, Inc. and Space Systems/Loral. The committee's January 1999 report, known as the "Cox Report," argued for stronger controls on satellite exports to China. (See ACT, April/May 1999.)

Unlike the allegations involving Hughes and Loral, the State Department is seeking civil penalties, not criminal sanctions, against Lockheed Martin. The company could face fines of up to $15 million and lose the right to export satellite technology for up to three years. Lockheed Martin has 30 days, until May 4, to formally respond to the charges.

Lockheed Martin Charged With Sharing Rocket Data With China

Toward an Agreement With Russia on Missile Defense

Celeste A. Wallander

On Russia's national security policy is defined by opposition and diversity, ideas and interests, power and geopolitics. It is affected by elements of Russia's Soviet past, by the cultural struggle to define its post-Soviet identity, and by the new economic and political interests that have served as the agents of change in Russia's transition from communism. It is also, of course, shaped by the limits of Russia's post-Cold War power and its relationship with the United States.

On January 10, Acting President Vladimir Putin approved a new national security concept detailing Russia's political security policy. A draft military doctrine, a more specific policy paper dealing with military issues, was approved by the Russian Security Council in late February.<1> Both the concept and the doctrine mix elements of Russian exceptionalism, great power prerogatives and concerns, and material interests in the international economy. The documents are not binding—they can be (and have been) changed, amended, and even ignored—but they are important for understanding Russian security policy nonetheless because they reflect the priorities, assessments, compromises, and negotiations within the Russian political and security elite.

America's most important interests can be managed well only in a fundamentally secure environment made possible by the passing of Cold War confrontation. Russia is not the Soviet superpower, and bipolar competition will not return. Russia nevertheless remains the only country that can destroy the United States in a single large-scale nuclear attack—a threat that will remain even if the United States deploys a national missile defense (NMD) and even if economic factors drive Russia's nuclear force downward to only 1,000-1,500 warheads.

It is not enough if Russia is simply not hostile to the West. The United States needs active Russian cooperation in order to achieve its non-proliferation goals. Given the state of Russia's economy, unauthorized sale of technology for missiles or for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons poses a major challenge to the non-proliferation and export control regimes the United States counts on to prevent countries such as Iraq or terrorists like Osama bin Laden from acquiring weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. The West needs a Russian government—supported by its society—that deems cooperation in this area a priority worth economic and political resources. In particular, the West needs a professional Russian military willing to work with Western security professionals in areas of national security and military sensitivity.

Russia's security concept and military doctrine also define what is possible in conventional and nuclear arms reductions. The recently adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty will not be successfully implemented if Russia's security elite believes that NATO is hostile to Russia, is expanding its capabilities by enlarging its membership, and views the war in Kosovo as a stepping stone to a larger European role. Ratifying START II and moving on to START III requires convincing the security elite that the United States is a reliable partner, subject to international law and respectful of its treaty commitments. And any prospect for an agreement on NMD that will avoid sparking a new multilateral nuclear arms race (involving not only Russia and China, but also possibly India and Pakistan) cannot succeed unless Russia believes that it can enhance its security more by working with the United States than by assuming the worst about American intentions and falling back upon unilateral remedies.

Analysis of Russia's new security concept and military doctrine conveys how likely Russian cooperation on these fronts will be and offers insight into how Russia's threat perceptions could complicate multilateral efforts. Unfortunately, in tracing Russia's security assessments from those articulated in the early 1990s through those put forward this year, one finds a growing tendency away from "liberal" attitudes of promoting cooperation with the West toward a traditional "statist" view that is more guarded—a shift spurred by domestic and international developments in 1998 and 1999, especially NATO's intervention in Kosovo. Cooperation is still possible—and in some respects may be easier than before—but Russia's trust of the West has certainly been weakened.

 

Debate and Consensus: 1992-1997

As Russia began to formulate its national security policy in the early 1990s, multiple views emerged based upon diverse sets of political, economic and societal interests. With liberal beginnings incorporating optimistic predictions of cooperation with the West, Russia's security elite debated the utility of multilateral institutions and Russia's role in them. However, divisions soon developed between the liberals, who held to their cooperative approach to the West, and the newly resurgent nationalists, who saw the West in a more threatening light. By 1997, the Yeltsin leadership had developed a synthesis that still emphasized cooperation and integration, but incorporated a strong measure of Russian Eurasianism and great power thinking, rooting the policy in a more traditional cast.

Russia's first security assessment, articulated by Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev in February 1992, emphasized Russia's need to become part of the "civilized" world and seek its true interests through partnership and cooperation with the West.<2> But his view became less tenable over the next year as relations with the United States proved more difficult than anticipated. Conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the effects of the Soviet Union's disintegration on stability and economic well-being, and the breakup of Yugoslavia provided ammunition for critics of Kozyrev's line.<3> However, despite some retreat from the more optimistic elements of Kozyrev's liberal approach, Russian policy and practice remained oriented toward the objective of integration and cooperation with the West. In policy areas such as peacekeeping in Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, conventional military arms control and measures to support the post-communist transition, Russian-Western cooperation was the standard.

In 1993, Russia issued a military doctrine that reflected its concern with emerging local and regional conflicts, as well as post-Cold War security problems, such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and international crime. The military doctrine did not identify any countries as direct threats to Russian security, reflecting Russia's turn from the Soviet Union's Cold War rivalry with the West. However, acknowledging Russia's post-Cold War geopolitical reality and the decline in Russian military power, the military doctrine adopted a policy allowing Russia to use nuclear weapons first in an attack by a nuclear-weapon state or any country allied with a nuclear-weapon state.<4>

Over the next four years, Russian security assessments sorted roughly into four categories: liberal, statist, derzhavnik and nationalist. Liberals included Western-oriented proponents of cooperation and integration and were joined by a commercial and financial elite in supporting the Yeltsin leadership's focus on economic and political change at home, complemented by an accommodating policy toward the West. At the same time, the government included statists, such as former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and former Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who supported cooperation with, but not subordination to, the West in international affairs.

The opposition fell into two broad categories. Great power Eurasianists (often referred to as derzhavniki for their emphasis on Russia as a great power) were not content with Russia's limits as they stood and advocated a reconstitution of the Soviet Union, in part because of their more strongly ethnic definition of Russian identity. They included retired general Alexander Lebed and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov. On the extreme, but nonetheless important in debates on Russian security and military doctrine, were nationalists, who advanced ethnically based conceptions of Russian citizenship and nationality and demanded a role in protecting ethnic Russians wherever they might live in the former Soviet Union. Their most visible advocate has been Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

The liberal security assessment first articulated by Kozyrev in the early 1990s was therefore strongly challenged by other elites who tended to view international structure in terms of the traditional role and influence of the great powers. The statists viewed Russian participation in multilateral forums as the sine qua non of Russia's great power status and influence.<5> Without Russian participation in the Contact Group and the prospect of Russian restraint in the UN Security Council, they argued, the West would not be constrained at all in its dealings with Yugoslavia, Iraq and others. But the statists disagreed with the liberals as to whether the institutional rules were sufficiently neutral and even-handed to allow Russia to prevail in diplomacy and bargaining when its policies differed from those of the West. Liberals argued that they did; statists argued that they did on balance, though not always and not without Russian effort.

In contrast, the derzhavniki and nationalists saw no benefit to Russia cooperating with the West and viewed the Contact Group and the Security Council as forums for Russian co-optation and subordination. Lebed's prescription for dealing with NATO enlargement was to ignore it as irrelevant and to focus on rebuilding Russia's military capability and seeking alliances and better relations with Russia's neighbors, particularly Belarus. Zhirinovsky ridiculed the Yeltsin government's subordinate role in ostensibly multilateral efforts such as the Partnership for Peace.<6> Worst of all, of course, they saw the International Monetary Fund as an instrument of Western determination to bring down Russia by destroying its economy.

Despite these elements, the liberal perspective played a central role in the government's policy during the 1990s, even in traditional security matters. The clearest example was the decision to accept NATO enlargement through the NATO-Russia Founding Act, signed in May 1997, despite clear statements by Yeltsin and Primakov declaring NATO enlargement as completely unacceptable for Russia's security interests. Russia's acquiescence was aimed at achieving some kind of influence in NATO matters through the Permanent Joint Council, acceptance of Russia at the new "Summit of the 8" (the enlarged G-7), settlement of Russia's payments arrears with the Paris Club, and renewed focus on Russian entry into the World Trade Organization.

 

The National Security Concept of 1997

The watchword of the Russian security elite's view of the international structure in the 1990s therefore became "balance"—with the outcome essentially a liberal-statist compromise. Statists emphasized that international order must be based upon the development of Russia's relations with a wide range of countries. Liberals did not advocate dependence on the West, but their desirable international order was one in which Russia became fully integrated as a major economic power and held the status of a great power in the more traditional sense. Statists pointed to the dangers of being reliant on good relations with the West, particularly the United States. The experience of NATO enlargement at Russian expense proved to the statist security elite that the United States was unreliable.

The compromise between these groups was clear in Russia's national security concept, signed by Yeltsin in December 1997.<7> The concept declared that "in the present time the situation in the international arena is characterized first of all by the fundamental tendency toward the formation of a multipolar world," thus reflecting the clear consensus of elite views.<8> From there, however, the concept took a distinctly liberal turn. It stated that the most important threats to Russian security lay not in the international system but in Russia's internal conditions. Since Russia's internal threats arose from economic decline, instability, and societal problems, such as poor health and unemployment, they must be addressed through economic reform. Although economic reform was primarily an internal matter, it could be supported by a non-threatening international environment and by Russian integration into international economic institutions.

This liberalism was tempered, however, by insistence that Russia did not come to the international community as a subordinate member, but as one of the major players. The 1997 concept acknowledged difficulties for Russian participation and involvement—particularly the problem of NATO enlargement—but held that effective multilateral means for cooperation and coordination of international affairs ultimately could be achieved only with Russian involvement in organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It based this confidence on Russia's status as the only truly Eurasian power.<9>

None of this came as surprise, given the terms of the elite debate and the gradual emergence of the statist view and its influence in the Russian government. What was surprising was how directly and forcefully the concept placed the internal threat to Russian security ahead of international threats and how it focused on the centrality of societal and state interests in reform, stability, and development. The document was clearly a marriage of liberal and statist views, with liberal influence in defining national security in terms of domestic well-being and reform, and statist influence in articulating the kind of assertive and pro-active Russian foreign involvement that would shape and make best use of the opportunities in the international system to support Russia's primarily internal security tasks.

This is not to say that more traditional international security interests were absent from the 1997 concept. They were spelled out in statist terms: Russia's interests in participating as a great power and as one pole in a multipolar world, in fighting transnational crime and terrorism, in developing good relations with members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in defending the territory of the state, and in maintaining security from military aggression on the part of other states.<10> But mention of these threats came after the internal threats and tasks.

Furthermore, the concept cautioned that the need for military forces to protect Russia's international interests had to be balanced with the economic requirements of managing the other threats and challenges Russia faced. That is, recognition of real foreign, defense and military problems were not to overwhelm the priority on liberal economic reform. The concept acknowledged that assuring Russia's security required a military capability but maintained that that capability must be based upon "rational expenditures for national defense," and explicitly stated that Russia does not need to reach military parity with the West.

It was truly astonishing that the national security policy of such a large and important country considered internal threats to security more significant than external threats. The 1997 policy appeared to signal that the Yeltsin leadership had made its choice: liberal economic reform at home, international economic integration abroad, self-interested cooperation with the West in a range of security affairs, and patient development of a new kind of Western-oriented Eurasianist security identity.

 

Russia's New Environment

The 1998-99 period was a turning point for Russian assessment of its international environment, and for the composition of its governing coalition. The liberal-statist balance of political elite interests was shattered by the August 1998 financial crisis and, more importantly, by the Western war in Kosovo. The August crisis undermined liberal views by exposing Russia's vulnerability to the international economy and financial markets. The fundamental sources of the crisis were internal policy failures and economic weakness, but it was precipitated by the vulnerability of the ruble to speculative international financial markets. At the same time, because Russia's economy had done so well in the aftermath of the decision to devalue the ruble and implement limited debt defaults, the crisis reinforced statist arguments that a less Western-dependent, more state-directed policy of economic reform could be Russia's path to stability and eventual prosperity.

Even more significant for Russia's national security policy, however, were the implications of the American use of NATO to impose a military solution for Yugoslavia's violation of Kosovar political and human rights. Russia's uneasy acceptance of NATO's membership enlargement was based in part on the assumption that Russia held a veto over NATO missions that went beyond collective self-defense of members' territories. The Russian leadership believed that the United States and NATO had committed themselves to adopting non-collective defense missions only if they had a United Nations mandate. This would mean that Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would have influence over any such mission.

The United States and NATO proved unwilling to live by this restriction in Kosovo, and that choice thoroughly discredited the liberal rationale for substantial and wide-ranging security cooperation with the West. Articulate liberal security analysts such as Duma member Alexei Arbatov had worked hard during the 1990s to argue that NATO enlargement, while foolish, did not threaten Russian security. NATO's war in Kosovo was evidence that the post-Cold War NATO was not merely about enlarging the community of democratic states, but was also about using military force in pursuit of its members' policies. The issue of the expansion of NATO's membership was difficult enough for Russia; with Kosovo, it faced the expansion of NATO's mission, unrestrained by the UN. The expansion of NATO's mission to encompass unilateral intervention to settle an internal ethnic conflict and enforce Western human rights priorities created the potential for something even worse than membership enlargement. Given instability on and within Russia's borders in the Caucasus, Caspian, and Central Asia—areas in which the United States has expressed both economic and geostrategic interest—the expansion of NATO's mission could threaten Russia's territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

The war in Kosovo undermined the liberal argument for "partnership" in order to gain Western support for Russia's international economic integration. The lesson appeared to be that the United States would be constrained by its international commitments only when convenient and that it would act unilaterally in important security matters when Russia did not agree with American policies. Kosovo signaled that American and Russian priorities were not in sync and that the United States was more willing than the 1997 concept had assumed to use military force closer to Russian borders for a wider variety of purposes. Kosovo helped to undermine the liberals' security argument for partnership and reinforced the arguments that the West's intentions toward Russia were not benign.

The National Security Concept of 2000

The national security concept Putin signed into law in January 2000 had been in the works since the spring of 1999.<11> Although signing the concept was one of Putin's first official decisions, this development should not be misunderstood as tied solely to Putin's views or personal leadership. The new concept has been developing for at least a year and is the result of the elite debate and consensus. The concept is a substantial change from the December 1997 national security concept and is a significant shift from liberal elements in former President Yeltsin's political coalition. The shift is not a product of mere leadership politics. It is the result of the events of 1998 and 1999 and is based on the statist security elite that now occupies the large, moderate middle in Russian politics. In the unlikely event that Putin loses the March presidential election, the weight of this political coalition will remain the primary influence on Russian security policy.

The most significant aspect of the new concept is that it elevates the importance and expands the types of external threats to Russian security. The document still devotes a great deal of attention to internal threats, arising primarily from the difficulties of its post-communist transition and its unsuccessful economic reforms. In contrast to the 1997 version, however, the new analysis emphasizes terrorism, societal discontent and disharmony, the uneven benefits of economic reform, the criminalization of Russian society and the lack of a rule-based state to guarantee the safety and well-being of Russian citizens to a greater degree. Unlike the 1997 concept, which appeared to call for staying the course of political-economic reform, the characterization of internal threats in the 2000 document justifies a reform policy with greater emphasis on the role of the Russian state in shaping the economy, safeguarding stability and regulating social and political life.

Even more substantial changes have been made in Russia's assessment of the international environment and external threats to Russian security. The concept no longer claims that there are no threats arising from other states' deliberate actions or aggression. It provides a substantial list of external threats, including:

• the weakening of the OSCE and the UN;

• weakening Russian political, economic and military influence in the world;

• the consolidation of military-political blocs and alliances (particularly further eastward expansion of NATO), including the possibility of foreign military bases or deployment of forces on Russian borders;

• proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery;

• weakening of the CIS, and escalation of conflicts on CIS members' borders; and

• territorial claims against Russia.

In several places, the concept emphasizes the post-Cold War shift toward a multipolar world in which relations are based upon international law and a proper role for Russia. It argues that against this tendency and under the guise of multilateralism, the United States and its allies have sought to establish a unipolar world outside of international law. The document warns that NATO's policy transition to using military force outside its alliance territory without UN Security Council approval is a major threat to world stability and that this trend creates the potential for a new era of arms races among the world's great powers.

Given the greater significance the new concept accords external threats, it is not surprising that it calls for greater emphasis on traditional security instruments. The main task of Russia's security policy in the external realm, it says, is to secure the country's territorial integrity, especially in preventing terrorism and threats to Russia's borders. To deal with America's unilateralism, the concept sets Russia the task of consolidating its position as one of the great powers and influential centers in the world. It is here that the concept drops Russia's earlier call for a "partnership" with the West and replaces it with a more limited call for "cooperation," with an emphasis on international measures to prevent proliferation and cope with the spread of international terrorism and crime.

In military-defense terms, the concept's focus is on preventing "scientific and technological dependence" and achieving a level of military capability sufficient to prevent aggression in local wars and prevail against groups of opposing forces in regional wars. Russia must keep its nuclear weapons as a guarantee against aggressors or coalitions of hostile states and may resort to nuclear weapons to defend itself and its allies against nuclear-armed states or their allies. The concept stresses this point by lowering Russia's threshold for permitting the use of nuclear weapons. Whereas the 1997 concept contemplated nuclear use only "in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation," the new concept permits nuclear use to "repulse armed aggression, if all other means of resolving the crisis have been exhausted."

This development is clearly related to assessments after Kosovo of NATO military options. In June 1999, Russia held military exercises to simulate a Western conventional military attack on Russia's Baltic province of Kaliningrad. Having failed to halt the attack by conventional means, the Russian forces succeeded in defeating the simulated attack by resorting to nuclear weapons.<12> In short, Russia appears to have lowered the nuclear threshold as of 2000 because the Russian-NATO balance of conventional military forces deteriorated so terribly that Russian military officials are no longer confident that their conventional options are likely to be successful in the event of armed conflict against Russia or its allies (that is, Belarus). Combined with its Kosovo-based assessment that NATO is more disposed to use military force in the European region, Russia's new nuclear doctrine reflects Russia's complicated geopolitical assessments of the new NATO, rather than a re-evaluation of nuclear options per se.

Russia's new military doctrine, a separate document not yet signed by Putin but approved by Russia's Security Council in February 2000, not only reinforces these assessments, but goes a step further: it permits nuclear weapons use in the event that a conventional military attack by a non-nuclear power threatens Russia's territorial integrity or sovereignty. Unlike the previous, more cautious formulation, which required an explicit alliance link between a non-nuclear and a nuclear country to justify a nuclear response to conventional aggression, the new formulation does not require that the non-nuclear aggressor have a formal alliance tie to a nuclear-weapon state. On the one hand, this formulation eliminates the negative security assurances Russia gave in 1995 that it would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, unless attacked by a "non-nuclear-weapon-State in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State." On the other hand, since the conventional scenarios Russia has in mind involve possibilities such as joint NATO-Baltic actions, this may be a distinction without much of a difference. It is important to note that the Russian military doctrine explicitly rules out using nuclear weapons to deal with internal conflicts.

The good news is that the concept preserves the argument that Russia's national interests and security will be served primarily by international law and "can only be achieved by the development of Russia's economy" through long-term integration into the world economy. The economic reform this leadership has in mind differs from previous policy: It places greater emphasis on support for the scientific, technological and defense sectors of the economy. It appears to prescribe a stronger state role in facilitating equity and social stability and in regulating as well as creating market conditions. And it emphasizes that the goal of Russia's international economic integration is to open foreign markets to Russian products.

This signals that the emphasis at home will be on greater state involvement and an economic policy closer to an industrial policy, focusing on the advanced defense sector and export promotion. This surely means a stronger state and greater state involvement in society. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that market reform and international integration—although of types that will be less subject to Western blueprints and priorities—remain a strong priority.

Putin's statements since becoming president have reinforced this mix of views. He has emphasized that Russia's future lies in economic reform and international economic integration. He has called for progress on Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, has cut back on restrictions of important Russian raw materials exports and has taken steps against Russian energy firms that have not paid taxes or paid for government services. He has called for private ownership of land, an overhaul of the Russian tax system and ratification of START II. At the same time, Putin leads a government that has prosecuted a brutal war in Chechnya and has issued a revised, tougher security policy that identifies the United States as a potential threat to Russia.

There is no contradiction between economic reform and a tougher line on the Russian state and its national security policy. Putin is a Russian statist, and his leadership reflects a broad elite consensus that supports integration and cooperation with the West, but not at any price. He is willing to seek international integration and prosperity, but not at the cost of territorial integrity and national sovereignty or the West's complete dominance in the nuclear and conventional military spheres. Russia's leadership has not abandoned internal reform and international integration, but it does not trust the West to protect Russia's interests.

 

Implications for the United States

Despite reports about the enhanced role nuclear weapons appear to play in the 2000 security concept and military doctrine, it is important to recognize that a clear implication of the new policy for the United States is that the potential for cooperation remains on important security issues, such as non-proliferation, anti-terrorism and conflict management. Furthermore, in one sense, the potential may be better than in the 1990s: the current Russian leadership has a broader and more stable base of support and will probably implement measures to increase the competence and capacity of the Russian state. That means Russia can be a reliable partner in controlling weapons of mass destruction, missile technology and international crime. This is an improvement over the 1990s, when it was far from clear that Russia could control the actions of its citizens and agencies, even if the government wished to do so.

Nevertheless, Russia is not going to be as easy to deal with as it was in the 1990s. Elements of its industrial policy and greater state regulation of the economy will make trade negotiations and financial transactions more complicated and will cause problems in American domestic politics for certain sectors in which Russia can compete, such as steel. Russian defense spending will increase, partly in order to stem the crisis in Russia's conventional forces, partly in connection with the defense sector portion of the economic development policy. In order to prosecute the war in Chechnya, the Putin leadership found $1 billion: unlimited funds are not available, but a shift in priorities can support levels of defense spending greater than those in recent years. This increased defense spending is not a direct threat to U.S. security in itself, but it has indirect implications for American security policy, including an increase in Russian efforts to sell arms on the international market, the shift in military balances that will concern Russia's neighbors, and the effects on Russian democracy and the state itself.

Most problematic will be negotiations in the area of nuclear arms control, particularly concerning American hopes for modification of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in order to deploy a form of national missile defense. Given the heightened threat assessment in the new security concept and the increased emphasis on the importance of Russia's nuclear deterrent to cope with threats against itself or its allies, Russian defense officials have become very sensitive to any developments that might erode the strength of that deterrent capability. In addition, Russia's belief that the United States violated past assurances and agreements when it enlarged NATO's membership and mission makes Russian defense officials skeptical that the United States would abide by any negotiated restrictions that proved inconvenient in the future. Russian analysts do not fear that American plans for NMD to cope with "rogue" state threats erode Russia's deterrent, but they do believe that such systems will provide the United States with a "break-out" capability that may prove tempting in the future, given the trends toward American unilateralism in international affairs. If the United States hopes to gain Russian agreement on modifying the ABM Treaty, the absolute minimum deal will depend on clear and reliable provisions that are directed explicitly and narrowly on the North Korean scenario. To do this, not only must interceptors be limited in number and range, but the Russian military will demand provisions for transparency and assurances so that it can plan for a reliable, long-term strategic nuclear force with retaliatory capacity against both the United States and China.

The most important implication for U.S. policy is the need to understand that the Russian security leadership links national sovereignty and territorial integrity, terrorism and WMD, instability and conflict in the Caucasus and Caspian regions, NATO's membership and mission enlargement, and U.S. unilateralism. The United States may not agree that these elements are connected. However, it will not be able to devise a successful Russia policy unless it understands that the Russian political leadership will base its security policy on this assessment into the 21st century. The most important policy implication of this connection is that NATO's primary security mission for the next few years must be repairing relations and trust with Russia. Putin has signaled interest in thawing the freeze on the NATO-Russian relationship, which was Russia's response to Kosovo. Both Russia and the United States have to decide that they will make the mechanism for discussion and consultation between NATO and Russia—the Permanent Joint Council—a meaningful forum for confidence building and discussion of European security issues. It is difficult for the United States to involve Russia in NATO, but the 2000 security concept and military doctrine makes clear that Russia's relations with NATO have global implications in a range of issues, including non-proliferation and control of WMD.

The American approach to security cooperation and arms control with Russia has to be based on an understanding that the wide-ranging Russian debate of the 1990s has produced a relatively stable consensus among Russia's security elites supporting a more limited range of security cooperation, based on a more Eurasianist, great power variant of Russian interests than were at work in the 1990s. Russian relations with the United States will be shaped by the ongoing task of dismantling the communist legacy within Russia itself, Russia's Eurasian history and geopolitics and Russian society's own definition of its security interests.


NOTES

The author would like to thank Samuel Huntington, Nikolai Sokov and Kimberly Zisk for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

1. Putin has not yet signed the draft doctrine, but he is expected to do so this spring.

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2. Andrei Kozyrev, "Vystupleniye na prakticheskoi konferentsii 'Preobrazhennaya Rossiya v novom mire'," February 1992. Reprinted in International Affairs (Moscow), April-May 1992.

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3. Sergei Stankevich, "Derzhava v poiskakh sebya," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 28, 1992, p. 4; Aleksandr Rutskoi, "Ya - tsentrist, derzhavnik i liberal," Argumenty i Fakty, October 1992. Derzhava means literally "power" but connotes "great power."

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4. "Osnovnye polozheniia voennoi doctriny Rossii-skoi Federatsii," internal Russian government document, November 1993.

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5. "Perviy god diplomatii Primakova proshyel bez provalov i proryvov," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 9, 1997, p. 1; "U nas svoye litso, i my nigde ne skatyvalis," Izvestiya, December 23, 1997, p. 3.

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6. Andrei Baturin, "Tanets s metloi v ispolnii Zhirinovskovo," Izvestiya, February 1, 1994.

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7. "Kontseptsiya natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossiy-skoy Federatsii," ukazom Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 17 dekabrya 1997 g. , no. 1300 (internal Russian government document). It was also published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 26, 1997, p. 4-5.

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8.Ibid. , p. 1.

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9.Ibid. , p. 3.

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10.Ibid. , p. 7-8.

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11. "Kontseptsiya natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossisy-skiy Federatsii," Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Oboz-reniye, January 14, 2000.

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12. "Rossiyskaya armiya gotovitsya k otrazheniyu agressii," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 23, 1999.

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Celeste A. Wallander is associate professor of government at Harvard University and faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Davis Center for Russian Studies. [Back to top]

Progress in Russia Prompts Sanctions Changes

Citing progress in Russia's enforcement of export controls, the Clinton administration announced April 24 that it was lifting sanctions against two Russian companies that had been accused of aiding Iranian missile programs. The administration had sanctioned INOR Scientific Center and Polyus Scientific Production Association (as well as five other Russian entities) in 1998 for their contributions to Iran's ballistic missile development program, but now maintains that the two firms have "ceased proliferant behavior," according to State Department spokesman James Rubin.

The administration also praised "Russia's commitment to stopping the flow of sensitive technologies to Iran," as demonstrated by its crackdown on the Baltic State Technical University (BSTU), which had also been cited in 1998 for training Iranian specialists in missile-related fields. According to Rubin, that training has stopped but sanctions remain in place, and the administration has now imposed sanctions on the university's rector, Yuri Saval'ev.

Responding to the developments, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said April 25, "The U.S. administration has finally appreciated progressive improvement of the national export control and strict compliance with international commitments in non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." But the spokesman criticized the continued application of sanctions to BSTU as an "obvious attempt to call into question the efficiency of measures by the Russian authorities taken against the BSTU rector."

 Progress in Russia Prompts Sanctions Changes

Russia's Military Doctrine


On April 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new military doctrine intended to replace the doctrine issued in 1993 and to elaborate on the military policies outlined in the new Russian national security concept, released in January. (See ACT, January/February 2000.) The doctrine, which Russia says is "defensive in nature," states that it is designed for the current "transitional period" in both Russian politics and international relations.

The new military doctrine addresses a broad range of topics, including the nature and causes of modern wars, the internal and external military threats facing Russia, the organization and funding of the Russian military, and the principles governing Russia's use of force. It also addresses a variety of specific, militarily relevant issues in the technical, political, social, and economic spheres, including the implementation of arms control treaties, the threat posed by "illegal armed formations" within Russia, and the effective imposition of international sanctions.

In keeping with the security concept it is intended to complement, the new doctrine appears to lower the threshold for Russia's use of nuclear weapons below what was stated in the national security concept that was issued in 1997. Whereas the 1997 concept allowed the first use of nuclear arms only "in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation," the new doctrine allows nuclear weapons use "in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation." It also explicitly states for the first time that Russia "reserves the right" to use nuclear weapons to respond to all "weapons of mass destruction" attacks. Furthermore, the doctrine reaffirms Russia's negative security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon states and reiterates Russia's extension of its nuclear umbrella to its allies. (See section I [8].)

The following is the full text of the doctrine, originally published in Russian in the April 22 issue of Nezavisimaya Gazeta and translated by the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Readers should note that the words and phrases enclosed in parentheses are part of the original text, while those in brackets are clarifications inserted by FBIS.

The Russian Federation Military Doctrine (hereinafter, the Military Doctrine) constitutes the sum total of the official views (precepts) determining the military-political, military-strategic, and military-economic foundations for safeguarding the Russian Federation's military security.

The Military Doctrine is a document for a transitional period—the period of the formation of democratic statehood and a mixed economy, the transformation of the state's military organization, and the dynamic transformation of the system of international relations.

The Military Doctrine develops the Basic Guidelines for the Russian Federation's Military Doctrine of 1993 and fleshes out in respect of the military sphere the precepts of the Russian Federation National Security Concept. The provisions of the Military Doctrine are based on a comprehensive evaluation of the state of the military-political situation and a strategic forecast of its development, on a scientifically justified definition of the current and longer-term missions, objective requirements, and real potential for safeguarding the Russian Federation's military security, and also on a systematic analysis of the content and nature of modern wars and armed conflicts, and Russian and foreign experience of military organizational development and the art of war.

The Military Doctrine is defensive in nature, which is predetermined by the organic combination within its provisions of a consistent adherence to peace with a firm resolve to defend national interests and guarantee the military security of the Russian Federation and its allies.

The legal basis for the Military Doctrine is provided by the Russian Federation Constitution, Russian Federation federal laws and other normative legal acts, and the Russian Federation's international treaties in the sphere of the safeguarding of military security.

The Military Doctrine's provisions may be clarified and supplemented taking account of changes in the military-political situation, the nature and makeup of military threats, and the conditions underlying the organizational development, development, and utilization of the state's military organization, as well as being fleshed out in the Russian Federation president's annual messages to the Federal Assembly, in directives on planning for the use of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops, military formations, and organs, and in other documents on questions of safeguarding the Russian Federation's military security.

Implementation of the Military Doctrine is achieved through the centralization of state and military command and control and the implementation of a range of political, diplomatic, economic, social, information, legal, military, and other measures aimed at safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation and its allies.

 

I. Military-Political Principles

 

Military-Political Situation

1. The state of and prospects for the development of the present-day military-political situation are determined by the qualitative improvement in the means, forms, and methods of military conflict, by the increase in its reach [prostranstvenny razmakh] and the severity of its consequences, and by its spread to new spheres. The possibility of achieving military-political goals through indirect, non-close-quarter operations predetermines the particular danger of modern wars and armed conflicts for peoples and states and for preserving international stability and peace, and makes it vitally necessary to take exhaustive measures to prevent them and to achieve a peaceful settlement of differences at early stages of their emergence and development.

2. The military-political situation is determined by the following main factors:

• a decline in the threat of the unleashing of a large-scale war, including a nuclear war;

• the shaping and strengthening of regional power centers; the strengthening of national, ethnic, and religious extremism; the rise in separatism;

• the spread of local wars and armed conflicts; an increase in the regional arms race;

• the spread of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems; the exacerbation of information confrontation.

3. A destabilizing impact on the military-political situation is exerted by:

• attempts to weaken (ignore) the existing mechanism for safeguarding international security (primarily the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE]);

• the utilization of military-force actions as a means of "humanitarian intervention" without the sanction of the UN Security Council, in circumvention of the generally accepted principles and norms of international law;

• the violation by certain states of international treaties and agreements in the sphere of arms limitation and disarmament;

• the utilization by entities in international relations of information and other (including nontraditional) means and technologies for aggressive (expansionist) purposes;

• the activities of extremist nationalist, religious, separatist, and terrorist movements, organizations, and structures;

• the expansion of the scale of organized crime, terrorism, and weapons and drug trafficking, and the multinational nature of these activities.

 

The Main Threats to Military Security

4. Under present-day conditions the threat of direct military aggression in traditional forms against the Russian Federation and its allies has declined thanks to positive changes in the international situation, the implementation of an active peace-loving foreign-policy course by our country, and the maintenance of Russia's military potential—primarily its nuclear deterrent potential—at an adequate level.

At the same time, external and internal threats to the military security of the Russian Federation and its allies persist and in certain areas are increasing.

5. The main external threats are:

• territorial claims against the Russian Federation; interference in the Russian Federation's internal affairs;

• attempts to ignore (infringe) the Russian Federation's interests in resolving international security problems, and to oppose its strengthening as one influential center in a multipolar world;

• the existence of seats of armed conflict, primarily close to the Russian Federation's state border and the borders of its allies;

• the creation (buildup) of groups of troops (forces) leading to the violation of the existing balance of forces, close to the Russian Federation's state border and the borders of its allies or on the seas adjoining their territories;

• the expansion of military blocs and alliances to the detriment of the Russian Federation's military security;

• the introduction of foreign troops in violation of the UN Charter on the territory of friendly states adjoining the Russian Federation;

• the creation, equipping, and training on other states' territories of armed formations and groups with a view to transferring them for operations on the territory of the Russian Federation and its allies;

• attacks (armed provocations) on Russian Federation military installations located on the territory of foreign states, as well as on installations and facilities on the Russian Federation's state border, the borders of its allies, or the high seas;

• actions aimed at undermining global and regional stability, not least by hampering the work of Russian systems of state and military rule, or at disrupting the functioning of strategic nuclear forces, missile-attack early warning, antimissile defense, and space monitoring systems and systems for ensuring their combat stability, nuclear munition storage facilities, nuclear power generation, the nuclear and chemical industries, and other potentially dangerous installations;

• hostile information (information-technical, informa-tion-psychological) operations that damage the military security of the Russian Federation and its allies;

• discrimination and the suppression of the rights, freedoms, and legitimate interests of the citizens of the Russian Federation in foreign states;

• international terrorism.

6. The main internal threats are:

• an attempted violent overthrow of the constitutional order;

• illegal activities by extremist nationalist, religious, separatist, and terrorist movements, organizations, and structures aimed at violating the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and destabilizing the domestic political situation in the country;

• the planning, preparation, and implementation of operations aimed at disrupting the functioning of federal organs of state power and attacking state, economic, or military facilities, or facilities related to vital services or the information infrastructure;

• the creation, equipping, training, and functioning of illegal armed formations;

• the illegal dissemination (circulation) on Russian Federation territory of weapons, ammunition, explosives, and other means which could be used to carry out sabotage, acts of terrorism, or other illegal operations;

• organized crime, terrorism, smuggling, and other illegal activities on a scale threatening the Russian Federation's military security.

 

Safeguarding Military Security

7. Safeguarding the Russian Federation's military security is the most important area of the state's activity.

The main goals of safeguarding military security are to prevent, localize, and neutralize military threats to the Russian Federation.

The Russian Federation views the safeguarding of its military security within the context of building a democratic rule-of-law state, implementing socioeconomic reform, asserting the principles of equal partnership, mutually advantageous cooperation, and good-neighborliness in international relations, consistently shaping an overall and comprehensive international security system, and preserving and strengthening universal peace.

The Russian Federation:

• proceeds on the basis of the abiding importance of the fundamental principles and norms of international law, which are organically intertwined and supplement each other;

• maintains the status of nuclear power to deter (prevent) aggression against it and (or) its allies;

• implements a joint defense policy together with the Republic of Belarus, coordinates with it activities in the sphere of military organizational development, the development of the armed forces of the Union State's member states, and the utilization of military infrastructure, and takes other measures to maintain the Union State's defense capability;

• attaches priority importance to strengthening the collective security system within the CIS framework on the basis of developing and strengthening the Collective Security Treaty;

• views as partners all states whose policies do not damage its national interests and security and do not contravene the UN Charter;

• gives preference to political, diplomatic, and other nonmilitary means of preventing, localizing, and neutralizing military threats at regional and global levels;

• strictly observes the Russian Federation's international treaties in the sphere of arms limitation, reduction, and elimination, and promotes their implementation and the safeguarding of the arrangements they define;

• punctiliously implements the Russian Federation's international treaties as regards strategic offensive arms and antimissile defense, and is ready for further reductions in its nuclear weapons, on a bilateral basis with the United States as well as on a multilateral basis with other nuclear states, to minimal levels meeting the requirements of strategic stability;

• advocates making universal the regime covering the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, resolutely enhancing the effectiveness of that regime through a combination of prohibitive, monitoring, and technological measures, and ending and comprehensively banning nuclear testing;

• promotes the expansion of confidence-building measures between states in the military sphere, including reciprocal exchanges of information of a military nature and the coordination of military doctrines, plans, military organizational development measures, and military activity.

8. The Russian Federation's military security is safeguarded by the sum total of the forces, means, and resources at its disposal.

Under present-day conditions the Russian Federation proceeds on the basis of the need to have a nuclear potential capable of guaranteeing a set level of damage to any aggressor (state or coalition of states) under any circumstances.

The nuclear weapons with which the Russian Federation Armed Forces are equipped are seen by the Russian Federation as a factor in deterring aggression, safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation and its allies, and maintaining international stability and peace.

The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and (or) its allies, as well as in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.

The Russian Federation will not use nuclear weapons against states party to the Nonproliferation Treaty that do not possess nuclear weapons except in the event of an attack on the Russian Federation, the Russian Federation Armed Forces or other troops, its allies, or a state to which it has security commitments that is carried out or supported by a state without nuclear weapons jointly or in the context of allied commitments with a state with nuclear weapons.

The main principles for safeguarding military security are:

• the combination of firm centralized leadership of the state's military organization with civilian control over its activities;

• effective forecasting, the timely identification and classification of military threats, and appropriate responses to them;

• sufficient forces, means, and resources to safeguard military security, and their rational utilization;

• the correspondence of the level of readiness, training, and provision of the state's military organization to the requirements of military security;

• the refusal to damage international security and the national security of other countries.

10. [number as published; no number 9] Main content of safeguarding military security:

a) in peacetime:

• formation and implementation of a single state policy in the sphere of safeguarding military security;

• maintenance of domestic political stability and protection of the constitutional system, integrity, and inviolability of the territory of the Russian Federation;

• development and strengthening of friendly (allied) rela tions with neighboring and other states;

• creation and improvement of the system of defense of the Russian Federation and its allies;

• all-around support for and qualitative improvement of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops, mili tary formations, and organs (hereinafter the Russian Fed eration Armed Forces and other troops) and maintenance of their readiness for coordinated actions to avert, local ize, and neutralize external and internal threats;

• preparation of a system of measures to transfer the Rus sian Federation Armed Forces and other troops to a war time footing (including their mobilization deployment);

• improvement of the economic, technological, and defense industry base; enhancement of the mobilization readiness of the economy; creation of conditions ensuring the timely switching of industrial enterprises stipulated in the plan to the production of military output; organization of the preparation of the organs of state power, enterprises, institutions: and organizations, and the country's population for performing missions in safeguarding military security and conducting territorial and civil defense;

• protection of the Russian Federation's facilities and installations on the high seas, in space, and on the territory of foreign states; protection of shipping, fishing, and other types of activities in the adjacent maritime zone and in distant regions of the ocean;

• protection and defense of the state border of the Russian Federation within the limits of border territory, airspace, and the underwater environment and of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Russian Federation and their natural resources;

• support (where necessary) for political acts of the Russian Federation by means of the implementation of corresponding measures of a military nature and [by means of] a naval presence;

• preparation for territorial and civil defense;

• development of the necessary military infrastructure;

• safeguarding the security of Russian Federation citizens and protecting them from military threats;

• development of a conscious attitude among the population toward safeguarding the country's military security;

• monitoring of the mutual fulfillment of treaties in the sphere of arms limitation, reduction, and elimination and the strengthening of confidence-building measures;

• ensuring readiness to participate (participating) in peacekeeping activities;

b) in a period of threat and on the commencement of a war (armed conflict):

• the timely declaration of a state of war; imposition of martial law or a state of emergency in the country or in particular localities within it; full or partial strategic deployment of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops, or units thereof; bringing them into readiness to perform their missions;

• coordination, in line with federal legislation, of the activities of the federal organs of state power, the organs of state power of Russian Federation components, local self-government organs, public organizations, and citizens in the interests of repulsing aggression;

• organization and coordinated implementation of armed, political, diplomatic, information, economic, and other forms of struggle;

• adoption and implementation of decisions on the preparation for and pursuit of military operations;

• the switching of the country's economy and of individual sectors of it, enterprises and organizations, transportation, and communications onto a footing of work in the conditions of a state of war;

• organization and implementation of territorial and civil defense measures;

• provision of aid to allies of the Russian Federation; enlistment and realization of their potential for achieving joint objectives in a war (armed conflict);

• prevention of the enlistment of other states in the war (armed conflict) on the side of the aggressor;

• utilization of the potential of the United Nations and other international organizations to prevent aggression, force the aggressor to end the war (armed conflict) at an early stage, and restore international security and peace.

 

The State's Military Organization

11. The objectives of safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation are served by the state's military organization.

12. The state's military organization includes the Russian Federation Armed Forces, which constitute its nucleus and the basis of safeguarding military security; other troops, military formations, and organs designed for the performance of military security missions by military methods; and their command and control organs.

The state's military organization also includes that part of the country's industrial and scientific complexes that is intended for performing missions relating to military security.

13. The main aim of the development of the state's military organization is to ensure guaranteed protection of the national interests and military security of the Russian Federation and its allies.

14. Basic principles of development of the state's military organization:

• appropriate consideration of conclusions drawn from the analysis of the state of and prospects for the development of the military-political situation;

• centralization of leadership;

• sole command [yedinonachaliye] on a legal basis;

• attainable correspondence, within the limits of the country's economic potential, between, on the one hand, the level of combat and mobilization training, the preparedness of organs of military command and control and of the troops (forces), their structures, fighting strength and strength of the reserve, and reserves of material means and resources, and, on the other hand, the missions of safeguarding military security;

• unity of training and education;

• implementation of servicemen's rights and freedoms and safeguarding of their social protection and appropriate social status and living standard.

The development of all components of the state's military organization takes place in accordance with normative labor acts governing their activity and on the basis of agreed and coordinated programs and plans.

15. Main priorities of development of the state's military organization:

• creation of an integrated system of command and control of the state's military organization and the ensuring of its effective functioning;

• development and improvement of the troops (forces) ensuring strategic deterrence (including nuclear deterrence);

• creation and maintenance in necessary readiness of structures for preparing mobilization resources and for ensuring the mobilization deployment of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops;

• manning, equipping, all-around support, and preparation of combined units and troop units for a state of permanent combat readiness of general-purpose forces for performing missions of deterrence and the conduct of combat operations in local wars and armed conflicts.

16. Basic principles of development of the state's military organization:

• bringing the structure, composition, and strength of components of the state's military organization into line with the missions of safeguarding military security taking into account the country's economic potential;

• increasing the qualitative level, effectiveness, and security of functioning of the technological basis of the system of state and military command and control;

• improving military-economic support for the state's military organization on the basis of the concentration and rational utilization of financial and material resources;

• improving strategic planning on the principle of unity of use of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops;

• increasing the effectiveness of functioning of systems of personnel training, military education, operational and combat training, education of servicemen, all types of support, and military science;

• improving the system of manning (on the basis of the contract and draft principle, with a gradual increase—as the necessary socioeconomic conditions are created—in the proportion of servicemen carrying out military service under contract, first and foremost in the posts of junior commanding officers and specialists in the leading combat specialties);

• increasing the effectiveness of the system of operation and maintenance of arms and military equipment;

• improving special information support for the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops and their command and control organs;

• strengthening the rule of law, order, and military discipline;

• implementing state policy in strengthening the prestige of military service and preparing Russian Federation citizens for it;

• developing international military (military-political) and military-technical cooperation;

• improving the normative legal base for the organizational development and the development and utilization of the state's military organization and its system of relations with society.

17. An integral part and a priority task of the present stage of military organizational development is the implementation of comprehensive military reform determined by the radical changes in the military-political situation and the missions and conditions of safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation.

Within the framework of military reform, an interconnected, coordinated reform of all components of the state's military organization takes place.

 

Leadership of the State's Military Organization

18. Leadership of the organizational development, preparation, and utilization of the state's military organization and of safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation is exercised by the president of the Russian Federation, who is supreme commander in chief of the Russian Federation Armed Forces.

19. The Russian Federation Government organizes the equipping of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops with arms and military and special equipment and their furnishing with material means, resources, and services; exercises overall leadership of the operational equipping of the territory of the Russian Federation in the interests of defense; and carries out other functions established by federal legislation to ensure military security.

20. The federal organs of state power, organs of state power of the Russian Federation components, and local self-government organs exercise the powers vested in them by federal legislation in safeguarding military security.

Enterprises, institutions, organizations, public associations, and citizens of the Russian Federation participate in safeguarding military security according to the procedure laid down by federal legislation.

21. Command and control of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops is exercised by the leaders of the corresponding federal organs of executive power.

22. The Russian Federation Defense Ministry coordinates the activity of federal organs of executive power and organs of executive power of the Russian Federation components on questions of defense, the formulation of concepts for the organizational development and the development of other troops, and orders for arms and military equipment for them, and formulates—with the participation of the corresponding federal organs of executive power—the concept of development of arms and military and special equipment and the federal state armaments program and proposals on the state defense order.

The Russian Federation Armed Forces General Staff is the main organ of operational command and control of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, coordinating the activity and organizing the collaboration of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops in performing missions in the defense sphere.

The directorates of the commanders in chief (commanders) of branches (arms) of the Russian Federation Armed Forces (troops) carry out the formulation and implementation of plans for the organizational development and utilization of branches (arms) of the Russian Federation Armed Forces (troops) and their operational and mobilization training, technical equipment, and personnel training, and carry out command and control of the troops (forces) and their day-to-day activities and the development of the basing system and infrastructure.

The directorates of military districts (operational-strategic commands) carry out command and control of inter-branch groups of general-purpose troops (forces) and the planning and organization of measures relating to joint training with other troops, military formations, and organs for safeguarding military security within the established limits of responsibility taking into account their missions and the integrated system of military-administrative division of the territory of the Russian Federation.

23. In order to carry out command and control of coalition groupings of troops (forces) the corresponding joint organs of military command and control are set up by a coordinated decision of the organs of state power of the countries participating in the coalition.

24. With a view to centralized leadership in safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation, integrated strategic and operational planning takes place in relation to the utilization of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops in the interests of defense, as well as program-targeted planning of military organizational development envisaging the formulation of long-term (10-15 years), medium-term (4-5 years) and short-term (1-2 years) documents.

25. Organization of the leadership of safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation in a period of threat and the creation and functioning of the corresponding organs of state power and organs of military command and control are regulated by corresponding legislative and other normative legal acts of the Russian Federation.

 

II. Military-Strategic Principles

 

Nature of Wars and Armed Conflicts

1. The Russian Federation maintains a readiness to wage war and take part in armed conflicts exclusively with a view to preventing and repulsing aggression, protecting the integrity and inviolability of its territory, and safeguarding the Russian Federation's military security as well as that of its allies in accordance with international treaties.

2. The nature of modern wars (armed conflicts) is determined by their military-political goals, the means of achieving those goals, and the scale of the military operations.

In accordance with this a modern war (armed conflict) may be:

• in terms of military-political goals—just (not contravening the UN Charter and the fundamental norms and principles of international law, and waged as self-defense by the party subject to aggression); unjust (contravening the UN Charter and the fundamental norms and principles of international law, falling within the definition of aggression, and waged by the party undertaking the armed attack);

• in terms of means utilized—using nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction; using only conventional weapons;

• in terms of scale—local, regional, or large-scale.

3. The main general features of modern war are:

• its impact on all spheres of human activity;

• its coalition nature;

• the extensive use of indirect, non-close-quarter, and other (including nontraditional) forms and means of operation, and long-range effective engagement and electronic engagement [dalnego ognevogo i elektronnogo porazheniya];

• a desire on the part of the sides to disrupt the system of state and military command and control;

• the use of highly efficient state-of-the-art systems of arms and military hardware (including those based on new physical principles);

• highly maneuverable operations by troops (forces) in disparate areas with the extensive utilization of air-mobile forces, airborne troops and special-purpose forces;

• attacks against troops (forces), rear-service and economic facilities, and means of communication [kommunkatsii] throughout the territory of each of the warring parties;

• the implementation of air campaigns and operations; the catastrophic consequences of hitting (destroying) power-generation enterprises (above all nuclear), chemical and other dangerous production facilities, infrastructure, means of communication [kommunikatsii], and vital installations;

• a high likelihood of new states being drawn into the war, the escalation of warfare, and the expansion of the scale and range of the means employed, including weapons of mass destruction;

• the participation in the war of irregular armed formations alongside regular units.

4. Armed conflict can arise in the form of an armed incident, an armed action, and other armed clashes on a limited scale and be the consequence of an attempt to resolve national, ethnic, religious, or other differences with the help of the means of military conflict.

Border conflict is a special form of armed conflict.

Armed conflict can be international in nature (involving two or several states) or international [as published] and internal in nature (with armed confrontation being conducted within the territory of a single state).

5. Armed conflict is characterized by:

• a high degree of involvement and vulnerability of the local population;

• the use of irregular armed formations;

• the extensive utilization of sabotage and terrorist methods;

• the complex moral and psychological atmosphere in which the troops operate;

• the enforced diversion of considerable forces and assets to safeguard the security of transportation routes or areas and locations where troops (forces) are sited;

• the threat that it may be transformed into a local ([in the case of an] international armed conflict) or civil ([in the case of an] internal armed conflict) war.

6. Unified (multidepartmental) groups of troops (forces) and command and control units may be set up to perform missions in an internal armed conflict.

7. A local war may be waged by groups of troops (forces) deployed in a conflict zone, being reinforced if necessary by transfers of troops, forces, and assets from other areas and the implementation of the partial strategic deployment of armed forces.

In a local war the sides will operate within the borders of the warring states and pursue limited military-political goals.

8. A regional war may result from the escalation of a local war or armed conflict and be waged with the involvement of two or several states (groups of states) in a single region, by national or coalition armed forces utilizing both conventional and nuclear weapons.

In a regional war the sides will pursue important military-political goals.

9. A large-scale war may result from an escalation of an armed conflict, local or regional war, or from the involvement in them of a significant number of states from different parts of the world.

A large-scale war utilizing only conventional weapons will be characterized by a high likelihood of escalating into a nuclear war with catastrophic consequences for civilization and the foundations of human life and existence.

In a large-scale war the sides will set radical military-political goals. It requires the total mobilization of all the material and spiritual resources of the states involved.

10. A large-scale (regional) war may be preceded by a period of threat.

11. A large-scale (regional) war may have an initial period, the main component of which is an intense armed struggle to gain the strategic initiative, preserve stable state and military command and control, achieve supremacy in the information sphere, and win (maintain) air superiority.

In the event of a prolonged large-scale (regional) war its goals will be achieved in the subsequent and final periods.

12. The Russian Federation consistently and firmly strives for the creation of an effective system of political, legal, organizational, technical, and other international guarantees to prevent armed conflicts and wars.

 

Principles Governing the Use of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and Other Troops

13. The Russian Federation considers it lawful to utilize the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops to repulse aggression directed against it.

The Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops can also be used for protection against unconstitutional actions or illegal armed violence threatening the integrity and inviolability of Russian Federation territory, to perform missions in accordance with the Russian Federation's international treaties, and to perform other missions in accordance with federal legislation.

14. The goals of the use of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops are:

• in a large-scale (regional) war in the event that it is unleashed by a state (group or coalition of states)—to protect the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and its allies, to repulse aggression, to effectively engage the enemy, and to force it to end its military operations on terms according with the interests of the Russian Federation and its allies;

• in local wars and international armed conflicts—to localize the seat of tension, to create the prerequisites for ending the war or armed conflict or for bringing it to an end at an early stage; to neutralize the aggressor and achieve a settlement on terms according with the interests of the Russian Federation and its allies;

• in internal armed conflicts—to rout and liquidate illegal armed formations, to create the conditions for a full settlement of the conflict on the basis of the Russian Federation Constitution and federal legislation;

• in peacekeeping and peace restoration operations—to disengage the warring factions, to stabilize the situation, and to ensure the conditions for a just peace settlement.

15. The main ways of utilizing the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops are:

• strategic operations, operations, and combat operations—in large-scale and regional wars;

• operations and combat operations—in local wars and international armed conflicts;

• joint special operations—in internal armed conflicts;

• counterterrorist operations—in the fight against terrorism in accordance with federal legislation;

• peacekeeping operations.

16. The Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops should be prepared to repulse aggression, effectively engage an aggressor, and conduct active operations (both defense and offensive) under any scenario for the unleashing and waging of wars and armed conflicts, under conditions of the massive use by the enemy of modern and advanced combat weapons, including weapons of mass destruction of all types.

At the same time, the Russian Federation Armed Forces must ensure the implementation of peacekeeping activities by the Russian Federation both independently and as part of international organizations.

17. The main missions of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops are:

a) in safeguarding military security:

• the timely disclosure of a threatening development in the military-political situation or of preparations for an armed attack against the Russian Federation and (or) its allies;

• maintenance of the composition, condition, combat and mobilization readiness, and training of the strategic nuclear forces, and of the forces and assets ensuring their functioning and utilization, as well as of command and control systems, at a level guaranteeing a set level of damage for an aggressor under any circumstances;

• maintenance of combat potential, combat and mobilization readiness, and preparation of peacetime general-purpose groups of troops (forces) at a level ensuring the repulsing of aggression on a local scale;

• maintenance of arms and military (special) equipment and reserves of material resources in readiness for combat use;

• carrying out of alert duty (combat service) by assigned (appointed) troops, forces, and resources;

• high-quality and complete fulfillment of plans and programs for operational, combat, and mobilization training and education of personnel of the troops (forces);

• maintenance of readiness for strategic deployment within the framework of state measures to put the country onto a wartime footing;

• protection and defense of the Russian Federation state border;

• development of the air defense of the Russian Federation as an integrated system based on centralized command and control of all air defense forces and resources;

• creation of the conditions for the security of economic activity and protection of the Russian Federation's national interests in the territorial seas, on the continental shelf, and in the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation as well as on the high seas;

• protection of important state facilities;

• prevention and termination of acts of sabotage and terrorism;

• prevention of ecological and other emergencies and elimination of their consequences;

• organization of civil and territorial defense;

• safeguarding of technical cover and restoration of means of communication [kommunikatsii];

• safeguarding of information security.

The performance of missions in defense of the Russian Federation's national interests on the high seas takes place in accordance with the Fundamentals of Russian Federation Policy in the Sphere of Naval Activity.

All missions in safeguarding military security are carried out by the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops in coordination, in close collaboration, and in accordance with their functions as stipulated by federal legislation, [punctuation as published]

b) in rebuffing an armed attack (aggression) on the Russian Federation and (or) its allies:

• partial or full strategic deployment;

• conduct of strategic operations, operations, and combat operations (including jointly with allied states) to rout the invaders and eliminate groups of troops (forces) that have been (are being) created by the aggressor in regions where they are based or concentrated and on communication routes;

• maintenance of readiness for utilization, and utilization (in cases envisaged by the Military Doctrine and in accordance with the stipulated procedure) of the nuclear deterrent potential;

• localization and neutralization of border armed conflicts;

• maintenance of the regime of martial law (state of emergency);

• protection of the population, economic facilities, and the infrastructure against the enemy's weapons;

• fulfillment of the Russian Federation's allied commitments in accordance with international treaties.

The performance of missions in repulsing an armed attack (aggression) is organized and implemented in accordance with the Plan for Utilization of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, the Mobilization Plan of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, edicts of the Russian Federation president on military security issues, orders and directives of the supreme commander in chief of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, and other normative legal acts, plans, and directive documents;

c) in domestic armed conflicts:

• the routing and liquidation of illegal armed formations and bandit and terrorist groups and organizations and the destruction of their bases, training centers, depots, and communications;

• restoration of the rule of law, and of law and order;

• safeguarding of public security and stability;

• maintenance of the legal regime of a state of emergency in the conflict zone;

• localization and blockading of the conflict zone;

• termination of armed clashes and disengagement of the warring parties;

• confiscation of weapons from the population in the conflict zone;

• strengthening of protection of public order and security in regions adjacent to the conflict zone.

The performance of missions in the prevention and termination of domestic armed conflicts, the localization and blockading of conflict zones, and the elimination of illegal armed formations, bands, and terrorist groups is entrusted to joint (multidepartmental) groups of troops (forces) created on an ad hoc basis and their organs of command and control;

d) in operations to maintain and restore peace:

• disengagement of the conflicting parties' armed groups;

• safeguarding of the conditions for the delivery of humanitarian aid to the civilian population and their evacuation from the conflict zone;

• blockading of the conflict zone with a view to ensuring the implementation of sanctions adopted by the international community;

• creation of the preconditions for a political settlement.

The performance of missions in operations to maintain and restore peace is entrusted to the Russian Federation Armed Forces. In order to prepare for these missions, specially appointed combined units and troop units are identified. Alongside their preparation for utilization for their immediate purpose, they are trained according to a special program. The Russian Federation carries out rear and technical support, training, and preparation of Russian contingents, the planning of their utilization, and operational command and control in line with the standards and procedures of the United Nations, the OSCE, and the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS].

18. Forces and resources of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops may be enlisted to provide assistance to the organs of state power, organs of local self-government, and the population in eliminating the consequences of accidents, disasters, and natural disasters.

19. In order to perform the missions facing the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops, groups of troops (forces) are created on the territory of the Russian Federation taking into account:

• the degree of the potential military danger in specific strategic sectors;

• the nature of the Russian Federation's relations with contiguous states;

• the location of the Russian Federation's vitally important industrial regions and regions of strategic resources and specially important facilities;

• the potential for strategic deployment in the threatened sectors in conjunction with the lowest possible volume of transport movements, and also interregional maneuvering;

• the potential for the timely withdrawal of troops (forces) and material and technical reserves out of range of probable missile and air strikes;

• the conditions for the billeting and provision of essential services for troops and for resolving social and living problems;

• the presence and status of the mobilization deployment base;

• the sociopolitical situation in specific regions.

20. With a view to forming and maintaining stability and ensuring an appropriate response to the emergence of external threats at an early stage, limited contingents of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops may be deployed in strategically important regions outside the territory of the Russian Federation, in the form of joint or national groups and individual bases (facilities).

The conditions for such deployment are defined by the appropriate international legal documents.

21. When mixed military formations of the CIS are created, they are manned by servicemen of the member states in accordance with their national legislation and the interstate agreements adopted. Servicemen who are citizens of the Russian Federation serve in such formations, as a rule, under contract.

Russian troop formations located on the territory of foreign states, irrespective of the conditions of deployment, form part of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops and operate in accordance with the procedure there established, taking into account the requirements of the UN Charter, UN Security Council resolutions, and the Russian Federation's bilateral and multilateral treaties.

22. In order to create and develop the state's military infrastructure so as to support the strategic deployment of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops and their pursuit of military operations, the operational equipping of the Russian Federation's territory with a view to defense is carried out under the leadership of the Russian Federation Government and on the basis of a federal state program.

23. The stockpiling and maintenance of reserves of material resources is organized by the Russian Federation Government in accordance with plans for the creation of state and mobilization reserves approved by the Russian Federation president.

The Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops and organs of executive power, in accordance with federal legislation, carry out in peacetime the stockpiling, echelonment, disposition, and maintenance of reserves of material resources to support the mobilization deployment of troops (forces) and their conduct of combat operations in the initial period of a war (for certain types of material resources also for a longer period, based on the time scale for switching the economy of the country and its individual sectors and enterprises onto working according to the established plan), and the formation, preparation, regrouping, and utilization of strategic reserves.

The planning of the stockpiling, echelonment, and disposition of operational reserves of material resources and their maintenance for other troops that are made operationally subordinate to the Russian Federation Defense Ministry during a special period are carried out by the said ministry.

24. The planning of citizens' preparation for military service, military registration, and registration of means of transport made available to the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops are carried out under the overall leadership of the Russian Federation Armed Forces General Staff.

25. In both peacetime and wartime, preparation of the country for territorial and civil defense is carried out and a range of measures are implemented to ensure the stable functioning of economic facilities, transportation, and communications and ensure readiness for emergency rescue and other work in stricken [contaminated] areas [ochagi porazheniya] and zones of accidents, disasters, and natural disasters.

 

III. Military-Economic Principles

 

Military-Economic Provision for Military Security

1. The main aim of military-economic provision is to meet the needs of the state's military organization for financial and material resources.

2. The main missions of military-economic provision are:

• to ensure timely and full financial provision for the missions being performed by the state's military organization;

• to optimize expenditure of the material resources and funds channeled into safeguarding military security, and to enhance the efficiency of their use on the basis of the interlinked and coordinated reform of all components of the states' [as published] military organization;

• to develop the scientific, technical, technological, and production base of the country of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops, and of the military infrastructure in the interest of safeguarding military security;

• to ensure legal protection for the intellectual property contained in military products and in the techniques used to develop and produce them;

• to integrate the civil and military sectors of the country's economy and to coordinate the state's military-economic activity in the interest of safeguarding military security;

• to create the state's infrastructure taking account of the performance of missions to safeguard military security;

• to enhance the level of social provision for servicemen and civilian personnel of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops, as well as citizens working in the defense-industry complex;

• to ensure the functioning of and improve systems of mobilization readiness and mobilization preparation of the country's economy and population;

• to build up and maintain stockpiles of material resources;

• to implement mutually advantageous international military (military-political) and military-technical cooperation;

• to implement the Russian Federation's international treaties in the military-economic sphere.

3. The priority missions of military-economic provision are: to ensure timely and full (within the limits of the state's existing financial resources) financial provision for plans for the organizational development, development, and combat and mobilization training of the Russian Federation Armed Forces and other troops, and of the requirements for all components of the state's military organization;

• to ensure economic and financial provision for upgrading strategic and conventional arms and military and specialized equipment;

• to create the economic and financial conditions for the development and production of highly efficient standardized command and control of troops and control of weapon assets, communications, intelligence-gathering, strategic-early warning, and electronic warfare systems, and precision mobile non-nuclear weapons and the information support systems for them;

• to enhance living standards and implement the social guarantees laid down by federal legislation for servicemen and their family members;

4. The main principles of military-economic provision are:

• to bring the level of financial and material provision for the state's military organization into line with the requirements of military security and the state's resource potential;

• to focus financial, material, technical, and intellectual resources on resolving the key tasks of safeguarding military security;

• to provide state support for enterprises (production facilities) and institutions (organizations) determining the military-technical and technological stability of the defense-industry complex, factory-town enterprises, and closed administrative territorial entities;

• to ensure scientific, technical, technological, information, and resource independence in the development and production of the main types of military output.

5. The basic guidelines for the mobilization preparation of the economy are: the preparation of an economic management system to ensure stable functioning during the period of transition to work under martial law conditions and during wartime;

• the creation, improvement, and effective functioning of a system of mobilization preparation for organs of state power, as well as organizations and enterprises with mobilization missions;

• the optimization and development of the requisite mobilization capacity and facilities;

• the creation, accumulation, preservation, and renewal of stockpiles of material resources in mobilization and state reserves;

• the creation and preservation of fallback stocks of design and technical documentation for wartime;

• the preservation and development of the economic facilities required for the stable functioning of the economy and the population's survival during wartime;

• the preparation of the financial, credit, and tax systems and the money-supply system for a special system of functioning under martial law conditions;

• the development and improvement of the normative-legal base for mobilization preparation and the transition of the Russian Federation economy, Russian Federation components, and municipal formations to work in accordance with the established plans.

 

International Military (Military-Political) and Military-Technical Cooperation

6. The Russian Federation implements international military (military-political) and military-technical cooperation on the basis of its own national interests and the need to ensure the balanced performance of the missions of safeguarding military security.

International military (military-political) and military-technical cooperation is the state's prerogative.

7. The Russian Federation implements international military (military-political) and military-technical cooperation on the basis of foreign-policy and economic expediency and the missions of safeguarding the military security of the Russian Federation and its allies, in accordance with federal legislation and the Russian Federation's international treaties, on the basis of the principles of equal rights, mutual advantage, and good-neighborliness, and observing the interests of international stability and national, regional, and global security.

8. The Russian Federation attaches priority importance to the development of military (military-political) and military-technical cooperation with CIS Collective Security Treaty states on the basis of the need to consolidate the efforts to create a single defense area and safeguard collective military security.

The Russian Federation, reaffirming its fundamental adherence to the ideas of deterring aggression, preventing wars and armed conflicts, and maintaining international security and universal peace, guarantees the consistent and firm implementation of the Military Doctrine.

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