#6 - RW 276
RIA Novosti
October 2, 2003
SECURITY IS BEST ACHIEVED THROUGH COALITION RUSSIA'S NEW MILITARY DOCTRINE HIGHLIGHTS COMMUNITY OF GOALS WITH THE WORLD

Moscow, October 2. (RIA Novosti military analyst Viktor Litovkin). One of the sensations, as Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov unveiled a new military doctrine on 2 October 2003 in Moscow at a conference of the military top brass, was his statement that the Russian army has already adapted itself to new global realities.

In this context, the minister said, it revised some of its basic military planning principles. For example, it excludes from most probable armed conflicts likely to involve the Russian army and navy, such events as a global nuclear war and a large-scale war using conventional weapons against NATO or any other US-led coalition. Which, in its turn, has helped to trim substantially Russia's nuclear and conventional potentials without detriment to national security. In troop training the Russian military command is now paying more attention to such forms of combat operations as peace operations, including peacekeeping and peace-making, special operations, combating of terror, and a role in local wars.

Also other military and political obligations of Russia towards its allies and partners have been substantially changed. They now rest on a firm foundation of international law, full respect for the sovereignty of a coalition member, and its foreign policy interests and absolute transparency of all its actions. They are carried out only in compliance with the UN Charter and by decision of the UN Security Council, confirmed by a decision of the Russian president and the Federal Assembly, as well as by the CIS Collective Security Treaty and other agreements determining various aspects of coordination of military efforts within the Commonwealth of Independent States. Including by bilateral treaties on cooperation in security, as exists, for example, between Russia and Belarus and in relations between Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member-countries.

Partner-like relations with US and NATO armed forces, said Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, helped to create additional structures and institutions to guarantee global stability. These relations remain valid despite considerable differences on questions relating to the alliance's expansion eastwards and North Atlantic alliance activities in the regions of armed conflicts. Nevertheless, he noted, the establishment of the Russia-NATO Council made it possible to develop a more elaborate system of liaison and consultations during crises and a procedure for forming joint troop contingents in conflict areas. Moscow and Brussels are actively cooperating (they set up joint working groups) in the joint use of air space, material and technical and logistic support for military contingents, and in establishing a theatre anti-missile system. In February 2003, a framework document was signed on rescuing crews of submarines in distress. Progress also exists in other areas.

Today we not only take part in multilateral exercises together with NATO countries, but also conduct joint peacekeeping operations (as, for example, Russian troops in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Military-technical cooperation with the alliance's interested states has become a reality (an example is Greece, whose entire air-defence system is based on Russian Osa-AKM, Tor-M1 and even S-300PMU anti-aircraft missile systems, and also France and Italy with which Russian aircraft firms have jointly developed combat training planes MiG-AT and Yak-130). We also work jointly to develop other military products, standardise components and units, and decide matters of operational compatibility of military units of Russia and NATO, which is an indispensable condition for the success of common operations.

Nevertheless, Moscow's head is not turned with the results achieved. It is well aware of the complexity and uncertainty surrounding them. Sergei Ivanov said bluntly, and this thesis is written into the text of the new military doctrine, that "Russia follows closely NATO's transformation and expects to see direct and indirect components of anti-Russian thrust fully withdrawn from its military planning and the political declarations of the alliance's member-countries". And "if NATO is preserved as a military alliance with its present-day offensive military doctrine, this will require a radical overhaul of Russian military planning and the principles of building Russian armed forces, including changes to the Russian nuclear strategy".

Similarly difficult relations, notes the new military doctrine, exist with Russia's strategic partner - the United States. On the one hand, Moscow looks forward to expanded cooperation with Washington in the political, military-political and economic areas, to continued coordination of efforts in ensuring strategic stability and dismantling the Cold War legacy, to constructive cooperation on issues of regional stability and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in the struggle against international terrorism within the framework of an anti-terror coalition. On the other, it insists that these relations should be built on the basis of respect for and strict observance of norms of international law and the primacy of one's national interests, including Russia's.

Russia's military doctrine specifically calls attention to this complexity and "duality" of the present-day global military-political set-up. It is also characterised by a desire to form a new, more just and democratic system of international economic and political relations. At the same time, we see the growing practice of using armed forces on the basis of national decisions and without a UN mandate. Alongside these relatively new trends, the stereotypes of the period of "ideological confrontation" still survive, which greatly complicates interaction of the world's leading nations. In this situation, Russia's possession of modern and effective armed forces becomes one of the conditions for its successful and painless integration into an emerging systems of international relations.

Russia's military doctrine singles out five basic trends characterising this situation. The first among them is countering new challenges stimulated by globalisation processes: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and vehicles of their delivery, international terror, ethnic instability, activities of radical religious communities and groupings, drug trafficking, and organised crime. These challenges are impossible to deal with within the framework of separate states, Ivanov stresses. It is our task to form against them a common coalition of security-related structures, including secret services, and armed forces.

International use of force outside traditional military-political organisations, on the basis of temporary coalitions, is also becoming a reality. Such a practice, it is believed in Moscow, is objective and will apparently grow further. The Russian army is not against taking part in them, but only provided they rest on international law and only if such coalitions meet its foreign political interests.

The next trend, third in succession but not in importance, notes the military doctrine, is economisation of the state's external political priorities. This means that the economic interests of some or other countries become more important than their political or military-political ones. Especially if they coincide with the requirements of transnational companies. As a result, reasons for using armed forces have become more pragmatic and even cynical, they are only slightly masked by the existence of a direct military threat or other "weighty" arguments. Which signifies that Russia needs to constantly remember about strengthening its own defence capabilities and security despite all peace tendencies.

A distinctive feature of the present-day world situation is the fusion of domestic and international terror. Such a trend makes the separation of the threat into an internal and an external one pointless. This evil, notes the doctrine, should be fought jointly, within the framework of a world-wide anti-terror international. And that sets before Russia's armed forces the task of expanding the area of its responsibility, including to counter international terrorism.

And the fifth trend, which is highlighted by the military, is that the significance of international non-governmental, public organisations and movements has greatly grown and extended. They exercise a broad and sometimes controversial effect on the policy of individual states. And this cannot but be reckoned with. Russia seeks and will continue to seek an active role in the work of these mainstream international organisations and movements to ensure various aspects of its foreign policy and security interests, An analysis of the current global political trends is evidence, the new military doctrine stresses, that the international situation today is characterised by the dynamism and diversity of the processes involved, and also by the evolution of key international institutions. It sets the goal of assessing in a new realistic and comprehensive way the system of threats to Russia's security and on that basis to formulate military policy and military build-up priorities corresponding to the new international status of this country and its resources.