Any time Russia attempts to redefine its security and defense strategy, it always catches the United States and its allies off guard. During U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Moscow last week, former Federal Security Service chief and current Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev threw another curve ball by announcing a new component of the country’s military doctrine, which is supposed to be finalized and presented to President Dmitry Medvedev by the end of the year. In Western capitals, many were left scratching their heads: Is Russia one again taking a step back to the brinksmanship and bluster of Soviet-era military doctrines?
In an interview with Izvestia, Patrushev declared that in Russia’s new security doctrine, “We will adjust the preconditions for using nuclear weapons to repulse aggression that employs conventional weapons, and this applies not only to large-scale wars, but also to regional and even local wars.” In addition, Patrushev said the doctrine would include a “provision for possibly employing nuclear weapons depending on the circumstances and the intentions of the probable adversary. In critical national security situations, a pre-emptive nuclear strike against an aggressor cannot be ruled out.”
Several defense analysts rushed to say that Patrushev had not announced anything fundamentally new, that Russia’s current military doctrine allows for the possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. It reads, “The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack and against other weapons of mass destruction — weapons [used] against Russia and its allies — as well as in response to a large-scale conventional aggression in critical situations affecting Russia’s national security.” In other words, in combative situations where Russia’s conventional forces are clearly weak or outnumbered, there is a basis for carrying out a nuclear first strike.
Patrushev is not only saying nuclear weapons might be used in critical situations where there is no other way to stop an aggressor. He is also saying that the use of nuclear weapons depends on the intention of probable — not actual — opponents. Russia would allow for the possibility of delivering a nuclear first strike based not on actual aggression against it, but on its own analysis of the intentions of the opposing side. The Kremlin is clearly trying to emphasize its right to start a preventative nuclear war. Having received Patrushev’s advance preview on the country’s military doctrine, Moscow needs to spell out in detail the conditions under which nuclear weapons could be used in regional and local wars.
Not long ago, we were repeatedly told that nuclear weapons are essentially a political tool that only exists to contain another nuclear power from launching a nuclear missile. Thanks to the concept of mutually assured destruction, the “war” between the United States and the Soviet Union never escalated from “cold” to “thermonuclear.” For 30 years, the guiding principle between the leading superpowers was that it is, by definition, impossible to win a nuclear war. But if you take Patrushev’s words at face value, Russia no longer views nuclear weapons strictly as a means to contain or retaliate in a large-scale conflict.
This latest bout of nuclear rhetorical madness can be explained by two circumstances. The first, and I believe main, factor is that the Kremlin is becoming increasingly upset that its gigantic nuclear stockpiles have not earned Russia the global respect that it craves. As a result, the Kremlin is resorting to an old but reliable formula: If its chief adversaries believe that Russia’s leaders are reckless and may actually start a nuclear war, Russia will be feared — and thus “respected.”
This turns the clock backward to the tensest of the Cold War years, when the West was concerned that unpredictable and reckless Politburo leaders seriously contemplated launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike without seriously contemplating the consequences of a counterstrike for their own country.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, this “fear-respect” formula has fallen by the wayside. During the 1990s, Russia and the United States experienced a warming of relations, and the fear factor was all but removed. During Vladimir Putin’s two presidential terms, we had a Kremlin elite who valued their personal fortunes more than anything else. After all, who in the Putin’s Kremlin would have risked having their foreign bank accounts or assets frozen or seized as result of worsening relations between Russia and the West.
But Patrushev’s sneak preview last week into the new military doctrine was apparently intended to remind the West that Russia is prepared to return to the Cold War era, when Europe and the United States interpreted the unpredictability and recklessness of Soviet leaders much in the same way that they today view North Korea’s or Iran’s leaders.
There is another possible explanation for why Patrushev is trying to turn up the nuclear heat. Talk of an urgent need to adjust the military doctrine involving pre-emptive strikes against potential enemies arises every time the country’s leaders try to implement military reforms. Retired generals — voicing the position of those currently serving — declare that it is impossible to make any fundamental changes to the armed forces until political leaders have defined the military doctrine and, in particular, Russia’s potential adversaries.
This is a classic Catch-22 situation. After all, to label a particular state as a “potential adversary” in a military doctrine during peacetime would be to define Russia’s own aggressive intentions toward that country. But the military top brass are deft at using the military rhetoric of Medvedev and Putin, repeating their ritual invective aimed at the United States and NATO. This leaves political leaders no other option but to issue yet another security document containing countless allusions of varying degrees of transparency to the existence of devious enemies. Then a long discussion will follow on how to put that document into practice. In the end, most of the reforms will once again get bogged down in an endless debate about defining the country’s military doctrine as well as its enemies, after which the authorities will lose interest in putting through any reforms.
Russia’s leaders do not seem to understand that allowing Patrushev to flash his bravado and recklessness in defining the country’s military strategies and doctrines involving the use of nuclear weapons puts the country at great risk of being isolated in the global arena, and this carries tremendous political and economic consequences that Russia can ill afford at any time, whether it is during a crisis or an oil boom.
Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal.