Russia Targets Missile Defense

Modern diplomacy

O veR The last few years, the Russian military has been undergoing a very visible active modernisation. While this constitutes an important change in its own right (since Russia remains a large military power with forces exceeding those of any of its individual neighbours), the most significant change is not to the size of the Russian military but to the nature of its forces: instead of being primarily structured for defensive operations, in case of a hypothetical large-scale military conflict (while also retaining the capability of carrying out operations in low-intensity conflicts), the Russian armed forces are now gaining an offensive-oriented structure, with capabilities tailored for large-scale war. At the same time, despite the painful military reforms undertaken after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian General Staff have managed to preserve the core expertise related to planning large-scale conventional – that is, general non-nuclear – military operations. The country's military involvement in Ukraine (and later in Syria) demonstrated its ability to prepare and conduct – with the use of integrated conventional and sub-conventional means and tactics – precisely these types of operations. The retention of this capability on the Russian side clearly contrasts with the overwhelming concentration on counter-terrorism, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations that have been the main emphasis of Western militaries over the last fifteen years, to the detriment of their ability to conduct large-scale conventional operations. Taken together, these developments have resulted in Russia possessing both the means to conduct large-scale offensive operations in europe, and the planning skills and expertise necessary for the preparation and fulfilment of such operations. Combined with the Russian political leadership's obvious willingness to use these capabilities in an aggressive manner outside its frontiers – as manifested by the annexation of Crimea and subsequent destabilising actions in Ukraine's eastern regions, as well as the extensive military intervention in Syria – Russia's military build-up raises serious concerns about the stability and security of the european continent.

Whitehall Papers, 2019

Russia is once again NATO's most significant external challenge. The situation today stands in stark contrast to the almost two decades following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, when Russia posed little threat to NATO. Absent a clear military threat, NATO struggled to define its relevance and increasingly turned its focus on outof-area stability operations. Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, however, triggered a shift in Russian foreign policy, with the Kremlin growing more assertive internationally. Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea and subsequent occupation of eastern Ukraine in 2014 hardened US and European perceptions of Russia as a threat, and refocused NATO on countering and deterring Russian aggression. Since 2014, the Alliance has taken a number of prudent steps to bolster deterrence, including efforts to reinvigorate NATO's culture of readiness (as has been explored in earlier chapters). But to remain effective, NATO must adapt and respond to Russia's evolving foreign policy. This chapter argues that although the broad contours of Russia's foreign policy and views of NATO are longstanding, foreign policy under Putin has evolved in ways that create new challenges for the Alliance. In particular, Putin has placed greater emphasis on countering what he views as US unilateralism and an international order that seeks to marginalise Russia. He has grown more reliant on military meansincluding cyber toolsto advance his objectives, and more assertive in his efforts to undermine Western democracies and the cohesion among them. This evolution of Russian foreign policy has implications for the way that Russia approaches NATO. In its attempts to alter the international order and reassert its great power status, Russia has become more brazen in its

Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 61-85., 2018

The current state of coexistence in international arena is contested. Russian Federation (RF) cannot come to terms with the fact that following the dissolution of the USSR, it sustained substantial losses, especially with regards to its role globally. The team of Putin is striving to rebuild the power of their country. The Russian society, used to sacrifices for the homelands, offers its invaluable support. A lot of effort is put in the development of the armaments sector. As a result, the structure, command and mobilization the Armed Forces have substantially improved. The RF Armed Forces prepare for a possible armed conflict. Various types of exercise are conducted; frequently maneuvers take place in proximity to the borders of NATO member-states. This paper examines these developments and suggest possible ways of bypassing the emerging challenges.

Black Sea-Caucasus Region: Risks and Opportunities - Economy, Energy and Security, TASAM, Istanbul, 2018

OSW Point of View No. 76, 2019

The collapse of the Soviet bloc’s structures (the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact) and then of the Soviet Union itself in 1989–1991 was a kind of geopolitical earthquake in Europe. The main political and legal successor of the USSR, the Russian Federation, had to determine its place in the European order that was being formed, including the security sphere. The new Russia, which inherited from the USSR its membership in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) and the newly established North Atlantic Co-operation Council (NACC), declared its attachment to European democratic values, suggesting that it was ready to embark on close co-operation and, at some point in the future, even join the European and EuroAtlantic security structures (including NATO) that had been formed during the Cold War era in opposition to the USSR. However, Russia’s Soviet legacy also included elements of its strategic culture, political concepts and a significant share of personnel whose views had already been formed. This, in turn, meant that both the will and ability of Russia’s most senior state authorities to put these declarations into practice were highly uncertain. Even though, due to the economic crisis and process of disintegration, Russia turned out to be weaker than the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s, it did not relinquish either its status as a powerful state or the related idea – viewed in maximalist terms – of political sovereignty (even from the West). The government elites of the Russian Federation (like the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his aides before them) wanted to create a new security architecture in Europe. If constructed according to Moscow’s concepts such an architecture would lead to marginalisation or disbanding of the existing Western security structures (especially NATO) and curbing the US presence and influence in Europe. Above all, it would ensure Moscow’s de facto participation in the decision-making processes concerning European security. In addition, Russia did not wish to relinquish its objective of maintaining its zone of influence in the post-Soviet area (temporarily excluding the Baltic states). It was ready to use military force to foment and capitalise on political and ethnic conflicts in this area to achieve this goal. It also launched a political campaign to counter the efforts of Central European countries – the former (involuntary) participants of the Soviet bloc – to join NATO, attempting to create a more or less formal buffer zone in this region. The overriding goals of Russia’s European security policy have remained unaltered, regardless of the various initiatives taken by Moscow: strategic control of the post-Soviet area, the existence of a security buffer zone in Central Europe and the transformation of the existing NATO-based security system in Europe in a manner that would maximise Russia’s political and security influence and minimise that of the USA. What has changed and been diversified are the institutional solutions Moscow has employed in an attempt to achieve these goals: basing European security on the OSCE (predominant in its policy in the 1990s) or as part of a special partnership with NATO (mainly in the first decade of the 2000s) or through attempts to use the European Security and Defence Policy to enhance security co-operation with the EU. Over time, the Kremlin’s ambitions were gradually curtailed after Russian foreign policy had suffered further defeats. When it was launching the campaign against NATO enlargement eastwards, Moscow initially concentrated its efforts on the Visegrad Group countries, then on the Baltic states and finally, as the enlargement process continued, on Ukraine and Georgia. Initially, the security buffer zone in Central Europe was intended to separate the areas of NATO and Russia (and other CIS countries). However, when this proved impossible, it was to be established inside NATO on its eastern flank. From today’s perspective, it can be concluded that none of the strategic goals of Russia’s European security policy have been achieved. Even through Russia has created economic, political and security structures controlled by it in the post-Soviet area, their range, effectiveness and scale of real control of the member states’ policy is far from meeting Russian expectations. The NATO–Russia Founding Act, which imposes quite imprecise restrictions on the deployment of the Allied forces on NATO’s eastern flank, albeit politically dead, is still formally respected by NATO. However, the regular reinforcement of the Allied (and bilaterally US) military presence on the eastern flank – formally as part of the so-called ‘regular rotation’ – undermines the buffer zone idea. Regardless of discussions that recur from time to time, Russia has also been unable to create any European security system as an alternative to the existing one, especially a system that would offer Moscow veto power. Furthermore, the aggressive and revisionist foreign policy that has been sustained since the second half of the 2010s on President Vladimir Putin’s initiative has led to a crisis in relations with the West, in some respects even more serious than the one that prevailed during the Cold War era. The causes of this include: Russia’s de facto withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) regime; undermining the system of measures for building trust and security in Europe (blocking further adaptation of the Vienna Document and violations of the Treaty on Open Skies); the erosion of the system of nuclear weapons control, provoked by Russia due to violating the INF treaty and, most importantly, Russia’s acts of military aggression in Europe (in 2008 against Georgia and in 2014 against Ukraine), involving real territorial annexations and Russia’s numerous military provocations and ‘hybrid’ actions against NATO member states and nonaligned countries. At present, Russia needs to choose: whether it should continue the present confrontational approach in its European security policy or even toughen it, thus taking the risk of increasing political, economic and security costs, or seek détente with the West, probably at the expense of certain concessions (including those as part of the Minsk process covering the conflict with Ukraine in Donbass), and by starting once more to honour at least some of the agreements concerning European security. Moscow’s decisions may be affected by a number of factors. The most essential of these seem to be the factors linked to the domestic situation in Russia, possible personnel changes inside the Russian government and an evolution of the perception and understanding of the international and regional situation by the Russian government. The present aggressive policy pursued by Russia seems incapable of being altered without major changes in these areas.

Russia’s 2010 Military Doctrine highlighted NATO as a military danger to the Russian Federation. NATO was listed explicitly in first place among these dangers - specifically the “striving to ascribe global functions to the force capability of NATO, implemented in breach of international law, and bringing the military infrastructure of NATO member countries closer to the borders of the Russian Federation, including by means of enlarging the bloc”. Significantly for our interpretation of Russian statements, NATO is listed as a military danger not as a military threat. The distinction in Russian doctrinal lexicon is important – a “danger” is a situation with the potential “under certain conditions” to develop into an immediate military threat, rather than a threat per se. Clear definitions for both military threat and military danger are included in the Doctrine, as well as the distinction between military conflict and armed conflict. Previously to be found in other doctrinal statements, these definitions are essential for a precise understanding of the threat picture as expressed by official Russia. Other military dangers include deployment of foreign forces on territory adjacent to Russia and its allies, not only on land but also at sea; the creation of strategic missile defence forces; and the development of strategic non-nuclear precision weapons systems. Development of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) is a fundamental task in deterring and preventing armed conflict, alongside cooperation with other international organisations including, interestingly, NATO. Russia will also contribute forces to the CSTO’s rapid reaction group and for deployment as CSTO peacekeepers. Furthermore, the CSTO’s collective defence provision, similar to but more binding than NATO’s Article 5, is now explicitly included in Russian doctrine. Despite widespread reporting that the new Doctrine would display increased readiness for first use of nuclear weapons, this provision is if anything subtly rolled back from the 2000 version of the Military Doctrine – instead of first use “in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation”, the criterion is now “when the very existence of the State is under threat”. The related provision promising no use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states acting alone has been dropped. But Russia’s precise stance on nuclear use is detailed in a classified addendum to the Doctrine, so remains unclear. The provision for use of Russian forces overseas “to defend the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, and to protect international peace and security” is included. Operations overseas to remove threats or suppress aggression can also be undertaken at the instigation of the UN “or other bodies”. Preparation for mobilisation receives substantial attention, with several sections retained verbatim from the 2000 Doctrine and others new or re-drafted. These provisions concern both the economy and the military, with no regard to the substantial reorganisation of the military during 2009 towards permanent readiness and away from a mobilisation army. Information warfare (a concept which largely overlaps with what we might term cyber operations) is largely ignored in the Doctrine, except as a military danger and for the stipulation that the means to prosecute it must be developed. Meanwhile, the largely outdated Information Security Doctrine of 2000 remains in force.

International Affairs, 2012

During its first three years, the Obama administration compiled an impressive record on the politically fraught issue of European ballistic missile defence (MD) cooperation on three different levels: domestically, vis-à-vis Europe and NATO, and in relations with Russia. 1 The administration's MD design, known as the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA), will rely on land-and sea-based interceptors to shoot down missiles launched towards Europe by Iran or other Middle Eastern states. It has strong bipartisan support at home and is being implemented in close collaboration with NATO, which agreed in 2010 to make the protection of allies' territory from ballistic missiles a priority. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has ardently pursued MD cooperation with Russia, which has long regarded US missile defence as a threat to its own strategic deterrence capabilities. Given political realities in the US, the administration has little choice but to proceed with plans to deploy a European MD system. Nevertheless, its focus on MD cooperation as a kind of magic bullet in relations with both its European allies and Russia appears too ambitious, and risks doing more harm than good-unless the administration can do a better job of managing expectations, while embedding its ideas for MD cooperation into a broader security dialogue with both the Europeans and Russia.

Atlantica, 2022

This article investigates NATO-Russia relations with a focus on the Eastern Flank of the Atlantic Alliance. It commences with a milestone in NATO-Russia relations, the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, integrating it with the 2002 Rome Declaration. In this section, efforts to build dialogue with Moscow through the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) will be discussed. It will then describe NATO’s reaction to the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the subsequent establishment of the “dual track” deterrence/dialogue policy. Finally, it will unpack the events following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, it will discuss the decisions taken by the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe in March to strengthen NATO’s Eastern Flank, enhance air patrolling, and increase the presence of battlegroups. This article also gives crucial importance to the latest developments in the Alliance: the Madrid Summit and the New Strategic Concept. My approach to this topic will be based on dialogue and diplomacy, and on deterrence and defence from historical and geopolitical perspectives.

While this monograph was being researched and written, Russian actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine brought U.S.-Russian relations to a new low in the post-Cold War era. Normal relations and conversations between the United States and Russia were apparently on hold during an unprecedented, and apparently intractable, crisis of European security. But the longer view of relations between the two former superpowers shows precedents that suggest relations stand a strong chance of early recovery, despite Russia’s hard line and unpalatable actions. With or without this recovery, some persistent challenges to the relationship will remain; the state of relations will affect how these challenges are presented, rather than the underlying contradictions themselves. One of these challenges is ballistic missile defense (BMD), and its implications for nuclear deterrence. For the past 7 years, plans for BMD capability in Europe have been a consistent sticking point in relations between the United States and Russia. In brief, Russia’s strenuous opposition to these plans is based on claims, not all of them disingenuous, that this capability is intended to compromise Russia’s nuclear deterrent capability. Yet all discussion of the subject highlights the U.S. current and proposed deployments and entirely ignores Russia’s own missile interception systems, which are claimed to have comparable capability. While Moscow continues to strengthen its armed forces and seeks to reduce the capability gap with the United States, the perception of vulnerability leads Russia to invest heavily in strategic weapons and aerospace defense, including both defense against nuclear missiles and precision guided munitions. Russia protests that U.S. SM-3 missiles pose a potential threat to strategic stability, and has made belligerent threats of direct military action to prevent their deployment. But no mention at all is made of the strategic implications of Russia’s own S-400 and S-500 systems, despite the fact that, if the performance and capabilities claimed for them by Russian sources are accurate, they pose at least as great a threat to deterrence as do SM-3s. This monograph therefore aims to describe Russia’s claims for its missile defense systems and, where possible, to assess the likelihood that these claims are true. This will form a basis for considering whether discussion of Russian capabilities should be an integral part of future conversations with Russia on the deployment of U.S. and allied BMD assets. An assessment of this kind requires an essential caveat. Research for this monograph has been conducted from open sources in Russian and English, and unclassified discussion with knowledgeable individuals on both sides of the debate. As such, it has obvious limitations, especially in a field where the fine detail of capabilities and deployments is highly classified. In addition, the proliferation of designations used by Russia for systems still in development, and the confused and contradictory reporting of them in open source media, adds a further layer of obfuscation. In the words of one assessment—tellingly entitled, “Experts Baffled by Profusion of Russian Missile Projects”—the resulting linguistic labyrinth has been further confused, perhaps deliberately, by a proliferation of new names in Russian reports. The descriptions in this monograph of specific Russian projects are therefore a synthesis of public declarations by Russia as carried in open sources, Executive Summary Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press rather than an authoritative and verified systems handbook. Nonetheless, they have value since responses to Russian claims for their missile defense systems must necessarily rely on public pronouncements.

The EU and NATO are facing an increasingly uncertain and complex situation on their eastern and south-eastern borders. In what the EU has traditionally conceived as its ‘shared neighbourhood’ with Russia and NATO its ‘eastern flank’, Moscow is exhibiting a growingly assertive military posture. The context of the Baltic and the Black Sea regions differs, but Russia’s actions in both seem to be part of the same strategy aiming to transform the European security order and its sustaining principles. The Kremlin seems to follow similar policies and tactics, mainly through the militarisation of the Kaliningrad Oblast and Crimea as the centrepiece of its strategy of power projection vis-à-vis NATO and the EU. An all-out war remains an unlikely scenario, but frictions or accidents leading to an unwanted and uncontrolled escalation cannot be completely ruled out. Tensions and military developments take place in both the Baltic and Black seas, but are not only about them. Russia is testing the Euro-Atlantic response and resilience at large. To assess how far it might be willing to go, it is necessary to evaluate how Russia perceives the West and its actions, taking into account the deep and entrenched clash of perceptions between Brussels and Moscow, and the worldview of the latter.

2015

1 Dr. Polina Sinovets is an associate professor at the Odessa National I.I. Mechnikov University, Ukraine; Dr. Bettina Renz is an associate professor at the University of Nottingham, UK. The views expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NATO Defense College or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 2 X. [G. Kennan], “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, July 1947, p.571. 3 Voyennaya Doktrina Rossiyskoy Federatsii [Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation], December 26, 2014, http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf “Today the major part of the structure of Soviet power is committed to the perfection of the dictatorship and to the maintenance of the concept of Russia as in a state of siege, with the enemy lowering beyond the walls. And the millions of human beings who form that part of the structure of power must defend at all costs this concept of Russia's position, for ...

Russia - NATO relations has improved considerably in 2010, what has been clearly shown during the NATO – Russia summit meeting in Lisbon on November 20th. It has represented major change in comparison to the crisis in this relations started with the Russian-Georgian war of August 2008. On the road to the Lisbon NATO summit Moscow has intensified its efforts to lobby its interests concerning the European security. As a part of this process the political leadership of the Russian Federation have presented in the last few years several ideas and initiatives on the new European security architecture. Most of them have been directly or indirectly related to the issue of Russia – NATO or Russia – US relations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze briefly both the content and meaning of these Russian policies and initiatives against the background of past and present Russia’s European security strategy. The paper is an attempt to answer the question: to what extent the recent Russian initiatives are new; how they correspond with the strategic goals of Russia’s European security policy in the last 20 years; to what extent it is a continuity or a change of Russia’s policies in that respect.

RUDN Journal of World History

This article analyses the changes and continuities in the Russian Military Strategy in response to NATO’s expansionist policies. The methodology used is interdisciplinary in nature as the discourse is based and conceptualized in the historical context with social insights into the contemporary development of events. The paper is divided into two sections: the first concerns NATO’s expansion, both during and after the Cold War period; and the second examines the proposed Russian Military Strategy in response to NATO’s increasing eastward expansion. It is concluded that Russia’s national security concepts and evolving expressions of military doctrine closely follow the process of NATO’s expansion. The nature of forward deployment, defense concept and military strategy that NATO adopts are decisive in formulating and influencing not only Kremlin’s perception but also its reaction, especially in the military field to alliance enlargement.