RIA Novosti: Russian pundits, officials agree with need for new military doctrine

(RIA Novosti – September 2, 2014) Russian politicians and pundits have expressed support for the announcement that Russia will update its military doctrine. The deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, Mikhail Popov, said today in an interview with RIA Novosti news agency that Russia will make changes to its current military doctrine before the end of 2014 to account for NATO expansion plans and the crisis in Ukraine.

Ordzhonikidze: Arms race never stopped

Deputy secretary of the Public Chamber of Russia and a former deputy secretary-general of the UN, Sergey Ordzhonikidze, has said that, in essence, the arms race never ended and in circumstances where NATO’s “military hysterics” caused by the Ukraine events is threatening Russia’s security, Russia should take all measures to counter this.

“When NATO troops are approaching our borders, it is natural to draft a plan. For any country this kind of advance is a threat, when troops are being deployed near the border of your territory. In this connection I recall NATO promises not to extend the boundaries of the alliance to the east. Of course, what should we do in the current circumstances? The only option left to us is to counter this NATO enlargement in some way,” RIA Novosti quoted Ordzhonikidze as saying.

He said that the arms race never stopped – it only took on different forms. Speaking of NATO assertions that there are Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, he noted that no evidence to this effect has been presented.

Ordzhonikidze stressed that this confrontation would not bring about actual military actions. “There have been much worse times, such as the Caribbean crisis … common sense also prevails. At present the most important thing in international politics is not the use of force but the main thing is the threat of using the force that one has at present,” he said

He noted that back in the times of the USSR, NATO had promised not to enlarge into the east but it turned out later that this had been a deception.

Klintsevich: NATO needs to be named as the real adversary

The deputy head of the State Duma defence committee, Frants Klintsevich, who belongs to the ruling One Russia party, has said that Russia should clearly denote the realistic adversary, which is NATO.

“In our military doctrine the real adversary was not clearly denoted. Taking into account the talk, actions and deeds, the real enemy will be named. And they should know that we understand who the real enemy is,” RIA Novosti quoted Klintsevich as saying.

When asked who the real adversary of the Russian Federation is, Klintsevich announced: “Certainly today the real adversary is NATO but at the same time we understand that security services are working, aggressive intentions could appear from various directions, and, what is most important, nation-provocateurs could be used”.

According to Klintsevich, Russia’s military doctrine is linked to the foreign political situation that was in place until recent times. “And it speaks rather a little about threats and risks. And today all these doctrinal things should be reviewed in the light of the new missile defence system, which is almost complete. It turns out that it is against us, after all, and not against Iranian missiles,” the MP noted.

In addition to this, in his view, Russian military doctrine should reflect everything to do with the setting up of bases around the Russian Federation and involving new countries in this process.

“Today there is one task – to show Russia its place, to corner it, to provoke it and to divide it up. It would be better, of course, if this happened like in Ukraine through Maydan, through internal contradictions, through revolutions, through nationalists and through the so-called fifth column. However, it is very difficult to do this in Russia today – after all, there is a sufficiently monolithic, consolidated and patriotic civil society in Russia,” Klintsevich said.

“And today on must not be unprepared for this. Today specialists must sit down, do correct calculations and be prepared for actions in response. This is a very complicated situation,” the MP said.

Arbatov: Doctrine should send a signal

A member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Aleksey Arbatov, has said that introducing amendments to Russia’ military doctrine was a totally logical step because relations between Russia and the Western countries have undergone substantial changes over the past four years.

“A military doctrine is a document that which pursues the aim of sending a signal of some kind to foreign countries and the public as well as to the political elite inside the country. The previous doctrine was adopted in 2010 and since then the situation has changed very seriously and substantially and it is logical to introduce amendments to the military doctrine,” Arbatov told RIA Novosti. He recalled that despite the fact that the military doctrine was adopted during the warming of relations between Russia and the West, when Russia and the USA signed a new START treaty, but even back then the top military threats included NATO, the enlargement of the alliance and missile defence.

“One could say that the military doctrine anticipated the future development of the events – it placed NATO among the main external threats for Russia when relations were still good and since then they have sharply deteriorated. Now NATO has taken the place that was allocated for it in the 2010 doctrine,” Arbatov added. According to him, the 2010 doctrine did not mention NATO directly, it spoke of the enlargement of other military alliances to Russian borders and of the enlargement of the infrastructure of military alliances. Now both NATO and the USA will be openly mentioned in the doctrine as the main threats, the expert said.

Arbatov: Import substitution neither quick nor cheap

In Arbatov’s opinion, it is realistic for Russia to find alternatives for imported products, raw materials, materials and components in the sphere of armaments but this takes a certain amount of time and will not be cheap.

“Substitution of imported products used in the defence industry is realistic but this will be expensive. This is not only about the substitution of imports received from NATO countries but also from Ukraine,” Arbatov said. He recalled that Ukraine supplies to Russia a large number of items and components used in the production of military hardware.

Arbatov cited Motor Sich’s helicopter engines as an example.

In Dnipropetrovsk there is the Yuzhmash missile plant and Yuzhnoye design bureau which until now have conducted producer’s technical supervision over the condition of heavy strategic nuclear missiles that were once produced there – the well-known Satan or Voyevoda missiles, which account for one-third of the Russian strategic nuclear potential. “All these years Ukrainian specialists paid regular visits, inspected these missiles, provided assessments on for how much longer they could be on combat duty because they had exceeded all the deadlines (of useful life). In particular, they gave recommendations about what kind of renovation work needed to be carried out to support them further. In the current situation this looks strange, one would have to give this up. Probably we will have to remove them from combat duty early because they would not give guarantees of their technical compliance,” he added.

Certain problems could also emerge regarding electronics. “Electronics and computer components are to a significant extent imported, indirectly imported through third countries and they would be the ones that are most difficult to replace”. At the same time he thinks that it was unlikely that the currently imported electronics could be replaced with products from China. “China itself receives everything from the leading Western countries and they would most likely be ‘lagging behind technologically’. The West could impose on China strict conditions and cut off re-export. Also, China does not want Russia to compete with it in advanced technologies where they themselves are trying to compete with the West. One would have to develop the electronic industry by oneself,” the expert added.

Sivkov: Current doctrine needs to be “radically redrafted”

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems and doctor of military sciences, Konstantin Sivkov, has said that the Russian military doctrine is in need of radical change and not on the basis of current events but on long-term forecasts.

“The doctrine is not diplomatic in its nature, the amendments should not become a pretext for Western aggression,” Sivkov told RIA Novosti.

In his view, the current military doctrine “should be radically redrafted and it does totally not meet the requirements for documents of this kind”.

“It does not provide clear criteria on the basis of which it would be possible to put in place the personnel numbers, equipment and principles of the Armed Forces. The concepts there are very vague, there are no clear definitions,” Sivkov complained.

One should not amend a long-term document only on the basis of the current political situation, Sivkov said.

“Tying the development of the doctrine to Ukraine and NATO actions would be wrong. The conflict in Ukraine will come to an end within a year, NATO will move east within one-and-half years, maximum five years, but the doctrine is adopted for decades. A doctrine will define the main principles of the Armed Forces for at least 15-20 years,” Sivkov said.