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Andrei Semchenkov,
Ph.D. (Politics) (Moscow State University)
PREVENTION AND NEUTRALIZATION OF FOREIGN THREATS TO POLITICAL STABILITY OF RUSSIA
Analyzing the problem of preventing and neutralizing foreign threats to political stability, which, in our view, include possibilities of forcible interference of individual states in Russia's internal affairs, we agree with the view of analysts who do not see serious dangers in this sphere today. At present favorable situation in foreign economic activity continues to exist for Russia, because the world oil and natural gas prices are still at a sufficiently high level for the economic and energy security of the country. The existing level of the defense capability of Russia serves as a definite guarantee from the country's involvement in regional and large-scale wars.
However, one should always remember that the present world political system is characterized by the existence of several knots of contradictions between the biggest states - centers of power, which concern our country. These include the relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China, which are engaged in confrontation, without resorting to military force, for the status of the world leader, then contradictions between the United States and the leading European countries - Germany and France, as well as
conflicts of these states with individual countries - producers of hydrocarbon raw materials. Meanwhile, Russia itself tends to balancing between various participants in conflicts, depending on the concrete situation. For example, the Russian Federation supports western powers in their opposition to the production of weapons of mass destruction in Iran. At the same time, it has economic interests in the sphere of nuclear energy production, which determines cooperation with that country.
One of the yardsticks measuring interstate confrontation is rivalry between the advanced and developing countries for access to energy resources and control over their transportation. L. Ivashov discloses the essence of this rivalry and confrontation as follows: "The main objects of global contradictions are the key regions of the world, strategic communications and planetary resources. In the view of American strategists, control over these objects guarantees the U.S.A. the status of the world power No 1. This is stated quite clearly in the Strategy of national security of the United States. The American elite includes the Balkans, the Greater Middle East, the Caucasian -- Black Sea - Caspian Sea basin and Afghanistan in the key regions of the world.
"Strategic communications are, above all, the transportation routes of hydrocarbon raw materials, and other trade routes. The United States already controls the Ormuz, Bab el-Mandeb and Malacca straits through which China imports 80 percent of oil. Rivalry for control over the Northern sea route will unfold in the future. And, of course, the Panama and Suez canals and Gibraltar are also the objects of rivalry.
"The basic planetary reserves include the already prospected and developed deposits of hydrocarbons and deposits to be worked in undeveloped regions. Among the latter are the Arctic, which is believed to contain about a quarter of all hydrocarbons of the planet,
Afghanistan, which is rich in uranium-235, natural gas, copper, and other ores, precious stones and metals, etc., and Antarctica."
In the present conditions Russia, as a country possessing considerable deposits of fuel and energy raw materials and claiming control over their transit, can also become an object of military pressure. On the one hand, Russia is the world's second nuclear power, whose strategic nuclear forces, despite large-scale curtailment, retain the possibility of containment at a global and regional level. On the other hand, certain initiatives of the United States and NATO member-states capable to lead to the violation of strategic stability at a global and regional level, cause quite justified concern of the Russian political and military leadership. We have in mind the construction plans of the anti-missile defense systems in Europe and East Asia by the United States and its allies. This entails militarization of outer space, the elaboration of the concepts of waging "cyberwars" at the information theater of war, the formation of the quick-reaction forces and the forces of "rapid global strike," etc.
The data destabilizing the military-political situation in the world and certain initiatives of some countries can be connected with the strategy of "passive predetermination" and make it possible to step up considerably the rates of carrying on the operations of the armed forces acting in the form of strategic military networks.
The acceleration effect in the character of warfare is admitted by many experts. Some of them, examining the new form of military operations - netwars, have come to the conclusion about the emergence of the possibility of reanimating the "blitzkrieg of a new generation." Previously, there were definite boundaries beyond which there was no interaction in the operations of the separate offensive groups of forces. However, new information technologies have considerably widened these boundaries. The entire information about the state of affairs is
now accessible to all active participants in an armed struggle. Interaction is now organized not by joining separate groups of forces at decisive spots, but by uniting their fire power and information capabilities. This made it possible to overcome the spatial, time and information gap between the forces and management bodies for the first time in the history of military art. New information technologies ensure firm leadership and constant interaction of tactical groupings of forces deployed at a considerable distance from one another, which can now maintain constant communication and coordinate their actions in joint operations. This circumstance changes the character of modern military operations: all management processes and combat activities actions themselves become more dynamic and fruitful, and tactical and operational pauses, which could be used by the enemy to its advantage, disappear.
Operations acquire a new essence which presupposes swift and resolute maneuvers not only on the flanks, but also in the deep rear of the enemy. As shown by the results of investigations, such actions can be carried on in the form of central net operations of tactical groupings commanded from a single strategic center and acting simultaneously on individual key elements of the system of state and military management, and units of the "retaliation forces" over the entire enemy territory. The main aim of central net operations is to seize the strategic initiative from the very first minutes of war and transfer military operations into the strategic depth of the defending forces, thus depriving the enemy of not only strategic, but also tactical deployment of groupings of its armed forces.
The concept of net-centric military operations is realized in the plans of the military construction of NATO member-countries: the creation of the quick-reaction forces of the alliance, joint rapid-reaction forces of France, Britain and the European Union, and the
reconstruction of the infrastructure of the planning system of the Pentagon to switch over to the "10 - 30 - 30" concept. Its essence is that "after receiving a corresponding order the U.S. armed forces should be transferred to any place in the world within 10 days and begin military operations. During the next 30 days the U.S. forces should defeat the forces of the enemy and deprive it of the possibility to resume organized resistance in the foreseeable future. Within the next 30 days the U.S. forces should carry out redeployment and get ready for new combat assignments and transfer to another region of the planet.
The new forms of using the strategic offensive forces of the United States are elaborated in the Global Strike Joint Integrating Concept, Prompt Global Strike and Global Strike Solutions. In other words, it is the elaboration of technological variants for fighting the network of rogue states, non-state players and terrorists possessing the weapon of mass destruction. The global strike is planned as a coordinated massive destruction within a very short time - from several seconds to several days - of communication systems, combat management and reconnaissance, as well as the most battle-worthy enemy forces carried out at the initial stage of a military operation to create conditions for subsequent resolute actions of the grouping of the U.S. armed forces in order to achieve final tactical and strategic aims. It is supposed that as a result of a global strike with the use of non-nuclear ballistic and hypersonic cruise missiles accompanied with operations of radio-electronic and psychological warfare, the enemy should be deprived of the possibility to control the situation and resist.
The realization of this concept and corresponding program is in full swing: research in the field of hypersonic weapon and outer space-based weapon proceeds without a hitch, the Global-strike Command in charge of the U.S. strategic non-nuclear forces has been set up. Speaking of the consequences of the implementation of this program
and the possible practical use of the "prompt global strike," in military actions, experts come to the conclusion about the destabilizing role of this concept in maintaining strategic nuclear balance between the U.S.A. and the Russian Federation and a reduction of their arms race. The realization of the "prompt global strike" poses great risks to the defense of Russia, inasmuch as it increases the American potential of preventive non-nuclear strike which can be dealt not only at terrorists and rogue states.
Thus, the accelerated rate of conducting military operations is conditioned by the well-known factor, namely, the development of information and organizational technologies, and management and communication systems thanks to which the time for deploying networks and the speed of fulfilling the tasks posed to them and carrying out corresponding operations have improved considerably. The essence of destabilizing initiatives makes it possible to suppose that their implementation could create, under certain conditions, the effect of strategic passive predetermination. These circumstances pose before researchers the major problem of elaborating a system of measures to neutralize this effect.
Well-known military experts believe that the realization of a complex of measures and actions aimed at nuclear containment will ward off destabilizing initiatives. It is the strategic nuclear forces of definite quantitative and qualitative parameters, in the conditions of the limited character of Russia's economic possibilities, that will be able to neutralize the new types of offensive weapons, anti-missile defense systems, etc.
Undoubtedly, the factor of the strategic nuclear forces is a major guarantee of the protection of the sovereignty and political stability of Russia. Indeed, the containment forces parry destabilizing initiatives and protect Russia from military-political pressure and a disarming
blow. The preparation of the latter can be disclosed by military intelligence of the Russian Federation by several visible signs: for example, reconnaissance space apparatus and unmanned aircraft flying over the country's territory, increased number of submarines in the Barents Sea and the Sea of Japan, etc.
The resource of a greater part of the nuclear forces of the country has been calculated for the nearest decades, but they will have to be renovated the sooner the better. Taking into account the fact that the struggle for control over and access to fuel-and-energy resources, above all oil, will be the ground for interstate conflicts, the existing forces of containment make it possible to postpone aggression against the Russian Federation for several decades.
In this connection, in our view, strategic nuclear containment should become part of a broader system of measures to ward off and neutralize outside threats to the political stability of Russia, including non-military or indirect military actions.
In the conditions of international peace it would be expedient to continue a foreign-policy course aimed at drawing centers of force in cooperation with Russia. This course envisages the establishment of good-neighborly relations with all countries of the world, above all those which border on the Russian Federation. To achieve this aim it would be reasonable and desirable to turn "enemies" into "competitors," "competitors" into "neutrals," "neutrals" into "partners," and "partners" into "allies."
It would be expedient for Russia to strengthen the relations of strategic partnership with France and Germany as the political and economic nucleus of the European Union, develop the already existing advantageous ties of asymmetrical interdependence in the sphere of energy security, step up popular diplomacy and thereby lower the possibility of these countries' participation in anti-Russian actions. As
to the new members of the North Atlantic Alliance, the Russian Federation could undertake measures for the further development of trade-economic partnership, drawing Poland, Romania and Bulgaria in cooperation in the export of Russian energy resources. Similar course could be taken with regard to Japan.
Russia's participation in the international organizations of collective security and economic cooperation could contribute to the lowering of outside threats to political stability in the southern direction in the form of the activity of the network structures of Islamic fundamentalism. We have in mind the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community, and others. Russia could rely on the already created collective rapid reaction forces of the CSTO, the Anti-terrorist Center of the CIS, the Unified system of anti-aircraft defense under formation, and the joint system of radiation, chemical and biological protection of the CSTO from terrorist attacks. The significance of the SCO potential for the security of Russia is also connected with the possibility of uniting efforts with China and Central Asian states for neutralization the movements of radical Islam and separatist nationalistic organizations of Central Asia, which undermine internal political stability in certain regions of the Russian Federation.
The development of allied relations between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, the drawing closer of their military doctrines, regular joint military exercises and actions to combat ethnic separatism lower the danger of a conflict between the two countries.
Mutually advantageous cooperation between Russia and the United States can be implemented in the sphere of military security, the American national anti-missile defense system, struggle against terrorism, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their
delivery means, interaction within the framework of the World Trade Organization, in energy, joint space projects, and other spheres.
During transfer from peaceful interaction to the latent phase and the phase of the exacerbation of relations in interstate confrontation the main efforts of the Russian leadership, diplomacy and the armed forces should be concentrated on the preservation and strengthening of the potential of nuclear containment. This would make it possible to keep the leading powers of the world from a direct clash with the Russian Federation.
In the periods of the aggravation of interstate relations and open confrontation Russia could resort to forming coalitions and direct containment of its opponents. The open indicators of these periods are: the formation of aggressive military-political alliances, information-psychological, diplomatic, economic and forcible pressure on the subject of systemic opposition, destabilization of the situation and change of the ruling elites in allied countries, and near-border local armed conflicts.
In this case the use of methods of forming coalitions would ensure prevention of outside threats to political stability by the implementation of measures and actions aimed at changing the international balance of forces and exclusion of the situation of passive predetermination. The forms of containment can be used for tactical prevention of outside threats in the form of the demonstration of one's own military possibilities "to close vulnerability vents" and impact on the centers of gravity of the opposing states and their military networks. Among the "centers of gravity" are space satellite systems the damage to which can considerably weaken the possibilities of individual states to wage "netwars," turning groupings of the armed forces into a set of "platforms" (vehicles and flying machines for military purposes).
"Vestnik Rossiiskoi natsii", Moscow, 2011, No 4-5, pp 242-251.
