Crimea and Russia's Strategic Overhaul

Abstract

Abstract: Russian operations in Crimea in 2014 demonstrated an enhanced ability for implementating strategy; Russia effectively combined military and state tools to reach its policy goals. That means new demands for Western defense planners. Confronting Russian military power in future will require an expanded toolkit. ********** Russia used military force in new ways to annex Crimea in March 2014. Experts have focused on military novelties in Russian approach--the use of asymmetric, covert, and otherwise innovative military tools. However, real novelty in Crimea was not how Russia used its armed might (in terms of new military doctrine), but rather how it combined use of military with state tools. This is an important distinction as it indicates an updated view of military tools Moscow has at its disposal and how these can combine with other elements of state power to reach formulated policy goals. Evidence for this argument is threefold. First, although Russia demonstrated new principles of warfighting in Crimea, most of tactics and doctrine displayed represented traditional Russian (or Soviet) warfighting principles refitted for modern Second, Russia integrated military tools with other tools of pressure in innovative ways, and made use of a seamless transition from peace to conflict. Third, this improved Russian approach to strategy is no coincidence; several bureaucratic processes have served to enhance this ability in past decade. Why Does it Matter? The question of whether novelties Russian strategy displayed in Crimea were new may seem semantic. It is not; question helps us understand implications of Russian activities in Crimea. Russian doctrinal novelties have consequences in military realm; strategic novelties have consequences for Russian policy on a broader scale. Debates in West and in Russia reveal slight different understandings of terms strategy and military doctrine. In West, strategy is link between political ends and military means, relating to potential or actual use of military force in (1) The Western concept of grand strategy expands this toolset to include all tools available to state: capacity of nation's leaders to bring together all of elements, both military and non-military, for preservation and enhancement of nation's long-term (that is, wartime and peacetime) best interest. (2) The difference between strategy and grand strategy is thus that strategy is concerned with linking military means and political ends in war, whereas a grand strategy is what links all available tools to political ends, in times of both peace and Russian definitions of strategy resemble Western definitions: formulating military-political goals of a country as well as means of achieving them. (3) However, Russian definitions of strategy contain more, as the highest level of military activity, that is, avoidance of war, preparation of armed forces and country in general for repelling aggression, and planning and carrying out of operations and war. (4) Indeed, one authoritative Russian definition closely resembles Western grand strategy: the goals and tasks for strategy are defined by and stem directly from aims and goals of state policy, of which military strategy is one means. (5) Any Russian analyst will tell you there is no such thing as Russian grand strategy; Russian military dictionary defines this term as an American phenomenon. (6) Nonetheless, scholars have debated possible emergence of a Russian grand strategy in recent years, using varying definitions of such a grand strategy. (7) For purposes of this article, Russian definition will be used: link between all available (rather than only military) means and political ends--in times of both war and peace. Military doctrine, as distinct from strategy, depicts how to employ military tools: what kind of wars one plans to fight, and how one plans to fight them. …