Encircled Again: Russia's Military Assesses Threats in a Post-Soviet World

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new democratic, market-based Russian state whose leadership declared the states of the capitalist West to be partners and allies threw the military establishment in Moscow into ideological as well as organizational disarray. Gradually over the last decade, new forms of thinking focused on Russia's national security, and new perceptions of threats to the security of the new Russian state have emerged within Russia's military. The identification of threats intended to define the mission of Russia's armed forces and support the funding of military programs has been influenced by a complex of factors in post-Soviet Russia's internal and external political environment. These have included the conflict in Chechnya, the spread of fundamentalist insurgency in Central Asia, the eastward expansion of NATO, NATO's military actions in the Balkans, the growing influence of the United States and other states in many former Soviet republics, the U.S.led military campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and the potentially long-term increased U.S. military presence in Central Asia. Discussion of military threats has also been affected by the military's institutional interests in influencing the direction of reform and shaping defense policy and budgetary decisions. Finally, threat discourse in the military has been influenced both by the ideological heritage from the Soviet period in which the current military leadership was largely educated and socialized, as well as by new post-Soviet ideological and intellectual currents, especially those which have arisen in antiliberal nationalist circles to which elements of the military leadership appear to be attracted.