Russia’s Perception and Hierarchy of Security Threats

Abstract

As Russian President Vladimir Putin enters his second term and Russia embarks on the course toward modernization (some experts would call it authoritarian modernization, though), the country is approaching an important phase in its development. The general message sent by the modernization process is the end of the transition period in Russian politics and economy, which will require the formulation of new tasks for the future. Among them, it will be necessary to reassess Russia’s place in the world and to see how to ensure the country’s competitiveness (a fashionable word for the Russian establishment) in the global arena. Therefore, the Russian perception of security threats becomes a subject of extreme importance. Meanwhile, all the major conceptual documents behind the modernization process were approved as long ago as 2000—i.e., before the major shifts in international relations that have taken place in the past five years. At the time of their elaboration, the authors did their best to predict the trends of global development and tried to make the formulas as abstract as possible. Somehow, they succeeded in grasping some of the prevailing tendencies (e.g., NATO’s use of force beyond the traditional areas of responsibility and without authorization of the UN Security Council) and in foreseeing, for example, the increasing influence of the international terrorist threat on the world’s security situation. This has helped to preserve the relevance of certain elements of Russia’s National Security Concept and Military Doctrine. However, as usual, the interpretation was more important than the facts and, regrettably, the perception contained in the 2000 doctrines is partly outdated today and contains certain hints of Cold War thinking. The 2000 National Security Concept gives a broad vision of Russian national security interests and the key factors affecting them. It starts with economic security issues, and clearly emphasizes the importance of the downgrading of the Russian economy, and especially its technological potential, its evident orientation on the export of raw materials and fuel, the stagnation of the agriculture and banking sectors, and the brain drain that has resulted in technological dependence. The World Bank report on Russia’s development issued in 2004 indicates that not much has changed since then, and predicts that the influence of energy export will only increase in the foreseeable future. This will not only be connected with high oil prices, but also with the government’s need for extra resources to implement Putin’s presidential ambitions (doubling of the GDP by 2010, and cutting poverty in half in the next three years) and the lack of alternative sources of revenue other than export duties and taxation on oil and gas. The social threats highlighted in the report include uncontrolled migration, secessionism and economic disintegration of the state, diminishments in the effectiveness of the legal system, depreciation of spiritual values, extremism, the worsening crime