HOWARD AND CZEKAJ RUSSIA’S RUSSIA’S MILITARY STRATEGY MILITARY AND DOCTRINE STRATEGY Russia’s Military Strategy and Doctrine is designed to educate Russia watchers, AND DOCTRINE STRATEGY RUSSIA’S MILITARY policymakers, military leaders, and the broader foreign policy community about the Russian AND DOCTRINE Armed Forces and security apparatus across the full spectrum of geographic, doctrinal and domain areas. Each chapter addresses a different strategic-level issue related to the Russian military, ranging from “hybrid” warfare doctrine, to the role nuclear weapons play in its strategy, to cyber and electromagnetic warfare, to Moscow’s posture in the Arctic or the Black Sea, to the lessons its Armed Forces have learned from their ongoing operations in Syria and eastern Ukraine. And each section of the book is written by one of the world’s foremost experts on that theme of Russia’s military development. ­■­■­■ The key questions emphasized by this book include “how Russia fights wars” and “how its experiences with modern conflicts are shaping the evolution of Russia’s military strategy, capabilities and doctrine.” The book’s value comes not only from a piecemeal look at granular Russian strategies in each of the theaters and domains where its Armed Forces may act, but more importantly this study seeks to present a unifying description of Russia’s military strategy as a declining but still formidable global power. Russia’s Military Strategy and Doctrine will be an essential reference for US national security thinkers, NATO defense planners and policymakers the world over who must deal with the potential military and security challenges posed by Moscow. ­■­■­■ “This book is a major addition to the field of Russian military studies and should Glen E. Howard and be required reading by many of our senior civilian and military policymakers. Its Matthew Czekaj, Editors insights on Russian military strategy in key regions of the world are of great value and will last for years to come. Jamestown is always a pivotal source of information and a resource I greatly value, both now and since I left the US Army.” Foreword by —LTG (ret.) Ben Hodges, former Commanding General of US Army Europe, Jamestown Foundation The Former NATO SACEUR and Pershing Chair at the Center for European Policy Analysis General Philip M. Breedlove $24.95 ISBN 978-0-9986660-1-3 52495> 9 780998 666013 Cover design: Peggy Archambault/archdesign1.com Photo: Shutterstock Russias Military Strategy and Doctrine4.indd 1 1/6/19 12:09 PM RUSSIA’S MILITARY STRATEGY AND DOCTRINE __________________________________________________ Glen E. Howard and Matthew Czekaj, Editors Foreword by Former NATO SACEUR General Philip M. Breedlove Washington, DC February 2019 THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION Published in the United States by The Jamestown Foundation 1310 L Street NW Suite 810 Washington, DC 20005 http://www.jamestown.org Copyright © 2019 The Jamestown Foundation All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent. For copyright and permissions information, contact The Jamestown Foundation, 1310 L Street NW, Suite 810, Washington, DC 20005. The views expressed in the book are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of The Jamestown Foundation. For more information on this book of The Jamestown Foundation, email [email protected]. ISBN: 978-0-9986660-1-3 Cover art provided by Peggy Archambault of Peggy Archambault Design. Jamestown’s Mission The Jamestown Foundation’s mission is to inform and educate policy makers and the broader community about events and trends in those societies which are strategically or tactically important to the United States and which frequently restrict access to such information. Utilizing indigenous and primary sources, Jamestown’s material is delivered without political bias, filter or agenda. It is often the only source of information which should be, but is not always, available through official or intelligence channels, especially in regard to Eurasia and terrorism. Origins Founded in 1984 by William Geimer, The Jamestown Foundation made a direct contribution to the downfall of Communism through its dissemination of information about the closed totalitarian societies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. William Geimer worked with Arkady Shevchenko, the highest- ranking Soviet official ever to defect when he left his position as undersecretary general of the United Nations. Shevchenko’s memoir Breaking With Moscow revealed the details of Soviet superpower diplomacy, arms control strategy and tactics in the Third World, at the height of the Cold War. Through its work with Shevchenko, Jamestown rapidly became the leading source of information about the inner workings of the captive nations of the former Communist Bloc. In addition to Shevchenko, Jamestown assisted the former top Romanian intelligence officer Ion Pacepa in writing his memoirs. Jamestown ensured that both men published their insights and experience in what became bestselling books. Even today, several decades later, some credit Pacepa’s revelations about Ceausescu’s regime in his bestselling book Red Horizons with the fall of that government and the freeing of Romania. The Jamestown Foundation has emerged as a leading provider of information about Eurasia. Our research and analysis on conflict and instability in Eurasia enabled Jamestown to become one of the most reliable sources of information on the post-Soviet space, the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as China. Furthermore, since 9/11, Jamestown has utilized its network of indigenous experts in more than 50 different countries to conduct research and analysis on terrorism and the growth of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda offshoots throughout the globe. By drawing on our ever-growing global network of experts, Jamestown has become a vital source of unfiltered, open-source information about major conflict zones around the world—from the Black Sea to Siberia, from the Persian Gulf to Latin America and the Pacific. Our core of intellectual talent includes former high-ranking government officials and military officers, political scientists, journalists, scholars and economists. Their insight contributes significantly to policymakers engaged in addressing today’s newly emerging global threats in the post 9/11 world. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………….v Foreword By Philip M. Breedlove……………………………………………vii Introduction By Glen E. Howard and Matthew Czekaj………………………….ix Part I: The Geographic Vectors of Russia’s Strategy 1. The Russian Strategic Offensive in the Middle East By Pavel Felgenhauer………………………………………………3 2. Strategy in the Black Sea and Mediterranean By Ihor Kabanenko………………………………………………..34 3. Russia’s Arctic and Far East Strategies By Pavel K. Baev…………………………………………………..75 4. Baltic Sea Strategy By Jörgen Elfving………………………………………………....102 Part II: Non-Conventional Elements of Strategy and Doctrine 5. Not ‘Hybrid’ but New Generation Warfare By Jānis Bērziņš………………………………………………….157 Cont. next page… iv …Contents, cont. from last page 6. Russian Nuclear Policy, Doctrine and Strategy By Stefan Forss…………………………………………………...185 7. Putin’s ‘Asymmetric Strategy’: Nuclear and New-Type Weapons in Russian Defense Policy By Stephen Blank………………………………………………...251 8. Russia’s Offensive and Defensive Use of Information Security By Sergey Sukhankin…………………………………………….302 Part III: Lessons Learned and Domestic Implications 9. Deciphering the Lessons Learned by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, 2014–2017 By Roger N. McDermott…………………………………………345 10. Russian Lessons Learned From the Operation in Syria: A Preliminary Assessment By Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky…………………………………….379 11. The Concept of Mass Mobilization Returns By Aleksandr Golts………………………………………………411 Contributors’ Biographies…………………………………….436 v Acknowledgements As one of the premier research and analysis organizations in Washington, DC, not funded by any branch of the US government, The Jamestown Foundation occupies a unique niche in providing timely, opinion-free and data-driven analysis to the policymaking community. And since its founding in 1984, the key to Jamestown’s success has always been our rich and unmatched network of international experts and researchers. Within the core group of our regular writers, however, is another sub-strata of Jamestown analysts, who represent our own elite of sorts—the best of the best within the analytical community of Russia and Eurasia experts. It is these elite analysts that we immediately turned to in order to make this book possible. The majority of the contributors who have written chapters for Russia’s Military Strategy and Doctrine are not freshly graduated from universities; they are specialists who have been writing about this region and closely examining Russian actions and behavior for decades. Each of this book’s chapters, therefore, is informed by the author’s extensive professional experience and, in many cases, invaluable retrospective analysis combined with modernity. That analytical approach provides an unmatched collective assessment of Russian goals and regional strategies emerging from Syria to the Arctic that blend together the lessons of the Soviet past with the present to help us understand the course of Russia’s future military strategy and behavior. Such a volume has been long overdue. The field of Russian military studies, as a whole, has noticeably declined in the United States. And this has been the case despite three