“[My time at ACA] prepared me very well for the position that I took following that with the State Department, where I then implemented and helped to implement many of the policies that we tried to promote.”
Wary of the West: Russian Security Policy at the Millennium
Celeste A. Wallander
On Russia's national security policy is defined by opposition and diversity, ideas and interests, power and geopolitics. It is affected by elements of Russia's Soviet past, by the cultural struggle to define its post-Soviet identity, and by the new economic and political interests that have served as the agents of change in Russia's transition from communism. It is also, of course, shaped by the limits of Russia's post-Cold War power and its relationship with the United States.
On January 10, Acting President Vladimir Putin approved a new national security concept detailing Russia's political security policy. A draft military doctrine, a more specific policy paper dealing with military issues, was approved by the Russian Security Council in late February.<1> Both the concept and the doctrine mix elements of Russian exceptionalism, great power prerogatives and concerns, and material interests in the international economy. The documents are not binding—they can be (and have been) changed, amended, and even ignored—but they are important for understanding Russian security policy nonetheless because they reflect the priorities, assessments, compromises, and negotiations within the Russian political and security elite.
America's most important interests can be managed well only in a fundamentally secure environment made possible by the passing of Cold War confrontation. Russia is not the Soviet superpower, and bipolar competition will not return. Russia nevertheless remains the only country that can destroy the United States in a single large-scale nuclear attack—a threat that will remain even if the United States deploys a national missile defense (NMD) and even if economic factors drive Russia's nuclear force downward to only 1,000-1,500 warheads.
It is not enough if Russia is simply not hostile to the West. The United States needs active Russian cooperation in order to achieve its non-proliferation goals. Given the state of Russia's economy, unauthorized sale of technology for missiles or for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons poses a major challenge to the non-proliferation and export control regimes the United States counts on to prevent countries such as Iraq or terrorists like Osama bin Laden from acquiring weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. The West needs a Russian government—supported by its society—that deems cooperation in this area a priority worth economic and political resources. In particular, the West needs a professional Russian military willing to work with Western security professionals in areas of national security and military sensitivity.
Russia's security concept and military doctrine also define what is possible in conventional and nuclear arms reductions. The recently adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty will not be successfully implemented if Russia's security elite believes that NATO is hostile to Russia, is expanding its capabilities by enlarging its membership, and views the war in Kosovo as a stepping stone to a larger European role. Ratifying START II and moving on to START III requires convincing the security elite that the United States is a reliable partner, subject to international law and respectful of its treaty commitments. And any prospect for an agreement on NMD that will avoid sparking a new multilateral nuclear arms race (involving not only Russia and China, but also possibly India and Pakistan) cannot succeed unless Russia believes that it can enhance its security more by working with the United States than by assuming the worst about American intentions and falling back upon unilateral remedies.
Analysis of Russia's new security concept and military doctrine conveys how likely Russian cooperation on these fronts will be and offers insight into how Russia's threat perceptions could complicate multilateral efforts. Unfortunately, in tracing Russia's security assessments from those articulated in the early 1990s through those put forward this year, one finds a growing tendency away from "liberal" attitudes of promoting cooperation with the West toward a traditional "statist" view that is more guarded—a shift spurred by domestic and international developments in 1998 and 1999, especially NATO's intervention in Kosovo. Cooperation is still possible—and in some respects may be easier than before—but Russia's trust of the West has certainly been weakened.
Debate and Consensus: 1992-1997
As Russia began to formulate its national security policy in the early 1990s, multiple views emerged based upon diverse sets of political, economic and societal interests. With liberal beginnings incorporating optimistic predictions of cooperation with the West, Russia's security elite debated the utility of multilateral institutions and Russia's role in them. However, divisions soon developed between the liberals, who held to their cooperative approach to the West, and the newly resurgent nationalists, who saw the West in a more threatening light. By 1997, the Yeltsin leadership had developed a synthesis that still emphasized cooperation and integration, but incorporated a strong measure of Russian Eurasianism and great power thinking, rooting the policy in a more traditional cast.
Russia's first security assessment, articulated by Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev in February 1992, emphasized Russia's need to become part of the "civilized" world and seek its true interests through partnership and cooperation with the West.<2> But his view became less tenable over the next year as relations with the United States proved more difficult than anticipated. Conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the effects of the Soviet Union's disintegration on stability and economic well-being, and the breakup of Yugoslavia provided ammunition for critics of Kozyrev's line.<3> However, despite some retreat from the more optimistic elements of Kozyrev's liberal approach, Russian policy and practice remained oriented toward the objective of integration and cooperation with the West. In policy areas such as peacekeeping in Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, conventional military arms control and measures to support the post-communist transition, Russian-Western cooperation was the standard.
In 1993, Russia issued a military doctrine that reflected its concern with emerging local and regional conflicts, as well as post-Cold War security problems, such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and international crime. The military doctrine did not identify any countries as direct threats to Russian security, reflecting Russia's turn from the Soviet Union's Cold War rivalry with the West. However, acknowledging Russia's post-Cold War geopolitical reality and the decline in Russian military power, the military doctrine adopted a policy allowing Russia to use nuclear weapons first in an attack by a nuclear-weapon state or any country allied with a nuclear-weapon state.<4>
Over the next four years, Russian security assessments sorted roughly into four categories: liberal, statist, derzhavnik and nationalist. Liberals included Western-oriented proponents of cooperation and integration and were joined by a commercial and financial elite in supporting the Yeltsin leadership's focus on economic and political change at home, complemented by an accommodating policy toward the West. At the same time, the government included statists, such as former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and former Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who supported cooperation with, but not subordination to, the West in international affairs.
The opposition fell into two broad categories. Great power Eurasianists (often referred to as derzhavniki for their emphasis on Russia as a great power) were not content with Russia's limits as they stood and advocated a reconstitution of the Soviet Union, in part because of their more strongly ethnic definition of Russian identity. They included retired general Alexander Lebed and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov. On the extreme, but nonetheless important in debates on Russian security and military doctrine, were nationalists, who advanced ethnically based conceptions of Russian citizenship and nationality and demanded a role in protecting ethnic Russians wherever they might live in the former Soviet Union. Their most visible advocate has been Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
The liberal security assessment first articulated by Kozyrev in the early 1990s was therefore strongly challenged by other elites who tended to view international structure in terms of the traditional role and influence of the great powers. The statists viewed Russian participation in multilateral forums as the sine qua non of Russia's great power status and influence.<5> Without Russian participation in the Contact Group and the prospect of Russian restraint in the UN Security Council, they argued, the West would not be constrained at all in its dealings with Yugoslavia, Iraq and others. But the statists disagreed with the liberals as to whether the institutional rules were sufficiently neutral and even-handed to allow Russia to prevail in diplomacy and bargaining when its policies differed from those of the West. Liberals argued that they did; statists argued that they did on balance, though not always and not without Russian effort.
In contrast, the derzhavniki and nationalists saw no benefit to Russia cooperating with the West and viewed the Contact Group and the Security Council as forums for Russian co-optation and subordination. Lebed's prescription for dealing with NATO enlargement was to ignore it as irrelevant and to focus on rebuilding Russia's military capability and seeking alliances and better relations with Russia's neighbors, particularly Belarus. Zhirinovsky ridiculed the Yeltsin government's subordinate role in ostensibly multilateral efforts such as the Partnership for Peace.<6> Worst of all, of course, they saw the International Monetary Fund as an instrument of Western determination to bring down Russia by destroying its economy.
Despite these elements, the liberal perspective played a central role in the government's policy during the 1990s, even in traditional security matters. The clearest example was the decision to accept NATO enlargement through the NATO-Russia Founding Act, signed in May 1997, despite clear statements by Yeltsin and Primakov declaring NATO enlargement as completely unacceptable for Russia's security interests. Russia's acquiescence was aimed at achieving some kind of influence in NATO matters through the Permanent Joint Council, acceptance of Russia at the new "Summit of the 8" (the enlarged G-7), settlement of Russia's payments arrears with the Paris Club, and renewed focus on Russian entry into the World Trade Organization.
The National Security Concept of 1997
The watchword of the Russian security elite's view of the international structure in the 1990s therefore became "balance"—with the outcome essentially a liberal-statist compromise. Statists emphasized that international order must be based upon the development of Russia's relations with a wide range of countries. Liberals did not advocate dependence on the West, but their desirable international order was one in which Russia became fully integrated as a major economic power and held the status of a great power in the more traditional sense. Statists pointed to the dangers of being reliant on good relations with the West, particularly the United States. The experience of NATO enlargement at Russian expense proved to the statist security elite that the United States was unreliable.
The compromise between these groups was clear in Russia's national security concept, signed by Yeltsin in December 1997.<7> The concept declared that "in the present time the situation in the international arena is characterized first of all by the fundamental tendency toward the formation of a multipolar world," thus reflecting the clear consensus of elite views.<8> From there, however, the concept took a distinctly liberal turn. It stated that the most important threats to Russian security lay not in the international system but in Russia's internal conditions. Since Russia's internal threats arose from economic decline, instability, and societal problems, such as poor health and unemployment, they must be addressed through economic reform. Although economic reform was primarily an internal matter, it could be supported by a non-threatening international environment and by Russian integration into international economic institutions.
This liberalism was tempered, however, by insistence that Russia did not come to the international community as a subordinate member, but as one of the major players. The 1997 concept acknowledged difficulties for Russian participation and involvement—particularly the problem of NATO enlargement—but held that effective multilateral means for cooperation and coordination of international affairs ultimately could be achieved only with Russian involvement in organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It based this confidence on Russia's status as the only truly Eurasian power.<9>
None of this came as surprise, given the terms of the elite debate and the gradual emergence of the statist view and its influence in the Russian government. What was surprising was how directly and forcefully the concept placed the internal threat to Russian security ahead of international threats and how it focused on the centrality of societal and state interests in reform, stability, and development. The document was clearly a marriage of liberal and statist views, with liberal influence in defining national security in terms of domestic well-being and reform, and statist influence in articulating the kind of assertive and pro-active Russian foreign involvement that would shape and make best use of the opportunities in the international system to support Russia's primarily internal security tasks.
This is not to say that more traditional international security interests were absent from the 1997 concept. They were spelled out in statist terms: Russia's interests in participating as a great power and as one pole in a multipolar world, in fighting transnational crime and terrorism, in developing good relations with members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), in defending the territory of the state, and in maintaining security from military aggression on the part of other states.<10> But mention of these threats came after the internal threats and tasks.
Furthermore, the concept cautioned that the need for military forces to protect Russia's international interests had to be balanced with the economic requirements of managing the other threats and challenges Russia faced. That is, recognition of real foreign, defense and military problems were not to overwhelm the priority on liberal economic reform. The concept acknowledged that assuring Russia's security required a military capability but maintained that that capability must be based upon "rational expenditures for national defense," and explicitly stated that Russia does not need to reach military parity with the West.
It was truly astonishing that the national security policy of such a large and important country considered internal threats to security more significant than external threats. The 1997 policy appeared to signal that the Yeltsin leadership had made its choice: liberal economic reform at home, international economic integration abroad, self-interested cooperation with the West in a range of security affairs, and patient development of a new kind of Western-oriented Eurasianist security identity.
Russia's New Environment
The 1998-99 period was a turning point for Russian assessment of its international environment, and for the composition of its governing coalition. The liberal-statist balance of political elite interests was shattered by the August 1998 financial crisis and, more importantly, by the Western war in Kosovo. The August crisis undermined liberal views by exposing Russia's vulnerability to the international economy and financial markets. The fundamental sources of the crisis were internal policy failures and economic weakness, but it was precipitated by the vulnerability of the ruble to speculative international financial markets. At the same time, because Russia's economy had done so well in the aftermath of the decision to devalue the ruble and implement limited debt defaults, the crisis reinforced statist arguments that a less Western-dependent, more state-directed policy of economic reform could be Russia's path to stability and eventual prosperity.
Even more significant for Russia's national security policy, however, were the implications of the American use of NATO to impose a military solution for Yugoslavia's violation of Kosovar political and human rights. Russia's uneasy acceptance of NATO's membership enlargement was based in part on the assumption that Russia held a veto over NATO missions that went beyond collective self-defense of members' territories. The Russian leadership believed that the United States and NATO had committed themselves to adopting non-collective defense missions only if they had a United Nations mandate. This would mean that Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, would have influence over any such mission.
The United States and NATO proved unwilling to live by this restriction in Kosovo, and that choice thoroughly discredited the liberal rationale for substantial and wide-ranging security cooperation with the West. Articulate liberal security analysts such as Duma member Alexei Arbatov had worked hard during the 1990s to argue that NATO enlargement, while foolish, did not threaten Russian security. NATO's war in Kosovo was evidence that the post-Cold War NATO was not merely about enlarging the community of democratic states, but was also about using military force in pursuit of its members' policies. The issue of the expansion of NATO's membership was difficult enough for Russia; with Kosovo, it faced the expansion of NATO's mission, unrestrained by the UN. The expansion of NATO's mission to encompass unilateral intervention to settle an internal ethnic conflict and enforce Western human rights priorities created the potential for something even worse than membership enlargement. Given instability on and within Russia's borders in the Caucasus, Caspian, and Central Asia—areas in which the United States has expressed both economic and geostrategic interest—the expansion of NATO's mission could threaten Russia's territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
The war in Kosovo undermined the liberal argument for "partnership" in order to gain Western support for Russia's international economic integration. The lesson appeared to be that the United States would be constrained by its international commitments only when convenient and that it would act unilaterally in important security matters when Russia did not agree with American policies. Kosovo signaled that American and Russian priorities were not in sync and that the United States was more willing than the 1997 concept had assumed to use military force closer to Russian borders for a wider variety of purposes. Kosovo helped to undermine the liberals' security argument for partnership and reinforced the arguments that the West's intentions toward Russia were not benign.
The National Security Concept of 2000
The national security concept Putin signed into law in January 2000 had been in the works since the spring of 1999.<11> Although signing the concept was one of Putin's first official decisions, this development should not be misunderstood as tied solely to Putin's views or personal leadership. The new concept has been developing for at least a year and is the result of the elite debate and consensus. The concept is a substantial change from the December 1997 national security concept and is a significant shift from liberal elements in former President Yeltsin's political coalition. The shift is not a product of mere leadership politics. It is the result of the events of 1998 and 1999 and is based on the statist security elite that now occupies the large, moderate middle in Russian politics. In the unlikely event that Putin loses the March presidential election, the weight of this political coalition will remain the primary influence on Russian security policy.
The most significant aspect of the new concept is that it elevates the importance and expands the types of external threats to Russian security. The document still devotes a great deal of attention to internal threats, arising primarily from the difficulties of its post-communist transition and its unsuccessful economic reforms. In contrast to the 1997 version, however, the new analysis emphasizes terrorism, societal discontent and disharmony, the uneven benefits of economic reform, the criminalization of Russian society and the lack of a rule-based state to guarantee the safety and well-being of Russian citizens to a greater degree. Unlike the 1997 concept, which appeared to call for staying the course of political-economic reform, the characterization of internal threats in the 2000 document justifies a reform policy with greater emphasis on the role of the Russian state in shaping the economy, safeguarding stability and regulating social and political life.
Even more substantial changes have been made in Russia's assessment of the international environment and external threats to Russian security. The concept no longer claims that there are no threats arising from other states' deliberate actions or aggression. It provides a substantial list of external threats, including:
• the weakening of the OSCE and the UN;
• weakening Russian political, economic and military influence in the world;
• the consolidation of military-political blocs and alliances (particularly further eastward expansion of NATO), including the possibility of foreign military bases or deployment of forces on Russian borders;
• proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery;
• weakening of the CIS, and escalation of conflicts on CIS members' borders; and
• territorial claims against Russia.
In several places, the concept emphasizes the post-Cold War shift toward a multipolar world in which relations are based upon international law and a proper role for Russia. It argues that against this tendency and under the guise of multilateralism, the United States and its allies have sought to establish a unipolar world outside of international law. The document warns that NATO's policy transition to using military force outside its alliance territory without UN Security Council approval is a major threat to world stability and that this trend creates the potential for a new era of arms races among the world's great powers.
Given the greater significance the new concept accords external threats, it is not surprising that it calls for greater emphasis on traditional security instruments. The main task of Russia's security policy in the external realm, it says, is to secure the country's territorial integrity, especially in preventing terrorism and threats to Russia's borders. To deal with America's unilateralism, the concept sets Russia the task of consolidating its position as one of the great powers and influential centers in the world. It is here that the concept drops Russia's earlier call for a "partnership" with the West and replaces it with a more limited call for "cooperation," with an emphasis on international measures to prevent proliferation and cope with the spread of international terrorism and crime.
In military-defense terms, the concept's focus is on preventing "scientific and technological dependence" and achieving a level of military capability sufficient to prevent aggression in local wars and prevail against groups of opposing forces in regional wars. Russia must keep its nuclear weapons as a guarantee against aggressors or coalitions of hostile states and may resort to nuclear weapons to defend itself and its allies against nuclear-armed states or their allies. The concept stresses this point by lowering Russia's threshold for permitting the use of nuclear weapons. Whereas the 1997 concept contemplated nuclear use only "in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation," the new concept permits nuclear use to "repulse armed aggression, if all other means of resolving the crisis have been exhausted."
This development is clearly related to assessments after Kosovo of NATO military options. In June 1999, Russia held military exercises to simulate a Western conventional military attack on Russia's Baltic province of Kaliningrad. Having failed to halt the attack by conventional means, the Russian forces succeeded in defeating the simulated attack by resorting to nuclear weapons.<12> In short, Russia appears to have lowered the nuclear threshold as of 2000 because the Russian-NATO balance of conventional military forces deteriorated so terribly that Russian military officials are no longer confident that their conventional options are likely to be successful in the event of armed conflict against Russia or its allies (that is, Belarus). Combined with its Kosovo-based assessment that NATO is more disposed to use military force in the European region, Russia's new nuclear doctrine reflects Russia's complicated geopolitical assessments of the new NATO, rather than a re-evaluation of nuclear options per se.
Russia's new military doctrine, a separate document not yet signed by Putin but approved by Russia's Security Council in February 2000, not only reinforces these assessments, but goes a step further: it permits nuclear weapons use in the event that a conventional military attack by a non-nuclear power threatens Russia's territorial integrity or sovereignty. Unlike the previous, more cautious formulation, which required an explicit alliance link between a non-nuclear and a nuclear country to justify a nuclear response to conventional aggression, the new formulation does not require that the non-nuclear aggressor have a formal alliance tie to a nuclear-weapon state. On the one hand, this formulation eliminates the negative security assurances Russia gave in 1995 that it would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, unless attacked by a "non-nuclear-weapon-State in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State." On the other hand, since the conventional scenarios Russia has in mind involve possibilities such as joint NATO-Baltic actions, this may be a distinction without much of a difference. It is important to note that the Russian military doctrine explicitly rules out using nuclear weapons to deal with internal conflicts.
The good news is that the concept preserves the argument that Russia's national interests and security will be served primarily by international law and "can only be achieved by the development of Russia's economy" through long-term integration into the world economy. The economic reform this leadership has in mind differs from previous policy: It places greater emphasis on support for the scientific, technological and defense sectors of the economy. It appears to prescribe a stronger state role in facilitating equity and social stability and in regulating as well as creating market conditions. And it emphasizes that the goal of Russia's international economic integration is to open foreign markets to Russian products.
This signals that the emphasis at home will be on greater state involvement and an economic policy closer to an industrial policy, focusing on the advanced defense sector and export promotion. This surely means a stronger state and greater state involvement in society. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that market reform and international integration—although of types that will be less subject to Western blueprints and priorities—remain a strong priority.
Putin's statements since becoming president have reinforced this mix of views. He has emphasized that Russia's future lies in economic reform and international economic integration. He has called for progress on Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, has cut back on restrictions of important Russian raw materials exports and has taken steps against Russian energy firms that have not paid taxes or paid for government services. He has called for private ownership of land, an overhaul of the Russian tax system and ratification of START II. At the same time, Putin leads a government that has prosecuted a brutal war in Chechnya and has issued a revised, tougher security policy that identifies the United States as a potential threat to Russia.
There is no contradiction between economic reform and a tougher line on the Russian state and its national security policy. Putin is a Russian statist, and his leadership reflects a broad elite consensus that supports integration and cooperation with the West, but not at any price. He is willing to seek international integration and prosperity, but not at the cost of territorial integrity and national sovereignty or the West's complete dominance in the nuclear and conventional military spheres. Russia's leadership has not abandoned internal reform and international integration, but it does not trust the West to protect Russia's interests.
Implications for the United States
Despite reports about the enhanced role nuclear weapons appear to play in the 2000 security concept and military doctrine, it is important to recognize that a clear implication of the new policy for the United States is that the potential for cooperation remains on important security issues, such as non-proliferation, anti-terrorism and conflict management. Furthermore, in one sense, the potential may be better than in the 1990s: the current Russian leadership has a broader and more stable base of support and will probably implement measures to increase the competence and capacity of the Russian state. That means Russia can be a reliable partner in controlling weapons of mass destruction, missile technology and international crime. This is an improvement over the 1990s, when it was far from clear that Russia could control the actions of its citizens and agencies, even if the government wished to do so.
Nevertheless, Russia is not going to be as easy to deal with as it was in the 1990s. Elements of its industrial policy and greater state regulation of the economy will make trade negotiations and financial transactions more complicated and will cause problems in American domestic politics for certain sectors in which Russia can compete, such as steel. Russian defense spending will increase, partly in order to stem the crisis in Russia's conventional forces, partly in connection with the defense sector portion of the economic development policy. In order to prosecute the war in Chechnya, the Putin leadership found $1 billion: unlimited funds are not available, but a shift in priorities can support levels of defense spending greater than those in recent years. This increased defense spending is not a direct threat to U.S. security in itself, but it has indirect implications for American security policy, including an increase in Russian efforts to sell arms on the international market, the shift in military balances that will concern Russia's neighbors, and the effects on Russian democracy and the state itself.
Most problematic will be negotiations in the area of nuclear arms control, particularly concerning American hopes for modification of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in order to deploy a form of national missile defense. Given the heightened threat assessment in the new security concept and the increased emphasis on the importance of Russia's nuclear deterrent to cope with threats against itself or its allies, Russian defense officials have become very sensitive to any developments that might erode the strength of that deterrent capability. In addition, Russia's belief that the United States violated past assurances and agreements when it enlarged NATO's membership and mission makes Russian defense officials skeptical that the United States would abide by any negotiated restrictions that proved inconvenient in the future. Russian analysts do not fear that American plans for NMD to cope with "rogue" state threats erode Russia's deterrent, but they do believe that such systems will provide the United States with a "break-out" capability that may prove tempting in the future, given the trends toward American unilateralism in international affairs. If the United States hopes to gain Russian agreement on modifying the ABM Treaty, the absolute minimum deal will depend on clear and reliable provisions that are directed explicitly and narrowly on the North Korean scenario. To do this, not only must interceptors be limited in number and range, but the Russian military will demand provisions for transparency and assurances so that it can plan for a reliable, long-term strategic nuclear force with retaliatory capacity against both the United States and China.
The most important implication for U.S. policy is the need to understand that the Russian security leadership links national sovereignty and territorial integrity, terrorism and WMD, instability and conflict in the Caucasus and Caspian regions, NATO's membership and mission enlargement, and U.S. unilateralism. The United States may not agree that these elements are connected. However, it will not be able to devise a successful Russia policy unless it understands that the Russian political leadership will base its security policy on this assessment into the 21st century. The most important policy implication of this connection is that NATO's primary security mission for the next few years must be repairing relations and trust with Russia. Putin has signaled interest in thawing the freeze on the NATO-Russian relationship, which was Russia's response to Kosovo. Both Russia and the United States have to decide that they will make the mechanism for discussion and consultation between NATO and Russia—the Permanent Joint Council—a meaningful forum for confidence building and discussion of European security issues. It is difficult for the United States to involve Russia in NATO, but the 2000 security concept and military doctrine makes clear that Russia's relations with NATO have global implications in a range of issues, including non-proliferation and control of WMD.
The American approach to security cooperation and arms control with Russia has to be based on an understanding that the wide-ranging Russian debate of the 1990s has produced a relatively stable consensus among Russia's security elites supporting a more limited range of security cooperation, based on a more Eurasianist, great power variant of Russian interests than were at work in the 1990s. Russian relations with the United States will be shaped by the ongoing task of dismantling the communist legacy within Russia itself, Russia's Eurasian history and geopolitics and Russian society's own definition of its security interests.
NOTES
The author would like to thank Samuel Huntington, Nikolai Sokov and Kimberly Zisk for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
1. Putin has not yet signed the draft doctrine, but he is expected to do so this spring.
2. Andrei Kozyrev, "Vystupleniye na prakticheskoi konferentsii 'Preobrazhennaya Rossiya v novom mire'," February 1992. Reprinted in International Affairs (Moscow), April-May 1992.
3. Sergei Stankevich, "Derzhava v poiskakh sebya," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 28, 1992, p. 4; Aleksandr Rutskoi, "Ya - tsentrist, derzhavnik i liberal," Argumenty i Fakty, October 1992. Derzhava means literally "power" but connotes "great power."
4. "Osnovnye polozheniia voennoi doctriny Rossii-skoi Federatsii," internal Russian government document, November 1993.
5. "Perviy god diplomatii Primakova proshyel bez provalov i proryvov," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 9, 1997, p. 1; "U nas svoye litso, i my nigde ne skatyvalis," Izvestiya, December 23, 1997, p. 3.
6. Andrei Baturin, "Tanets s metloi v ispolnii Zhirinovskovo," Izvestiya, February 1, 1994.
7. "Kontseptsiya natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossiy-skoy Federatsii," ukazom Prezidenta Rossiyskoy Federatsii ot 17 dekabrya 1997 g. , no. 1300 (internal Russian government document). It was also published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 26, 1997, p. 4-5.
8.Ibid. , p. 1.
9.Ibid. , p. 3.
10.Ibid. , p. 7-8.
11. "Kontseptsiya natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossisy-skiy Federatsii," Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Oboz-reniye, January 14, 2000.
12. "Rossiyskaya armiya gotovitsya k otrazheniyu agressii," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 23, 1999.
Celeste A. Wallander is associate professor of government at Harvard University and faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Davis Center for Russian Studies. [Back to top]