Written evidence submitted by James Sherr[1]

INTRODUCTION

The lens through which the UK perceives Russia has altered significantly since the start of its military intervention in Ukraine two years ago this month.  Few today would argue that ‘cooperative security’ is an appropriate baseline for understanding the challenges confronting us. In the words of the UK Security and Defence Review, ‘Russia is increasingly defining itself in opposition to the West’.[2]  There is growing recognition that when Russia annexed Crimea, it attacked the security order of Europe. Our current disputes with Russia are not ‘Cold War’ issues.  They would matter as much if the Cold War had never taken place.

It is proving more difficult for the UK and its allies to understand the motivations, methods and ‘logic’ of Russian policy.  An accurate appreciation of these matters is as important to intelligence assessment and defence planning as it is to diplomacy.  Russia today is a ‘network state’ that has blurred the distinction between state and private, civil and military, domestic and foreign, and peace and war.[3]  Its culture of risk, its response to pressure, its pain threshold and its definitions of ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ do not always fit the Western template. For these reasons, our own measure of ‘threat’ and our requirements for deterrence and defence cannot be deduced from a capabilities-based analysis alone.

the russian cognitive prism[4]

Whereas the factors that shape Western policy often need to be offset against one another, the determinants of Russian policy have become increasingly reinforcing. They have also been in place for a considerable period of time. Cognitive and institutional factors are as important as material ones.  Four of these factors command attention:

Regime Retrenchment.  After his re-election to the presidency in 2012, Vladimir Putin reconstituted the political system in a defensive and illiberal direction. In my written evidence to the Committee in 2009, I noted that policy was being made by ‘ingrown, opaque and relatively unaccountable circles of people’.  Today these circles are smaller. Intellectual claustrophobia now defines a leadership milieu that in Putin’s first term (2000-4) was appreciably more diverse.  Those whose interests and aspirations lie in European integration have been marginalised. The distinctive traditions and methodologies of the Russian military, security and intelligence services now provide the optic through which the motivation and capacity of external actors are assessed, threats analysed and objectives formulated and pursued. 

Deterministic Threat Assessments.  As Russia’s power has grown, so has the scale of the threat perceived by it. Today, Russia views itself as the subject of geopolitical and ‘civilisational’ encirclement. The determination of the United States and its ‘satellites’ (allies) to maintain their hegemony is an article of faith. This threat is considered to be ‘systemic’ rather than a product of this or that political administration.  In the Kremlin’s view, the West seeks not only to ‘isolate’ Russia but undermine its regime and overthrow its internal order by a variety of sophisticated means. ‘Democracy promotion’, ‘humanitarian interventions’, ‘coloured revolutions’ and ‘coercive diplomacy’, as well as the employment of social media and advanced military technology are viewed through this mono-focal lens.

In addition, the factors that frequently offset one another in a Western threat assessment — capability, interest and intention — are invariably compounded in Russia on the basis of worst-case assumptions. Threat is defined in terms of proximity; security is equated with control of space (irrespective of the views of those who inhabit it) and uncontested defence perimeters. The retention of Soviet borders as the baseline of proximity invariably enlarges the threat perceived.  (During the Kosovo conflict, it was customary to refer to Yugoslavia as a country ‘in the vicinity of Russia’s borders’, despite the fact that the nearest Russian city, Novorossiysk, was 1,000 km away). What is done near Russia is done against Russia.[5]

Moreover, NATO is seen not only as a geopolitical, but a ‘military-civilisational’ force, exporting a model of national security (and civil-military relations) alien to the ‘historical’ ‘Russian world’, which Putin claims exceeds the borders of the former USSR itself.  EU enlargement and the extension of its normative model to Russia’s ‘historical areas of influence’ is seen to pose as acute a threat as NATO enlargement.  The prelude to the Ukraine conflict (and President Yanukovych’s fall from power) was Russia’s increasingly brutal pressure upon a ‘non-bloc’ state that had assiduously curtailed cooperation with NATO in deference to Russian wishes, but still set its sights on an Association Agreement with the European Union.

Proactive Defence.  By any Western standard, Russia has become a revisionist power. Russia does not deny that it seeks to change the rules of a European and global security system that its president describes as ‘weakened, fragmented and deformed’.[6] Yet it insists, and has persuaded itself, that its efforts are defensive.  Beginning with its war against Georgia in 2008, Russia has been waging what it regards as a counteroffensive against an ‘unjust’ order that the West seeks to preserve ‘at all costs’.[7]  This counteroffensive is not exclusively military, nor is it confined to one theatre.  Issues that Western political, diplomatic and defence establishments are inclined to separate – the conflict in Ukraine, the war in Syria, the refugee crisis, the cohesion of the EU – are viewed in Russia through the prism of this overarching aim and, as far as possible, integrated in policy and action. Europe is the main fulcrum of Russia’s objectives even when the theatre of activity lies elsewhere.  In the words of Stephen Covington, ‘breaking Europe’s political cohesion is the fundamental pre-requisite for changing Europe’s security rules, principles and norms’.[8]

Mobilisation.  The Western response to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has given added impetus to efforts to ‘mobilise’ Russia’s state, economy and society for prolonged ‘struggle’, conflict and war itself.[9] Although the economic realism of this enterprise has been questioned by a number of Russian and Western experts, its political, military and psychological implications should not be underestimated.

The growth of Russian military capabilities and their employment in ways that have surprised and disorientated adversaries is a reminder that wars are not decided by GDP ratios, but by the conversion of national endowments into useable power. The Russian state has securitised most dimensions of Russia’s power in ways that liberal democracies would find neither appropriate nor possible in peacetime.  The Kremlin knows that, by comparison to the West, many of these powers are limited.  But they are used to the full.

Moreover, Russian (and Soviet) military scientists have long included ‘moral’ attributes as a dimension of power. Not for the first time, passionar’nost’ — force of will, moral vigour, willingness to endure hardship — are viewed as factors of advantage in Russia’s contest with ‘decadent’ Western countries whose only strengths are material. For President Putin and the Russian defence establishment, the weaker party is not the one with the most to lose, but the one that is most afraid of losses. As stakes rise, it is axiomatic that the scale of acceptable risk rises as well.

Russia is being transformed into a country that is psychologically at war with the West. Despite declining living standards, levels of support for Russia’s foreign policy course are high.  Although war is not the objective of Russian policy, it is regarded as a serious possibility.  Zapad 2009, the first operational-strategic exercise directed explicitly against NATO since the Cold War, began with a hypothetical NATO intervention in support of Polish ‘compatriots’ in Belarus and concluded with a nuclear strike on Warsaw. Although the exercise might have served to warn, intimidate and impress, ten years after the Kosovo conflict and four years after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, it is likely that its primary purpose was to rehearse responses to potential threats as the Kremlin and General Staff perceived them. Zapad 2013, which to all intents and purposes simulated an all-out attack on the Baltic states, probably was conceived for a similar combination of reasons. In 2014 and 2015, there has been a proliferation of command and snap [vnezapniye] exercises designed to rehearse capabilities for multi-theatre war, intercontinental nuclear strikes and countering externally fostered unrest and insurgency, the latter of which deployed Interior (MVD) and Security (FSB) troops on a strategic scale.

It remains to note that the sociology of the current Russian leadership is as important as their mind-set.  In genealogical terms, Vladimir Putin is a product of the KGB, but in sociological terms, he is the product of the new class that emerged in the Darwinian conditions of the 1990s:  business-minded, ambitious, nationalistic and coldly utilitarian about norms and rules.  Whereas today’s Western elites are the product of consensus seeking political cultures, Russia’s elites have emerged in a comparatively Hobbesian world. Moderation, compromise and respect for others have not been the hallmarks of their success.

Despite his undoubted influence and authority, it would be erroneous to link these premises, traits and trends to President Putin alone.  They do not describe the world view of one individual, but of Russia’s defence, security and political establishment. Much of what we see today was forecast in the late Yeltsin era.[10]  Although there are alternative voices in the country, their influence in a post-Putin Russia is entirely conjectural.  The post-Putin Russia’s ‘date of arrival’ is equally conjectural.  What can be said with fair confidence is that this view of the world will survive as long as the current establishment is in place.

A NOTE ON RUSSIAN METHODS

An exhaustive review of Russian methods of pursuing ‘hard diplomacy’, ‘soft coercion’ and war falls outside the purview of this submission.  But it would be useful to highlight several points.

First, as heirs to the traditions of the CHEKA and Soviet General Staff, Russia’s leaders and military commanders play along the diagonals. They are predisposed to the oblique approach and asymmetrical action.  This means that issues which the Western mind is trained to distinguish and treat ‘on their merits’ are linked in unconventional, counter-intuitive and deliberately deceptive ways.

In Syria, Russia’s regional interests in the Middle East are being linked to its primary interests in Ukraine and Europe. The bombardment campaign and its corollary, the augmentation of the civilian exodus, are not only designed to strengthen Assad but create a ‘strategic diversion’ in the West. They distract attention from Ukraine (and diminish patience with it); they burden and divide Europe, and they serve to embitter Turkey and isolate it from its NATO allies. It is no accident that Russia’s aerial ‘provocations’ against Turkey coincided with bombardment of the very Turkmen tribes that Turkey had been supporting.  Nor is it accidental that the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, which had been observed almost scrupulously for two months, came to an abrupt end two days after the Paris attacks of 13 November. In both cases, the absence of a tough and unified Western response would suggest to Moscow that it was achieving its purpose.

Russia’s enormous investment in information ‘struggle’ and infowar descends from the same family tree. Today, the information component is integrated into all domains of state activity, both internally and externally, and it even forms a key part of Russian business (where ‘financial-informational struggle’ is the norm). According to the 2011 ‘Conceptual Views’ of the Ministry of Defence on the information space, ‘information war’ encompasses:

undermining the political, economic and social system, and massive indoctrination of the population for destabilizing the society and the state, and also forcing the state to make decisions in the interests of the opposing party [author’s emphasis].[11]

The means to this end encompass disinformation, deception, diversion, intimidation and ‘reflexive control’.

It would be especially perilous to neglect the information component, the asymmetrical approach and the ‘combined arms’ tradition when contemplating future war in Europe. By definition, ‘hybrid war’ combines military, social and psychological modes of struggle.  In the West, however, few draw the conclusion that military defences on their own are likely to prove inadequate.  What adds to the challenge confronting us is the fact that Russia does not treat the prosecution of ‘hybrid war’ as distinct from conflict in general.  In Stephen Covington’s words, ‘the Russian military has adopted an approach to conflict in peace, crisis, and war that couples large-scale conventional and nuclear forces to the appli­cation of non-attributable, ambiguous means of destabilisation’.[12]  It is worth adding that theatre nuclear weapons are viewed not only as means of sdzerzhivanie — deterring and constraining an enemy — but as means of de-escalation in war itself.

For these reasons, it might be equally perilous to assume Russian agreement with the prevalent Western view that sanctions are an alternative to war. Russia’s response to ‘extreme sanctions’ (e.g. the curtailment of SWIFT) could well take a highly asymmetrical form. Its newly displayed interest in cutting undersea communications cables and incorporating segments of the Baku-Supsa pipeline speaks to this very concern.

The second point of methodology concerns Russia’s means of assessing the strength of an adversary.  Today it is pursuing a regimen of probing, testing and ‘provocation’ that has not been observed since Soviet times.[13]  During the Cold War, NATO Allies understood that these occurrences were designed to test Western credibility and fortitude, in other words, the adequacy of its deterrence.  Over 160 provocations on the Inner German Border took place between 1950 and 1991, and each episode generated a proportionate allied response. These instincts and disciplines have lapsed in the West, but in Russia they are in place, and conclusions are drawn from our responses and our failures to respond. As Keir Giles has noted:

In early September 2014, US President Barack Obama provided explicit encouragement to the Baltic states with a strongly worded public speech in Tallinn. Russian hostile actions against all three countries followed over the subsequent month.[14]

In July 2015, Russia chose the occasion of a NATO-Georgia military exercise to move the Abkhaz border 1.5 km further into Georgian territory and transfer 1 km of the Baku-Supsa pipeline to the territory of South Osetia. The exercise ended on schedule without any visible Allied response. Turkey’s downing of a Russian Su-24 after repeated overflights and repeated warnings was followed by a pro forma NATO reiteration of support that scarcely concealed disarray in the Alliance.  The episode did not affect the scheduled withdrawal of a US air defence contingent from Turkish territory.

IMPLICATIONS FOR UK POLICY

The conflict that began in Ukraine in February 2014 is not a problem that can be separated from the problem of European security as a whole.  It is neither an episode in its own right nor a crisis, but the expression of a civilisational and geopolitical discord shaped by divergent world views and compelling political interests.

The beginning of wisdom, now understood in British defence circles, is that this discord is likely to be with us for a long period of time.  In rising to the challenge, the focal point of attention must be Russia as it is rather than a ‘reasonable’ state than can be expected to act within our framework of strategic rationality. There is no disputing that Russia is experiencing moderate economic hardship and running major economic risks.  Yet most of these are mid-to-long-term risks that do not inhibit Russian leaders from exploiting real Western (or Ukrainian) weaknesses today.  Recklessly or otherwise, its leaders believe that when the geopolitical contest is won, today’s hardships will be overcome, and economic success will follow.  Those who might dispute the thesis have few means of doing so.  Whilst the 19-member US National Security Council includes four officials with high-level economic responsibility, on the 31-member Russian Federation Security Council, there is only one.  The truth is that the Kremlin believes that the West is as weak politically as Russia is economically, and it is entirely possible that they are right. Thus, we can expect them to press their advantage where they have it. 

There is nothing in the ‘logic’ of today’s Russian policy that leads to war or even to an escalation of the pressures we already experience.  But it is not a logic that leads to near-term ‘solutions’ either, whether by strength, ‘dialogue’ or a skilful combination of the two. The fundamentals will change only when realities make change obligatory.  If the West does not understand Russia in its own terms, it will have difficulty shaping these realities to its advantage.  Apart from that, the West will require firmness, fixity of purpose and patience.

18 February 2016