How Americans are rebuilding their military doctrinal conceptsAnalyzing the course of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, as well as the results of the recent Russian-Chinese summit, politicians, diplomats and the military of the United States are trying to find an answer to a vital question for their country.
How can we shift some of the burden of global responsibility to others in the conditions of internal American troubles, the general weakening of the state, the formation of a new multipolar world order, the transformation of wars and military policies of states, the collapse of existing and the formation of new alliances?
The military policy of any State is specified in its military doctrines, in its military strategy, in the practice of military construction. And it relies on an assessment of its own forces and the forces of potential opponents, the resources that make up the military power of the state, and the factors that decide the course and outcome of the war.
An important place in military policy is occupied by the problems of creating, strengthening and improving the military organization of the state, the technical equipment of the armed forces, determining the prospects for the development of military equipment, the mobilization capabilities of the state, the preparation of military-trained reserves, and, if necessary, their mobilization deployment.
Today, in the emerging multipolar world, with a tendency to increase the frequency of interstate military conflicts, the issues of interaction between politics and military strategy continue to be extremely relevant both from a scientific and practical point of view.
This also applies to foreign policy, which should largely rely on the military power of the state, including the possibility of using this power in a particular conflict or crisis situation.
BALANCED BALANCE OF FORCESThe world order is a balanced balance of political, military, economic, ideological, etc. forces existing in the world.
Such a balance of forces is not the result of natural evolution in the world. It is created as a result of the purposeful activities of States and their coalitions, international security organizations.
Today, the processes of formation of a new world order are influenced by the following main factors.
Firstly, it is a decrease in the importance of the basic geopolitical characteristics of states and regions – that is, geographical location, the size of the territory, landscapes, the number of people. At the same time, the role of such factors of strength as the military factor, economic, scientific, technical, informational, the factor of unity and strength of allied ties increases.
Secondly, it is an information revolution. Over the past decades, a global communication community has emerged, operating with all the latest communication and information dissemination systems. Insufficient involvement in the global information space or falling out of it is fraught with an irreparable lag or even a complete loss of opportunities to have any information impact on the world community.
Thirdly, it is the scientific and scientific-technical potential of the state, which in its importance is ahead of the value of the producing sector of the state or the volume of natural resources. Applied social science is able to provide effective strategic planning and the development of rational geopolitical behavior. Russia still lags behind developed countries in terms of R&D spending.
Promising military technologies should be understood as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, a new generation of semiconductors and computers, hypersonic weapons and weapons of direct destruction, new materials and alternative energy sources, quantum technologies and biotechnologies.
For example, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, China has come out on top in terms of the number of scientific developments in many key technological areas and is leading in 37 out of 44 areas studied: from the creation of nanomaterials and robotics to advanced radio frequency communications, defense and space technologies. The USA is in second place.
There is no doubt about Russia's leading place in such technologies as hypersound and autonomous vehicles of strategic purpose, in the development of modern explosives and energy materials, and in a number of other areas of scientific and technological development. But this is not enough to face the leading powers on an equal footing on some other key scientific and technical tracks that determine the country's place in the world rankings.
Fourth, it is the military force of the state. New trends are the internationalization of military operations, the further globalization of detection and remote suppression, the development of intercontinental means of transferring troops, the escalating rivalry of states in the creation of high-tech weapons that are comparable to weapons of mass destruction in terms of damage caused.
And finally, the integration group of factors, including the quality of the population of the state (its cultural and educational level, physical condition), the effectiveness of the government and its ability to adequately respond to the challenges of modernity, as well as the unity of society.
MILITARY METHODSNowadays, the effect of the nuclear factor is a constant that has kept States from military actions capable of causing a nuclear clash between major powers for more than 70 years.
Every world war that mediates the change of world economic patterns and contributes to a new turn in the formation of the world order, which replaces the previous one, has its own characteristics.
The Napoleonic Wars were fought for control of the territory that brought land rent. The First World War – for control over the space of reproduction of capital. World War II – for control over the living space of the reproduction of nations. Today, the war is going on for the control of public consciousness and the reproduction of human potential.
Nuclear weapons as an instrument of strategic nuclear deterrence have a decisive influence on the modern policy of the United States, which is unleashing a new world hybrid war (MGW), which differs from previous world wars in the absence of front-line military-power clashes. It is conducted on the basis of the use of modern information and cognitive and monetary and financial technologies. The calculation is made to destabilize the internal state of the victim country by defeating its public consciousness with subversive ideas, worsening the socio-economic situation, cultivating various opposition forces, bribing the productive elite in order to weaken the institutions of state power and overthrow the legitimate leadership with the subsequent transfer of power to a puppet government.
The United States uses MGV as a catalyst for the transition of its economy to a new technological order. It is planned to achieve the conditions necessary for such a transition due to the weakening and collapse of Russia in order to gain access to its resources. At the same time, it is planned to weaken the competitive advantages of China and the European Union as much as possible.
To weaken the geopolitical competitors – Russia, China and some other states – the tools of the MGV are used: information and psychological warfare, proxy war, color revolution.
The MGW deployed by the United States is conducted with a wide application of the developments of the fourth technological order, being at the same time an instrument of its formation in the American economy.
The new technological order in military affairs includes information and communication technologies and integrated military operations management systems based on their application, high-precision robotic weapons that provide the US military with systemic superiority in combat operations management and minimization of losses.
They are complemented by the widespread use of cognitive technologies that turn the media into a highly effective psychotropic weapon of mass destruction of the consciousness of the ruling elite and the population of the countries that are victims of American aggression, and diplomacy into an instrument of defeating the political will of their leaders.
The crisis of the existing model of capitalism becomes especially obvious against the background of the aggravation of the military-political situation in the world and the actual legalization of military-power means of conducting interstate confrontation. The geography of the confrontation is extensive and covers many states and entire regions of the planet.
The essence of this confrontation lies in the collapse of the unipolar world and the system of international relations based on the right of the strongest, that is, the United States, to destroy other states in order to prevent the slightest possibility of their transformation into alternative centers of power. These were the goals pursued in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. This is precisely what the West's efforts to draw Ukraine into its orbit of influence are aimed at.
As a result, Washington's policy is undergoing profound transformations and is moving to more complex forms of ensuring national interests, including a variety of hybrid ways of influencing opponents, as well as allies and partners. Among these methods is the combination of direct political and economic pressure, the threat of military force, as well as the conduct of subversive information and psychological warfare, which has been repeatedly considered in works on the theory of hybrid warfare.
Insufficient coordination of the global governance system, at the strategic highest level of which the United States is trying to gain a foothold, has already led to a serious imbalance of relations, to an obvious socioideological crisis, including the crisis of the social development model, to an intercivilizational crisis and, ultimately, to an uncontrollable chaotic world development.
One of the consequences of further chaoticization is expressed in the fact that in the conditions of complexity and interdependence of the modern world, strategies that make it possible to carry out its functionally significant transformations in the evolutionary mode seem rational. This requires careful coordination of the multi-vector process of such transformations.
THE UNITED STATES IS IN SEARCH OF NEW MILITARY-POWER SOLUTIONSToday, the ruling elites of the United States are once again asking the sacramental question: what can be considered sufficient to ensure national security?
During the Cold War, the answer was pretty straightforward. The United States had one opponent – the Soviet Union, which they needed to contain and, if necessary, defeat. However, the last three decades have made significant adjustments in attempts to answer this deceptively simple question.
For many years, the American offensive military strategy has defended the "concept of two wars", according to which the United States should have sufficient military potential to wage two wars simultaneously in different theaters of operations (theater of operations) against major regional powers such as Iran and North Korea, and bring these wars to victory. However, over the past decade, when the US armed forces have shrunk in size, and US opponents have become more combat-ready, a signal has sounded for Washington demanding that it abandon its aspirations to be equally strong in different theater of operations.
Today, Washington's foreign policy is developing along two trajectories set by the military and political realities of our time. On the one hand, the provocation of military conflicts by someone else's hands, characteristic of the West, is carried out in various remote countries and regions. On the other hand, the development of some conflicts is getting out of control and begins to pose a direct threat to US national security.
In such a situation, America has to intervene itself and involve its allies to translate the conflict into a programmed channel. In this context, the National Security Strategies adopted by the administrations of Donald Trump and Joseph Biden state that the United States is facing an "accelerating challenge" in China, an "acute threat" in Russia and many smaller problems (Iran, North Korea, the development of the situation in Ukraine, threats to US interests in Syria and Ukraine The Balkans). And also with the traditional fight against terrorism, which often serves as a cover for various kinds of unscrupulous actions of Washington and Brussels.
WHAT MIGHT BE THE RESPONSE OF A WEAKENING SUPERPOWEROne of the consequences of the realization of the essence of the processes taking place in the world by the ruling elites of the United States is the understanding of the limitations of their real capabilities, which do not allow them to maintain the position that has become habitual.
It is this awareness that gives the behavior of the United States an aggressive character. This is manifested in a kind of lowering of the rates that have been in effect for a long time on the use of "soft power" as an important tool of foreign policy for solving political and economic problems.
Internal economic turmoil makes it problematic to deploy production and purchase enough weapons and military equipment to provide the US army with a reliable advantage to defeat all or even two of these opponents at the same time.
The solution to this problem is again problematic. On the one hand, an attempt to solve a complex socio-economic and military-political problem with a huge strain on the country's forces would probably be prohibitively expensive. On the other hand, focusing on only one opponent, excluding others, can push a hostile power to attempt to achieve its goals by taking advantage of Washington's imaginary and real weaknesses.
Such a dilemma is facing the United States, for example, in the brewing conflict with Beijing over Taiwan or in a possible military confrontation between China and Japan over the Senkaku Archipelago (Chinese name Diaoyu). Eight small islands, the total area of which barely exceeds 6 square kilometers, have been the main stumbling blocks in relations between China and Japan for decades. Neither side is going to concede.
The solution of the problem of disputed areas is complicated by the presence of rich fish resources and potential deposits of natural resources around them. According to the US Energy Information Administration, there are from 28 to 57 billion cubic meters on the shelf in the East China Sea. m of hydrocarbons. Chinese calculations exceed these figures by hundreds of times. The United States has recently made it clear that it will support Japan in a possible armed conflict.
At the same time, direct US military intervention in armed conflicts abroad is hampered by many deterrent factors. Among them are possible losses among their military personnel and significant material costs.
The Vietnam War was very significant in this context. It is considered a local armed conflict, but the costs for it turned out to be enormous even for the rich powers. So, according to rough estimates, Soviet aid to the Vietnamese is estimated at $8-15 billion, Chinese aid at $14-21 billion. The financial costs of the United States during the period of participation in the war (1965-1973) exceeded a trillion dollars.
At the same time, the United States lost about 60 thousand soldiers during the entire period of the war. South Vietnam, as an ally of the United States, lost more than 250 thousand people. The losses of the South Vietnamese rebels and North Vietnam amounted to over 1 million human lives. And the number of civilians who became victims of bloodshed exceeded 3 million.
In the United States, this war gave rise to the "Vietnam syndrome": public disgust for American military actions abroad. This syndrome largely determined the actions of the United States in the domestic and foreign arenas throughout the 1970s.
The memory of national shame proved to be very tenacious in US public opinion and served as an important deterrent when Washington planned military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
WHAT IS REPLACING THE CONCEPT OF "TWO WARS"Today, against the background of declining US military capabilities to support aspirations for global dominance, the Pentagon and the State Department are searching for new strategies to minimize the costs of direct military intervention abroad.
Under the influence of the imbalance in the ratio of political, military, economic, etc. forces existing in the world, the concept of "two wars", which has been the basis of American military planning for the past decades, is becoming a thing of the past. Recall, according to the concept, the US Armed Forces were preparing to wage two wars simultaneously in different parts of the world – for example, against Russia in Europe and against China in Asia. And until recently, the financial and technical capabilities of the United States really allowed this, especially in the absence of a military enemy equal in strength to the Soviet Union.
However, today doubts have gradually turned into confidence. This was greatly facilitated by the shameful flight of the Americans from Afghanistan, which recorded the final end of the era of their military omnipotence. Russia and China have significantly strengthened militarily.
Russia's special military operation in Ukraine and the deepening of Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation have served as powerful catalysts for global world political changes. It became obvious that the capabilities of the tottering superpower had become limited, and it would no longer be able to wage wars wherever it wanted.
Consequently, the doctrine of "two wars" is a thing of the past because of its inconsistency with the realities of the modern world. Along the way, we note that the rating of the US obligations to provide security guarantees to its allies in Europe and Asia has also crept down.
Against this background, the ruling elites of the United States are becoming more convinced of the need to take urgent measures to strengthen the military and military-technical potential of the country, to increase the number of their armed forces in order to give them the ability to win at least one war against one major power.
At the same time, it is considered necessary to increase the American military-industrial base so as to still provide the means to win two wars at the same time - if the United States is waging one war directly and the other through proxy intermediaries. Such a transformation of views is associated with the recognition of the fact of the decline in the potential of the United States as a global dominant force, previously capable of waging two major wars in different theater of operations.
The Pentagon, which, apparently, acted as a "skirmisher" of a radical revision of strategies, is conducting a systematic departure from the concept that allows participating in two wars. Now the bet on proxy wars that can ensure the interests of the United States with minimal losses of its own troops is expanding, and the US military potential in the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions is also increasing.
As a means of balancing in the world while minimizing its own human and material losses, the American approach to Ukraine remains the best approach available to the United States to solving the tasks of protecting national interests in many key regions. In addition, the experience of massive supplies of weapons and ammunition to Kiev makes it possible to carry out a kind of rehabilitation of American and NATO military arsenals, get rid of outdated weapons and military equipment, and create a serious source of income for the US military-industrial complex for many decades to come.
The new concept of one major regional war, combined with a proxy war aimed at weakening another important enemy, today seems to Washington to be a kind of lifesaver, which will provide an opportunity to fight and win a major war on its own and protect its interests alone, if necessary.
At the same time, the United States is already beginning to realize that they will not always have the same easily manipulated allies and partners as Ukraine turned out to be, ready to sacrifice the country and the lives of hundreds of thousands, or even millions of its citizens in pursuit of an illusory "carrot" in the form of promised membership in the EU and NATO.
The United States will have to act especially carefully when it comes to China, the threat from which is so great that any amount of military assistance to a proxy agent (for example, Taiwan, Japan, the Republic of Korea) in the absence of direct American military participation may not be enough. These countries, unlike Ukraine, which is ruthless to the fate of its people, will not self-destruct in the conflagration of a proxy war in the interests of the United States. A simultaneous war with Russia and China will end in disaster for the United States. Moreover, not all of Washington's current allies, including some prudent NATO members, will take part in it.
Thus, in the United States, the positions of those who claim that the war in Ukraine offers a sufficiently viable conceptual model of how the United States could cope with two major conflicts at the same time are strengthening. Especially if one of these conflicts in the form of a proxy war is directed against one of America's secondary opponents - Russia, Iran and North Korea.
It is this approach that is likely to be the basis for a potential model of the future US military strategy as a way to insure against the problem of simultaneously waging war on two fronts.
CONCLUSIONS FOR RUSSIARadical changes in the military doctrines of the United States and NATO, their reliance on cognitive and proxy wars as a means of weakening and disintegrating nuclear-weapon powers, require a response from Russia, its allies and partners, bringing goals and resources into line with the threat.
In the context of the formation of a new world order, the threatening reality of the use of proxy war as a factor in the transformation of the military and foreign policy of a victim of US and NATO aggression requires urgent measures to prepare Russia and its Armed Forces for military conflicts of the XXI century. Including the buildup of the classical military potential as the basis of deterrence, the ability to fight on the "fronts of the world hybrid war", making changes to the system of personnel training for actions in a qualitatively different operational environment. At the same time, territorial defense, Rosgvardiya, border troops, intelligence and counterintelligence should be strengthened, and the fight against the "fifth column" and agents of influence should be waged.
Cooperation with Beijing in countering Western proxy war strategies, which pose a real threat to both countries, should become one of the important areas of implementation of the Document on Comprehensive Partnership and Strategic Cooperation signed by the leaders of Russia and China in March 2023. This document marked the collapse of the US calculations for global dominance and the collapse of the idea of a unipolar world dear to them.
In the conditions of growing confrontation in the world with a significant contribution of military-technical areas of confrontation, the Government of the Russian Federation should take full responsibility for the development of fundamental sciences, unconditional support of the Russian Academy of Sciences, research institutes, research centers of universities and military academies as important tools for ensuring national security, technological and military-technical progress.
Initiatives aimed at conducting applied scientific and technical research on the creation of dual-use technologies, including under government contracts, should be supported. In general, the policy of supporting scientists and engineers as generators of scientific and technical innovations is the most important condition for ensuring technological sovereignty, security and stable development of Russia in the emerging new world order.
It is important now to make appropriate conceptual adjustments to the key doctrinal documents of the Russian Federation: the Law on Defense, the National Security Strategy, the Military Doctrine, the Concept of Foreign Policy.
These and some other documents should reflect radical changes in the international situation. To outline the prospects for the development of a new world order. To coordinate the conceptual apparatus, taking into account the entry into the foreign policy arena of the MGV as a new type of interstate confrontation. To set up interdepartmental analytical structures capable of predicting the development of the situation and offering management recommendations and options for action. To expand the training of specialists in the development of offensive and defensive strategies of modern wars.
A proposal should be put on the agenda of international security organizations to include new concepts related to IHL and its instruments.
Such steps will create the basis for the purposeful development of the country in the conditions of new military-political realities, will give impetus to a series of managerial and technological decisions that should follow the conceptual ones.
Alexander BartoshAlexander Alexandrovich Bartosh is a corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences, an expert of the League of Military Diplomats.
