The collective West applies a flexible combination of military doctrines
Today, the world is balancing on a difficult-to-manage "escalation ladder" of military conflicts. The proxy war unleashed against Russia in Ukraine and the special military operation (SVO) as Moscow's forced response to an attempt to create a hotbed of aggression near its borders demonstrated that the doctrines of strategic nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence built on the threats of using nuclear or high-precision long-range weapons, which were relied on in Russian strategic planning documents, worked only partially.
The slogan put forward by some of the American ruling elites, "Kill as many Russians as possible and weaken Russia as much as possible, achieve its strategic military defeat", requires the search and application of other concepts of deterrence that complement the traditional ones, capable of flexibly and adequately responding to the realities of modernity. The references of some respected experts to the tsunami of changes that are on the rise and for some reason, for the umpteenth time, catching Russia by surprise, indicate an unacceptably low level of information, analytical and predictive work at all levels of government leadership. The word "for some reason" is not used by chance. There were quite a lot of alarming signs indicating that the West was systematically preparing aggression against Russia. It can hardly be considered a surprise that Washington and London have successfully used deception and deception strategies inherent in their policies for many years.
There is no need to go far for examples: the Minsk agreements, even earlier – a violation of obligations not to expand NATO. As a result, Russian politicians with unenviable constancy found themselves in the role of simpletons who were swindled by clever traders at a political fair.
AMAZING CREDULITY
There are several reasons for this situation, which is unacceptable for a great power that plays a key role in the vast expanses of Greater Eurasia.
Firstly, an ill-conceived personnel policy that allowed the country's governing bodies and its armed forces to be saturated with incompetent, corrupt people. Or even simply by persons deliberately acting to the detriment of the national interests of our state, the so-called Comprador elite. An example of the "quality" of such an elite, if I may say so, is the flight abroad of its high-ranking representatives during the events related to the mutiny of the Wagner PMCs.
Secondly, the lack of the ability of the authorities to act proactively, decisively and harshly towards the enemy, the fascination with empty phrases that are not followed by concrete actions. Examples: the endlessly repeated mantra "we are watching closely", statements that certain objects, including decision-making centers, "become legitimate targets". If so, then destroy these legitimate targets! But so far there are few signs of disorganization of the management and supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Thirdly, and this is very important, Russia still does not seem to have adjusted to a real change of course to the East and to move away from hopes of restoring former relations with a united Europe represented by NATO and the European Union.
That's not going to happen. As Sergey Karaganov notes, our differences with Europe "are great for foreign policy reasons. The European elites, under whom the earth is shaking, decided to try to save their positions by throwing a foreign policy, propaganda, economic and partly even military challenge to Russia, so relations have become very bad. But perhaps the most important thing is that Russia and Europe (of course, not all of them, Europe is also different) differ in value parameters, and this process is going faster and faster."
And finally, fourthly. Russia did not take significant retaliatory measures after the terrorist attacks on a number of strategic facilities in Russia and on international territories ("Northern Streams"). They allowed the enemies to deny that we had nothing to do with it.
I involuntarily recall one of the warnings of the hero of the novel "The Godfather" Don Corleone in defense of his son, addressed to mafia opponents: "Even if he is killed by lightning, you will still answer!" The "Western mafiosi" have stopped being afraid of us, who understand only the language of force and take seriously only security threats addressed to them personally on their territories. This is one of the key reasons for ignoring Russia's warnings.
RESTRAINT AND DETERRENCE
Examples of Russia's decisive actions are systemic strikes against the military infrastructure of Ukraine, the suppression of provocations by the British destroyer Defender in the Black Sea in June 2021 and the destruction of the American strategic reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) MQ-9 Reaper by our Su-27 in March 2023.
At the same time, long-known communications remain unaffected, through which the APU is supplied with weapons and ammunition. Pipelines supplying NATO countries with gas and oil, underwater power and Internet cables are operating regularly.
Russia's actions in its military operations in Ukraine are "something else." Here we still need to see who is holding back whom. And the special operation itself has become a symbol and the quintessence of the failure of Russia's policy towards Ukraine in previous decades.
But these cases were examples of the brilliant application by our politicians and the military of the concept of deterrence through denial. In combination with some other concepts, it should become a powerful deterrent weapon in the global hybrid war unleashed by the Anglo-Saxon group against Russia and friendly states. The theory and practice of "hybrid" concepts of deterrence itself (in addition to the basic concepts of strategic nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence) should become a handbook for employees of the presidential administration, the Security Council, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government structures.
In this context, we should welcome the initiative of our Foreign Ministry, which at the end of June for the first time organized classes on the professional development program "Hybrid Wars in modern International Relations" for diplomatic staff of the Ministry on the basis of the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The program included the study of the essence of the GW as an instrument of influence on the state, the laws and principles of hybrid wars, their strategy, the meaning and goals of proxy wars, the doctrine of deterrence, as well as the GW of the modern era as a threat to Russia's security.
THE NUCLEAR COMPONENT OF DETERRENCE IN ITS
Russia has become embroiled in a war called a special military operation. The price of our victory may be extremely high, and the period of its achievement may be long.
If it fails to rein in the West, it will come to a higher level of confrontation. The criterion or measure of victory should be the elimination of Ukraine as an anti-Russian entity and the reversal of the West's will to confrontation. This is not an easy task.
So far, the West is set on uncompromising confrontation with Russia and achieving victory by military means. Herman Kahn's famous book "On Escalation" (1965), along with raising the stakes during a traditional military conflict, provides options for conducting preventive nuclear explosions in space and in water spaces. Which today may lead to the failure of satellite systems vital for the West, underwater Internet lines and pipelines.
In relations with the West, we have not yet managed to achieve a "firm balance of fear" (according to Herman Kahn). We are waiting for something, hesitating and, it seems, do not fully understand the depth of differences with the West and the determination of the United States to crush Russia.
Unlike Kahn, I do not call for selective nuclear strikes against targets in Europe or the conduct of a "local nuclear war (the 23rd step of escalation on the ladder of the American political scientist). This is the path to the apocalypse.
Russian researchers Andrey Kokoshin, Yuri Baluyevsky, Viktor Esin, Alexander Shlyakhturov have developed an escalation ladder of 17 steps. On the fourth stage, they placed a hybrid war with limited combat use of military force, fraught with the threat of subsequent deliberate or unintentional provocation against one of the great powers. Zelensky's adventurous policy may well serve as a trigger for such an incident. Kiev understands that they will be defeated, and they go all in, using long-range precision weapons supplied by the United States and NATO against objects on Russian territory with the support and instigation of their sponsors. They organize large-scale provocations (the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam), consider deadly options for nuclear provocations that can put the world on the brink of a large-scale conflict.
The West should not test Moscow's patience and firmly learn that all the territories over which the Russian flag is flying are the territories of the Russian Federation. Violation of this principle in the proxy war in Ukraine can give the development of the situation on the steps of escalation an uncontrolled character.
Today, the main source of danger of such a development of events is not so much the United States, NATO and the EU, as the situation in Western countries, which is characterized as a profound moral, economic and political crisis. It would be necessary to realize already what Nikolai Danilevsky noted in his book "Russia and Europe" (1869), the end of the 500-year hegemony of the West in the world, which opened up the possibility of cultural, political, economic and military domination to Western countries.
The strategic nuclear deterrence that proved itself during the Cold War and its complement with the potential of strategic non-nuclear deterrence today do not create reliable protection for Russia and its allies from provocations and increasingly unacceptable behavior of our opponents.
Perhaps the fact is that today the political elites of the nuclear powers behave contrary to logic. They continue to threaten with nuclear weapons, the use of which in reality has not been seen by anyone. Such a virtual threat does not work. The deterrent fear of the atomic bomb that was present in the second half of the twentieth century has disappeared. There is an extremely dangerous misconception of the West that there is no need to be afraid of a "nuclear reaction" from Russia. At the same time, as Dmitry Trenin notes, "a nuclear strike on the territory of Ukraine will not stop anyone, a strike on the territory of Europe will not be considered as critically important, but a strike on the territory of the United States is another matter."
But here another logic comes into force: why do we need nuclear weapons if we are not ready to use them against the main enemy, from whom the existential threat to our country repeatedly confirmed by him comes?
The presence of such sentiments in the ruling elites of the United States and the West confirms the thesis of the need to return a sense of fear to geopolitics. Russia's readiness to use nuclear weapons during the current conflict should not be denied. The reality of such a threat (possibly reinforced by nuclear tests and/or strikes on deserted areas, nuclear explosions in space) should become an incentive to limit the escalation of the war and ultimately pave the way for strategic balance in Europe. But with all the caution of using such tools, it is balancing on the blade of a knife.
The alternative is to find other ways of deterring the enemy, complementing strategic nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence. In this context, the doctrines of deterrence by coercion and deterrence by denial, which are organically embedded in the strategy of the GW, have certain possibilities.
Overseas strategists assign aircraft carriers a major role in maintaining American dominance in the ocean. Photo by Reuters
OTHER LEVERS
Alexey Arbatov notes: "Today there is a need to update the concept of strategic stability, taking into account the changed conditions and new threats. In the previous concept, the incentives for the first nuclear strike were understood by default, firstly, as the ability to deliver a massive disarming strike on the other side. Secondly, as a preemptive nuclear strike out of fear of a disarming attack by an opponent. This was and remains the foundation of strategic stability."
The experience of the proxy war in Ukraine shows that an attack with the use of high-precision conventional weapons systems against the opponent's nuclear forces and strikes on other strategically important objects can become an incentive for the first nuclear strike.
In addition, there is a possibility of using nuclear weapons in order to avoid defeat in a non-nuclear conflict.
And finally, GW as a new form of confrontation represents a new, as yet insufficiently studied strategic threat capable of destroying the sovereignty of the State without the use of force and calling into question the very existence of the State. Cyber warfare is particularly dangerous, the effectiveness of which is comparable to the use of weapons of mass destruction. A number of states and coalitions (NATO) declare their readiness to respond to cyber attacks using kinetic weapons.
These factors can provoke a rapid and uncontrolled escalation of the war, up to the exchange of nuclear strikes.
In this context, the doctrines of strategic nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence as the foundation for ensuring strategic stability should be considered in combination with the complementary doctrines of coercion and deterrence by denial.
THE DOCTRINE OF COERCION
While maintaining strategic nuclear deterrence as a form of military-strategic relations between Russia and the United States, the real policy of the West in the last three decades has been the policy of "force coercion". Its main goal is to preserve the military-political and financial-economic control by the United States over the system of international relations and the military-political situation without crossing the border of armed conflict.
Forceful coercion is increasingly dependent on non-military means provided by the set of tools of the Civil Defense. The GW strategy proceeds from the tendency to reduce the influence of military force in the set of measures, forces and means of coercion and counteraction. Note that the proxy war organized by the West against Russia in Ukraine has led to an actual war in the theater.
The United States was ready for such a development. At the same time, the policy of "force coercion", designed for long–term strategic rivalry, according to former US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, "requires the monolithic integration of many elements of state power - diplomacy, information, economics, finance, intelligence, legal support and military power." As a result, a fundamental transformation of the military strategy has been carried out in the United States by re–targeting it to solve the tasks of deterring or defeating long-term strategic competitors - in contrast to the tasks of confrontation with regional opponents, which were at the center of previous strategies.
In international relations, coercion as a form of violence appears in various variants.
Firstly, coercion is increasingly used in the form of indirect (hidden) violence, which does not involve the direct use of force in the process of competition (various forms of information and psychological pressure, political interference up to the organization of a color revolution and a coup d'etat, economic blockade, cyber operations). This option of coercion involves only the threat of the use of force (political pressure, diplomatic ultimatum). According to the subject content and object orientation, violence can be divided into political, military, economic, spiritual (ideological), administrative (judicial and legislative).
Secondly, coercion can be used in the form of direct violence, which is expressed in the direct use of force, that is, in war.
Thus, in addition to traditional strategic nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence, coercion (soegsiop) is developing in modern centers of power. Coercion (or political violence) is violence used by State or non–State actors to achieve political goals. This is physical coercion as a means of imposing the will of the subject in order to seize power, primarily state power, its use, distribution, protection through a set of unilateral coercive measures against sovereign countries. A set of coercive measures is designed to prevent people from realizing their economic, social and cultural rights. The combination of deterrence and coercion strategies opens up the possibility of flexible escalation/de-escalation of violence.
Deterrence and coercion are a set of measures, as a result of which, using a wide range of pressure measures from the other side, they seek to take the necessary actions or abandon their intentions.
In the strategy of the GW, coercion is considered as an active offensive doctrine designed for a long period of application of hybrid threats, including measures of political and military pressure, economic sanctions, ideological subversive measures. The ultimate goal of coercion is to make the object decide that compliance is a better course of action than ignoring the demands of the coercer. Coercion involves active political and military behavior of the enforcer, aimed at persuading the opponent to change the status quo under the threat of the use of force or increasing the scale of military force, economic sanctions, cyber attacks, threats from outer space, information pressure.
If deterrence is designed to prevent the enemy from committing undesirable actions under the threat of using military force against him, then coercion is intended to force the object to subordinate its behavior to the requirements of the coercer. For example, to abandon the implementation of certain economic projects, to reduce the level of military activity, to stop the invasion, to withdraw from the disputed territory. In the end, coercion should deprive the enemy of the opportunity to choose a course of action.
The effect of coercion is measured by how quickly it will be possible to break the enemy and subordinate him to his will. It should be borne in mind that the concession to the threat of coercion is more visible and obvious, therefore, the conceding party should prepare an explanation of the concessions made in advance. The combination of these and some other factors provides a significant role of coercion in the range of strategies to ensure the interests of States and their coalitions.
Coercion as a threat aimed at forcing the enemy to do something is inherently more difficult than deterrence, built on the threat to prevent him from starting something.
THE DOCTRINE OF DETERRENCE BY DENIAL
The Munich speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2007 reminded Western opponents that "for the modern world, a unipolar model is not only unacceptable, but also impossible in general." And also that "Russia is a country with more than a thousand years of history, and it has almost always enjoyed the privilege of pursuing an independent foreign policy. We are not going to change this tradition today."
Having discovered that Russia is emerging from the timelessness of the 1990s and forming a new powerful center of power, politicians and diplomats of the United States and NATO countries began to "bite their elbows": they say they did not finish off in the 1990s. And at the same time, they began to invent myths about a resurgent "aggressive" Russia, which must be restrained and controlled.
Subsequent events have shown that in the foreseeable future, the problem of deterrence is becoming central to the foreign policy of the great Powers. Washington is being pushed to such a course by the need to consolidate its allies against the strengthening Russia and the ongoing modernization in China, the continued participation of Americans in military conflicts, which creates a burden on the armed forces. Under these conditions, deterrence strategies are becoming a prominent component of American national and international security in an increasingly multipolar world.
Deterrence by denial is the doctrine by which a Government creates or maintains defense and intelligence systems for the purported purpose of neutralizing or mitigating the effects of attacks. Aggressors are restrained by ensuring that they prefer not to act, consider the price of their steps too high compared to their likely success. Figuratively speaking, this doctrine prepares a bitter pill for the enemy, which is not easy for him to swallow. It is on this doctrine that Ukraine is being pumped up with weapons and military equipment in order to counter Russia's efforts to fulfill its tasks, the actions of the United States around Taiwan, etc.
According to American estimates, the decisive factor in the development of such doctrines is due to the build-up of military power by Moscow and Beijing. This growth turned out to be more significant than predicted by American strategists, which challenges traditional American methods of deterrence by punishment. In the United States, it is assumed that the following factors will contribute to reducing the effectiveness of this type of deterrence in the coming years.
Firstly, it is a huge number of competitors that the United States must restrain. Instead of fighting one major ideological opponent, such as the USSR, the United States should simultaneously fight several powerful rivals, two of which (Russia and China) have impressive nuclear arsenals, have significant conventional armed forces, and the PRC is also rapidly gaining economic and political power. This reduces the overall military superiority of the United States and calls into question a significant part of the resources of the American expanded deterrence.
Secondly, the US adversaries are rapidly increasing their military power, improving weapons, including long-range missiles, developing low-profile fighters of a new generation, electronic jamming and hypersonic systems of destruction. Although the appearance of such means by America's adversaries has virtually no effect on the US nuclear deterrence, these changes generally undermine the effectiveness of deterrence through punishment, reducing confidence that the US will be able to cope with the escalation and make the price of possible retaliatory actions of victims of American aggression unacceptable.
Thirdly, and most importantly, America's rivals are allegedly developing retaliatory deterrence tactics designed to ensure that in a limited war they do not rule out triggering the extended deterrence mechanisms. This increases Washington's fear of getting full-fledged strikes on its territory.
Fourthly, in the conditions of the expanding scale and intensity of hybrid military operations, the doctrine of deterrence by punishment quickly turns into coercion and denial, when it is necessary not only to "convince and dissuade" the aggressor, but also to oust him, force him to retreat from the planned or accomplished aggression.
And finally, technological progress gives non-nuclear weapons strategic properties, which makes them effective tools for the doctrines of coercion and deterrence through denial. We are talking about high-precision weapons in non-nuclear equipment, about UAVs, about the use of space for military purposes, about cyber weapons, which are weapons of mass destruction, since they can damage the critical infrastructure of the state, disrupt communication systems, command and control over the armed forces, disable satellites, etc. In the future, the ability to inflict strategic damage will also be determined by the arsenal of laser weapons, the possession of artificial intelligence technologies.
Sanctions in the economic and financial spheres, cognitive warfare technologies have significant opportunities for coercion and deterrence of the enemy by denial.
Thus, a kind of matryoshka doll, or a multi-layered model of deterrence, is formed, the elements or layers of which are doctrines:
– strategic nuclear deterrence;
– strategic non-nuclear deterrence;
– deterrence through denial;
– deterrence through coercion.
The multi-layered deterrence model reflects the complex capabilities of doctrines based on the threat of the use of strategic nuclear and high-precision long-range non-nuclear weapons, as well as complementary doctrines of coercion and deterrence through denial.
CONCLUSIONS FOR RUSSIA
In US policy, the doctrines of coercion and deterrence by denial are directed primarily against Russia and China under the pretext of limiting the intentions of these and some other states to revise the status quo.
The resulting vector of doctrines and their synergy are designed to increase the costs and complexity of the allegedly planned enemy seizure and retention of territories. In fact, the use of such a mechanism is aimed at strengthening the military-political hegemony of the United States by more closely involving allies and partners in American foreign policy adventures. Much attention is paid to the use of denial deterrence technologies in cyberspace.
The threatening reality of the spectrum of new challenges for Russia makes it necessary to develop a comprehensive counteraction program based on a unified methodology for assessing and analyzing the doctrines of deterrence, coercion and deterrence by denial embodied in the strategy of the GW.
The use of a multi-layered deterrence model should be based on a deep understanding of the strategic culture of other States, which makes it more effective to choose the cost-benefit ratio. In addition, knowledge of the UK gives a clear idea of the factor of military force, rational and irrational moments in the politics of other states, about their views on the balance of power and non-power methods in imposing their will on the enemy, contributes to the thoughtful preparation of strategic planning documents.
Alexander Bartosh
Alexander Alexandrovich Bartosh is a corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences, an expert of the League of Military Diplomats.
