Understanding Russian Strategic Behavior

Imperial Strategic Culture and Putin’s Operational Code

Graeme P. Herd

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367205225
• eBook ISBN: 9780429537547
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book examines the extent to which Russia's strategic behavior is the product of its imperial strategic culture and Putin's own operational code.

The work argues that, by conflating personalistic regime survival with national security, Putin ensures that contemporary Russian national interest, as expressed through strategic behavior, is the synthesis of a peculiar troika: a long-standing imperial strategic culture, rooted in a partially imagined past; the operational code of a counter-intelligence president and decision-making elite; and the realities of Russia as a hybrid state. The book first examines the role of structure and agency in shaping contemporary Russian strategic behavior. It then provides a conceptual understanding of strategic culture, and applies this to Tsarist and Soviet historical developments. The book's analysis of the operational code, however, demonstrates that Putinism is more than the sum of the past. At the end, the book assesses Putin's statecraft and stress-tests our assumptions about the exercise of contemporary power in Russia and the structure of Putin's agency.

This book will be of interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, strategic studies and international relations.

1 INTRODUCTION Understanding Russian strategic behavior

DOI: 10.4324/9780429261985-1

Churchill’s Russia challenge: late spring, early summer 2021

For Winston Churchill, the master key to understanding Russia was “national interest.” Speaking to rally the British public in a BBC radio broadcast in October 1939 he noted:

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

(Putin et al., 2000)

Following the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany on 22 June 1941, which violated the non-aggression Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) abandoned its neutrality toward the Allied–Axis conflict. A Grand Alliance between the United Kingdom, United States and the Soviet Union was created, formalized by the declaration of the United Nations, on 1 January 1942. National interest (existential survival) dictated pragmatic Soviet strategic behavior.

Eighty years later, when analyzing contemporary “Russian action,” that is strategic behavior, it is clear that relations between Russia and the United States have continuously deteriorated since 2014. Russia has become more insular and internally repressive. By 2021, Moscow reduced the U.S. diplomatic footprint in Russia and continued a military buildup around Donbas (100,000 Russian troop mobilization) and threatened to intervene to the line of demarcation or beyond. On 14 April 2021, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stated that Ukrainian special services and extremist organizations constantly arrange provocation on the state border: “At the suggestion of Western sponsors, training centers for sabotage and reconnaissance formations have been deployed on the territory of Ukraine” (Yegorov, 2021). The next day on 15 April, President Biden signed a new versatile U.S. Executive Order (EO), which, unlike the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), does not require congressional review to terminate. The EO creates groundwork for a broad future framework of scalable sanctions to, for example, Russian sovereign debt and prevents U.S. financial institutions from trading in the secondary market for ruble-denominated bonds or exclude Russia from the SWIFT international financial system.

By 21 April 2021, Putin, in his annual state of the nation address, stated that U.S. sanctions were “unlawful, politically motivated” and part of a “crude attempt” of the United States “to enforce its will on others.” Instead of compliance, Putin warned of an “asymmetrical, rapid and harsh” response, if the West crosses “red lines,” that is undermined Russia’s external security interests or interfered in Russian domestic affairs (Shagina, 2021). He referenced a joint Belarusian Committee for State Security (KGB) and Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) operation that had exposed an alleged U.S.-backed coup against President Lukashenka of Belarus earlier that month. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted the alarming growth of a “confrontational potential” between Russia and the West and that “[t]he president [Putin] has said that we will not cross the ‘red lines’ [of other countries] ourselves, and will not allow anybody to cross the ‘red lines’ that we define ourselves.” He went on to criticize and reject European “schizophrenia,” which he claimed had crept: “over the EU territory in the form of the so-called “European solidarity.” It is unacceptable to us, it is outrageous.” Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Russian Federation State Duma, bluntly stated: “The United States will have to move and give way to Russia.” For Russia, the United States uses Ukraine as a “convenient bridgehead” to pressurize Russia (Zapesotsky, 2021). Former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev penned an opinion editorial (“The Unlearned Lessons of History”) warning of a return to the Cold War era, with Russia forced to respond to Western aggression.

On May 4, a Group of Seven (G-7) developed nations’ (the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan) Foreign and Development Ministers’ Meeting was held in London to discuss critical geopolitical challenges, not least Russia and China. Ahead of this meeting, the UK and U.S. foreign ministers reiterated a shared commitment to “maintaining transatlantic unity in defense of our common values and in response to direct threats.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted:

With regard to Russia, as Dominic said, we are focused very much on Russia’s actions and what course it chooses to take. President Biden’s been very clear for a long time, including before he was President, that if Russia chooses to act recklessly or aggressively, we’ll respond.

On May 7, at an online meeting of the UN Security Council, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Moscow views attempts by the United Sates and the EU to impose totalitarianism as unacceptable:

Russia calls on all states to unconditionally follow the objectives and principles of the [UN] Charter when developing their foreign policy, ensuring respect for the sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their internal affairs, settlement of disputes by political and diplomatic means, and refusal to threaten to use force or use force.

(“Lavrov accused,” 2021)

Lavrov argued that Western countries instrumentalize the notion of a “rules-based order” and sanctions as a substitute of the norms of international law to constrain Russia’s capacity to take decisions and prevent the formation of a polycentric world. In late June 2021, Lavrov further elaborated on this belief, arguing that the “West wanted to send a clear message: it stands united like never before and will do what it believes to be right in international affairs, while forcing others, primarily Russia and China, to follow its lead.” Lavrov purports to believe that the “rules-based world order concept” is a “counterweight to the universal principles of international law with the UN Charter as its primary source,” with Russia supporting the latter. He argues that

the West deliberately shies away from spelling out the rules it purports to follow, just as it refrains from explaining why they are needed…. The beauty of these Western “rules” lies precisely in the fact that they lack any specific content. When someone acts against the will of the West, it immediately responds with a groundless claim that “the rules have been broken” (without bothering to present any evidence) and declares its “right to hold the perpetrators accountable”. The less specific they get, the freer their hand to carry on with the arbitrary practice of employing dirty tactics as a way to pressure competitors. During the so-called “wild 1990s” in Russia, we used to refer to such practices as laying down the law.

(Lavrov, 2021)

On 9 May, state-run Rossiya 1 and Gazprom-Media’s NTV described NATO’s ongoing Defender Europe exercise as not only the largest since the end of the Cold War and anti-Russian in nature but also designed to practice taking Russian territory. At the same time, DarkSide ransomware, a Russian cybercrime gang, was deemed responsible for the attack on Colonial Pipeline that shut down strategic energy infrastructure in the United States – a fuel pipeline, which provides nearly half of the gasoline and fuels used on the East Coast. The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (the GU, commonly know by the abbreviation GRU) was also suspected of involvement in directed-energy attacks (“Havana syndrome”) on American personnel: microwave pulse weapons, using a form of electromagnetic radiation, were able to target and damage U.S. government military and diplomatic targets from 500 to 1,000 yards away. A former U.S. national security official commented: “It looks, smells and feels like the GRU. When you are looking at the landscape, there are very few people who are willing, capable and have the technology. It’s pretty simple forensics” (Seligman and Desiderio, 2021).

A G7 head of state Summit took place on 11–13 June, followed by a Summit with NATO and the EU in Belgium. Amid this confrontational rhetoric and escalatory sanctions, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev met in Geneva for preparatory talks ahead of the Putin–Biden Summit, held on 16 June. Although there were no preconditions set before the meeting, expectations for breakthroughs were low, given the poor state of relations and lack of trust. President Biden stated: “This is not about trust. This is about self-interest, and verification of self-interest” (Albats, 2021). The following week on 23 June, Russia claimed that the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender violated Russian territorial waters off Crimea, and this “provocation” was subjected to warning shots by FSB Border Guard ships, and then Su-24 aircraft dropped bombs in its path, forcing the UK vessel to hastily leave “Russian waters.” The UK Ministry of Defense denied shots had been fired or bombs dropped or that HMS Defender deviated from its transit route. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov commented: “[W]e can appeal to common sense, demand respect for international law, and if this does not help, we can bomb” (Galeotti, 2021). On the same day, in remarks at the Moscow Conference on International Security, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu noted: “The world is rapidly descending into a new confrontation, a far more dangerous one than it used to be during the Cold War” adding that “some European countries are interested in escalating the conflict with Russia” (BBC Report, 2021).

The publication of Russia’s latest National Security Strategy (NSS) on 2 July noted:

Destructive forces abroad and at home are attempting to exploit objective social economic difficulties in the Russian Federation in order to stimulate negative social processes, exacerbate inter-ethnic and sectarian conflicts, and manipulate the information sphere. The activity of intelligence and other activities of special services and organizations of foreign states, including the use of Russian public associations and individuals controlled by them, continues to be intensified. The capabilities of global Internet companies are widely used to disseminate false information and organize illegal public actions.

(National Security Strategy, 2021)

According to this NSS, “traditional Russian spiritual, moral, cultural, and historical values are being actively attacked by the U.S. and its allies, as well as by transnational corporations.” These traditional Russian spiritual and moral values include life, dignity, human rights and freedoms; patriotism, citizenship, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate; high moral ideals, a strong family; constructive work; priority of the spiritual over the material; humanism, mercy and justice and collectivism. The United States and its allies, along with transnational corporations, allegedly, “have an informational and psychological influence on individual, group, and public consciousness by spreading social and moral attitudes that contradict the traditions, convictions, and beliefs of the peoples of the Russian Federation” (“What you need to know,” 2021). Foreign Minister Lavrov was quick to support this assertion, accusing the West of preparing “to provoke protests, most likely violent ones, as the West likes doing” ahead of the September elections to the State Duma:

It can be assumed that ahead of the upcoming elections to the State Duma new attempts to upset, destabilise the situation, provoke protests, most likely violent ones, will take place as the West likes doing. Then a campaign will probably be launched against recognising the results of our elections. They have such plans, we are aware of them. But we will focus primarily on the opinion, the position of our people, [the people] are able to assess the actions of the authorities and express their opinion on how their want to further develop their country.

(BBC Monitoring, 2021a)

Cumulatively, this snapshot of events from April to July 2021 highlights the following: Russia’s confrontation with the United States is now the current norm, relations with the EU have deteriorated to a record low and will continue to remain there for the foreseeable future and offensive cyber operations as well as “active measures” against the political West are ongoing and unremitting. The strategic interests and values of Russia and the West are incompatible and irreconcilable. It is notable that President Putin, Secretary of the Security Council Patrushev, Defense Minister Shiogu, Foreign Minister Lavrov and head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Naryshkin, for example, share the same escalatory rhetoric, threat assessment (unremitting Western containment and encirclement) and endorse Russian strategic responses as defensive and reactive. The intensity and rapidity of points of friction steadily increased. The HMS Defender incident is a case in point. Russia’s defense minister accuses the West of escalation while its deputy foreign minister endorsed Russian state-controlled media reports that Russian military aircraft had indeed dropped bombs in the path of the British capital ship. How can we explain such Russian strategic behavior? Why have relations between Russia and the political West deteriorated so badly?

Threat assessments: risks of miscalculation, escalation and conflict?

After the Second World War, the Truman administration successfully created and led a rules-based liberal international order based on the values of freedom, the rule of law, human dignity, tolerance, pluralist institutions, and open and free trade. Excepting President Trump (2017–2021), all subsequent U.S. presidents, whether Republican or Democratic, have followed this broadly bipartisan liberal internationalist tradition. Pax Americana or the “American Century” was underpinned by U.S. global engagement through the exchange of ideas, peoples, trade and alliances. This Western-centered system was based on Wilsonian liberalism and multilateral institutions. It was supposed that in a predictable interdependent one-world system, shared strategic threats would create interest-based incentives and functional benefits that would drive global cooperation with the United States as a European power (institutionalized through NATO) and indispensable partner.

The end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union lifted structural restraints on the United States, which proceeded to push for the expansion of the U.S. liberal international order. As with China, post–Cold War engagement with Russia during the Clinton Presidency in the 1990s was underpinned by a theory of change based on the notion of convergence. President Clinton’s “Enlargement and Engagement” doctrine suggested that were Russian companies to register on New York or London stock exchanges then this would entail adherence to corporate good governance rules and the creation of a business elite that would become a driving force for political and economic liberalization and change in Russia, facilitating further integration into the global system. President Putin’s December 1999 Manifesto – “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium” – promoted the creation of a state capitalist model of development in Russia, allowing for economic growth protected by a strong stable state, a vision that resonated with the Russian people (Belton, 2020).

However, when President Putin came into office on 6 May 2000, though he appeare...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents Page
• List of Tables Page
• Acknowledgments Page
• 1 Introduction: Understanding Russian strategic behavior
• 2 Russian strategic culture: Conceptualization and evolution
• 3 The “inner logic” of Tsarist imperial history
• 4 Soviet legacies: Stalin, Brezhnev and Putin
• 5 “Putinism” and Russia’s hybrid state: Policies, practice and performance
• 6 Putin’s operational code: Inferences and implications for regime stability
• 7 Russia’s global reach: Reality and rhetoric
• 8 Putin, the collective Putin and alternative power transition scenarios
• 9 Conclusions: Putin’s paradoxes, institutional subcultures and world order
• Index