Russian Grand Strategy in the era of global power competition

Andrew Monaghan

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781526164636
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Russische Politik

This book offers a nuanced and detailed examination of two of the most important current debates about contemporary Russia's international activity: is Moscow acting strategically or opportunistically, and should this be understood in regional or global terms? The book addresses core themes of Russian activity – military, energy and economic - but it offers an unusual multi-disciplinary analysis to these themes. Monaghan incorporates both regional and thematic specialist expertise to give a fresh perspective to each of these core themes.Underpinned by detailed analyses of the revolution in Russian geospatial capabilities and the establishment of a strategic planning foundation, the book includes chapters on military and maritime strategies, energy security and economic diversification and influence. This serves to highlight the connections between military and economic interests that shape and drive Russian strategy.

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Mapping the globe, and the revolution in Russia's geospatial capability

Alexander J. Kent

Russia's recent trajectory of global positioning is underpinned by its growing geospatial capability – the provision of accurate and reliable geographical and spatial information to decision makers. Moscow has long recognised the importance of mapping in pursuing its national interests and for gaining geostrategic advantage. During the Soviet era, it directed the most comprehensive global cartographic project of the twentieth century, which involved producing accurate mapping of all continents at several map scales and creating plans at street-level detail for thousands of towns and cities around the world. Since inheriting this legacy, Russia has undergone a revolution in its geospatial capability and updated its arsenal of associated technologies to access accurate and up-to-date geospatial information. These developments have supported Russia's military action in Georgia (2008), its annexation of Crimea (2014), and intervention in Syria (2015). More recently, in speaking to the Defence Ministry leadership at Sochi on 16 May 2019, President Putin underlined his expectation that access to reliable real-time information on the aerospace, meteorological, and cartographic situation, and on the status and activity of foreign armed forces, is a fundamental requirement.¹ An accurate assessment of Russia's geospatial capability is therefore crucial for understanding its global horizon and strategic trajectory.

This chapter outlines Russia's geospatial evolution from its inheritance of the Soviet global mapping project towards a unified geographic information space, and evaluates the strategic advantages this offers. It explores how the legacy of the Soviet project has provided Russia with an unparalleled geospatial resource and with a “mental map” that underpins an ability to conduct globally integrated operations. This is becoming increasingly relevant when the importance of mental maps and geographic communication is only growing in an era of new global challenges and renewed Great Power Competition.² The chapter also explains how Russia's subsequent investment in core geospatial technologies, such as its GLONASS³ satellite navigation system and geographical information systems (GIS), has enhanced its geospatial capabilities. These technological developments form part of a wider geospatial revolution that serves to both enable and advance Russia's pursuit of its national economic and military goals. A better understanding of these developments will become progressively more important in moving towards a future of contested global geopolitics.

Evaluating the cartographic legacy of the Soviet Union

Maps empower the state, both practically and theoretically. They symbolise territory and ownership; they offer possibilities and suggest what is achievable. The realisation of their significance as tools for the consolidation of state territory grew significantly after systematic topographic mapping⁴ gathered pace in Europe from the latter half of the eighteenth century, primarily motivated by imperatives of defence and taxation. In Russia, the full centralisation of military topographic mapping was established with the foundation of the Military Topographic Depot on 27 January 1812, which is still celebrated by the Federation's military topographers.⁵ Initially, the Depot's mapping efforts were focused on the European territories of the Russian Empire, with a series of maps at the scale of ten-versts to an inch (1:420,000) produced in 1821, followed by a larger-scale series of three-verst maps (1:126,000) completed by 1863.⁶ However, the latter covered less than half of European Russia, and more thorough surveys at scales of 1:42,000 and larger focused on the territory designated as the “Western Boundary Expanse” and on Crimea, Southern Ukraine, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Western Caucasus, and a few small areas in Siberia and Central Asia.⁷ Aspirations for the systematic mapping of Russia's vast territories lying to the east, let alone the wider world, took far longer to materialise.

The origins of the Soviet global military mapping project lie in the pragmatism of the cartographic vision of a German geomorphologist, Albrecht Penck. In 1891, he proposed the creation of a 1:1,000,000-scale world map at the Fifth International Geographical Congress in Berne, Switzerland. A collaborative project that was intended to transcend national concerns and to allow scientists and students to make meaningful world-wide comparisons for the first time, the idea was well received, and what eventually became known as the International Map of the World (IMW) was launched in 1909.⁸ Although Russia joined the project at an early stage, the Soviet Union later withdrew. However, the IMW's alpha-numeric indexing system of sheets (sheet-lines), which divided the world into squares of six degrees longitude by four degrees latitude, was readily adopted for the first detailed topographic mapping of the USSR that began soon after the Bolshevik Revolution to aid economic development. The first maps adopting the 1:1,000,000 scale and sheet-lines of the IMW were completed in 1918. A year later, Lenin issued a decree that brought all mapping under the state supervision of the Supreme Geodetic Administration.⁹

Its first major task was to survey and map the vital coal, oil, and gas fields of Donbass, the Kuznetsk Basin, Northern Caucasus, Central Asia, and Greater Moscow.¹⁰ This was followed in 1921 by the introduction of a standard specification for military topographic maps at a range of scales (1:10,000, 1:25,000, 1:50,000, 1:100,000, 1:200,000, 1:500,000, and 1:1,000,000), with some sheets having been derived from photogrammetry by 1924.¹¹ The nomenclature for sheets at each of these scales was based on a continuation of the IMW sheet-lines, which continues to be used in Russian mapping today.

At its height, the USSR was the largest country in the world, covering almost one-sixth of the Earth's land surface and all major types of habitat. To meet the changing economic and military requirements of the state, the mapping of its vast territories was characterised by a dynamic evolution of cartographic symbology to portray an increasing diversity of geographical features. This was frequently revised and reissued through over ten editions of official specifications from 1921 to 1983. As early as 1946, the representation of relief was expanded to indicate features such as grass-covered terraces an...