Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

The Search for the “New:” Defining “Dangers” and
“Threats.”
The military doctrine takes account of its previous
2000 version as well as other strategic planning
documents (Concept for the Long-Term Socioeconomic
Development of the Russian Federation for the Period
through 2020, National Security Strategy through 2020,
and relevant provisions of the 2008 Russian Foreign
Policy Concept and the Russian Federation Maritime Doctrine
for the Period through 2020). In general terms, the
doctrine appeared too loosely constructed, lacking
specificity. This prompted Colonel-General (Retired)
Leonid Ivashov to observe: “This doctrine can be used
in military academies for seminars on the subject of
how to compile such documents, but this doctrine has
little to do with Russian reality.” 49 However, the doctrine
contained little that was fundamentally “new,”
though there were shifts, text left unchanged since the
2000 version, and aspects that failed to connect with
changes in the strategic environment since 2000. 50 Unlike
the 2000 doctrine, the new military doctrine makes
a crucial distinction between opasnosti (dangers) and
ugrozy (threats) facing Russia. This allows Moscow to
continue to designate NATO enlargement, as opposed
to the existence of the Alliance per se, as a danger, rather
than an imminent threat. In so doing, however, and
by placing this as the primary “danger,” Moscow has
signaled that the previously anti-western paradigm
evolving within its doctrinal thinking persists, albeit
in a slightly more muted manner. 51 Allowing for the
innovation of distinguishing the difference between
dangers and threats, as well as the general less specific
framing of language regarding the latter, it is worth
noting the perception of the Russian security elite that
the dangers facing the state have grown.
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