Russian Grand Strategy in the era of global power competition

By Andrew Monaghan

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Apr 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781526164636

Andrew Monaghan

Andrew Monaghan is Academic Visitor at St Antony’s College, Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House

Book preview

Russian Grand Strategy in the era of global power competition

ffirs01-fig-5001.jpg

Russian Strategy and Power

Series editors: Andrew Monaghan and Richard Connolly

Editorial board

Julian Cooper, OBE

Emily Ferris

Tracey German

Michael Kofman

Katri Pynnöniemi

Andrei Sushentsov

Previously published

Germany's Russia problem: The struggle for balance in Europe

– John Lough

Russian Grand Strategy in the era of global power competition

Edited by Andrew Monaghan

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2022

While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher.

Published by Manchester University Press

Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 5261 6461 2 hardback

ISBN 978 1 5261 6462 9 paperback

First published 2022

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Cover design by James Hutcheson

Typeset

by New Best-set Typesetters Ltd

Contents

List of maps, figures, and tables

List of contributors

Foreword

Florence Gaub

Preface

Ian Hill

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Russian Grand Strategy and global power competition

Andrew Monaghan

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

Alexander J. Kent

2 Russia's global maritime strategy

Michael B. Petersen

3 Sixth-generation war and Russia's global theatres of military activity

Charles Bartles

4 Looking to the global economy: Russia's role as a supplier of strategically important goods

Richard Connolly

5 Polar power: Russia's twenty-first-century power base

Nazrin Mehdiyeva

6 Strategic planning and management in Russia

Julian Cooper

Conclusions: Moscow's strategy to become a ubiquitous power

Andrew Monaghan

Index

List of maps, figures, and tables

Maps

1.1 Estimated global coverage of Soviet military mapping. Cartography by Alex Kent.

3.1 Soviet-era thinking about theatres of military action. Cartography by Charles Bartles.

3.2 Technological developments and changing thinking regarding theatres of military activity. Cartography by Charles Bartles.

4.1 Russia's role as a supplier of strategically important goods, 2019. Cartography by Alex Kent.

4.2 Growth in imports from Russia, 2009–19. Cartography by Alex Kent.

5.1 Military bases and resources along the Northern Sea Route. Cartography by Alex Kent.

Figures

1.1 Detail from a Soviet 1:25,000 military city plan of London, printed at Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) in 1985. The Underground station of Leicester Square (not shown on comparable Ordnance Survey mapping) is located in the centre of the figure (reproduced from a private collection).

1.2 The official opening of the GLONASS ground receiving station Sazhen-TM-BIS at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory near Johannesburg, South Africa, on 27 February 2017 (courtesy of the Embassy of Russia in South Africa).

3.1 Russian Concept of Command and Control, and Interrelationship of Air, Space, and Missile Defence (recreated and translated by author from: Major General Vladimir Lyaporov, Trebuetsya edinyy organ upravleniya, Vozdushno-Kosmicheskaya Oborona Online, 31 December 2015, www.vko.ru/oboronka/trebuetsya-edinyy-organ-upravleniya (accessed 1/06/2017)).

4.1 Russia's exportable surplus of oil, 2000–19 (thousand barrels per day)

(source: BP Statistical Outlook (2020); author's calculations).

4.2 Russia's exportable surplus of gas, 2000–19 (billion cubic metres)

(source: BP Statistical Outlook (2020); author's calculations).

4.3 Share of Rosatom in total global nuclear power plant (NPP) construction underway, end of 2019 (by gross electrical capacity, GWe)

(source: IAEA PRIS (2020)).

4.4 Russian wheat exports, 2000–19 (thousand dollars)

(source: FAO Stat (2020)).

4.5 Russia's share of global arms exports (source: SIPRI Arms Transfer Database (2020)).

Tables

1.1 The relevance of different map scales for environmental (landscape) analysis.

List of contributors

Charles Bartles

* is an analyst and Russian linguist at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Richard Connolly is Director of Eastern Advisory Group and an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Julian Cooper is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Florence Gaub is Deputy Director of the European Institute for Security Studies.

Ian Hill is a former two-term New Zealand Ambassador to Russia.

Alexander J. Kent is Reader in Cartography and Geographic Information Science at Canterbury Christchurch University.

Nazrin Mehdiyeva is an independent energy consultant.

Andrew Monaghan is Director of the Russia Research Network and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Michael B. Petersen* is Director of the Russia Maritime Institute at the US Naval War College.

* Charles Bartles and Michael B. Petersen are writing in a personal capacity.

Foreword

Florence Gaub

There is an unwritten rule among Western writers on international politics: any piece on strategy has to contain a quote from at least one of the classics – Chinese General Sun Tzu, Prussian General von Clausewitz, or Italian diplomat Machiavelli. And most pieces on Russia, too, will inevitably resort at some point to quotes – preferably from British statesman Winston Churchill or Prussian Chancellor von Bismarck. Quotes serve as a visible reminder that the topic at hand is not just historic and important, but a difficult one even for those wise men (seldom women) who preceded us. Strategy and Russia tick all these boxes: they are, to most Western policy makers and observers, questions that are historic, important, and difficult to crack.

Let us begin with strategy. In theory, we all know what it is: a detailed plan for achieving success. A vision combined with action. The bridge between means and ends. A tool taken from the military and applied to international politics and business.

But in practice, strategy is much harder to grasp. The fact that some dictionaries define it as partly an art hints at the problem: there is something creative, ingenious, and elusive about strategy. This is because strategy has by definition aspirational elements in it that are the result of visions, dreams, and hopes – hardly hard facts, but instead, almost emotional components that are normally rare in public policy documents. Yet strategy also has a creative element because it is, as Clausewitz reminds us, by definition a response to limited resources. With unlimited resources, one wouldn't need a strategy. To use these resources in the best possible way, one needs creative ideas on how to maximise their contribution to achieving the vision and how practically to order priorities.

To make matters more complex, strategy is not a static term: depending on context, it differs in scale and complexity and can mean policies, objectives, tactics, goals, programmes, and more. Strategies can take all kinds of shapes: a company might have a strategy to increase its customer base, a government can have strategies to reduce poverty, and individuals might have financial strategies. When it comes to states, we call it Grand Strategy: a strategy that combines different policy areas – military, diplomatic, economic, and more – to achieve a long-term national goal. In this type of strategy, security matters normally take precedence over other elements – but here, too, there are exceptions.

But having a strategy – a vision of what is to be achieved and how – is not enough: actions need to follow suit. That is why strategy is not just a basic document (such as the EU's Global Strategy¹), but also the specific plans and acts to implement it. While the strategy might help schedule and plan steps, it also helps as a guiding star when spontaneous reactions are required. Sometimes states have a strategy but no steps to implement it – and sometimes, it is the other way around: for Sun Tzu, strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, but tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Strategy is also not just about oneself; in fact, we often need it most when our visions are in competition with those of others. Good strategy is dynamic, interactive, and competitive. That is why recognising the strategy of others is crucial to know what they will attempt to achieve. Strategy spotting can be easy if states are upfront about it, but they might not necessarily have an interest in informing the world of their intentions in order to capitalise on the effect of surprise. This is all the more the case if we do not invest sufficient effort in understanding that strategy, or even ignore it altogether.

Close observation of action, interpretation of statements, and, most importantly, empathy, will help us understand whether we are watching opportunistic manoeuvrings or indeed actions that are part of a larger strategy. Strategy therefore requires vision, planning, adjustment, observation of others, creativity, and empathy – most of which do not come easy to bureaucracies.

From a European point of view, this also applies to any dealings with Russia. And just as strategy is not easy to grasp, so is Russia – as shown by the (in)famous references to Winston Churchill's remarks about riddles, mysteries, and enigma. That this hoary old quote is still in wide circulation shows how little European officials feel they understand Russia.

Relations between European Union member states and Russia have been cooling since the mid 2000s. Stagnating relations were given a jolt by President Putin's 2007 Munich Security Conference speech in which he not only pushed back strongly against the international system as he saw it, but also indirectly accused Europeans of arrogance. While the war with Georgia in 2008 cooled temperatures further, it was the occupation of parts of Ukraine in 2014 that led to a suspension of almost all relations.

While Europe might not have an explicit Russia strategy (as it has strategies on the Baltic Sea region, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, or Central Asia), it has formulated what it would like its relations with Russia to be. This is laid out in its Global Strategy of 2016:

Substantial changes in relations between the EU and Russia are premised upon full respect for international law and the principles underpinning the European security order, including the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter. We will not recognise Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea nor accept the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine. We will strengthen the EU, enhance the resilience of our eastern neighbours, and uphold their right to determine freely their approach towards the EU. At the same time, the EU and Russia are interdependent. We will therefore engage Russia to discuss disagreements and cooperate if and when our interests overlap.

²

In addition, Europe has five guiding principles that underpin its relations with Russia: (1) implementation of the Minsk agreements on the Eastern Ukraine conflict as the key condition for any substantial change in the EU's stance towards Russia; (2) strengthened relations with the EU's Eastern Partners and other neighbours, including Central Asia; (3) strengthening the resilience of the EU (e.g., energy security, hybrid threats, or strategic communication); (4) selective engagement with Russia on issues of interest to the EU; (5) need to engage in people-to-people contacts and support Russian civil society.

³

While these principles and outlines serve as an important basis for European relations with Russia, they are not, however, a strategy. The steps taken to achieve the objective of Moscow returning to what we might call or wish to think of as its pre-2007 posture (economic sanctions, travel bans on Russian leaders, a suspension of Russian participation in the G8 summit, and regular European Council statements reminding of the principles mentioned above) have not led to the desired change in Russian international manoeuvrings. In sum, the strategy's ineffectiveness would require its review: however elegant the strategy, one should also look at the practical results.

It is for this reason that some Europeans have suggested dialogue with Russia instead, but a February 2021 visit to Russia by High Representative Josep Borrell, during which he was subjected to a rather painful press conference in which Russia's foreign minister called Europeans ‘unreliable partners’, seems to have closed the door on this option, too. ‘Russia does not want to seize the opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue with the EU. This is regrettable and we will have to draw the consequences’,⁴ Borrell later tweeted. It was not only Borrell who came to this conclusion: the European Parliament, too, called on ‘the EU and its Member States to devise a new strategy for the EU's relations with Russia’, but only to suggest more of the existing measures, focusing on support for democratic values and civil society.⁵ In sum, Europe's strategy towards Russia might be clear in its intentions, but its implementing steps do not seem to support this strategy.

In large part, this is because Europeans struggle to understand why Russia is behaving the way it does. This reminds us of what Sun Tzu said about understanding one's antagonist: ‘[I]f you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.’ Empathy, the capacity to put oneself in the shoes of our adversary, would perhaps explain why Moscow not only refused to change course on Ukraine, but also why it escalated the type of behaviour Europeans object to: at home, it arrests opposition politicians, and on the international stage it has sent troops to Syria and Libya, forged relations in the Balkans and Africa that work against European objectives, is growing close to China, and is strongly suspected of cyber attacks against European targets, disinformation, and poisoning of regime critics.

Still, analyses of Russia's global policies often seem to conclude that this is not the result of a global strategy, but a series of opportunistic actions. In this view, Russia is an international relations trickster making cheap tactical wins but no strategic gains, and that eventually, its activities will run aground amid an ageing and shrinking population, plummeting oil prices, and the crippling effects of climate change. This way, the wait-and-see approach of Europe's Russia strategy makes sense: eventually, Russia will return to its pre-2007 posture simply because it will not have another choice.

But instead, as this volume shows, Moscow does have a Grand Strategy, one that – if flawed – animates its many statements, decisions, and actions, one that is not just global in scope but long term in time horizon. Although perhaps not as explicit and neat as the EU's Global Strategy, Russia's strategy is supported consistently by its actions, both planned and spontaneous. And, as the introduction by Andrew Monaghan shows, its strategy is far from opportunistic. Instead, as the subsequent chapters highlight, Moscow has an idea of what it wants to achieve, makes resources available to that effect, streamlines its actions along the lines of its goal, and attempts to resolve the bumps it meets in the road. Because it is not explicit – or, rather because it is not encapsulated in a short document explicitly called Russian Grand Strategy – we have to read this goal into what Russia does: a world in which the United States and Europe do not define the norms of international relations, a world in which Moscow advances what it sees to be its national interests in an independent way.

This might be bad news for Europe already. But it is perhaps even worse that many Europeans fail to recognise this and instead hold on to a strategy that not only does not achieve its desired goal, but also is no match for a Russian strategy longer in horizon, stronger in resources, and more committed in political will. In the long run, and without a change in Europe's posture, Russia's strategy is therefore set to be the winning one.

The first step for Europe is to recognise the very fact that Russia is trying to play a long game and has found creative ways to work around the damage that European measures against it has caused. This very creativity is another indication that strategic thinking is at play. It is only after this recognition that Europe can devise a new strategy – one that makes creative use of available resources, redefines its long-term objectives, and takes into account where Europe is and wants to be in the future. There can be no return to a supposed halcyon period of EU–Russia relations of the 1990s and early 2000s. Europe's view must be more focused on the future, to 2030 and beyond and how and where Moscow's strategy is leading Russia in this period. This book is the place to start.

Notes

1 EU Global Strategy, Website of the European External Action Service, 2016, https://eeas.europa.eu/topics/eu-global-strategy/17304/global-strategy-european-unions-foreign-and-security-policy_en (accessed 29/07/2021).

2 Ibid., p. 33.

3 Foreign Affairs Council, 14 March 2016, Website of the European Council, www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/fac/2016/03/14 (accessed 29/07/2021).

4 Twitter, 7 February 2021, https://twitter.com/josepborrellf/status/1358488437641338886?lang=en (accessed 29/07/2021).

5 The Arrest of Aleksei Navalny, Website of the European Parliament, 21 January 2021, www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0018_EN.html (accessed 29/07/2021).

Preface

Ian Hill

The international landscape is changing rapidly, becoming even more complex and contested. The rise of China and the ongoing shift in the centre of gravity of global economic power to the Asia-Pacific region is the dominant geopolitical narrative of recent times. The significant and disruptive impact of technology within societies and between states continues to grow exponentially – with far-reaching social, political, economic, and security implications. Non-state actors – business, media, civil society groups – are becoming more influential. Meanwhile, there is a risk of the post-World War Two rules-based order fracturing: multilateral institutions and norms are under real pressure, while many states increasingly take a more transactional approach, with a view primarily to protecting their own national interests, even at a time when climate change and other global challenges demand effective collective action. Taken together, these changes are producing a messier and more unpredictable world, carrying heightened tensions and uncertainty.

Where does Russia fit into this fast-changing global landscape? Almost everywhere, as it happens. While the US–China relationship is now the main fulcrum of contemporary international relations, Russia remains a major force to be reckoned with – albeit often by playing the spoiler. Russia has emerged as one of the key disruptive factors amid this heightened global instability and is well placed to take advantage of opportunities presented by the more disorderly and uncertain international environment.

This makes it as important today as it was in the past for us to understand how Russia views the world and examine how it acts to protect and promote its interests globally. Notwithstanding conventional wisdoms portraying President Putin, and by extension Russia, as unpredictable or claims that Russian foreign policy is simply ad hoc and reactive, with Putin making it up as he goes along, devoid of any sense of long-term strategy and purpose, this is no mystery.

In reality, Russia's international activity under Putin has been characterised by a remarkable consistency of strategic outlook, intent, and purpose. This is guided and underpinned by a hard-nosed worldview, a keen sense of Russia's national interests and of its key goals, accompanied by a steely determination, untroubled by sentiment, to do what it takes to protect and promote its interests.

This coherent strategic outlook, and clear view of Russia's importance and relevance, is unsurprisingly a very familiar and enduring one. The Russian leadership sees the world through a prism of suspicion and threats. This outlook is grounded in conservative nationalist notions of identity, rooted in Russian history and geography, and shaped by a keen sense of entitlement and of Russia's perceived exceptionalism as a great power and unique civilisation. And it is a view that has been sharpened in the Putin era by emotions of grievance and resentment nurtured within the elite against the West, reflecting, in particular, the searingly negative experience of the 1990s in the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union. In essence, Putin is determined to assert and secure acceptance by others of Russia's power, standing, and influence: acknowledged and respected by all as a sovereign actor and indispensable partner in dealing with global and regional issues.

This core objective falls squarely into the tradition of Soviet, and before that, Tsarist imperial foreign policy – as does Putin's domestic focus on strengthening and centralising political authority and maintaining social order. This produces a realpolitik view of the world as a relentlessly competitive arena and promotes a calculating, transactional, and often zero-sum, approach to foreign policy. For Russia, geopolitics is the game, and the nation state is the primary actor, whether in bilateral dealings or in multilateral forums. Indeed, while attaching enormous importance to its UN Security Council permanent member status – symbolically as a talisman of Russia's great power standing and practically as a multiplier of