What to expect from the new Russian military doctrine?

In HSFK Report No. 1/2010 Hans-Joachim Schmidt and Harald Müller examine the current Russian military doctrine and detect more positive signs of cooperation than the West has acknowledged so far.

In February 2010 the new Russian military doctrine was published. It contains the political, strategical and economical guidelines of the Russian military for the next ten til fiveteen years. Western observers criticise that NATO is labelled as "main threat" for Russian security and are bothered by the lack of hints for negotiations upon sub-strategic nuclear weapons.

 

In HSFK Report No. 1/2010 "Zwischen nationaler Selbstbehauptung und Kooperationssignalen: Zur Einschätzung der neuen russischen Militärdoktrin"  (Between National Assertiveness and Signs of Cooperation: An Evaluation of the new Russian Military Doctrine) Hans-Joachim Schmidt and Harald Müller take a closer look at the doctrine and find that the one-sided critics fall too short. The authors discover clear signals for a willingness to cooperate and find similarities to the Western threat and danger analysis. In addition, they discover hints for an ongoing dispute within the Russian leadership that might open the door for new negotiations.