The underlying issues that drive Russia to hostile and destructive state behaviour cannot be changed. What can be changed are the ways Russia’s counterparts encourage or dissuade that behaviour.
Syrian stand-off, 2017
During June 2017 coalition forces were stationed at Al-Tanf base in southern Syria as part of the ongoing Operation Inherent Resolve. The strategic and political situation was heated, owing to a recent sarin attack by the Syrian Army to which the coalition forces had responded with air and missile strikes. On 29 May and 8 June US forces struck against the Syrian Army and by 18 June coalition forces had shot down a Syrian Su-22 aircraft and an Iranian drone. Russian troops stationed in Syria responded with an air strike against US-supported rebel groups and by 19 June Russia threatened to suspend the hotline between the coalition forces and the Russian headquarters.
During this tense situation, the commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend, received a letter addressed to him personally from the recently appointed new commander of the Russian forces in Syria, Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky. The letter demanded that coalition forces withdraw from southern Syria within two hours, otherwise they would be subjected to air strikes by Russian forces.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) commander General Joseph Votel agreed that Townsend could address the demand as he saw fit at a local level, dealing directly with Zarudnitsky. Meanwhile, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford immediately contacted his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov.
With 10 minutes remaining to the notional deadline for the initiation of Russian air strikes, Townsend established direct communication with Zarudnitsky. However, instead of discussing the ultimatum, Zarudnitsky launched a non-stop tirade of complaint about US behaviour. At two minutes to the deadline, Townsend ordered the interpreter to interrupt him and tell him to shut up; and at his first opportunity to speak, he asked: ‘Are we talking or fighting?’ After a substantial pause, Zarudnitsky replied: ‘We are talking.’ Townsend wrote a note to the room: ‘My Russian friend just blinked.’
Coalition forces remained in place in southern Syria and continued to carry out their mission. The following month, in a media briefing, Townsend said that channels for direct communication with Russian forces ‘have been quietly working, despite some tensions’.
This vignette illustrates three critically important features of successful engagement with Russia:
- The ability and will to face down Russian bluff and bluster;
- Demonstrated willingness to maintain escalation dominance;
- Open and available channels of communication, and their use to deliver clear and direct messages.
Each of these features will be explored in detail in this paper, using both historical and recent case studies to illustrate their relevance to deterrence of Russia today.
Context
Recognition of the reality of confrontation with Moscow in early 2014 swiftly gave rise to intense debate on the best way to prevent further Russian military adventurism in Europe, and subsequently on how to counter assertive Russian action further afield. A vast range of views has been represented over this period, from calls for a return to intense militarization at the boundaries of Russian influence reminiscent of the Cold War-era inner German border, to a policy of conciliation towards Russia which some have compared to 1930s-style appeasement of Nazi Germany.
In the middle of this spectrum, the US and its NATO allies and partners have been taking active but cautious steps. In many cases these steps have been constrained by budget, manpower and political considerations; but overall they also follow a careful weighing of the need for effective defence of European allies against the danger of presenting a force posture that Russia genuinely interprets as threatening, and thereby precipitating precisely the kind of incident the US and its European allies seek to avoid. This paper aims to inform the continued maintenance of this balance, by drawing conclusions from current and historical Russian security concerns and behaviours to propose an effective, but not provocative, comprehensive approach to deterring Russia in regions not limited to Europe and domains not limited to conventional military threat.
More than a decade of ambitious military modernization, reform and rearmament has transformed the Russian Armed Forces beyond recognition.
Moscow has identified the US and NATO, which it sees as an extension of US power, as a threat to its security. Continuing tensions are founded on its stated conviction that Western intentions are hostile. According to President Vladimir Putin, speaking in 2015: ‘Recent events show that we cannot hope that some of our geopolitical opponents will change their hostile course any time in the foreseeable future … we must respond accordingly to this situation.’ Whether this conviction is genuine or a pretext, it forms the inescapable framework for Russian decision-making and action. It has caused an expansion of the terms of confrontation with Russia, from being predominantly a political disagreement over the international order and the shared neighbourhood between the West and Russia, to a live confrontation with direct attacks on Western countries in every domain except overt military conflict. Meanwhile, in a political environment where Russia is exhibiting progressively less restraint overall in its foreign and domestic policy, it is the shared neighbourhood – allies and partners of the US which are also front-line states bordering Russia – that is still considered under greatest threat of further Russian military assertiveness.
Russia does not present solely a military threat, but military power plays a core role in its great-power ambitions. More than a decade of ambitious military modernization, reform and rearmament has transformed the Russian Armed Forces beyond recognition. The process continues, aided by a wide-reaching initiative within the Russian forces of acting on lessons learnt from the interventions in Ukraine and Syria.
This should be a NATO problem. But NATO member states were slow to initiate recovery from the military atrophy caused by a focus on unconventional threats out of area and an assumption that tolerable relations with Russia would continue, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Although Russia commenced its military regeneration and transformation in earnest in 2009, NATO members – with a few exceptions – continued their process of demobilization by shrinking defence budgets, reducing the size of their armed forces and shaping their remaining forces for contingency, not collective self-defence. Efforts by the US to induce European NATO members to take an interest in their own defence, and fund it appropriately, have consistently met with only modest success, and most NATO members have not succeeded in addressing the profound political and military adaptation necessary to meet the Russia challenge. By contrast, even during the challenging period of the Donald Trump administration, the US continued to demonstrate its commitment to European defence. The US European Reassurance Initiative (renamed European Deterrence Initiative in 2017) aimed to ‘position more of the U.S. Army’s best and most modern equipment in the area’, while also undertaking substantial rotations of major US Army units.
But plans and activities such as these have encountered substantial and influential resistance. Eminent figures such as Henry Kissinger have argued that the West is as responsible as Russia for the Ukraine crisis. The former foreign minister and current president of key NATO ally Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has referred to NATO defensive preparations as ‘sabre-rattling’ and ‘war-mongering’. Arguments for concessions and appeasement to manage the Russian challenge persist, despite an overwhelming weight of historical and current evidence that this approach is counter-productive. When views like this successfully influence European or North American policy, they constitute a substantial obstacle to long-term implementation of effective deterrence. In this context, Moscow’s ongoing hostile actions are the most effective reminders that Russia and its behaviours present a proximate and immediate strategic threat, against which countermeasures are essential.
This paper will argue that although the fundamental pillars of Russian foreign policy cannot be changed, it is possible to influence where and how actions to implement that policy may be taken, by setting and enforcing limits and boundaries to Russian behaviour. The immediate answers are simple. Western allies have a pressing need:
- In the short term, to establish, maintain and clearly communicate a balanced and credible deterrent posture, blending both conventional military and nuclear capabilities and – vitally – the capability and will to withstand and respond to non-military attacks;
- Over the long term, to display strategic patience.
Maintaining channels for dialogue is also critical (although, as always, what is actually said is even more crucial). This is essential for de-escalating current tensions and achieving greater predictability in the relationship, even if it will not succeed in resolving the root causes of the confrontation. The response to the Russian threat must be measured and acknowledge the risk of miscalculation. Sustained, tangible defensive measures are required, but they must have a rationale that can be clearly and directly communicated in order to minimize the risks of misreading of intent. It follows that channels for clear communication are essential to deterrence: passing the message that the West is willing and prepared to defend itself is a key element of maintaining stability.
But in addition, this communication must also take place internally, within domestic policy environments. At the senior level advisers must effectively articulate to decision-makers the challenges that Russia poses. The understanding still needs to be promoted that with Russia’s political doctrine profoundly at odds with the interests of Western democracies, the current disagreement is not about Crimea, Ukraine or Syria; it is about a fundamental incompatibility of world views, and the dangerous implications of this clash for governments, societies and people.
The scope of deterrence
Throughout the ongoing crisis in relations with Moscow, countless policy seminars in the West have addressed the question to the Russia expert(s) in the room: ‘How can we deter Russia?’ Often the only possible initial response has been: ‘From doing what?’
The confrontation with Russia stems from a clash of world views, including on the nature of security in Europe and the shared neighbourhood between the West and Russia, and – by extension – over the power and influence of the respective parties in the rest of the world. There is a basic incompatibility between how Russia and the West view sovereignty, international relations, and even history. Furthermore Russia sees itself as a ‘great power’ – and one that is under threat – in ways that are incomprehensible to other countries. These underlying factors cannot be changed, and they cause Russian behaviours to be based on a fundamental need to challenge and confront the West. It follows that Russia’s hostile intent, and the associated willingness to take action against the West where the cost-benefit calculus appears positive, cannot be deterred, because it derives from an elemental understanding of how the world works and what is necessary to survive in it.
However, Russia can be dissuaded from taking specific actions that the Euro-Atlantic community finds undesirable or unacceptable. It follows that an essential precondition for attempting deterrence is to understand and define interests that are to be defended, and by extension what Russian action against them is tolerable and what is not; only then can the establishment and communication of deterrent measures be coherent and consistently applied. At the same time, successful deterrence must be anchored in as clear an understanding as possible of Russia’s actual motivations and objectives. Attempts to dissuade Russia from doing something cannot be divorced from consideration of why Russia might wish to do that thing in the first place, and what actions might remove the currently perceived incentive for it to do so.
In conflict, Russia is likely to leverage three key advantages: having greater interests at stake; being present first; and being able to set the pace through a greater willingness to escalate.
Ordinarily the first task to be considered has been deterring Russia from further military adventurism in Europe, primarily against NATO member states. In any such conflict, Russia is likely to leverage three key advantages: having greater interests at stake; being present first; and being able to set the pace through a greater willingness to escalate. The core requirement for deterring Russia from such military action is expensive, but simply described. Its two key elements are, first, effective military power: capabilities that cause Russia concern through the likelihood that in full-scale war it would suffer both defeat and significant damage; and, second, credibility: ensuring Russia believes that the West in general and the US in particular would have the political will to employ these capabilities when required to defend or retaliate against Russian aggression.
The first of these elements continues to cause concern in Europe as a result of a quarter-century of military drawdown by European NATO allies, accompanied by the reduction of US forces to a historically low level on the continent owing to the focus on adversaries other than Russia. The requirements of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) for credible deterrence were described in 2015 as ‘eye-wateringly large, and not available in NATO at present’. Six years later, despite substantially greater US investment in deterrence in Europe and marginal improvements in defence spending by some European allies, the aftermath of long atrophy and neglect is still the defining feature of military readiness in most of Europe.
In considering the outcome of any potential clash, Russia will assess ‘not just local correlation of forces and means, but more broadly state power – what a country is able to bring to bear over the course of conflict’. This means that for the prospect of exercising deterrence by punishment, it is overall force levels that are significant – in particular those forces capable of delivering long-distance strikes, and not just those already present in the immediate area of confrontation. But relying on forces in other theatres to retaliate against Russia in open conflict raises the importance of the second key element of military deterrence: removing doubt that, when needed, Western governments, and the US in particular, will act. Changing world perceptions of the US under the Trump administration were welcomed by Russia because they achieved one of its key objectives of weakening US credibility and alliances without it having to do much at all. Conversely, an increased tempo of exercises in Europe is pointed to as evidence of strong US commitment to the continent’s defence. But exercises, while reassuring to host-nation populations, do not in themselves constitute a deterrent measure: while they may demonstrate capability, they say little of the will to use it. In the continued absence of demonstrable willingness by major European NATO allies to invest meaningfully in their own defence, any undermining of the belief that the US could and would take swift action to safeguard their security threatens a key bulwark against Russian assertive behaviour. Firm and unequivocal messaging from the US administration of President Joe Biden would therefore make a fundamental contribution to deterrence overall.
Changing world perceptions of the United States under the administration of President Donald Trump were welcomed by Russia because they achieved one of its key objectives of weakening US credibility and alliances without it having to do much at all.
For as long as Russia is dissuaded from attacking NATO territory, NATO’s primary deterrent mission can be said to have been met. The idea persists, largely unsupported by evidence, that ‘Putin might use an external military adventure in Europe or elsewhere to distract from his domestic failures and from Russia’s failing economy in order to try to shore up his power base’. But the suggestion that in an otherwise stable security situation Russia might be tempted to launch a fait accompli operation against a front-line NATO state, accompanied by theatre-level nuclear blackmail or escalation scenarios, has begun to pass from vogue, especially when divorced from strategic context.
However, this has done little to deter Russian campaigns in other domains than open military clashes, and the continuing possibility of low-intensity hybrid scenarios and asymmetrical and formally unannounced conflicts. Russia has persisted in hostile actions across Europe as a whole, both in high-profile incidents such as murders and attempted murders of enemies and critics of the Russian state, and in a steady drumbeat of less prominent operations, including the ever-present background noise of persistent cyber, information, subversion and ‘active measures’ (see Chapter 3, Section 7). It follows that a broader approach to deterrence is required, following principles that apply to both military and non-military domains.
The scope of this study
This study therefore seeks to extract common themes from past examples where Moscow has been successfully dissuaded from a particular course of action – or where an attempt to do so has failed. It looks for general principles that can inform how best overall to deter a mindset in which Russia would be inclined, encouraged or tempted to take aggressive action. As such it will largely leave aside discussion of two specific domains, nuclear and cyber, where deterrence does not conform to broader principles. Each of these at present follows rules of its own, but for opposite reasons. Nuclear deterrence occupies its own conceptual space because it has developed highly intricate and formalized rules and understandings, incentivized by the commonly accepted danger of error or miscalculation. In cyberspace, by contrast, the very absence of those same shared concepts and understandings while commonly accepted precepts and rules are still being formulated means that activities have an equally loose relationship with the principles of deterrence in more traditional fields.
How Russia itself seeks to deter others is currently the subject of intense and authoritative research tracking evolving principles in Russia’s view of deterrence, compellence and intimidation, and the interplay between these approaches and more. But perhaps counter-intuitively, this conceptual development within Russia, governing how it seeks to project its own messages of deterrence, may have only a limited bearing on how Moscow itself can and should be deterred. This is because the motives and stimuli that drive an adversary’s action or inaction may not be defined by the adversary’s own theoretical constructs of deterrence. This works both ways: each deterring actor may leverage aspects of the opponent’s psyche that are not at the forefront of the latter’s conscious military or political calculations. For example, other than within a close-knit community of Western experts, recent Russian conceptualization of deterrence theory may still at this point be only dimly perceived outside Russia – that is, by the objects of Russian deterrence activity. This means that the methods by which Russia may seek to exercise deterrence may be effective, or not, without being clearly and directly perceived by Russia’s adversaries as part of a deterrence conversation – a theme explored in more detail below in ‘Readiness to escalate’ (Chapter 3, Section 6). In the same way, Western actions can deter Russia without necessarily conforming to how Russia itself currently believes deterrence works.
This study therefore looks for lessons that are not tied to any specific scenario, theory or doctrine but reflect simpler and more profound fundamental principles of what motivates the behaviours of the Russian state. To do so, it proposes a number of enduring principles that appear common to successful instances of deterring Russia, supported by illustrative case studies. As such, it considers Russian behaviour on the basis not of doctrine or theory, still less international relations theory, but of empirical observations. That process begins by examining the framework and context for these case studies – a defining collection of features of Russia that scholar of Russian strategic culture Dima Adamsky refers to as ‘Historical-Ideational-Cultural Sources of Uniqueness’.
