#13 - JRL 8103 - JRL Home
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2004
From: "Robert McMullin" <RMcMullin@csis.org>
Subject: Russian Insecurity is Our Problem

David,

Attached is a piece that Celeste Wallander and I wrote on the implications of the failed missile launches of a couple of weeks ago. It was originally published as a CSIS "On the Agenda" article on 2 March. Thought it might be useful as a complementary comment to Victoria Samson's "Russian Nuclear Exercise Linked to U.S. Defense Policies," in JRL 8101.

Bob McMullin
Visiting Senior Fellow
Russia/Eurasia Program
202-775-3289 / 3199 (fax)
rmcmullin@csis.org

Russian Insecurity is Our Problem
March 2004
Celeste A. Wallander and Robert C. McMullin
Celeste A. Wallander is director and Trustee Fellow and Robert C. McMullin is a visiting senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In a very public spectacle intended to demonstrate the strength of the Russian military and its commander-in-chief (Russia’s president) in the midst of Russia’s presidential campaign, President Vladimir Putin stood on the bridge of a nuclear submarine to observe the launches of two submarine-based ICBMs. The party fizzled when the missiles did not launch, signaling a catastrophic failure of Russian arms in full view of the world. A ballistic missile launch the next day also failed when the missile veered off course and self-destructed. Although the missiles were well-beyond their use-by date and the Russian electorate will not withhold any support for Putin in next month’s elections because of the mishaps, the incident ought to spur Putin to implement meaningful military reform and modernization after years of neglect. Trying to put the best face possible on the failure, Putin has stated that Russian strategic forces will be upgraded with the latest technology: it is time for him to really mean it, and for the U.S. to make Russian military reform a key theme in the bilateral relationship.

This string of missile failures during the largest strategic exercise of Russian forces in 20 years may tempt some to cheer. Isn’t it a good thing, one might ask, that Russia cannot threaten the U.S. or other potential targets with nuclear attack? Isn’t this yet another sign of how Russia’s crumbling military cannot reliably be used to threaten its neighbors in Europe and Eurasia, and therefore a net positive for their security? The answer is an emphatic no. In fact, this latest evidence of Russia’s collapsing and incapable military should be viewed with great concern by its neighbors, and by the U.S.

Despite publicized detargeting and alert reductions of strategic weapons on both sides of the old Cold War divide, mutual assured destruction “the delicate balance of terror” remains central in both countries’ security doctrines. If Russia’s strike capability is no longer reliable, Russia’s leaders will be less willing and less able to pursue a cooperative security relationship. To understand why, one needs to remember the role nuclear weapons play in Russian and U.S. security policy. Strategic nuclear weapons are not for fighting wars: they are for making certain wars are not fought because the costs would be too great. Russia’s nuclear deterrent capability should work by conveying to a potential attacker that Russia would retaliate with a counter-strike, assuring the destruction of an aggressor. In order for a deterrent threat to be effective, the potential aggressor must be confident both that Russia can retaliate and that it would. Additionally, nuclear deterrence serves security interests by making the nuclear state confident that it is secure, and that it need not adopt an assertive conventional military strategy in order to fight off threats or aggression. So a nuclear power must be confident that others are confident that it can and will retaliate.

Russian and American analysts alike have known for some time that Russia’s military capability is a pale reflection of the Soviet military. Russia’s political leadership has for over a decade starved the military of resources, and failed to force the Russian high command to face the painful but necessary task of conventional and nuclear military reform. Russia’s military leadership refuses to face the fact that the wars it prepared to fight, and on which generals built their careers, will not threaten Russia’s future. Rather than commit resources to a new conventional military that can fight 21st century threats in Eurasia, it has sought to keep NATO as its primary enemy in conventional scenarios, and the U.S. as its global, unnamed, strategic nuclear foe. Russia’s conventional forces have crumbled for lack of training, restructuring, and procuring modern military equipment. It has been clear for some time that Russia’s military is not up to new missions: Russia’s conventional forces have had to rely upon WWII weapons stocks for the ongoing war in Chechnya, and the military’s failure to re-structure and train to modern conditions has crippled it at the tactical level.

With the missile exercise disaster, now we know that the failure to commit political and economic resources to Russian military reform and modernization has also struck at its last line of defenseits strategic nuclear capability. This is extremely worrying. As evidence of its failure in conventional military spheres mounted and became ever more public (such as the loss of the Kursk submarine in 2000 and collisions of helicopters in conventional exercises last year), Russia’s security and military doctrine relied increasingly on its ultimate nuclear deterrent threat to guarantee Russian security. That is, as Russia’s ability to defend itself with conventional forces evaporated, Russian security policy fell back on the role of nuclear weapons to compensate for conventional weakness. Nuclear weapons cannot be used to fight wars, but they can be used to deter against conventional, as well as nuclear, attackbut only if they function reliably.

Russia’s stated goal in its latest military exercises, to deter terrorists in an unspecified country, fooled no one. In fact, the exercises were meant for domestic political consumption, and were an embarrassment for Putin and the military. But it is the impact upon the international audience, which was supposed to see a demonstration of Russia’s ultimate security shield, that should most concern us.

The failure of one nuclear test, of course, does not prove that Russia has no nuclear retaliatory capability at all. Russia has deployed a new generation of ground-based nuclear missiles that are likely more reliable. But deterrence is not about certainties, it is about probabilities. Any evidence that Russia’s forces cannot be relied upon to implement retaliatory threats creates doubt in the mind of Russians and foreign observers alike. The real danger is not that a potential adversary will now launch an attack on Russia. The danger is that Russia’s security elite will now believe that some potential attacker will be tempted to do so. This is why Russia’s insecurity is ours and why it is not in our interest to exploit or celebrate their latest failure.

Even more, public evidence of Russia’s crumbling defense capabilities should remind us that Russian military reform and modernization must be a legitimate priority of the U.S.-Russian relationship. This week’s failed launches weaken the chain of deterrent logic, and thus break the link of mutual security. Russia can no longer be confident that it could retaliate. Even worse, because the failure was so public, Russia’s political and military leaders know that we know, which means there is a great deal less stability in the world today than there was just days ago. Russia’s insecurity is also our insecurity.

It is time for Russia’s political leadership to face their national and international responsibility to accomplish military reform and modernization. It is simply not acceptable for a major global power to let its military forces disintegrate to the point where their very weakness creates fear and insecurity in Russia, which then is a source of insecurity for the rest of the world. The time is overripe for Putin to use his 80 percent public approval rating to clean house of any in the military leadership who oppose meaningful military reform. Corrupt vested financial interests that encourage generals to resist change must be expunged and replaced by a conventional capability responsive to today’s security challenges, and by strategic weapons more reliable than those demonstrated this week. Russia’s limited but growing fiscal resources must meet many legitimate demands, but ignoring national security and therefore risking international security is not an option.