Lecture
The substantive side of military doctrine calls for identifying and examining its structural elements. Alongside the traditional (political) side, an economic and a strategic component should be distinguished within the structure of military doctrine.
The economic side of doctrine should be formed within the structure of the bodies that support the work of the Security Council. It is advisable to involve specially trained military and civilian economists in this work. It is worth recalling the recommendations of A. A. Svechin. "An economic general staff," he wrote, "may be small in number, but its qualifications must be of a very high order. We believe that it should consist partly of persons closely connected by their training and service with the Red Army and holding a higher military education supplemented by internships in industry and by particular studies in military economics, and partly of outstanding economists and technical specialists of broad outlook who specifically work on economic questions connected with war and who have devoted time to familiarizing themselves with the history of several recent wars, with strategy and with administration."
The content of the economic side includes: the principles of the material-technical and financial support of military development and of the defence of the state in peacetime and wartime; the principles for creating and operating the military-industrial complex; the fundamentals of economic mobilization; the principles for forming military budgets and military orders placed with industry; the fundamentals of economic policy in the field of accumulating strategic stocks of raw materials and supplies; the mechanism for managing the military-industrial complex in peacetime and the country's economy in the course of a war, and other questions.
The strategic side of military doctrine is the theoretical basis of military strategy and is intended to define: the state's attitude (in military respects) towards war; the character of a probable adversary's actions and of cooperation with allies; the methods of waging wars of various scales; the strategic character of a war; the forces and means of support, and so on. The experience of the local wars of recent years (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, internal armed conflicts in a number of states, including Russia) urgently demands a revision of views on military art from the standpoint of global war. The unleashing of a general nuclear war is today regarded as a real but nonetheless unlikely possibility. Proceeding from the existing system of threats and dangers, the system of strategic actions should be presented in three forms: the first is strategic deployment, including for local wars; the second is the employment of the armed forces in local wars and conflicts; the third is the employment of the armed forces in a large-scale war.
One of the most effective ways of accomplishing the tasks identified may be special disinformation operations within the system of information confrontation (information warfare). They must include a complex of interconnected and carefully coordinated large-scale measures for transmitting diversionary or reassuring messages through diplomatic channels and through ordinary radio and television broadcasting channels, as well as false orders and commands through the channels of state and military command and control. The design of operations of this kind may provide for appropriate public statements by high-ranking political and military figures.
At the same time, there is a high probability of vigorous efforts to shape world and domestic public opinion regarding the necessity and legitimacy of the military measures being taken, and to create a negative image of the object of aggression.
On the whole, the strategic side enshrines the principal tenet of state and military administration corresponding to the country's new geopolitical, strategic and economic position - the unity of political and administrative leadership over the entire military organization and of strategic command over the Armed Forces in the person of the President of Russia.
The components of military doctrine examined above are undoubtedly of great importance for its formation and implementation. At the same time, it should be noted that the decisive influence on military doctrine is exerted by another of its components - policy. It is precisely policy that determines the main thing: for what purposes, in what direction and on what scale the armed forces are to be developed.
The political side of military doctrine is its most stable component. Studying it makes it possible to determine objectively a state's intentions on questions of national and international security, to clarify their orientation and character and its interests in the military sphere - that is, to reveal "the secret in which war is born." The political side of military doctrine expresses the state's attitude towards the use of military force and defines the political mechanism for governing the military organization in the interests of security. It covers questions concerning the methodological, economic, social and legal foundations for achieving the aims of a possible future war.
Political guidelines exert a fundamental influence on the formation of military doctrine. It is in them that the general changes taking place in the world are reflected. This, in turn, is reflected in the content of the principal, political aspects of military doctrines. Today the following questions are legitimately posed and resolved in them: how can the use of violent means be made impossible? Which aims cannot be achieved by military means, and why? How can war be prevented? Which military means should be reduced or removed from the state's arsenal?
The political content of military doctrine is determined by the socio-political structure of the state. It wholly determines the military policy of the parliament and the government, which consists in the activity of managing the state's military affairs. The political factors influencing the formation of military doctrine include: the political regime; the political system of the state; the stability of the political system; the role of society's political elite, and others.
Throughout the history of humankind, politicians and scholars around the world have formulated many scholarly concepts for the political understanding of the origins of war and of the use of military force in the interests of the people and of society as a whole. The most widespread of these include: the theory of "violence" (T. Hobbes); the theory of "wars" (C. Clausewitz); the theory of "armies" (Moskos and M. V. Frunze); the theory of the "military power of the state" (K. Knorr); the theory of the "defence of the socialist Fatherland" (V. I. Lenin), and others.
Each of the theories named takes into account, to one degree or another, the content of the policies pursued by states either to unleash war or to prevent it; identifies the social subjects that define political interests in the military sphere; analyses the entire spectrum of political forces exerting a direct influence on military activity, and so on.
Analysis makes it possible to confirm the relative autonomy of the political content of any given state's military doctrine. The most important components of the political content of military doctrine are: political aims; political means; the subjects of military-political leadership; political principles; the political component of the condition of the population and the army, and others. Let us examine some of them.
Political aims are the state's intentions regarding the use of military force as expressed in official documents (both overt and covert). A political aim is not an abstract notion but a guideline conditioned by the interests of the state and consciously adjusted according to changing circumstances. It may be directed either towards waging offensive wars or towards realizing the defensive functions of military force. The type of state structure determines political aims, which always occupy a place of priority in the military doctrine of any state. The development and formation of political aims are influenced by such factors as:
the state of military-political relations among states of differing and of similar socio-economic structures;
the presence of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the arsenal of a probable adversary;
the existence of military-strategic parity between states and their coalitions;
the level of development of military science and military art;
the professional and combat readiness of the armed forces;
the desire of the military-political leadership to act with a high degree of political responsibility, and others.
The factors named exert a decisive influence today on the revision, development and formation of new political aims for the military doctrines of the states participating in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1975). The political aims of military doctrines were widely discussed at the seminar on military doctrine that concluded in Vienna in October 1991, where the participants (representatives of the CSCE states) came out in favour of military doctrines based solely on defensive principles.
Depending on the intentions and political interests of particular forces in the country's highest echelons of power, a distinction is drawn between aggressive and defensive aims of military doctrine, which directly influence the choice of military-political means.
The political means of military doctrine are the instruments of the modern state that make it possible to achieve political aims without resorting to armed violence. The political and military means of realizing political aims are interconnected and mutually complementary. In theory, in the realization of political aims political means should take precedence over military ones.
Knowledge of the political and military means of achieving political aims is never exhaustive. It depends on specific historical conditions. Therefore, when considering the question of a mismatch between aims and results, it is necessary also to analyse the political means by which those aims were pursued. Political means may be classified according to the levels of political authority within the state:
at the upper echelon of political authority - legislative acts; laws, agreements, declarations, political negotiations and consultations, conferences and seminars to clarify positions in military doctrines, exchanges of views, and so on;
at the level of the military-political leadership - consultations, expert assessments, political role-playing games and the like;
at the level of the lower echelons of authority and of the military leadership - practical work in military-political education, in preparing politically well-founded military decisions, in providing political information to military personnel, and so on.
The mechanism of interaction between political aims and means is set in motion by the subjects of military-political leadership.
The subjects of military-political leadership are the concrete bearers of the practical activity directed towards realizing the principal political aims of military doctrine. These are the individuals and the bodies of state and military administration empowered to take decisions. As a rule, every state has a number of organizational structures in the military field that have the right to take and execute military-political decisions. For most states these are: parliamentary commissions and committees, security bodies within the executive structures of political power, military departments (the ministry of defence), general (joint) staffs, and military research institutions and organizations.
Political principles are the norms of the practical political activity of a country's military-political leadership. A distinction is drawn between principles formalized in law and those that cannot be embodied in a legal act (for example, the principles of the new political thinking). Political principles are highly fluid, since they reflect the state of military-political relations. They are often violated or distorted by politicians to suit the expediency of the political moment.
A study of the political principles governing the use of military force by modern states allows the conclusion that there are three variants of military doctrine, judged by their basic political guidelines and aims:
aggressive military doctrines, whose basic principles are: the attainment of military superiority, reliance on military force in international affairs, admitting the possibility of using nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, the justification of multifaceted and surprise military violence, and so on;
military doctrines of "mutual destruction," based on the principles of nuclear deterrence, military-strategic parity, intimidation, the provision of national security through the possession of nuclear weapons, and others;
defensive military doctrines, which give priority to the principles of reasonable sufficiency of military means, of renouncing the first use of weapons of mass destruction and the cultivation of an "enemy image," and so on.
The political component of the condition of the population and the army, as an element of the political content of military doctrine, determines the degree of their readiness to defend the interests of national security. It brings together many factors: the level of support for government policy, the prestige of the armed forces, patriotism, the moral and psychological resilience of the population and the army, and others. A loss of political vigilance and a weakening of the state's military readiness may have a negative effect on its socio-economic development and, in individual cases, may even provoke aggression. (In this respect the events in the Middle East are instructive: wealthy Kuwait, devoid of military power, and poor Iraq, economically exhausted by war but militarily strong. The aggression committed by Iraq against Kuwait inflicted irreparable damage on the peoples of both countries.)
The political component of the condition of the people and the army is a moral and spiritual factor that flows into the country's power when measures aimed at defending the interests of national security are carried out.
It should be noted that at present the political component of the military doctrine of modern states has also undergone significant changes. The scale of the changes that have taken place can be gauged from the fact that the aim of military doctrine has become, as it were, its own negation: not military means for achieving political aims (as had always been the case previously), but political means for securing the single, universally human aim of the survival of humanity itself. The significance of these changes has yet to be fully grasped, since major historical shifts in the policies of states become visible only over time, as they begin to take concrete form in real international life.
Examination of the problems posed in this chapter allows the following conclusions to be drawn.
The prospects for social progress and stability in the world are inseparable from the readiness of states to forestall and neutralize aggressive designs, to suppress emerging conflicts, and to pursue and defend the country's national interests firmly and consistently, including by military means. In this respect military doctrine is intended to coordinate the political, economic, legal and military measures undertaken by state and administrative authorities in the field of military development and the use of military force.
The political content is determinative in relation to the other components of the Military Doctrine. It makes it possible not only to answer the fundamental military questions posed by life, but also to carry out the systematic restructuring of the entire military organization in accordance with the new realities of international life and the particular features of the domestic situation in the country. At the same time, the political content must not disrupt its correspondence with the strategic and economic sides of doctrine; otherwise the possibility of practically implementing the Military Doctrine as a whole is diminished.
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