Lecture
AGGRESSION — the unlawful use of force. A general formulation of the concept of A. is given by the "Definition of Aggression" adopted by the UN General Assembly on 14 December 1974, under Article 1 of which "aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations".
AGGRESSION, INDIRECT — aggression committed by armed bands, groups, irregular forces or mercenaries that formally do not belong to the regular armed forces of any state or that conceal their affiliation with them, although they are organised by a particular state or act on its behalf.
AGGRESSION, DIRECT — aggression committed by the regular armed forces of a state. Since the regular armed forces are regarded as an organ of the state, the actions they commit are always the actions of the state they represent.
AGGRESSOR — a state that has committed aggression; a group or coalition of states may also act as an aggressor.
ACT OF AGGRESSION — the most dangerous form of breach of the peace.
MILITARY ACTION — action limited in aims, scale and duration, as a rule unilateral, involving the use of military force.
ALTERNATIVE CIVILIAN SERVICE — a special form of labour activity in the interests of society and the state, performed by citizens in place of conscripted military service.
ANNEXATION — the forcible and unlawful incorporation by a state of the territory or part of the territory of another state, as well as of space that is in the common use of the international community (Antarctica, the floor of the world ocean beyond national jurisdiction, etc.).
ARMY — an organised military force maintained by the state for the purposes of offensive or defensive war. From the standpoint of the philosophical approach, the A. is a particular social institution of violence. From the standpoint of political science, the A. is regarded as a specific socio-political institution created, maintained and used by the state to secure vital national interests by means of armed violence. The A. possesses a substantial potential for violence, which serves as the basis of the forcible methods of exercising political power.
The specific features (attributes) of the A. as a particular social institution are: 1) its organic belonging to the state; 2) its organisation and armament; 3) its capacity to wage war and to solve military-strategic tasks independently.
The A. acts as the core of the military organisation of the state and of the military organisation of society. No other state or public institution can compare with the army in physical might. The army fulfils its role as a particular institution of violence through the exercise of its functions.
THE ARMY AND THE STATE — the army is linked to the state by the most diverse ties: structural (as part and whole), genetic (it is created by the state), functional (it performs the state's functions of ensuring military security) and legal (it develops, exists and acts in accordance with the constitution, the laws and the military doctrine of the state).
THE ARMY AND SOCIETY — the army, acting as a specific social institution of violence, is subject to the powerful influence of society; the concrete historical features of an army are determined by the specific character of the society within which it is created, functions and develops. In turn, the level and character of the army's influence on society depend in large measure on the concrete historical circumstances associated with the parameters attained by both society and the army.
THE ARMY AND POLITICS — the problem of the relationship between the army and politics is interpreted by researchers in different ways: 1) some hold that the army is a political organisation and cannot exist and function outside politics; 2) others believe that the army stands outside politics and is politically neutral, that it is a military-technical force; 3) still others incline to the view that the army's "political character" and "non-political character" are certain subjective givens from which one may choose at will. However, the majority of theorists and practising politicians nonetheless defend the view that the army has a "political character".
THE ARMY AS AN OBJECT OF POLITICS — the army, as the core of the military organisation of the state and of society, is subject to concrete practical influence on the part of the state and its organs (the legislative, executive and judicial branches) and of other elements of society's political system (political parties, mass political movements and organisations, trade unions, the mass media, religious associations, etc.). In any society the army acts as an object of politics, including military policy, but if society is in a state of crisis, the army also becomes an object of struggle between various political forces, and this is fraught with the most serious consequences both for society and for the army itself.
THE ARMY AS A MEANS OF POLITICS — the army can be regarded as a means of politics. The modern world, unfortunately, is not yet a non-violent world. Therefore, in the arsenals of politics, alongside non-violent political means, one may find a highly diverse set of means of political violence, which in turn may be divided into means of unarmed political violence and means of armed political violence. The army is precisely the tool (instrument) of armed political violence. Both within the country and beyond its borders, the army as a means of politics may be employed in two basic forms: the direct or immediate form (the conduct of combat operations in conditions of war and armed conflict, armed actions on the border, armed terror, etc.) and the political-psychological form (demonstrations of military force, threats to use force, raising the armed forces to a higher degree of combat readiness, the deployment and redeployment of military units, a military presence in zones of vital interest, etc.). Sometimes a so-called combined form is also used, in which certain political forces initially demonstrate a readiness to use the army as a means of resolving the contradictions that have arisen (or the army itself demonstrates its readiness to intervene in the course of political events), and afterwards sanction is given for the use of armed violence (with threats of the possible escalation of that violence).
THE ARMY AS A SUBJECT OF POLITICS — the armed forces, in carrying out the tasks set by the state, inevitably themselves become an important, relatively independent actor that exerts a substantial influence on state policy and on the political system of society as a whole. The army as a specific social institution has its own particular interests. The state needs this institution, which plays an important role in ensuring its security. Consequently, in determining the priorities of state policy in various fields, the interests of the army must be taken into account (to the extent that this is possible and useful for society). The activity of the army as a subject of politics may proceed in two ways: in constitutional and in anti-constitutional forms. In the first case the army acts within the bounds of legality, obeys a democratically elected government and does not act as an independent political force. In the second case the army acts beyond the bounds of existing legislation, refuses to obey the government and turns into a self-sufficient political force. The most striking example of unconstitutional action by the army is the staging of a military coup.
MILITARY BALANCE OF POWER — the relative, approximate equality of the ground, naval and air forces and of the conventional and nuclear types of armament possessed by opposing states or their coalitions. Particular disproportions arising from the heterogeneity of armaments and the different structure of the parties' armed forces do not disrupt the overall M. b. of p., since within the framework of general equilibrium the advantages of one side in certain respects are offset by the advantages of the other side in other respects. The M. b. of p. presupposes a comprehensive accounting of all the elements that make up the overall strategic equilibrium.
SECURITY — a) at the level of everyday consciousness, security is interpreted as the absence of danger; b) in political theory, security is understood not so much as the absence of danger as such, but rather as a certain degree or measure of protection of someone or something should danger arise, as the capacity to withstand threats of an internal and external nature; c) from the standpoint of systems analysis, security is a complex characteristic of a system's capacity to perform its vital functions and to maintain the relevant parameters within the necessary limits under conditions of external environmental impact and internal perturbations.
MILITARY SECURITY — a component of national security denoting a state of protection of the individual, society and the state from external and internal threats associated with the use of military force or the threat of its use. M. s. denotes a state of interstate relations, including military-political relations, characterised by the absence of a potential danger of the emergence of armed violence and its escalation in relations between the actors of international relations and the actors of military policy.
STATE SECURITY (SECURITY OF THE STATE) — a state of protection of the state and its institutions from threats of an internal and external nature.
SPIRITUAL SECURITY — a component of national security denoting a stable state of protection of the individual, society and the state from internal and external threats of a spiritual nature. Russia's national interests in the spiritual sphere consist in preserving and strengthening the moral values of society, the traditions of patriotism and humanism, and the cultural and scientific potential of the country.
INFORMATION SECURITY — a component of national security, a state of protection of the individual, society and the state from threats in the information sphere.
Official documents emphasise the fact that threats to the national security of the Russian Federation in the information sphere are intensifying. Serious dangers are posed by the aspiration of a number of countries to dominate the global information space and to squeeze Russia out of the external and internal information market; the development by a number of states of a concept of information warfare providing for the creation of means of dangerous impact on the information spheres of other countries of the world; the disruption of the normal functioning of information and telecommunications systems, as well as of the integrity of information resources, and the obtaining of unauthorised access to them. The conceptual foundation of Russia's policy in the information sphere is the Information Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation, approved by the President of the Russian Federation in September 2000.
PERSONAL SECURITY (SECURITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL) — a state of protection of the individual and of his or her rights and freedoms from various kinds of threats.
NATIONAL SECURITY — an integral concept characterising the state of protection of the vital interests of the individual, society and the state from internal and external threats. N. s. is understood as a state of society in which it preserves its integrity, stability and capacity for effective functioning and independent development, and successfully overcomes external and internal destructive influences.
NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION — the security of its multi-ethnic people as the bearer of sovereignty and the sole source of power in the Russian Federation.
DEFENCE SECURITY — a part of military security associated with ensuring the security of the individual, society and the state in the defence sphere. The term "defence security" is sometimes used as a synonym for the term "military security".
PUBLIC SECURITY (SECURITY OF SOCIETY) — a state of protection of society and its institutions from threats of an internal and external nature.
POLITICAL SECURITY — a component of national security denoting a stable state of protection of the individual, society and the state from internal and external political threats. P. s. denotes a state of the political system that ensures a balance of interests among the main population groups, socio-political stability and the integrity of society, a favourable international position of the state, and the coordination of security policy across the various spheres of social life.
SOCIAL SECURITY — a component of national security associated with ensuring the protection of the individual, society and the state from threats in the social sphere. A threat to Russia's national security in the social sphere is created by the deep stratification of society into a narrow circle of the wealthy and a predominant mass of low-income citizens, by the increase in the proportion of the population living below the poverty line, and by rising unemployment.
ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY — a component of national security associated with ensuring the protection of the individual, society and the state from threats of an ecological nature. E. s. is a state of the system of social relations in which contradictions between society and the environment are prevented or resolved in good time and are not allowed to escalate to a critical level exceeding the maximum permissible norms of environmental pollution, radiation levels, noise, deforestation, etc. The threat of a deterioration of the ecological situation in the country and the depletion of its natural resources is directly dependent on the state of the economy and on society's readiness to recognise the global scale and importance of these problems.
ECONOMIC SECURITY — a component of national security denoting a stable state of protection of the individual, society and the state from threats of an economic nature. In the sphere of the economy the threats are of a complex nature and are conditioned above all by a substantial reduction of gross domestic product, by a decline in investment and innovation activity and in scientific and technological potential, by stagnation of the agricultural sector, by the destabilisation of the banking system, by the growth of external and internal state debt, by the tendency towards the predominance of fuel, raw-material and energy components in export deliveries and of foodstuffs and consumer goods, including basic necessities, in import deliveries.
COMBAT MIGHT OF THE ARMED FORCES — the realised portion of the combat potential of the armed forces, the actual material and spiritual factors that ensure the accomplishment of the tasks set before the armed forces in waging armed struggle for the sake of achieving political, economic and other aims.
COMBAT POTENTIAL OF THE ARMED FORCES — the maximum capabilities available to the armed forces for the conduct of combat operations in order to achieve political, economic and other aims. This potential encompasses both the realised factors (forces and assets) actually available at a given moment in time and other, as yet unrealised capabilities available to the armed forces that may be realised under certain conditions. The C. p. of the a. f. constitutes the core of military potential proper and expresses its essence. Structurally, the C. p. of the a. f. appears as the unity of the material-technical (technical equipment) and spiritual (military skill, organisation, discipline, morale) sides of the armed forces.
MUTUAL SECURITY, CONCEPT OF — conceptually formulated approaches making it possible to strengthen the security of two parties that are, or may be, in a state of conflict.
THE INTERRELATION OF WAR AND SOCIETY — in the broadest terms, the interrelation between war and society has three aspects: 1) the impact of war on society; 2) the influence of society on war (its evolution as a social phenomenon, its course, outcome and consequences); 3) the struggle of society against war and of the latter for its own "survival". By the end of the twentieth century society was increasingly acquiring the ability to restrain, prevent and halt wars and armed conflicts, which strengthens people's faith in the real possibility of ridding themselves of them completely in the future.
THE INTERRELATION OF WAR AND POLITICS — this is complex in character and may be reduced to the relationship of part and whole, in which war acts as the part and politics as the whole.
The main directions of the impact of politics on war: 1) politics gives rise to war as a means of resolving social contradictions; 2) politics formulates the aims and tasks of a war, develops the general strategic concept of the war, and determines its socio-political and strategic character; 3) politics exerts a decisive influence on society in order to create and employ the necessary military might; 4) politics ensures the achievement of the aims set not only with the help of armed violence but also through other types of struggle in war (economic, scientific-technical, diplomatic, ideological, etc.); 5) politics determines the post-war world order, and so on.
War, having been generated by politics, in turn exerts a serious influence upon it: 1) war confirms or, conversely, refutes the viability of the policy being pursued; 2) military successes and failures may necessitate the adjustment or even the radical revision of the course of domestic and foreign policy; 3) war stimulates the restriction of the activity of democratic institutions and of the political rights and freedoms of citizens; 4) the course and outcome of a war affect the dynamics of political processes, the political preferences of citizens, the functioning of the institutions of power, and so on.
MILITARY SCIENCE — a system of knowledge about the character and laws of war, the preparation of the armed forces and the country for war, and the methods of waging it. The subject of M. s. is armed struggle as a component of war (military conflict).
MILITARY ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE – a system of state military-political, "power" and other structures used to ensure the country's military security. The core of the m. o. of the s. is its armed forces. In addition, the structure of the m. o. of the s. includes: bodies of military-political leadership, intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies, counter-terrorist formations, agencies for the protection of internal order, structures for guarding the state border, special military formations, civil defence bodies, etc.
MILITARY ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY – the totality of associations of people who are bearers of military affairs, used to achieve military-political goals in the interests of states and their coalitions, classes, nations, social groups, political parties and movements.
In addition to state military organizations, the m. o. of s. includes: combat state-public organizations; military organizations of parties and political movements; combat organizations of parties and political movements; military-patriotic societies; combat organizations of classes and social groups, partisan (insurgent) detachments; armed groups of an antisocial orientation, etc.
MILITARY ORGANIZATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION – a system comprising the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which constitute its core and the foundation for ensuring military security, other troops, military formations and bodies intended to accomplish military security tasks by military means, as well as the agencies that administer them. The military organization of the state also includes the part of the country's industrial and scientific complexes intended to support military security tasks.
MILITARY FORCE – the armed forces, other troops, military formations and bodies of the state, as well as other forces, means and resources mobilized by the state to ensure military security and achieve military-political goals. In the broad sense of the word, m. f. is the capacity of a state to influence other states and the system of international relations either indirectly (through a demonstration of capabilities) or through the direct use of the means of armed violence, and to wage armed struggle successfully.
MILITARY SPHERE – that part of the sphere of activity of the individual, society and the state which is connected with ensuring military security.
MILITARY-DOCTRINAL VIEWS – the entire body of official guidelines expressing the fundamental positions of the state on questions of ensuring the country's military security, on various aspects of military development, and on the employment and comprehensive support of the Armed Forces and other troops.
MILITARY DEVELOPMENT – a system of economic, socio-political, properly military and other measures undertaken by the state in the interests of strengthening its military might. The specific parameters of military development are determined by a combination of three groups of factors: 1) the nature and level of internal and external military threats; 2) the economic, financial, scientific-technical and other capabilities of the state; 3) the degree of adequacy of the decisions taken by the country's military-political leadership.
MILITARY-POLITICAL ACTIVITY – a systemic component of military policy, associated with the direct efforts of its actors to achieve particular military-political goals and to ensure military security.
MILITARY-POLITICAL SITUATION – the totality and the result of the interaction of factors and conditions expressing the attitudes and alignment of political forces, as well as the state of military-political relations of various levels and scales, directly connected with the preparation and possible use by political actors of the means of armed violence.
MILITARY-POLITICAL STABILITY – a state of steadiness, constancy and balance of the entire system of military-political relations or of its more or less significant segments.
MILITARY-POLITICAL RELATIONS – the totality of ideologically motivated interactions among political actors (socio-political communities, institutions and their military organizations) that take shape in the course of the specific activity of realizing economic, political and other interests through the use, or the possibility of the use, of armed violence.
MILITARY-STRATEGIC PARITY – the principle (state) of approximate equilibrium in the field of nuclear and other types of armaments between two or more states or military-political alliances.
MILITARY CONFLICT – in the narrow sense, the same as an armed conflict (the terms "military conflict" and "armed conflict" are treated as being of the same order); in the broad sense, a m. c. is any use by opposing sides of the means of armed struggle to achieve military-political goals (i.e. the concept of "military conflict" is regarded as generic in relation to the concepts of "armed conflict" and "war").
WAR – a socio-political phenomenon representing one of the forms of resolving socio-political, economic, ideological, as well as national, religious, territorial and other contradictions between states, peoples, nations, classes and social groups by means of violence.
WAR AS A SPECIAL STATE OF SOCIETY – a condition of society associated with an abrupt change in relations between states, peoples and social groups and with the transition to the use of armed violence to achieve political, economic and other goals. If society passes into a state of war, this entails serious changes in the functioning of all spheres and areas of social life, which begin directly or indirectly to "work" toward the attainment of victory. Achieving victory in war depends not only on the correlation of the economic, social, political, spiritual, properly military and other potentials of the opposing sides, but also on the level and speed of their realization, of their conversion into actual might.
RELIGIOUS WAR – a term used to single out, from the general body of wars and armed (military) conflicts, those armed clashes whose principal goals are expressed in religious demands: the conversion of the unconverted to the "true faith"; the attainment of religious freedom; the restoration of the "purity" of a religion's original principles; the affirmation of new doctrinal "truths"; the defence of the "old" faith; the salvation of "brethren of the same faith"; the liberation of the holy places of a given religion; the defence or destruction of religious institutions, and others.
ARMED STRUGGLE – the specific content of armed violence, consisting in the organized employment of armed forces (armed detachments, formations, structures) to achieve economic, political, military and other goals. The goals, character, content, methods and scale of a. s. are historical in nature and change as society develops. A. s. is the most important element in the structure of the content of war.
ARMED CONFLICT – an extreme means of resolving acute contradictions between opposing political forces, involving the two-sided use of weapons. Every war is always an armed social conflict. At the same time, however, by no means every armed conflict can be called a war. While having much in common with wars, a. c. differ from them considerably. War and a. c. are not one and the same thing. The principal difference is that during a war the whole country is placed on a war footing and lives under entirely different international and national legal norms.
ARMED FORCES – in the narrow sense, the same as an army; in the broad sense, the regular (ground, naval, air, etc.) and irregular (militia, partisans and an insurgent population) military formations of a state. International law recognizes the existence of international a. f., which include groupings of national contingents under international leadership and command, created and employed in accordance with the provisions of the UN Charter. Such forces may include UN a. f., the a. f. of regional security organizations (e.g. NATO), combined a. f. created in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter for the purposes of collective self-defence, and others.
TIME FACTORS IN THE REALIZATION OF NATIONAL SECURITY – the problem of national security can be viewed through the prism of the time factor, distinguishing the tactical (current) aspect of its solution, which is manifested within the framework of day-to-day activity and at all levels; the operational aspect, which presupposes a view 5–10 years ahead; and the strategic aspect, projected 25–30 or more years ahead.
GEOPOLITICS – a concept characterizing the theory and practice of international relations based on the interlinking of geographical, geostrategic, socio-political, military, demographic, economic and other factors. All these diverse factors, which affect the aggregate might of a state, are considered from the standpoint of the correlation of forces in a region or in the world as a whole.
GEOPOLITICAL FACTOR – the totality of geographical parameters that determine the corresponding orientation of a state's policy for securing its vitally important interests at a given stage of development.
GEOSTRATEGY – a system of knowledge about the regularities of the spatial distribution and interaction of the political forces of states.
GEOSTRATEGIC POSITION – the totality of factors of global, regional and local scale that either threaten or favour the securing of vitally important state interests, which in turn determine a particular line of political conduct and action by the state.
RUSSIA'S GEOSTRATEGIC POSITION – is characterized by a number of features: Russia's Eurasian geographical position; Russia's orientation toward the Euro-American world in the West, toward the heterogeneous Islamic world in the South, and toward Asia and the Asia-Pacific region in the East; the vast size of its territory and the length of its land and sea borders; the openness of Russia's borders; access to the basins of three oceans; the ethnic and confessional diversity of the peoples of Russia and their uneven distribution across the regions; a low average population density; a considerable potential of energy resources; a diversity of climatic zones; underdeveloped infrastructure, and others.
CIVILIAN CONTROL OVER THE ARMY – the activity of citizens, both through the state and through their free associations, aimed at ensuring that the condition and employment of the army correspond to the needs and interests of society, to the constitution and to current legislation.
HUMANIZATION OF INTRA-ARMY RELATIONS – one of the most important directions of the democratization of the Armed Forces. The essence of h. of i.-a. r. lies in their "humanization", their consistent approximation to the norms and values of civil society and to universally recognized human rights standards. The principles of h. of i.-a. r. are: the principle of optimality of military activity; the principle of full and anticipatory compensation for the hardships and privations of military life; the principle of giving priority to satisfying the everyday needs of service members and their families; the principle of social justice.
DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE ARMED FORCES – the process of the actual implementation of democratic transformations in all spheres of the activity of the Armed Forces, which presupposes the establishment of new forms of relations between the Armed Forces and the state, as well as within the Armed Forces, guaranteeing the protection of the rights and freedoms, honour and dignity of service members, irrespective of their official position, sex, age, nationality and religion.
DEPARTIZATION OF THE ARMED FORCES – one of the directions of the depoliticization of the armed forces, associated with removing the army from the influence of any political parties (movements) or with preventing the possibility of such a situation arising. In substantive terms, the process of d. of the a. f. may include a full or partial ban on membership in political parties (movements) for service members; a prohibition on political parties (movements) creating their own structures within the armed forces; a full ban on or restriction of political (party) propaganda and agitation, including electoral campaigning, on the territory of military units; strict legal regulation of the exercise by service members of their political rights, etc.).
DEPOLITICIZATION OF THE ARMED FORCES – a term used to denote certain aspects of the interrelation between the army and politics. The concept of "politicization" as applied to the army reflects a particular condition of it, characterized by the following features: independent political activity; involvement in politics as an object of struggle among political forces; adherence to some single ideological-political doctrine or party (or an internal split of the army into rival ideological-political groupings and factions); a combination of professional service with various kinds of political activity on the part of service members. The demand for d. of the army means the exclusion of the aforementioned phenomena from the life of the troops. The extreme view of d. as the complete isolation of the army from politics testifies to a misunderstanding of its nature and functional purpose.
The forms and methods of d. of the army as implemented by various states differ, but what they have in common is that d. is not a means of freeing the army from politics as such. D. of the army may serve as a means of: 1) securing the monopoly domination of state power over the army; 2) reorienting the army during a change of the socio-political order; 3) destroying the army or reducing its status and role in public life amid a struggle between various political forces within the country.
DE-ESCALATION OF AGGRESSION – compelling an adversary to cease military operations by threatening to deliver, or by actually delivering, strikes of various scales using conventional and/or nuclear means of destruction.
THE DIALECTIC OF PEACEFUL AND MILITARY MEANS OF ENSURING MILITARY SECURITY – the historically specific correlation between peaceful and military means of ensuring military security.
DOCTRINE – a teaching, a system of scientific, philosophical and other views, a theoretical or political principle expressing in concentrated form economic, political and other orientations and goals, as well as the forms of their practical implementation.
MILITARY DOCTRINE – the body of views and guidelines officially adopted by a particular state (or coalition of states) on ensuring military security.
Three variants of military doctrine can be distinguished on the basis of their fundamental political premises and goals: aggressive military doctrines, whose principal provisions implement the following political principles: military superiority; reliance on military force in international affairs; the possibility of using nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; the multifaceted and sudden character of military violence, and others; military doctrines of "mutual destruction", which implement the following political principles: nuclear deterrence; military-strategic parity; sufficient deterrence; stable national security based on the possession of nuclear weapons, and others; defensive military doctrines, in which priority is given to such political principles as: renunciation of the "image of the enemy" (the absence of a probable adversary); minimal reasonable sufficiency of military means; renunciation of the first use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; multipolarity of comparable forces in various regions; priority of civil defence, and others.
MILITARY DOCTRINE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION – the body of official views (guidelines) defining the military-political, military-strategic and military-economic foundations of ensuring the military security of the Russian Federation. The currently effective Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation was approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 706 of 21 April 2000.
VITALLY IMPORTANT (BASIC) INTERESTS OF THE COUNTRY – that part of the national interests which expresses the totality of the country's needs, the satisfaction of which ensures the possibility of its independent existence and progressive development and creates the necessary preconditions for the realization of its constructive role in the world community. The protection of the c.'s v. i. i. presupposes, where necessary, the use of force.
The vitally important (basic) national interests of every state may include: state sovereignty, territorial integrity, the socio-political stability of society, the constitutional order, strategic stability within the system of the world community, free access to vitally important economic-strategic zones and lines of communication, and others.
THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR – the body of principles and norms of international law regulating relations between states on questions connected with the conduct of war. By limiting the choice of means and methods of armed struggle, prohibiting the use of the cruellest among them and establishing criminal liability for war crimes, the l. and c. of w. objectively promote the humanization of war and the limitation of the scale of armed conflicts.
The universally recognized l. and c. of w. are embodied in the following instruments of international humanitarian law (listed in chronological order):
Declaration Renouncing the Use of Explosive and Incendiary Projectiles. St Petersburg. 29 November 1868.
Declaration concerning the Prohibition of the Use of Bullets which Expand or Flatten Easily ("dum-dum" bullets). The Hague. 29 July 1899.
Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, with the annexed Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague. 18 October 1907.
Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. Geneva. 17 June 1925.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 9 December 1948.
Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea. Geneva. 12 August 1949.
Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva. 12 August 1949.
Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva. 12 August 1949.
Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Hague. 14 May 1954.
Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. 10 April 1972.
Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. 10 December 1976.
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I). 8 June 1977.
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II). 8 June 1977.
Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects. 10 October 1980.
Protocol on Non-Detectable Fragments (Protocol I).
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (Protocol II).
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III).
THE LAWS OF WAR – the internal, essential, stable and necessary connections and relations among the phenomena of war that determine its emergence, character, course and outcome, and its place in the historical process. The l. of w. are reflected in the content of scientific theories, military doctrines, the principles of military art, and in regulations and manuals.
A whole system of laws operates in war: 1) universal laws (the laws of dialectics), operating in nature, society and cognition); 2) general sociological laws, operating at all stages of the functioning and development of society; 3) sociological laws, operating at particular stages of the functioning and development of society; 4) general laws of war (the laws of the origin, course and outcome of war); 5) the laws of armed struggle.
GENERAL LAWS OF WAR – these comprise: 1) the laws of the origin (genesis) of war and 2) the laws of the course and outcome of war.
The laws of the origin of war are those cause-and-effect connections that are rooted in the system of economic and political interstate and intrastate relations prior to the war.
The laws of the course and outcome of war express the dependence of its unfolding and its result upon the individual potentials (factors) that make up the military might of a state (coalition) or of classes and social groups (in the case of a civil war). The laws of the course and outcome of war usually include the following: 1) the law of the dependence of the course and outcome of war on the correlation of the economic forces of the belligerent states (coalitions); 2) the law of the dependence of the course and outcome of war on the correlation of the social forces of the belligerent states (coalitions); 3) the law of the dependence of the course and outcome of war on the correlation of the political forces of the belligerent states (coalitions); 4) the law of the dependence of the course and outcome of war on the correlation of the spiritual forces of the belligerent states (coalitions); 5) the law of the dependence of the course and outcome of war on the correlation of the scientific-technical forces of the opposing sides; 6) the law of the dependence of the course and outcome of war on the correlation of the properly military forces of the belligerent sides.
The general regularity of war expresses the dependence of the course and outcome of war on the correlation of the material and spiritual forces of the belligerent sides.
THE LAWS OF ARMED STRUGGLE – the internal, essential, necessary, recurring connections and relations among the phenomena of armed struggle that take shape in the course of military operations and determine its character, course and outcome.
Features of the l. of a. s.: objectivity; historicity; a statistical character (these laws operate in the form of tendencies); a connection with the combat activity of people; knowability.
The l. of a. s. comprise two groups of laws: 1) laws expressing the connection of armed struggle with military goals, with armaments and with personnel; 2) the laws of combat operations.
The first group of laws includes: the law of the dependence of the character of armed struggle on military goals; the law of the dependence of the methods and forms of armed struggle on the quality and quantity of military equipment and weapons; the law of the dependence of the methods and forms of armed struggle on the quality and quantity of personnel.
The second group of laws includes: the law of the correspondence of forces and means to the goals set; the law of the coordination of troops in place, time and objective; the law of the dependence of combat operations on the correspondence of the character of command and control to the goals and means of armed struggle; the law of the dependence of victory in armed struggle on the concentration of the main efforts along the decisive axis, and others.
The general regularity of armed struggle expresses the dependence of victories and defeats on the correlation of the combat might of the armed forces of the opposing sides.
INFORMATION STRUGGLE – the use by each of the opposing sides of information that is either false or true (accurate) but interpreted in a light advantageous to itself, with the aim of imposing on the other side decisions that are objectively disadvantageous to it.
Information struggle in the military sphere is understood as the conduct of measures to seize and retain information superiority over the adversary (or to reduce his information superiority) in the preparation for and course of military operations. It is assumed that information superiority can be attained by reducing the adversary's information resource to the requisite level.
ARMED INCIDENT – a brief and, as a rule, unintentional armed clash.
SOURCE OF MILITARY DANGER – the most active, leading side of a contradiction that acts as a cause of war. The role of a s. of m. d. may be played by a state system, a political regime, an ideology or a policy that presupposes the use of armed violence to resolve social contradictions. Under contemporary conditions, religious radicalism, national extremism and international terrorism may act as concrete sources of military danger.
SOURCES (FOUNDATIONS) OF WAR – the totality of objectively existing, permanently operating, deepest contradictions in the development of social relations which, under certain conditions, are capable of generating war and military conflicts. These include: the imperfection of human nature and of society; the contradictions between the natural and the social, the psychic and the social in the human being; the biological predisposition of people to violence; antagonistic social-class contradictions; the limited nature of the natural resources of human and social existence; the constraints on the conditions of human existence; the contradictory results of human activity; demographic, geopolitical, ethnic and other problems in the development of society.
CLASSIFICATION OF ARMIES – is one of the necessary conditions for a deeper understanding of the essence, social role and development trends of various armies. In the history of scholarship the problem of the c. of a. has been resolved in differing ways. Depending on the criteria used, the classification of armies may take various forms:
by the class-political purpose of the army (its belonging to a particular type of state) the following are distinguished: slave-owning armies, feudal armies, bourgeois armies, socialist armies and armies of transitional types;
by method of manning the following are distinguished: professional armies, volunteer armies and armies based on universal conscription;
by methods of training and forms of organization the following are distinguished: cadre (standing, regular) armies; militia (irregular) armies and mixed (cadre-militia) armies;
by the means of armed struggle in their inventory the following are distinguished: armies possessing nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction, and armies possessing only conventional means of destruction;
by the degree of readiness to accomplish military-political tasks the following are distinguished: peacetime armies and wartime armies.
CLASSIFICATION OF WARS – the distribution of wars into interrelated classes (groups) according to the presence or absence in them of certain features chosen as the bases of classification. The most significant bases by which wars are classified can be grouped into four categories: 1) historical, 2) socio-political, 3) those of scale, and 4) military-technical.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF WARS ADOPTED IN RUSSIA – is based on the application of socio-political, military-technical and scale-related bases of classification. In accordance with the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, a contemporary war (armed conflict) may be:
by military-political goals – just (not contrary to the UN Charter and the fundamental norms and principles of international law, waged in self-defence by the side subjected to aggression); unjust (contrary to the UN Charter and the fundamental norms and principles of international law, falling under the definition of aggression and waged by the side that has undertaken an armed attack);
by the means employed – with the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction; with the use of conventional means of destruction only;
by scale – local, regional, large-scale.
In addition, wars (armed conflicts) may be short-lived or protracted.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF WARS ADOPTED IN THE USA – is associated first and foremost with the use of military-strategic and military-technical bases for classifying possible wars. American military experts distinguish four varieties of contemporary war: general nuclear war, general conventional war, nuclear war in a theatre of war, and conventional war in a theatre of war.
In the USA a concept of military conflicts of varying intensity has been developed, which considers their entire range – from the most insignificant to global war. Three groups of conflicts are distinguished: high-intensity conflicts (wars between states and their coalitions employing all forces and means, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons), medium-intensity conflicts (wars between states and their coalitions employing all forces and means with the exception of weapons of mass destruction, in the interests of attaining limited political goals), low-intensity conflicts (political or military actions of a limited character carried out by the USA in support of regimes friendly to it in the interests of attaining certain political, economic and psychological goals.
In moral terms, all wars waged in defence of the interests of the USA or its allies are declared to be just. The main criterion of justness is held to be that the decision to wage war is taken by lawful authority, provided that no other means of attaining the political goals are available.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF ARMED CONFLICTS ADOPTED IN RUSSIA – in accordance with the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, military conflicts are classified by form and by character:
by form it may be an armed incident, an armed action, or other armed clashes of limited scale, as well as a special form – a border conflict;
by character an armed conflict may be international (involving two or more states) or non-international, internal (with armed confrontation conducted within the territory of a single state).
MILITARY COALITION – a temporary military-political alliance of states created for the preparation and conduct of war. The military and political goals, composition and specific features of a military coalition are determined by the character of the historical epoch and of the socio-political order of the states participating in it.
COMBATANT – persons forming part of the armed forces of a party to a conflict (other than medical and religious personnel) who have the right to take a direct part in hostilities; this definition is set out in Article 43(2) of Additional Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. On falling into the hands of the enemy, a c. becomes a prisoner of war. Combatants include:
1) the personnel of the regular armed forces (ground, naval, air, etc.);
2) irregular forces – partisans, the personnel of militias and volunteer detachments, provided that they: a) are commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates, b) have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, c) observe the laws and customs of war in their operations, d) carry arms openly during each military engagement, and also during such time as they are visible to the adversary (including by means of optical devices) while engaged in a deployment into battle formations preceding the launching of an attack in which they are to participate;
3) the crews of merchant marine vessels and the crews of civil aircraft of the belligerent parties, if they have been converted to military use;
4) fighters taking part in national liberation wars, struggling against colonialism, racism and foreign domination;
5) the population of unoccupied territory who, on the approach of the enemy, take up arms to fight the invading troops without having had time to form themselves into regular troops (provided that they carry arms openly and observe the laws and customs of war). Mercenaries are not recognized as c.
NATIONAL SECURITY CONCEPT – the body of views and guidelines officially adopted by a particular state (or coalition of states) relating to ensuring the security of the individual, society and the state.
NATIONAL SECURITY CONCEPT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION – a system of views on ensuring, within the Russian Federation, the security of the individual, society and the state against external and internal threats in all spheres of life. The National Security Concept of the Russian Federation was approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 1300 of 17 December 1997; it is currently in force in the wording of Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 24 of 10 January 2000.
MANNING OF THE ARMED FORCES – meeting the armed forces' requirement for personnel. To date three methods of manning the armed forces are known: 1) on a voluntary basis (by hire, recruitment, contract, agreement, etc.); 2) on the basis of military obligation, i.e. on a compulsory basis (recruit levy, conscription); 3) a mixed method of manning (voluntary and compulsory).
CONTACT AND NON-CONTACT OPERATIONS IN WAR – different types of methods and modes of armed struggle.
Contact operations are traditionally understood as direct armed confrontation between the sides within the combat zone.
Non-contact operations are understood as the delivery of strikes against enemy targets, regardless of their distance, in the absence of direct combat contact between the forces and means of the opposing sides, above all ground forces.
COUNTER-TERRORIST OPERATIONS – actions aimed at suppressing (neutralizing) terrorist activity; they presuppose the use of a complex of political, economic, financial, coercive and other measures.
THE MECHANISM OF THE EMERGENCE OF WAR – a system of interconnected and mutually conditioning factors of social life, of an objective and subjective character, that determine the "ripening" of war. The principal elements of the m. of the e. of w. are: 1) the sources (foundations) of war; 2) the causes of war; 3) the occasions and pretexts for war; 4) the source of military danger; 5) the seat of war.
MILITARISM – a policy that relies on military means to resolve foreign- and domestic-policy problems, as well as the ideology that justifies such a policy.
PEACE – the continuation of the policy of the actors of international life in forms that exclude the use of various forms of armed violence, aimed at achieving a balance of the interests of different states and conducive to eliminating the causes of war on a treaty-based legal foundation. In the narrow sense of the word, it is the absence between parties of a state of war or of organized armed struggle. Peace as a particular condition of the system of international relations may have positive (friendship, cooperation, mutual assistance, non-violence, democracy, etc.) and negative (domination, subordination, diktat, threats, etc.) content.
UNIPOLAR WORLD – a model of international relations presupposing the existence of a single actor of world politics (centre of power) in the form of a superpower that dominates other states thanks to the concentration in its hands of might and resources within particular regions or the world as a whole. Examples of such superpowers within the framework of particular historical epochs may include Ancient Egypt, Persia, Ancient China, Ancient India, the Roman Empire, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, etc.
BIPOLAR WORLD – a model of international relations presupposing the existence of two actors of world politics (centres of power) in the form of two superpowers and/or groups (blocs) of countries among which might, influence and resources are distributed and which compete with one another. This tendency manifested itself especially clearly at the beginning of the twentieth century, when two blocs took shape: the Triple Entente – Great Britain, France, Russia – and the Triple Alliance – Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey. After the Second World War the entire world was divided into spheres of "vital interests" of the two nuclear superpowers, the USA and the USSR, which relied on the blocs they had created: NATO (1949) and the Warsaw Pact (1955). Other states merely followed the foreign policy of one or the other superpower or attempted to balance between them. Such a bipolar system existed until the late 1980s – early 1990s.
MULTIPOLAR WORLD – a model of international relations presupposing the existence of a number of actors of world politics (centres of power) in the form of coexisting states, interstate and non-state associations with diverse interests, seeking to realize them predominantly by peaceful means and possessing differing capabilities and resources. The formation of a m. w. began at the start of the 1990s, but is proceeding in an extremely complex and ambiguous manner.
MOBILIZATION READINESS OF THE STATE – the capacity of the state and its structures to ensure the fullest possible realization of all the state's potentials and their conversion into actual forms of might.
MILITARY MIGHT OF THE STATE – the realized part of the state's military potential, the totality of the forces and means allocated by the state for a given period and intended for the attainment of internal and external military-political goals, both in peacetime and in the course of war.
The military might of a state is embodied chiefly in the combat might of its armed forces. The armed forces are the state's principal instrument within the system of military might and perform the function of the main means of waging war.
DEFENSIVE MIGHT OF THE STATE – the military might of a state oriented toward implementing defensive military-doctrinal principles. For a state pursuing a peace-loving policy, the concepts of "military might" and "defensive might" are of the same order.
AGGREGATE MIGHT OF THE STATE – the currently realized part of the state's aggregate potential, those actual forces and means at the state's disposal in various spheres of life for accomplishing the tasks facing it both within the country and beyond its borders. Structurally, the a. m. of the s. includes economic, social, political, spiritual, scientific, military and other types of might.
MERCENARY – a person hired for money by one of the parties to an armed conflict; he does not have the status of a combatant and cannot be a prisoner of war. International law qualifies mercenarism as an international crime. A clear and detailed definition of a mercenary is given in Article 47 of Additional Protocol I of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: "A mercenary is any person who:
a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;
d) is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;
e) is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict;
f) has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces".
BREACH OF THE PEACE – a specific situation of the use of force determined as such by the UN Security Council which, alongside a threat to the peace, constitutes grounds for that body to adopt measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to maintain or restore international peace and security.
ARMED VIOLENCE – a form of social violence, an extreme method of coercing an adversary through the use or threat of use of
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Часть 1 Military-political terms
Часть 2 - Military-political terms
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