BACKGROUND: Writing as the leaders of the world’s seven industrial democracies winged their way to the G-8 Summit in Saint Petersburg, Ivanov’s immediate purpose was to discourage the guests from dwelling on matters that might embarrass Russian President Vladimir Putin in his hometown. Russia would brook no criticism. “One of the main democratic values,” writes Ivanov, “is the right to the sovereignty of a people in making independent decisions without any outside pressure.” With regard to the formal G-8 agenda, European leaders had relished an energy security discussion since Putin’s brazen January 1 cutoff of gas to Ukraine. But Israel’s clash with Hizbollah and the chilly atmosphere that Ivanov helped create stifled any serious discussion of energy security. “Russia’s economic potential today makes it possible to maintain world energy stability,” writes Ivanov, adding—for anyone who missed the point—Russia is now an “energy superpower.” Fittingly, the G-8 adopted an anodyne energy security statement. Beyond the G-8 Summit, Russia’s energy muscle enables it unabashedly to confuse market and monopoly energy pricing, as it did with Ukraine and Georgia earlier this year. “Gone,” says Ivanov, “is the practice of relations where Russia faced significant economic losses in exchange for political loyalties of the leaders of certain states.” Even in the face of nuclear proliferation, “Russia is firm in upholding its right to choose its trade partners independently, based on its own policies and not on a dubious division of states into ‘free countries’ and ‘rogue states.’” This oblique reference to American appeals for international sanctions on Iran gets fuller treatment in the leaked Military Doctrine. Earlier Russian documents supported a “universal” nuclear non-proliferation regime. But the 2006 draft endorses only “the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles.” Gazeta’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) source helpfully explained, “Dropping the word ‘universal’ is insurance in case Iran gets nuclear weapons.” Keeping even nuclear-armed mullahs as friends is valuable because, in Ivanov’s view, Russia is surrounded by enemies. “In the first camp are soft opponents,” those that criticize, that “are unhappy about an independent, strong and confident Russia.” In Ivanov’s “second camp” are those that have “declared an all-out terrorist war on the whole civilized world.” Russia must deter its soft opponents and repel the terrorists—with strategic nuclear weapons. “Given existing geopolitical risks we put the emphasis on the qualitative perfection of the strategic deterrence forces that are capable of effectively destroying an aggressor by a retaliatory strike or a counterstrike under any circumstances. To this end, they are being armed with Topol-M ground-based missile systems and will soon start to get the Bulava-30 sea based missile systems.” According to Ivanov, these missiles “can pierce existing and future missile defense.” The emphasis on intercontinental nuclear weapons seems peculiar in the face of critics and terrorists—unless Ivanov’s true concern is “a world order in which only one power center seeks to dominate the planet.” The leaked Military Doctrine sweeps aside any doubt—the U.S. tops Russia’s list of most likely enemies, followed by NATO and terrorists. The top threat from these potential enemies, the draft Military Doctrine continues, is “either directly, or through structures supported by them, the possibility of violent actions against constitutional order in post-Soviet states, which could result in instability on our borders.” Presumably with this in mind, the Defense Minister writes, Russia is “creating self-sufficient inter-service groups of troops armed with high precision reconnaissance and attack systems, and capable, jointly with the nuclear forces, of carrying out any mission.” The draft Military Doctrine adds that the main emphasis is on “rapid reaction subunits in the army, air force, navy and airborne troops.” Russia could employ such forces to fulfill a mission added to the 2006 draft Military Doctrine: to “protect the interests of its citizens abroad if their lives are put in danger.”

IMPLICATIONS: “We have turned from a dying country into a country that is regaining practically all the positions that it had in the time of the USSR,” Gazeta’s MoD source said, embellishing Ivanov’s words: “Russia today has fully regained its status as a great power.” The similarity in themes and language of these documents indicates the same drafter(s) at work. The Ivanov article coupled with the draft Military Doctrine—although it may be tidied up before publication—affords a glimpse into the thinking of the Defense Minister and those around him—Russia is back, and the MoD, at least, does not mind the allusion to the glory days of the Soviet Union. Some themes that emerge are familiar. Russia always bristles at criticism. Tbilisi still has a touch of frostbite from the last flexing of Russia’s energy muscle. Moscow’s work on Iran’s Bushehr reactor and its on-again-off-again nuclear diplomacy betray its desire for warm relations with Tehran. And no one in Georgia is unaware that Russia regards its illegal distribution of passports to current residents of the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a potential pretext for intervention, including military intervention. The two documents do, however, offer two fresh—if unwelcome—angles. First, although western analysts have noted Moscow’s apparent fascination with nuclear weapons, explanations have been speculative, most centering on Moscow’s perceived need to compensate for its conventional military weakness. Now we have a cogent explanation straight from the MoD: the U.S. is the enemy against which Russia’s nuclear arsenal is the ultimate guarantor. The second angle, particularly important as Ivanov may be Russia’s next president, is the starkness with which he is comfortable revisiting familiar Russian themes.

CONCLUSIONS: Although Ivanov’s thinking may strike a dissonant chord in the west, it is coherent and it requires our serious attention. Ivanov—surely not alone in Moscow—apparently believes that the U.S, followed by NATO, is Russia’s most likely enemy. The most likely threat is subversion within Russia and on its periphery. Hence Moscow’s hypersensitivity to criticism of its internal politics and its devotion to undermining Georgia, America’s democratic ally on the Black Sea. The west needs to recognize Russia for what it is—a country whose leadership has such an outlook cannot be appeased; only managed until such time that true democracy overtakes Ivanov’s “sovereign democracy”.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Ambassador David J. Smith is Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, and Director of the Georgian Security Analysis Center, Tbilisi.