Abstract. The authors analyze the content of military security in the current period of the 21st century, describe factors that affect it, structural components and levels, and examine evolutionary trends, principal problems, and opinions.

The world is currently witnessing global transformations that conceal unpredictable risks. The main process that determines global instability and uncertainty is supposed to be globalization. It manifests itself in the desire of the more economically and militarily advanced states (the USA, the EU countries) to use the realities of today’s world in their venal interests at the expense of other countries. U.S. ex-secretary of state Henry Kissinger said that what was commonly called globalization was in fact the dominant role of the United States.1

The prevalent concept of interstate relations espoused by the U.S. confronted today’s world with a whole series of globalization challenges, which are steadily and lastingly effective and have a cumulative nature. In these conditions, socioeconomic and moral upheavals worldwide are tempting radically aggressive leaders, above all in Western Europe and the United States, to solve their problems at the others’ expense by pressurizing them. It should also be pointed out that historically military force has always been a premier tool in interstate relations.

This century, the U.S. insistent attempts at imposing on members of the world community its will, attitudes, values and unipolar model of the world system is a most dangerous negative trend on the planetary scale. U.S. politicians now treat as routine the business of manipulating in their interests the work of major international institutions, such as the UNO, OSCE, or ASEAN, liberally applying double standards, and interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Anyone opposing its policies is subjected to a wide range of U.S. measures, from unilateral unlawful sanctions to direct military invasion. International law as understood by American politicians is increasingly an arbitrarily interpreted rudiment of interstate relations.

It is the U.S. political leadership that assumes that in modern conditions it is necessary to extrapolate the law-enforcing procedures and functions of internal national law to the system of international law. In this, according to U.S. guiding documents, the United States is actually entitled to interpret as it sees fit the provisions of various international treaties, agreements, and conventions, adjusting them to suit its national interests. By way of example, let us cite the U.S. economic sanctions against Russia and their motivation – “for breach of U.S. state laws.”2 The consequences of these conceptual actions have been further toughening of confrontation with Russia imposed by the West, first and foremost the United States. Politicians in those countries never tire of saying that Russia is the number one threat to peace on Earth.

This is the background against which the NATO forces in Europe are being reconfigured, its rapid reaction forces are being built up, military activity in the Arctic is stepped up, the global ABM defense system and its European segment are further expanded, and attempts are made to station in Europe surface-to-air cruise missiles, “for preemptive destruction of Russian weapons by nuclear strikes,” not to mention other acts aimed against Russia.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the United States grabbed global leadership thanks to its superior information and communications technologies and well-developed and well-trained armed forces. In these conditions of the geostrate-gic situation the U.S. is trying to maintain its leading position in order to weaken its rivals and partners alike. Establishing control over Russia coupled with dominance in Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East will enable the U.S. to obtain strategic advantage over the rising China in controlling principal sources of hydrocarbons and other critically important natural resources. Control over Europe, Russia, Japan, and Korea also ensures dominance in creating and devising new advanced technologies and making cutting-edge technologies of armed struggle in all spheres – in aerospace, at sea, on the ground, and in the information area.

Examining the current situation around Russia President Vladimir Putin remarked at the Security Council session on July 3, 2015, “The recent events suggest that it would be wrong to count on changes in the unfriendly policies on the part of some of our geopolitical opponents in the foreseeable future.” He also pointed out that Russia should respond accordingly to all actions by the West and “take extra systemic measures in all key areas.”

The radical changes in the global geopolitical and other fields have rendered especially pressing the matter of providing military security in this country nowadays. It is no accident that the mass media have lately started using the phrases military security, military danger, safety, national security, etc., although the authors of the relevant items do not use them accurately enough in terms of their meaning.

The concept of military security was formed in Russia in the late 20th century, when other, more important aspects of security had emerged. Previously, the public attention was focused on protecting the frontiers of the country, the state’s defensive capability, and readiness to rebuff an external military invasion or expansion. The increasing complexity of the military and political sphere required comprehending the developments unfolding therein, and the new phenomena.

The authors have analyzed the presence of terms related to security in major legislative acts and encyclopedic editions that are supposed to use them. The Federal Law “On Defense,”3 for example, contains the terms security of the state, security of the individual, and public security. As for military security, the law says nothing at all about that. The Federal Law “On Security”4 uses the terms security of the state, public security, security of the individual. The term military security is likewise conspicuous by its absence. The National Security Concept of the Russian Federation5 uses the terms security of the individual, security of society and the state, national security. The term military security is used only once, in the section on providing military security. In the RF National Security Strategy to 20206 the term military security occurs three times, but its meaning is not explained.

The Military Encyclopedia of 19977 for the first time offers entries Security, Military and Security, International. The Military Encyclopedic Dictionary issued in 20078 gives the notions of military security, international security, national security, and information security. In the more generalized way the essence of military security is summed up in the encyclopedic dictionary yearbook Security of Eurasia.9

Some dictionaries emphasize the identity of military and defense security. The dictionary War and Peace in Terms and Definitions, for example, views the notion of military (defensive) security as a military constituent of state security.

President of the Academy of Military Sciences, General of the Army Mah-mut A. Gareyev concurs with this definition. He believes that the issues of the country’s defense cannot be reduced to military security alone, but should be viewed more broadly, within the framework of defense security,” Speaking of the country’s defense, its security ought to be ensured not only against military but also a wider range of other threats, including that of international terrorism, providing it not just by military means, but also by political, diplomatic, economic, and information ones. The more comprehensively and efficiently these would be used, the less would be the need to resort to military force.

“…Excessive exploitation of the Army, Internal and Frontier Troops in the unending conflicts occurs precisely because the political, diplomatic, economic, and information measures are not used efficiently enough, and efforts in this area are undercoordinated on the national scale.”10

The analysis the authors have made prompted them to conclude that the terms military security, military danger, security, and their definitions are sorely underdeveloped in the legal and scientific respect. In legislative enactments, encyclopedic and other dictionaries, which use security-related terms and their definitions, they are given different interpretation.

The Military Doctrine approved by the RF President in December 201411 officially defines military security as a condition when the vital interests of the individual, society, and the state are protected against external and internal threats involving use of military force or threat of its use characterized by the absence of military threat or ability to counter the latter.

In terms of its essence and definition the concept of military security is related to the presence of military threat, which, in turn, is predetermined by differences in the national and state interests of countries, above all economically and militarily developed.

In today’s conditions of worldwide globalization, military security is a crucial purpose of society and the state, and so Russia is doing a lot both to provide that and to comprehend more deeply its essence, as well as the sum of internal and international conditions and factors, which neutralize or eliminate the chance of inflicting damage on the individual, the public, and the state by armed violence. Military security is characterized either by the absence of military force use or threat of use, or by ability to assuredly withstand military pressure in any form. Security is ensured above all by a combination of nonmilitary measures of an economic, political, diplomatic, reconnaissance, ideological nature, and so on.

The basis of modern interstate relations for most countries of the world community in the 21st century is still striving to consolidate military security. However, the current escalation of international military and political tension practised by the U.S. leaders and their allies is characterized by a drastic destabiliza-tion of the international relations system, destruction of the old world order and formation of a new one, with their national interests in mind.

Some military scholars (A.I. Korovyansky, V.I. Lutovinov12 and VS. Vo-loshko13) believe that military security is a constituent, a major element of national security that determines the state of the country’s defensive capability and its ability to protect national interests by means of armed violence. Their reasoning appears convincing.

The Military Doctrine approved by the RF President in 2014 is a system of officially adopted views on preparations for armed defense and armed protection of the Russian Federation. The Military Doctrine takes in the main provisions of the Concept of Long-Term Socioeconomic Development of Russia until 2020, the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020, and also corresponding provisions of the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, the Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation until 2020, the Strategy of Developing the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation and the Provision of National Security until 2020, as well as other documents of strategic planning.

The authors would like to stress specifically that the officially approved Military Doctrine reflects the commitment of the Russian Federation to employing military measures to protect the country’s national interests and those of its allies only after all opportunities for using political, diplomatic, legal, economic, information, and other nonviolent instruments have been exhausted.

Military security characterizes the ability of the state to counter the breakout of war, involvement in warfare, and should war actually start, ability to minimize the damage and destructive consequences for the country’s national security.

In today’s conditions, the domestic research community gives a lot of attention to discussion of the military security makeup. Some members of this community believe that the military security makeup can consist of three blocks. Block one is military constituents14 that unite such parameters as the numerical strength of the armed forces, their technological equipment, combat training, and also the military infrastructure, reserves, and stocks of weapons and military hardware. Block two is the economic components, and is represented by the industry potential and its mobilization readiness. Block three is diplomacy.

At the same time, V.S. Voloshko in his military theory work Military Policies and the RF Military Security in Conditions of Globalization proves that the structure of military security should comprise four components15 – politi-codiplomatic, economic, military (including the military organization of the state created for ensurance of military security supported by the Armed Forces), as well as moral and psychological. The scholar deems it necessary to single out three levels within the structure of military security – global, regional, and national.

On the global level, Russia’s military security is ensured by measures to control nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, reduction of strategic offensive armaments, and so on. On the regional level, it is ensured by consolidating Russia’s military and strategic position by setting up a system of collective security on the CIS and NATO scale. On the national level, it is provided chiefly by building up the necessary military potential of the country.

The authors believe that military security can be viewed as a sum of acts by all the power structures of the military organization, federal and local bodies of state authority, and public organizations to neutralize actual and potential military dangers and military threats. The makeup of military security cannot be defined by the Defense Ministry alone. All decisions to do with changes in the structure and development prospects of system elements in military security should be taken within the framework of the country’s united military and political leadership. And the decisive (principal) factor of providing the country’s military security is its military organization.

In conditions of worldwide globalization, military security, its makeup and components are increasingly important. The reason is the sharp worsening of interstate relations, enhanced danger of unleashing military conflicts, rapid informatization of all spheres of public activity and its effect on the technology of starting modern warfare of the new (hybrid) type, progress in high technologies and consequent appearance of the latest armaments with an extended range and improved precision for hitting the key assets of the opposing side, the rising value of the individual in society, development of law, and other factors. The things getting ever closer interrelated in addressing issues of military security are political, diplomatic, information, economic, and properly military methods of impacting international relations entities.

In the new geostrategic conditions, the significance and role of such factors as the information and financial ones are getting considerably greater; these strongly affect the structure of military security. The required level of military security is achieved if the entire set of structural components is there, both strictly military and political, diplomatic, economic, ideological, and others, thanks to the purposeful coordinated efforts of the state institutions.

The authors believe that in conditions of globalization and intentional aggravation of the geostrategic situation by the U.S. leadership the makeup of military security may consist of the following major components – military, economic, informational, political, diplomatic, moral, psychological, and financial.

The military component includes the state’s military organization developed to ensure military security falling back on military force. It implies the presence of certain quantitative and qualitative indices, among which are the numerical strength of the Armed Forces with systems of control and support; other troops, military formations and agencies of the country’s military organization; the competence level of military command and control bodies, troops and forces crucial to their combat efficiency and combat readiness; the technical equipment of the Armed Forced and other troops (with military hardware, ammunition, military technical stores); reserves of weapons and military and specialized equipment in arsenals, bases, and depots; the condition of the military infrastructure intended for the training of troops (forces), strategic and operational deployment, and conduct of combat actions.

The military organization of the Russian Federation includes the Armed Forces, which are its core and the basis of military security provision, other troops and military formations of paramilitary and law enforcement agencies of the military organization intended for carrying out the tasks of military security by military methods, and also the agencies that command and control those. Besides, the RF military organization comprises the country’s defense-industrial complex. Accomplishment of some military security missions implies the involvement of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, the bodies of the Federal Security Service of Russia (including the units of the FSS Frontier Security Service), the Russian Federal Protective Service, Chief Directorate for Special Programs of the RF President, and also special ad hoc formations set up in wartime. These assignments are carried out mostly with the help of specialized forms and methods of their employment (in accordance with RF Presidential Decrees 308 and 310 of March 11, 2003, and Decree 314 of March 9, 2004).

The economic component unites such parameters as the country’s material potential behind its defensive capability; quantitative and qualitative parameters of the Armed Forces and other troops; the military industry enterprises providing them with whatever they need, the mobilization reserve of armaments and military hardware; the science-and-technology potential that makes for creating new types of weapons and military equipment; the mobilization potential of industry that would ensure supplies of the required amount of weapons and military equipment to the Armed Forces and other troops if need be.

The information component is intended for forming and integrating the information resources and creating an integrated information environment of the RF military organization (the Armed Forces, other troops, military formations and bodies) in the interests of ensuring the functioning of all the constituents within the system of armed struggle in each responsibility area of the strategic, operational-strategic, operational, and tactical formations of the RF AF and other elements of the military organization. Eventually, the information component should ensure a through information route from the General Staff of the RF AF to an individual soldier (fire unit) and information feedback of two types – detailed and generalized by the level for a battalion, brigade (division), army, and military district.

It is an axiom that the country superior in the forces and information warfare capabilities can count on leadership in the military and political sphere, and can have a military strategic advantage.

The Information Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation16 approved by the Russian President lists the priorities of furthering contemporary information technologies, domestic informationzation industry, telecommunications and signals, and support of the functioning of all constituents making up the armed struggle system in the RF military organization, which are best tackled in the near future.

The political-diplomatic component is provided for by high standards of the collective (international) security system; integration of the state in the system of global military and political forces; guaranteed realization of international treaties and agreements; further improvement of control over WMD nonproliferation.

The moral and psychological component is closely linked to the military one and includes the spiritual potential of Russia’s population that is determined by the people’s moral state and degree of psychological training; the spiritual potential of the Russian citizens, the public status of servicemen, the moral and psychological condition of the Armed Forces personnel, and that of other troops, military formations, and bodies.

The financial component is the main constituent of military security. It is the kind of financial and banking system that allows the state to guarantee, within certain limits, the general economic conditions for the functioning of national agencies and market institutions in the interests of the state’s military security.

This understanding of the financial component of military security is aimed at analyzing and prognosticating a broad combination of factors that determine stability of the financial and banking system in ensuring military security. This approach helps discover how much the stability and condition of military security depend on factors within the finances sphere, and how much it depends on the features of the financial and banking system and development technologies of its branches affecting the state’s military security.

The authors believe that the makeup of military security is a sum of stable relations between the components of military security related to solution of military and political and defense problems, and issues of countering various manifestations of military expansion and military violence with regard to world order entities.

For all the importance of any one of the named structural components, what is of practical value is their integrity and unity, which is precisely the system of military security. Doubtless, the system of military security is a complex comprehensive entity not just of all the Armed Forces, paramilitary, and law enforcement agencies of the state’s military organization, but also of all the institutions of the federal and local authority agencies, and public organizations, which require close attention from the state and entire society, their active and continual participation in addressing the problems in the this area.

The authors believe that to tackle the practical tasks of ensuring military security it is not enough to have an idea of just the structure of military security. It is advisable to have a clear notion also of the makeup of the system of military security.

A.I. Korovyansky and V.I. Lutovinov propose viewing a system of military security as an indissoluble unity of three mutually conditioned basic levels.17 We think this reasonable and endorse their proposal.

■ The first level is public; it characterizes a certain quality of public relations and moods that help, to varying degrees, effectively form the other two levels, providing their activity in ensuring the military security of the social system.

■ The second level is state, conceptual, and coordinative; it links the other two and formulates the concept, basic goals, and tasks of military security. The elements on this level are responsible for general politics and solution to the main problems of military security.

■ The third level is executive, military; it is responsible for carrying out specific tasks within the framework of ensuring military security and implements concrete military and political, combat training, and if need be, combat missions.

The structure of each of these levels and their interaction are conditioned by the social system makeup, a high measure of interdependence between all areas of public life. Singling out the said levels within the general system of ensuring military security has been possible because society has now attained a fairly high degree of development. Obviously, military security cannot be regarded irrespective of the other society parameters, since in today’s world this dependence looks increasingly pronounced and significant. As a result, the importance of the first level is growing, which is the consequence of rapid development of new technologies and the rising role of nonviolent measures in international relations.

The authors stress that the system of military security permeates the entire social system and is present to some degree in most of its elements. At the same time, its manifestations differ from level to level. The level where it is the least vivid is the first substantive one; the second level, the conceptual and coordinating one, is characterized by a more graphic representation of the system, and level three, the military executive level proper, displays the most specific form of the system.

Without any doubt, all the three levels are responsible for implementing the concept of military security, and for solving certain problems in its realization that correspond to the given level. However, the degree and form of responsibility is different on each level. The heaviest responsibility lies on the elements of the second level that work out the concept of military security, the program of its realization, and coordinates the whole work to provide security. One can say that the state level is responsible for correct and timely naming of objectives and setting tasks in the area under examination.

The inalienable part of the system of military security and, therefore, of military security itself, is the capability of ensuring military security. Occasionally, military security is presented as a sum of instances of public activity, acts by state institutions, social groups, and individuals to neutralize actual and potential military threats, and also as a sum of institutions effecting this activity. This is what constitutes the system of ensuring the military security of the social system.

As has been said before, the system of military security is a complex comprehensive entity that cannot be reduced to a sum of power agencies of the state, but requires close attention on the part of its major institutions, society as a whole, and their vigorous and constant participation in addressing the problems in this area. The system of military security is determined by the parameters of the state and its attention to the problems of the military sphere (i.e. it cannot do without quality armed forces).

Under the current conditions of world globalization, the only chance to really minimize military threats and dangers for the country and society is active and purposeful dealing with the issues of military security. Qualitative and quantitative parameters of military security are determined primarily by military dangers and threats.18 The presence of military dangers and threats to Russia’s vital interests and relations has always been and will remain the grounds for the military force of the state existence and its employment to protect these interests.

Many of the threats emerging within various components of national security directly affect the condition of the state’s military security.

Military danger is a state of the military and political situation characterized by a combination of factors that, given certain geopolitical, military strategic, sociopolitical, and economic conditions, can result in an armed conflict or war. It is determined by the presence of substantial contradictions between the rival parties, and also intention to resort to military force for settling those. Military danger can take the form of challenge, risk, or threat.

A military threat19 is viewed as the kind of military and political situation that is fraught with a potential military conflict between rival parties or use of military force. It is characterized (its main factors are) by the presence of unset-tied contradictions between the parties (states, alliances), and the political intention and will in at least one of those to settle them by means of military force. Ability of the military force to cope with settling interstate contradictions is conditioned by the armaments, combat equipment, organization, social composition morale of the personnel, level of military theory development, and unified command and control of troop formations of the state’s military organization.

Nowadays, we are witnessing a trend of military dangers and threats being shifted toward the information space and internal sphere of the Russian Federation. The current events in the Middle East, in North Africa and obviously also in Ukraine show graphically that despite the decreasing probability of a large-scale war being unleashed against the Russian Federation, in some sectors military dangers for Russia are on the up.

The Military Doctrine approved in December 2014 contains a detailed list of the main external military dangers the Russian Federation is facing today.

They are:

  • The buildup of NATO power potential and giving the bloc global functions performed in contravention of the norms of international law, moving the military infrastructure of NATO member states closer to the borders of the Russian Federation, including by means of further expansion of the bloc.
  • Deployment (buildup) of military contingents of foreign states (groups of states) in the territories of states contiguous to the Russian Federation and its allies, and also in adjacent water areas, including for the purpose of political and military pressure on the Russian Federation.
  • Creation and deployment of strategic antimissile defense systems that undermine global stability and disrupt the established alignment of forces in the nuclear missile area, implementation of the prompt global strike concept, intention to station weapons in outer space, and also deployment of strategic nonnuclear systems of high-precision weapons.
  • Territorial claims to the Russian Federation and its allies, interference in their internal affairs.
  • Use of military force in the territories of states contiguous to the Russian Federation and its allies, in contravention of the UNO Charter and other norms of international law.
  • Presence (emergence) of hotbeds and escalation of armed conflicts in the territories of states contiguous to the Russian Federation and its allies.
  • The growing threat of global extremism (terrorism) and its new manifestations in conditions of inadequate international antiterrorist cooperation, a real threat of terrorist acts involving radioactive and toxic chemical agents, an increasing scale of international organized crime, above all illegal turnover of weapons and narcotics.
  • Use of information and communication technologies to military and political ends in order to do things running counter to international law, directed against the sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity of states and constituting a threat to international peace, security, global and regional stability.
  • Setting up in states contiguous to the Russian Federation regimes, including as a result of overthrowing legitimate bodies of state power, whose policies threaten the interests of the Russian Federation.
  • Subversive activity by secret services and organizations of foreign states and their coalitions against the Russian Federation.

It has to be borne in mind that the new Military Doctrine also lists the chief internal military dangers for the Russian Federation.

These include:

  • Activities aimed at violent change of the constitutional system in the Russian Federation, destabilization of the internal political and social situation in the country, disorganization of the work of state governance bodies, important state and military assets, and the information infrastructure of the Russian Federation.
  • Activities by terrorist organizations and individuals aimed at undermining the sovereignty, and eroding the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
  • Activities to make informational impact on the population, above all the younger people, with a view to undermining the historical, spiritual, and patriotic traditions in the area of the country’s defense.
  • Encouraging interethnic and social tension and extremism, fomenting ethnic and religious hatred or enmity.

The authors believe it expedient to emphasize specifically that the growing internal contradictions, and inability of the country’s leadership to take efficient measures to settle these contradictions, internal threats tend to increase. Russia’s experience at the new stage in its development suggests that the worst danger to the Russian state comes from its internal threats. Continuous conservation of internal threats without an efficient economic policy makes the country more vulnerable to external threats.

The Military Doctrine officially names the main military threats to the Russian Federation. They are:

  • the sharp deterioration of the military and political situation (interstate relations) and creation of conditions for using military force;
  • hampering the work of state governance and military command and control systems in the Russian Federation, faulty functioning of its strategic nuclear forces, missile attack warning systems, monitoring outer space, storage facilities for nuclear ammunition, nuclear power plants, assets of nuclear, chemical, pharmaceutical, and medical industries and other potentially hazardous installations;
  • formation and training of illicit armed groups, their activity in the territory of the Russian Federation or in the territories of its allies;
  • display of military force in the course of exercises in the territories of states contiguous to the Russian Federation and its allies;
  • stepping up activity by the armed forces of some states (groups of states) involving partial or general mobilization, and switchover of the bodies of state governance and military command and control in those states to the wartime work mode.

The sources of the threats listed above can be individual states and organized groups of people; negative developments in economics, politics, social, spiritual, information, and other spheres; imperfect systems of governance and civic society; sociopolitical polarization and criminalization of society; organized crime, terrorism, worsening of international relations, and so on.

The nature of military dangers and military threats in the new conditions of world globalization is undergoing considerable change, which is to be considered when specifying the role and place of the RF Armed Forces in ensuring the military security of the state. At the current stage of globalization development the existing military dangers and prognosticated military threats to Russia’s military security are multifaceted and interpenetrative. In the long term, threats to military security will assume a comprehensive nature of new-type warfare (hybrid). The events unfolding in Ukraine are proof of that.

Lately, the area of U.S. hegemony has been shrinking relentlessly. The Americans can preserve their global domination by means of unleashing new armed conflicts varying in scale and intensity. They use the events in Ukraine to foment tension in Europe and to enhance their might. To this end, the Americans are using not so much the armed forces as information, financial, cognitive, and other new-type warfare technologies (of a hybrid nature) intended to weaken the planned victim to a maximum degree and disorient its leadership.

The decisive role in new-type warfare belongs to competent combination of financial, information, and cognitive technologies. In the finances area, the U.S. possesses a strategic advantage thanks to its ability to issue banknotes of world currencies and carry out monetary attacks against the national economy of any state. Informationwise, the U.S. is the unchallenged master of the world electronic media space, dominating in the global movie and television market, and controlling global communication networks. Combining monetary aggression in economics and information brainwashing of the public, the U.S. can manipulate the behavior motivation of national ruling elites. The key role there is played by cognitive weapons – infecting the minds of national leaders with the false understanding of the essence of the current events and interpreting the latter in a way that suits U.S. aggression.

The secret of the spectacular effectiveness of American actions could hardly be more trivial – perfidy, meanness, and deception. The immediate effect of these actions engenders euphoria in U.S. geopoliticians who are salivating in anticipation of the imminent victory, which makes them much too self-confident and very dangerous.

Today’s process of reconfiguring the system of international relations occurs against the background of the U.S. leadership’s desire to ensure the achievement of their political and economic goals by threatening use of military force or its direct employment. The desire of the United States to maintain its leadership with an emphasis on violent methods of settling international problems is enshrined in the new U.S.A. 2015 National Security Strategy20 which points out that the U.S. national interests should be based on the absolute truth that America must be the leader. Moreover, in every sphere of U.S. activity the United States should lead from the position of strength. For the first time on record, this Strategy states three times that Russia is the main source of military threats and an aggressor. It also says that the United States will continue to pressurize Russia by imposing sanctions and other measures. The phrase other measures implies clandestine operations by secret services, which are to undermine stability inside Russia, provoke hostilities along the perimeter of its borders and involve Russia, as well as entire Europe, in these wars.

Similar program statements are having a negative impact on global geostrate-gic stability, causing problems in interstate relations, and stimulating a sharp aggravation of the threat of using military force by the United States and its allies.

To implement the program provisions in the approved Strategy the U.S. leadership plans deploying in Europe the surface-to-air cruise missiles for preemptive destruction of Russian arms by nuclear strikes. Besides, the Americans will in the near future implement the operational strategic concept of Prompt Global Strike, which provides for destroying the most important targets critical in terms of hitting time in any place in the world within an hour with hypersonic cruise missiles, and atmospheric and aerial weapons on aerospace vehicles and satellites in low orbits.

In interstate relations, one constantly encounters the desire of the United States and its closest allies to impose their will, approaches, and values on other participants in the international intercourse. For the sake of establishing a unipolar world order the United States is systematically threatening to use military force, breaching the fundamental provisions of the UN Charter, freely using double standards, and interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

Some time ago, the United States passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act which has a section on allocating 60 million dollars for supporting antigovern-ment activity in Russia. Russia’s growing military and economic might is regarded by the leading states of the West, above all the U.S., as a threat to their national security. They are taking practical steps to weaken Russia, to try and oust it from the areas of its traditional influence, especially in the post-Soviet space, and force it to start hostilities against Ukraine and Moldova. Against the background of this struggle, the Americans are striving to unleash a new world war and consolidate their leading position in the world.

In a country where the U.S. leadership intends to implement “democratic” transformations, military dangers typically start worsening and military threats get tougher with antigovernment demos provoked by external and internal factors, which grow into the so-called color revolutions (elements of hybrid wars). In these conditions, information impact from the U.S. media on the country’s ruling elite, its armed forces and population comes to the fore and forms the basis of virtually all measures in new-type warfare (hybrid wars); and it is not only the mass media that are widely used there, but also the opportunities provided by global computer networks (the so-called bloggers, various social networks, and other resources).

Simultaneously, within the framework of allegedly democratic transformations, various means used aim at impacting the population of the state in order to create internal tension (split) in society, including active use of dissenting social groups (radicals, extremists, etc.) to start unrest, and free resort to the opportunities afforded by nongovernmental funds and organizations, both international and internal; wide use of indirect actions.

In this context, the specific features of military threats make it impossible to neutralize a certain threat only by the efforts of the Armed Forces, but will take coordinated actions by all paramilitary and law enforcement agencies of Russia’s military organization, and those of the federal and local authorities, as well as all the public organization entities.

In the matter of addressing issues of military security and military threats among the widely used measures will be indirect actions as a sum of political, diplomatic, financial and economic, international law, religious, culturological, and military capabilities of influencing the geostrategic situation.

In today’s conditions, provision of military security will involve certain measures, forces and assets, such as a sum of norms (legal, ethical, traditional, etc.), resources (natural, intellectual, economic, and other), a relevant methodology (systems, principles, and methods of organizing theoretical and practical activity to ensure military security), techniques of dealing with specific problems, and instruments used (groups of institutions and organizations).

The authors are confident that to preserve its military security Russia has to maintain military potential at the level sufficient for defense in the event of crisis in the immediate vicinity of its state borders. The required level of military security can be achieved if there is a complete set of structural components, whether strictly military or political, diplomatic, economic, moral and psychological, etc. that is formed by purposeful and coordinated efforts of state institutions.

Even though at present the possibility of large-scale aggression being started against Russia is minimal, we still must not neglect measures of ensuring the country’s defensive capability. Russia’s national interests call for unflinching attention to so important a sphere of state politics as military security. The world has not grown any safer, and the potential of military force is still viewed as the most effective factor of world politics.

At the same time, experience shows that military force alone cannot solve all security problems. One can find oneself vulnerable to other unorthodox forms of violence. The state, therefore, has to carry out nonstop a set of measures in every major area of society functioning that ensure improvement of its potential, including in the military one. The armed forces of the state that hopes to preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity ought to be ready to repulse aggression from a potential adversary. Consequently, goal number one for any state is all-round provision of military security.

A vital means of ensuring military security is adoption of exhaustive measures to prevent military threats and military dangers, and peaceful settlement of various interstate contradictions at early stages of their emergence and development. In this connection, an important place among factors that determine military security is given to legal factors. They include the state of legal relations of the parties in the military sphere, international treaties and agreements on issues of disarmament and military activity, efficient control over abidance by contractual liabilities, and also an effective mechanism of preventing and settling crisis situations in the region.

Given that the issues of military security are assuming an increasingly multilateral nature and can no longer be addressed by this country’s Armed Forces alone, it is necessary to practise not only purposeful joint activity by all power structures of the state’s military organization, but also by all entities of the federal and local authorities, and all the public organizations to improve the system of national security.

NOTES:

1. See, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Velikaya shakhmatnaya dosha, Voyenizdat Publishers, Moscow. 2000, p. 72 (translated from English).

2. V. Prilepsky, “Vyzovy globalizatsiyi dlya voyennoy bezopasnosti gosudarstva [Challenges of Globalization to the Military Security of the State],” Problemy bezopasnosti, # 4, 2000, p. 76.

3. Federal Law on Defense. The wording of April 5, 2013, FL-55.

4. Federal Law on Security of December 28, 2010, FL-390.

5. Concept of the RF National Security. Wording from the Presidential Decree 24 of January 10. 2000.

6. National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020. Decree by RF President 537 of May 12, 2009.

7. Military Encyclopedia of RF MOD, 1997.

8. Military Encyclopedic Dictionary of RF MOD, 2007.

9. Bezopasnost’ Yevraziyi 2002 [Security of Eurasia 2002]; encyclopedic dictionary yearbook. Moscow, 2003, p. 66.

10. M.A. Gareyev, “Itogi deyatel’nosti AVN za 2001 god i zadachi na 2002 god [The Results of the Work by the Academy of Military Sciences in 2001 and Tasks for 2002],” Strategich-eskaya stabil’nost’, # 1, 2002, p. 27.

11. Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation. Approved by RF President on December 26, 2014.

12. A.I. Korovyansky and V.I. Lutovinov, Voyennaya bezopasnost’ Rossiyi i yeyo obe-specheniye v sovremennykh usloviyakh [Russia’s Military Security and Ensuring It in Present Conditions], Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Civil Service Press, Moscow, 2008.

13. V.S. Voloshko, Voyennaya politika i voyennaya bezopasnost RF v usloviyakh globalizatsiyi [RF Military Policy and Military Security in Conditions of Globalization], Voyenizdat Publishers, Moscow, 2007.

14. I.I. Tkachev, “Obespecheniye voyennoy bezopasnosti Rossiyi kak sistemnaya problema [Ensuring Military Security of Russia as a System Issue],” Voyennaya mysl’, # 3, 1996.

15. V.S. Voloshko, Op. cit.

16. Decree 1895 by RF President of September 9, 2000 On the Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation.

17. A.I. Korovyansky and VI. Lutovinov, Op. cit.

18. Kategoriyi i terminy sistemy znaniy o voyne i voyennoy bezopasnosti [Categories and Terms in the System of Knowledge about War and Military Security], Moscow, 2000, pp. 21-22.

19. S.A. Tyushkevich, Noviy peredel mira [A New Redivision of the World], Moscow, 2003, pp. 247-248.

20. The USA National Security Strategy. Approved in February 2015.

Translated by Margarita Kvartskhava