Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for
Confronting the West
Continuity and Innovation in
Moscow’s Exercise of Power

Research Paper
Keir Giles
Russia and Eurasia Programme | March 2016
BEFORE THE US ELECTION
https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/2016-03-russia-new-tools-giles.pdf

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Contents

Summary 2

1. Introduction 4
Context 4
What was new in Crimea? 5

2. Russian ‘Hybrid Warfare’? 6
NATO and hybridity 7
Nothing new 8
‘Hybrid’ viewed from Russia 9

3. The New Russian Army 13
Russia’s military transformation 14
The new Russian soldier 16
Rearmament prospects 17
Implications for neighbours 19
Military intimidation 21
The military outlook 24
The National Defence Control Centre 25

4. The Old Information War 27
Adaptation by trial and error 27
Success or failure? 31
The unimportance of truth 37
Influence – political and economic 40
Consequences 41
Cyber, trolls and bots 44

5. Trigger Points 47
Western responses 49

6. Policy Implications 54
Political 54
Military 55
Strategic communications and media 58
Intelligence and assessment 61
Cyber and information security 62
Deterrence 64

7. Final Word 69

About the Author 70

Acknowledgments 71

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Summary
• In the last two years, Russia has demonstrated its return to an assertive foreign policy by
successful military interventions in Ukraine and Syria. The capabilities it employed to do so
surprised the West, despite being well advertised in advance and their development described in
detail by the Russia-watching community in Western nations.
• The distinctive Russian approach to operations in Ukraine gave rise to an impression among
some observers that its military had employed fundamentally new concepts of armed conflict.
The widespread adoption of phrases such as ‘hybrid warfare’ and ‘Gerasimov doctrine’
reinforced this perception of novelty, and was indicative of a search for ways to conceptualize –
and make sense of – a Russian approach to conflict that the West found at first sight unfamiliar.
• Nevertheless, the techniques and methods displayed by Russia in Ukraine have roots in
traditional Soviet approaches. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia’s military academics have
displayed an unbroken and consistently developing train of thought on the changing nature of
conflict and how to prevail in it, including – but certainly not limited to – the successful
application of military power. As a result, despite modern technological enablers, Russia’s
intentions and actions throughout the Ukraine conflict have been recognizable from previous
decades of study of the threat to the West from the Soviet Union. Today, as in the past, Western
planners and policy-makers must consider and plan not only for the potential threat of military
attack by Russia, but also for the actual threat of Moscow’s ongoing subversion, destabilization
and ‘active measures’.
• Two specific tools for exercising Russian power demand close study: the Armed Forces of the
Russian Federation; and the state’s capacity for information warfare. In both of these fields,
Russia’s capabilities have developed rapidly in recent years to match its persistent intentions.
The most visible demonstration of this has been the unprecedented near-total transformation of
Russia’s armed forces since 2008. This transformation and the accompanying rearmament
programme are continuing, and the Russian military is benefiting from ongoing ‘training’ under
real operational conditions in Ukraine and Syria.
• Russia has now demonstrated both the capacity of its conventional military capabilities and
willingness to use them. The trend of the past 10 years appears set to continue – the more Russia
develops its conventional capability, the more confident and aggressive it will become. Despite
the perception of Russian operations in eastern Ukraine as irregular warfare, it was a large-scale
conventional military cross-border intervention in August 2014 that brought to a halt the
previously successful Ukrainian government offensive, and stabilized the front line close to the
one currently holding under the Minsk agreements.
• This readiness to use military force will only have been heightened by the experience of
campaigning in Syria from October 2015 onwards. The February 2016 Syrian ceasefire
agreement, concluded on Russian terms, in particular confirms for Moscow once again that
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assertive military intervention is an effective means of achieving swift and positive foreign policy
results.
• Russia’s practice of information warfare has also developed rapidly, while still following key
principles that can be traced to Soviet roots. This development has consisted of a series of
adaptations following failed information campaigns by Russia, accompanied by successful
adoption of the internet. Misconceptions about the nature of Russian information campaigns,
and how best to counter them, remain widespread – in particular the notion that successful
countermeasures consist in rebutting obvious disinformation wherever possible. Russian
disinformation campaigns continue to be described in the West as failing due to the
implausibility of Russian narratives. But by applying Western notions of the nature and
importance of truth, this approach measures these campaigns by entirely the wrong criteria, and
fundamentally misunderstands their objectives.
• Russia continues to present itself as being under approaching threat from the West, and is
mobilizing to address that threat. Russia’s security initiatives, even if it views or presents them
as defensive measures, are likely to have severe consequences for its neighbours. Russia’s
growing confidence in pursuing its objectives will make it even harder for the West to protect
itself against Russian assertiveness, without the implementation of measures to resist Russian
information warfare, and without the availability of significant military force to act as an
immediate and present deterrent in the front-line states.
• In short, Russian military interventions and associated information warfare campaigns in the
past two years have not been an anomaly. Instead they are examples of Russia implementing its
long-standing intent to challenge the West now that it feels strong enough to do so. For Western
governments and leaders, an essential first step towards more successful management of the
relationship with Moscow would be to recognize that the West’s values and strategic interests
and those of Russia are fundamentally incompatible.