On August 11, President Dmitry Medvedev sent a letter to the Duma urging it to revise Russia’s laws on defense. He urged, specifically, that the Russian Armed Forces could be used in operations beyond Russia’s borders for the purposes of countering an attack against Russian Forces or other troops deployed beyond Russia’s borders; to counter or prevent an aggression against another country; to protect Russian citizens abroad; and to combat piracy and ensure safe passage of shipping.  The implications of this law are profoundly negative for the CIS if not for Russia’s international relations as a whole.

BACKGROUND: Medvedev expressly justified this demand for legal revision with a reference to last year’s war against Georgia by admitting that there was no legal basis for that war, or in other words, that in terms of Russian law it was illegal.  Whereas the old law called upon the President to submit a request for military action beyond the borders to the Duma, he did not do so at the time.  Thus the Russian government started a foreign war that violated its own laws with impunity.  Indeed, it received and also generated a public response of tumultuous approval.  The new law therefore aims to provide a retrospective approval for the 2008 war and, as Georgia’s government and analysts pointed out, could be used as a pretext for a another war justified on the grounds of mistreatment of Russians in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, etc. 

But beyond Georgia, this law provides a “legal” basis for the offensive projection of Russian military force beyond Russia’s borders against every state from the Baltic to Central Asia on the selfsame basis of supposedly defending the “honor and dignity” of Russian citizens and culture from discrimination and attack.  This is not surprising.  After all, in the wake of the Russo-Georgian war, Medvedev announced that he would form his foreign policy on five principles.  Among them are principles that give Russia a license for intervening in other states where the Russian “minority’s interests and dignity” are allegedly at risk.  Medvedev also asserted that Russia has privileged interests with countries which he would not define, demonstrating that Russia not only wants to revise borders or intervene in other countries, it also demands a sphere of influence in Eurasia as a whole.

On the same day as he wrote this letter to the Duma, Medvedev wrote a similar letter that he released on his video blog, excoriating the Ukrainian government for not submitting to Russian policy preferences on a host of issues, including the alleged mistreatment of Russians and the Russian language in Ukraine.  Although his immediate motive may have been to lay down a political marker and interfere in Ukraine’s presidential election, the charges here and the situation on the Crimean peninsula or in Ukraine generally can be construed as providing Moscow with a casus belli against Ukraine.  And there are undoubtedly many in the military and political elite who would like to retain the Crimea as a Russian territory.

IMPLICATIONS: Again the importance of this projected new law goes beyond Ukraine and Georgia, although they may be obvious flashpoints.  It certainly includes the Baltic States, which have been the target of repeated Russian attacks on the alleged discrimination against the Russian minority there.  But it also could be deployed quite easily against Central Asian states like Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.  Russia clearly was quite angry about the new Tajik language law that banned the official use of Russian as a medium of interethnic communication.  Russian officials promptly threatened that this could lead to the banning of Tajik migrant workers in Russia or a mutiny at home against President Rakhmonov.  Moscow and its emissaries also like to warn all Central Asian governments, not least Kazakhstan, that they have substantial Russian minorities in their countries and that this could bring about a delicate political situation, the implication being that Moscow will not hesitate, if necessary, to play that card against the ruling regimes in Central Asia.

Now Russia has added a military card to the already formidable roster of instruments of pressure that it can deploy against recalcitrant CIS states. It has long been known that military intervention in the event of a destabilization of any of those states has been a contingency plan of the Russian military.  And Moscow’s success in creating new bases in Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and provisionally in Uzbekistan at Navoi in case of major crises, could facilitate such a decision.  It would not take much imagination to claim that a destabilization of the situation in any of these states places Russians at risk, and subsequently use this as a justification for such an intervention.  After all, key Russian spokesmen such as Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov (who was also Defense Minister in 2001-07) have long claimed that the most serious threat to Russian security would be an attempt to unhinge the constitutional arrangements and domestic status quo in the CIS as a whole.  Now the “legal” means for a military intervention allegedly to defend Russians against such an attack are being developed.  Neither should we forget that Russia has already attacked at least four ex-Soviet republics by means of cyber-strikes to show its displeasure at their domestic policies or to ensure that they follow Russia’s line.  Although its successes have varied, Moscow has launched cyber-strikes against Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, aside from Georgia during last year’s war.  Thus precedents in this regard have already been set.

CONCLUSIONS: Two other decidedly negative implications come out of this new law.  Once again it clearly shows Moscow’s belief that its neighbors are not truly sovereign states.  Sergei Ivanov and numerous other officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have made this point repeatedly in 2003-08,  and Premier Putin said it again on August 27 when he charged that few states today enjoy true sovereignty – although he blamed the U.S. for this.  As long as Moscow professes that its neighbors have a diminished sovereignty as under the Brezhnev doctrine, none of them is truly safe as Moscow can always manufacture grounds for threatening or actually using force against them. Thus, Russia preserves the CIS and Eastern Europe in a state of perpetual tension in its effort to maintain a sphere of influence over these areas and revise the Eurasian status quo. Medvedev now wants the power to conduct war abroad without any shred of accountability to the Duma – or anyone else – on grounds that invoke the justifications of Hitler and Stalin for their wars and conquests 70 years ago.  That justification is that ethnic Russians are Russian citizens wherever they reside, and that the Russian Federation has the legal grounds not only to raise their condition in political fora but to intervene militarily on their behalf because of this alleged citizenship.  This doctrine undermines any notion of these states’ sovereignty since it negates their authority over their own citizens and confers upon Russians the benefits of extra-territoriality, one of the most obnoxious of all colonial powers over subjected peoples.

Secondly, this law represents another major nail in the coffin of Russian democracy.  Medvedev has already acknowledged that the 2008 war with Georgia was illegal.  Henceforth, it will be practically impossible to prevent Moscow form unsheathing the sword any time it wants to.  And we should not think it will only do so abroad.  The government is converting the North Caucasus into a region ruled under martial law by the FSB whose exploits in Chechnya should give us more than pause.  Beyond this, members of the General Staff have already called for using the army at home against dissidents.  Ultimately then, this law is another step in a process that joins state-sanctioned militarism to a growing dictatorship, i.e. a regime that, as Lenin observed, accounts to no one and is ultimately guaranteed by its ability to use force without any legal or institutional constraint at home or abroad.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. The views expressed here do not represent those of the US Army, Defense Department, or the US Government.