By EERIK-NIILES KROSS
In modern 21st-century warfare, non-military
approaches — propaganda, and economic, cultural and humanitarian sabotage —
will play a greater role than purely military methods, Russian Armed Forces
chief Valery Gerasimov argued, a year before the Russian occupation of Crimea.
“In a couple of months, even days, a well-functioning
state can be turned into a theater of fierce armed conflict, can be made a
victim of invasion from outside, or can drown in a net of chaos, humanitarian
disaster and civil war,” he wrote.
The purpose of war today is not the physical
destruction of the enemy, but the internal eroding of our readiness, will, and
values.
Through the lens of Russia’s aggression in Crimea, the
invasion of eastern Ukraine, the destabilization of Moldova, the escalating war
in Syria and the refugee crisis, Gerasimov’s doctrine shows Russian activities
over the past two years — both overt and covert, across the Middle East and
Europe — to be part of a single, unified war against the (partially imagined)
“hegemony of the West.”
Gerasimov’s doctrine draws on “reflexive control
theory” — a favorite among Soviet military theorists — and asserts that control
can be established through reflexive, unconscious responses from a target
group. This group is systematically supplied with (dis)information designed
to provoke reactions that are predictable and, to Russia, politically and
strategically desirable.
Before and during its attack on Ukraine, for example,
Russia increased violations of NATO air space. The Kremlin spread stories about
Putin’s readiness to use nuclear weapons, organized large-scale military
exercises on its western borders, and behaved, in every forum, like a militant,
aggressive, and irrational opponent. This was paired with a global information
campaign: “There is no war in Ukraine. Russia is only helping to solve a
crisis.”
This campaign, with its aggressive show of
arms, was designed to make the West reluctant to intervene militarily or give
assistance to Ukraine. By denying the reality of war, Russia allowed the West to
hope that the Kremlin was looking for a way out. Russia hid its real goals
behind the possibility of “finding a diplomatic solution.” And the West
responded as predicted — our leaders sacrificed their negotiating position in
the hope that this was sincere.
In this context, the West’s subsequent
sanctions on Russia are a 21st-century version of the tactical territorial
surrenders to Napoleon in the 19th century and Hitler in the 20th. The use of
sanctions was a tactical loss in that it acknowledged the annexation of Crimea.
These kinds of stop-gap measures degrade Western diplomacy and rob it of
legitimacy.
Full-blown war requires a constant adversary. The
Ukrainian government and Syrian rebels are not Russia’s constant enemies — the
Kremlin’s strategic documents define the country’s main adversaries as the
United States, NATO, and the EU. Russia will only negotiate a solution after it
achieves its aims in Ukraine and Syria, as well as its other openly-declared
strategic goal: to demolish the Western security architecture and rearrange our
existing world order according to its own interests.
To be clear: Success in Ukraine and Syria will not be
defined by military victory in either country. It will be defined by whether or
not America and NATO decide to fight, and whether or not Europe confronts
Russia over its values.
The West has come to see the real scope of Russia’s
hostile activities in recent months, after Russian air raids in Syria forced
new refugees toward Europe. Russia’s best hope of survival, as George Soros
recently argued, is to ensure the EU collapses first.
To understand how Russia advances this goal we have to
grapple with the tenets of “non-linear war,” in which multiple participants —
all changing sides as they go — fight each other in a military environment but
where eventual success is independent of direct military activities. The
architect of this theory is Putin’s adviser, Vladislav Surkov — the same man
Putin tapped to meet U.S. diplomats
in Kaliningrad to “find a solution” to the Ukrainian war and sanctions.
If Russia is fighting a non-linear war, then the
humanitarian disaster in Syria is not just the regrettable side-effect of
Russian military operations. It is part of a larger effort.
In the past month, European officials have said they
believe Russia is “weaponizing” refugees to fuel the crisis in Europe. American
officials admit that “what Russia’s doing is directly enabling ISIL.” This is
because the Islamic State is a perfect tool for creating chaos. If ISIL is
contributing to the destruction of the “U.S. project” in Iraq and driving the
West out of the Middle East, then ISIL is, for Russia, a permissible combatant
in Russia’s war in the region.
For months, Russian state media has
trumped up the likelihood of Europe’s imminent collapse in the face of the
refugee crisis. Russia’s national army of trolls fill social media with these
stories. Right-wing extremists in Europe — whose
ties to Putin and his ideologues are well-documented and enough of a concern to
have warranted an official study by U.S. intelligence agencies — call for the
dissolution of Europe. This is not just “Russian propaganda.” These are
measures the Kremlin considers integral to winning small-scale battles in a
larger geopolitical war.
Russia wants to destroy our core strength:
our confidence in the values that underpin our political systems. European
leaders who look to blame Germany for the refugee crisis, who want to build
walls on their borders, to negotiate separately with Putin, and end the
sanctions in favor of a “new dialogue” — all in the name of their “national
interests” — are demolishing Europe’s unity.
There’s a reason Putin’s theorists are
science fiction authors. Russian GDP equals that of Italy – it should not be an
existential threat to the West. We must shake ourselves free from the Kremlin’s
masterful fiction and confront the truth that we are in an asymmetric war. This
is a war that we can win, and it matters that we do.
We are sleepwalking through the end of our era of
peace. It is time to wake up.
Eerik-Niiles
Kross, a member of the Estonian parliament, is the former head of Estonian
intelligence and an expert on Russian military history and doctrine.
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