Russia’s interests and goals in the information war

25.08.2017

In August, Diplomaatia released Monica M. Ruiz’s analysis on changes in Russian doctrine, which gives a thorough overview on developments during the last ten years, where Russian active influence operations have currently changed to become global.

Ruiz brings out, that Putin confirmed already in 2006 that Russia’s response to conflicts „ must be based on intellectual superiority. They are asymmetrical, less costly. “

To give a perspective on the developments, the author uses the 2013. Gerassimov doctrine, something that has been repeatedly posted by Propastop.

In his annual speech Gerasimov stated, that Russia has fallen behind on the development of „new“ elements of warfare and that so far the content and forms of asymmetrical warfare as a whole has been quite simply condemned, now we require the establishment of a corresponding military academic based comprehensive theory and thorough research in how to accelerate its development.

Ruiz does an analytical look into Russian global interests, bringing forth that, in his speech to the board of the ministry of defence in their session on 27.February 2013, Putin stated the armed forces must due to „the dynamics of the geopolitical situation“ achieve a „new level“ capability within five years, stressing also the development of this capability.

The analysist clearly writes of the beginning of which current Russian activity internally as well as globally had it’s roots, bringing out sections from the 2016 information security doctrine, where the target is set at „the neutralization of informational- psychological activities, including those that are directed towards undermining national defence related historically based and patriotically minded traditions „with the goal being towards development of power, tightening control of the nation’s citizens, highlighting the threat from the west and incitement of nationalism in the population.

In the author’s assessment this tactic must persuade Russian citizens and in their eyes justify new beginnings and steps to be taken, this along with Gerassimov’s statement of the blurring of the line between war and peace allows grey areas and sufficient flexibility in fluency of dispersement in doctrines to justify the use of offensive methods for protection of long-term Russian interests for it’s own sake. This can be seen threateningly in Estonia 2007, Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014 as well as finally (argumentatively) in 2016 with the interference of the USA Presidential elections.

Valeri Gerassimov’s photo is from Wikipedia and its author is the Russian Ministry of Defence (mil.ru)