Troubling Words

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an op-ed piece by Sergei Ivanov, the deputy prime minister and minister of defense of the Russian Federation.

From “Russia Must Be Strong ($)” by Sergei Ivanov…

We have seen a steady trend pointing at a broader scope of use of military force recently, not least because more challenges to national security have emerged. Chief among them is interference in Russia’s internal affairs by foreign states — either directly or through structures that they support — and the attempts of some countries, coalitions and extremist terrorist organizations to develop or gain access to weapons of mass destruction. We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that. Arms and drugs trafficking and other kinds of cross-border criminal activity must be closely watched.

None of these threats shows any sign of abating. Everyone knows that when it comes to war and conflict-prevention, Russia always goes first for political, diplomatic, economic and other nonmilitary means. But maintaining a robust military capability is clearly in our national interests.

The primary task for the armed forces is to prevent conventional and nuclear aggression against Russia. Hence our firm commitment to the principle of pre-emption. We define pre-emption not only as a capability to deliver strikes on terrorist groups but as other measures designed to prevent a threat from emerging long before there is a need to confront it. This is the guiding principle of the profound and comprehensive modernization of our armed forces. The actual level of combat readiness and effectiveness hinges on how successful this upgrade will be.

Most troubling to me: “…We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that.” Taken at face value, this is not unreasonable — it is, in fact, probably something the U.S. would say in response to (for example) a serious threat to take down Mexico’s democracy (if that’s the right thing to call their government). The trouble is that it sounds remarkably like the doublespeak of the Soviet era, and I no longer have must trust left in Putin’s good intentions. So I mentally reword that statement to something like this: “…We don’t like the new governments in the Ukraine, or the Baltics, or the 'stans, and if we feel like it we’re just going to swoop in their with our military and put things back the way they belong.” Kind of like Stalin in the post-WWII era, who used similar justifications for overunning the eastern European states that lay helpless before the Red Army.

Kind of scary, really…