Agenda item: ‘Security Dialogue’
Theme: ‘Military education and the changing role of military academies’
Mr Chairperson,
Military education in the Russian Federation is at the peak of prestige and guarantees the quality of the knowledge provided. Currently, 35 renowned military universities are engaged in training future lieutenants in 276 specialities.
Education and science are among the main areas of our country’s multilateral military co-operation in the CIS format. Dozens of higher military educational institutions and research organisations of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation take an active part in training personnel for the armed forces of the Commonwealth member States and conduct various military and scientific activities in their interests.
One of the priority areas of our country’s military co-operation within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is the joint training of military personnel and specialists for the armed forces of CSTO member States. To date, joint training has been carried out in four CSTO member States: the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. Every year, about 2,600 servicemen from CSTO member States study at 58 military educational establishments in more than 750 specialities under the joint training system. Over the years of co-operation in the interests of the Organisation, more than 20,000 servicemen have received training in the higher educational establishments of member States.
With a view to resolving pressing problems in the joint training system, the Council of Defence Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of the CSTO Security Councils approved in September 2021 a plan to improve the system of joint training of military personnel, which includes measures aimed at the practical implementation of joint military training.
The CSTO has established and is successfully operating a network of basic training and methodological and research organisations in the field of training personnel and specialists, aimed at disseminating advanced technologies in educational, methodological and scientific activities and providing scientific support for the development of the forces and means of the collective security system.
The status of basic training and methodological organizations of the CSTO has been given to 11 military educational institutions providing training in the following specialties: general military, air defence, missile forces and artillery, military air defence, communications, logistics, information security, electronic warfare, training of personnel of the joint peacekeeping forces, medical and pharmaceutical specialties, as well as personnel responsible for ensuring the national security and defence capacity of member States.
In the light of the threats facing our country, military education in the Russian Federation is constantly being improved. Officer training takes into account both historical experience and new trends in the development of military affairs and global security.
In fulfilment of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation of 2014. The Armed Forces must meet the most modern requirements. In this regard, the educational programme of military universities takes into account the growing negative trends in the world, which are associated with the preconditions formed by the United States and NATO for the activation of current and emergence of new threats to the military security of the Russian Federation, capable of escalating into military conflicts of varying scale and intensity.
When training future specialists for professional military service, the following factors are taken into account.
Firstly, the need for guaranteed deterrence of any potential adversary, including coalition forces, from unleashing military aggression against Russia and/or its allies, which is the most important postulate of ensuring the military security of our state. It is based on the combat capabilities of the national Armed Forces (including nuclear forces) to inflict unacceptable damage on an aggressor under any circumstances.
In accordance with the current doctrinal documents, Russia’s military policy is based on the prevention of a nuclear conflict, as well as any other military conflict, first of all through the priority use of political, diplomatic and other non-military means, as well as through effective deterrence based on the principle of rational sufficiency. The use of military force to protect the national interests of the country and the security of its allies is envisaged only after non-violent measures have been exhausted.
The official position on nuclear deterrence in the current environment is set out in the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence (hereinafter referred to as the Fundamentals), published on 2 June 2020. As a document of strategic planning in the field of ensuring military security, the Fundamentals define the dangers and threats for the neutralisation of which nuclear deterrence is carried out, the main principles and subjects of deterrence and, most importantly, the conditions for a possible transition to the use of nuclear weapons.
We would like to state responsibly that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons exclusively in response to the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation using conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is threatened.
At the same time, at the doctrinal level we deliberately maintain the necessary uncertainty regarding the nature and scope of our possible nuclear response to aggression. A potential aggressor must understand that in the event of an attack on Russia, we reserve the right to act, as it is called, ‘according to the situation’ and to use all our relevant capabilities. Thus, in the Foundations, Russia has outlined ‘red lines’ that we advise no one to cross. If the enemy decides to do so, the response could be truly crushing.
Secondly, the aggressive actions of the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Alliance, which we are witnessing against the background of very alarming changes in their military and doctrinal policy, including its nuclear component.
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Russia, along with China, has been declared a doctrinal adversary of the United States, with all the ensuing consequences. The implementation of the American concept of ‘Dynamic Force Employment’ (Dynamic Force Employment), which provides, including ‘temporary’ deployment and frequent flights in close proximity to the borders of a potential enemy by strategic bomber aircraft, is increasing. The purpose of such measures is to ensure the practice of precision strikes on enemy territory with long-range weapons at a considerable depth. At the same time, the airspace and water areas adjacent to Russian borders are being actively explored by unmanned strike aircraft, as well as by surface and submarine ships of the US Air Force and Navy equipped with long-range precision missiles.
In addition, cyber and outer space have been declared a medium for combat operations. There is a growing threat of US weapons being deployed in space. In addition, the U.S. already has and continues to develop substantial ground-based capabilities to exert kinetic and non-kinetic influence on the satellite constellation of a potential enemy, including the means of the missile warning system.
As a result of the foregoing, the U.S. side at a certain stage risks creating an extremely dangerous illusion about the possibility of using all the above capabilities within the framework of multispheric operations for an integrated ‘disarming’ strike against other nuclear powers, including Russia, with a subsequent attempt to repel by missile defence or to reduce to an acceptable minimum a weakened retaliatory strike. There is a clear and serious threat of undermining strategic stability.
We also cannot ignore the fact that the United States has two major nuclear allies within NATO, and that a number of alliance members continue to make their territory available for U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons, participate in the modernisation of their respective capabilities and practice ‘joint nuclear missions’. In addition, as the bloc expands and moves closer to Russia’s borders, including the deployment of strategic infrastructure on our borders and the conduct of military exercises with an aggressive anti-Russian orientation, we are forced to respond to existing threats to our security.
The above are the cornerstones of military education in the Russian Federation.
Mr Chairman,
The point of no return in the formation of the modern military picture of the world for Russia was the situation in Ukraine. In the post-Soviet period, under outside influence, the country turned into an ethnocratic, nationalist and Russophobic state. Ukraine’s identity and political course were gradually built solely on tough opposition to Russia. Europe, primarily France and Germany, proved unable, or perhaps unwilling, to force the Kiev regime to fulfil the Minsk agreements it had signed.
France and Germany, in particular, were unable, or perhaps unwilling, to force the Kiev regime to fulfil the Minsk agreements it had signed.
Since 2014, the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance have continued to explore the territory of Ukraine in order to create, inter alia, an anti-Russian military bridgehead. Our country has repeatedly stated that Ukraine’s accession to NATO is the last ‘red line’, the crossing of which would entail unpredictable consequences. Just think about it: if Ukraine, as a member of the alliance, tried to resolve by force the issue of the practical implementation of its declared territorial claims to Russia, this would lead to a direct clash between us and NATO. The deployment of the bloc’s military infrastructure on Ukrainian territory has also always been unacceptable to us. At the turn of 2021-2022, we put our concerns on paper and offered NATO countries to dispel them by providing Russia with legal security guarantees. But then the alliance was not interested in building normal relations with our country.
Russia, preventing a military offensive by the AFU and having exhausted other possibilities, responded to the next aggravation of the situation in Donbas and the intensification of aggressive military preparations by using military force. The Special Military Operation (SMO) is being carried out in accordance with Article 51, Part 7 of the UN Charter, with the sanction of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation and in pursuance of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the DNR and LNR ratified by the Federal Assembly on 22 February 2022. Its purpose is to protect people who have been subjected to systematic shelling by the Kyiv regime for eight years.
The situation that has arisen in Europe is a historical precedent – our country is confronting not just a single nationalist regime, but a co-ordinated ‘collective West’ that is instrumentalising Ukraine to wage a new type of hybrid war against Russia. It is not surprising that, given the accumulated combat experience, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are now rightfully in the echelon of the most combat-ready and experienced armies in the world.
Austrian historian Colonel M. Reisner in his book ‘Die Schlacht um Wien 1945’ has convincingly shown, based on documents, that in 1945 the Red Army managed to liberate Vienna with minimal destruction thanks to the high Soviet military art. We believe that the distinguished speaker, General K. Pronhagl, is familiar with this thorough work. We recommend that all students of the military academies of OSCE participating States familiarise themselves with it. Today the Russian Army is learning to liberate cities under new conditions, but the primary goal remains, as before, the maximum possible preservation of civilian lives in accordance with the fundamental provisions of international humanitarian law and common sense. The multifaceted experience gained in the course of a special military operation involving the surgical destruction of the enemy’s military infrastructure is being comprehended and introduced into the educational process and the practice of operational and combat training in our country’s military educational establishments.
Taking into account the experience of the Strategic Defence Forces, the Russian Ministry of Defence is actively organising countermeasures against the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and the performance of demining tasks. In addition, since autumn 2022, the National Centre for the Development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been operating under the Government of the Russian Federation as a key platform for searching and analysing effective AI solutions for business, science and the state. At the same time, the Russian Defence Ministry, being the guarantor of accelerated development of military and dual-use technologies, sets new trends and directions for further progress. The development of artificial intelligence technologies in the coming years will become a key issue of national security and will ensure leadership in the 21st century for the states that accelerate the development and implementation of these technologies.
Mr Chairman,
Even from such a superficial but objective overview, it is obvious that the development of military education in our country is an integral part of strengthening state defence capability and sovereignty. The training of highly qualified personnel capable of operating effectively in the face of the diversity of modern threats is a crucial component of the security of the Russian Federation.
It is also important that, against the background of the complex international situation, Russia’s military co-operation with its allies is aimed at achieving a new level of co-operation in the military sphere and reflects the national interests and joint priorities of States in ensuring security and countering modern challenges and threats.
In conclusion, I would like to quote the German political theorist C. Schmitt: ‘We, in Central Europe, live sous l’oeil des Russes (French: “Under the gaze of the Russians, before the eyes of the Russians”). For a century now, thanks to their psychological acumen, they have seen through our great slogans and our institutions; their vitality is great enough to wield as weapons our knowledge and our technology; their courage (to accept) rationalism and what is opposed to it, their power of orthodoxy in good and evil knows no barriers’ (Carl Schmitt, “Das Zeitalter der Neutralisierungen und Entpolitisierungen”, 1929).
The real meaning of this quote is seen in the warning that the complex thought structures and manipulations so readily used by the states of the ‘collective West’ to justify their aggressive aspirations and Russophobia are not capable of misleading us. Neither are any kind of ‘designations’ that pervert the meaning of a special military operation. Therefore, we can only advise our interlocutors on the FSC to listen to the classics of military thought and common sense.
Thank you for your attention.
