Russia, the Asymmetric Threat to the United States (PDF)

Exploring themes critical to understanding the current world order, this book lays bare the reality of the new Russia that emerged under Vladimir Putin.

Russia holds the world's largest natural gas reserves, the second largest coal and uranium reserves, and the eighth largest oil reserves. Europe is dependent on Russia for 25 percent of its oil and gas. Russia is also positioning itself to play a similar role with respect to China. The key to this strategy is a network of new oil and natural gas pipelines that Russia is in the process of constructing, which will by-pass the problematic Ukraine, Georgia, Poland and the Baltic States in the West, and lock-in the enormous potential of China in the East. Further, as the Western economies including the USA begin themselves to recover, their growing energy dependence will come back into the forefront, and therefore the need to ensure that Russia does not fail in its opening up of new energy resources in the Arctic and Eastern Siberia.

Russia is no longer a superpower, in the Cold War sense of the word, because its military is significantly weaker, and as such is incapable of conducting a regional let alone global war against either the United States or NATO. It is precisely because of its military weakness that Putin has been forced to adopt an asymmetric approach. Thus, the pipeline spigot and the proliferation of missiles and aircraft have become Russia's weapons of choice, along with an ever growing reliance on its strategic nuclear forces to provide it with the necessary deterrent to foreign aggression. In addition, Putin and Medvedev have no interest in an arms race with the United States, it is too costly and detracts from their priority, which is economic reform.

From Putin's perspective, America is in the process of imposing "absolute security" or as Joint Vision 2020 put it: "full spectrum dominance" over the world. As the sole remaining superpower, the United States enjoys a massive strategic imbalance in its favor, which it has used first to contain, but now with the intent to control the world. How? NATO expansion lays the groundwork for a U.S. global missile defense system to contain perceived adversaries, such as Russia, which in turn secures the dominance of America through its Prompt Global Strike (PGS) capability - the ability to strike anywhere on the planet with impunity within 90 minutes of the order being given by The President. Thus, PGS will be to the 21st Century, what British Gun Boat Diplomacy was to the 19th Century. In such a context, Russia is forced to respond asymmetrically.