Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 117

RUSSIA AS THREAT
50. Parker, 24-25. This analysis is from Yevgeny Satanovsky, the
head of the Near East Institute in Moscow.
51. Michael Kort, The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath
(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2010), 449; see also, Christopher
True, “’Ghost Villages’ Haunt Russian Vote,” Al-Jazeera, 2 March
2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/russianelections/2012/03/20123272311679897.html (accessed 5 November
2014).
52. Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of
Vladimir Putin (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012).
53. Lucas, 53; Gessen, 177-197.
54. Crowley and Shuster, 33.
55. United Press International, “Gorbachev Named Least Popular
Russia Leader,” 2 February 2012, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/
World-News/2012/02/02/Gorbachev-named-least-popular-Russia-leader/UPI-27121328208913/ (accessed 5 November 2014). In
a poll conducted by the Russian state media in early 2012, Mikhail
Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were identified as the two most unpopular
leaders of the past century. By contrast, a respectable 61 percent of
those Russian surveyed described Putin’s policies during his two presidential terms as “generally positive.”
56. Berman, 107.
57. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Russian Question at the End of the
Twentieth Century (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1995).
58. Berman, 108.
59. Alexander Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory (London: Arktos,
2012).
60. James D. Heiser, “The American Empire Should be Destroyed”:
Aleksander Dugin and the Perils of Immanentized Eschatology (Malone,
TX: Repristination Press, 2014), 77.
61. Ibid., 96.
62. Russell, 53.
63. Ukraine government website, http://ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/
(accessed 7 August, 2014). Ethnic Russians compose roughly 17 percent
of the population in Ukraine; Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 164. As
Huntington noted, Belarus “is part of Russia in all but name.” Belarussian
President Alyaksandr Lukashenka once suggested merging his country
with Russia to form a union, though he later moved away from this
position in part because of public snubs from Putin; Lucas, 133-134
and 147. Previously, pro-Moscow candidates have won overwhelming
victories in regional elections in Crimea.
64. Parker, 14-15. In 2009, Russia’s military budget stood at $61
billion which places it below several other nations including the United
States ($663 billion), China ($98.8 billion), Britain ($69.3 billion) and
France ($67.3 billion).
65. Dale R. Herspring, “Is Military Reform in Russia for ‘Real’? Yes,
But…,” in The Russian Military Today and Tomorrow: Essays in Memory
of Marty Fitzgerald, eds. Stephen J. Blank and Richard Weitz (Carlisle
Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, July 2010), 151, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub997.pdf (accessed 5 November
2014); Pavel K. Baev, “Russian Military Perestroika,” Center on the United
States and Europe at Brookings, U.S.–Europe Analysis Series Number
45 (April 29, 2010) 3, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/
papers/2010/4/29%20russia%20military%20baev/0429_russia_military_baev.pdf (accessed 5 November 2014).
66. Graham, 55.
67. Dmitri Trenin, “Russian Perspectives on the Global Elimination
of Nuclear Weapons,” in Unblocking the Road to Zero: Russia and the
United States, ed. Barry Blechman (Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson
Center, 2009), 6.
MILITARY REVIEW  January-February 2015

68. Parker, 17.
69. Federation of American Scientists, Status of World Nuclear
Forces, http://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/ (accessed 5 November 2014). According to the Federation of American Scientists, as of 2014, the total U.S. nuclear arsenal
includes 7,315 warheads of which 1,920 are operational strategic
weapons. For Russia, those figures are 8,000 and 1,600 respectively.
Despite these large figures, they are a substantial reduction from the
peak levels of roughly 32,000 and 45,000 nuclear warheads held
by Washington and Moscow, respectively, during the Cold War;
see also Amy F. Woolf, The New START Treaty: Central Limits and
Key Provisions (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service,
8 April 2014), http://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41219.pdf (accessed
5 November 2014). Since the end of the Cold War, Washington
and Moscow have entered into a number of arms control treaties.
The most recent was New START which was ratified in early 2011.
According to the provisions of the treaty, both the United States
and Russia will reduce their operationally deployed strategic nuclear
weapons to 1,550 warheads.
70. Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of
Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008),
96-97. In 1995, for example, Russian forces mistook a Norwegian
weather rocket for a U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missile which
prompted President Boris Yeltsin to open the ‘nuclear suitcase’ for
the first time in the nuclear age.
71. William Pfaff, “A Real Risk of War,” Chicago Tribune, 6 May
2014, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-05-06/opinion/sns201405061600--tms--wpfafftr--v-a20140506-20140506_1_president-putin-crimea-war (accessed 5 November 2014). Kerry went
on to describe Russians as “thugs” and called the Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov a “liar.”
72. Miguel Francis, “Western Experts Continue to View Russia
Negatively Instead of Being Worried about Muslim Extremism –
Expert,” The Voice of Russia, 28 October 2013, http://voiceofrussia.
com/2013_10_28/Western-experts-continue-to-view-Russia-negatively-instead-of-being-worried-about-Muslim-extremism-expert-9270/ (accessed 4 August 2014).
73. David Paul, “Xi and Putin Playing Dangerous Games to
Mask Domestic Problems,” The Huffington Post, 12 May 2014,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-paul/xi-and-putin-playingdang_b_5307549.html (accessed 5 November 2014).
74. Charles A. Kupchan, “Why Russia Should Join the Atlantic
Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, (May/June 2010): 100-112. Kupchan went
so far as to call for the inclusion of Russia in the NATO alliance. By
doing so, it could revitalize the transatlantic link by making Europe
the stronger geopolitical partner that the United States urgently
seeks, which is important considering how slow the European Union
moves on matters of defense. What is more, if Russia were to join,
it would enable states such as Georgia and Ukraine to join as well
without provoking a crisis with Moscow. The dividing lines and
competition between these states would fade away.
75. Alison Smale and Michael D. Shear, “Russia Is Ousted From
Group of 8 by U.S. and Allies,” The New York Times, 24 March 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/world/europe/obama-russiacrimea.html?_r=0 (accessed 5 November 2014). Russia was ejected
from the G8 in March 2014 as a consequence of its foray into
Crimea.
76. Kupchan, 101.
77. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Great Powers: America and the World
after Bush (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009), 230.
78. Parker, 1.
115