National Defence University
Series 1: Research Publications No. 40

Digital Soviet Union
Juha Kukkola

National Defence University
PL 7, 00861 HELSINKI
FINLAND
Tel. +358 299 800
www.mpkk.fi
ISBN 978-951-25-3131-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-951-25-3132-5 (PDF)
ISSN 2342-9992 (print)
ISSN 2343-0001 (web)

Series 1, No 40

The Finnish Defence Forces

Digital Soviet Union
The Russian national segment of the Internet as a closed
national network shaped by strategic cultural ideas
Juha Kukkola

JUHA KUKKOLADIGITAL SOVIET UNIONThe Russian national segment of the Internet as a closed
national network shaped by strategic cultural ideas

ACADEMIC DISSERTATION
To be presented, with the permission of the Research Council of National Defence
University, for public criticism for the degree of Doctor of Military Sciences inauditorium Itälinnake at the Finnish National Defence University, Santahamina,
Helsinki, on May 27th 2020 at 12:00.

NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITYHELSINKI 2020

MAANPUOLUSTUSKORKEAKOULU
JULKAISUSARJA 1: TUTKIMUKSIA NRO 40
NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITYSERIES 1: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS NO. 40

DIGITAL SOVIET UNIONThe Russian national segment of the Internet as a closed
national network shaped by strategic cultural ideas

JUHA KUKKOLANATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITYHELSINKI 2020

Juha Kukkola: Digital Soviet Union: The Russian national segment of the Internet as a closed
national network shaped by strategic cultural ideas
Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu
Julkaisusarja 1: Tutkimuksia nro 40
Väitöskirja /National Defence University
Series 1: Research Publications No. 40
Doctoral dissertation

Author:Capt. Juha Kukkola

Supervising professor:

Professor Pekka Sivonen
National Defence University

Preliminary examiners:

Professor of Practice Jarno Limnéll, Aalto University
Dr. Olli-Matti Mikkola, Finnish Defence Forces

Official opponents:

DScMil, docent, Lt Col (ret.), Petteri Lalu
Professor of Practice Jarno Limnéll, Aalto University

Recent publications in PDF format: http://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/73990
Cover by: Benjamin Vanha-Majamaa & Mari Ristolainen© Author & National Defence University
ISBN 978-951-25-3131-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-951-25-3132-5 (PDF)
ISSN 2342-9992 (print)
ISSN 2343-0001 (web)Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu
National Defence University
PunaMusta Oy
Tampere 2020

ABSTRACTT

he Russian Federation has declared that it will develop a Russian national segment of Internet which can be disconnected from the global Internet if need
be. This project is related to the wider phenomenon of militarization and fragmentation of the Internet. The Russian national segment of Internet may not only be
used a tool of political control, but as a closed national network it can be used to gaina strategic advantage in cyberspace. The aim of this thesis is to understand why Russia
is creating a national segment of the Internet and how this segment, operating as aclosed national network, could function.
This thesis uses a modified neoclassical realist theoretical framework to argue thatstrategic cultural ideas give Russian military and security elites reason to pursue certain
policies when confronted by an unpredictable and threatening new environment.
States are able to control and shape cyberspace to their advantage using cyber power
and the result of this strategy will be affected by strategic cultural ideas carried by the
epistemic communities. Therefore, these ideas must be analysed in order to understand how and why national segments of the Internet are being developed as real
representations of a theoretical closed national network.
This thesis argues that the ideas of an interstate struggle, digital sovereignty, strategic
deterrence, asymmetric response, information superiority, unified information space,
information-technological warfare, and automated command and control systems
make the policies of the Russian elites reasonable and understandable. The need forpolitical control of the Internet after 2011 and the definite change of the strategic
environment in 2014 required a new strategy and, thus, new ideas were fitted to oldones to provide that strategy. The result has been a project to develop a national
system of systems of information security and defence to defend Russia from information-technological and psychological threats and to possibly gain an advantage overmore technologically advanced adversaries. This system of systems offers flexible,
centralised and hierarchical control of the national segment of the Internet in all thephases of interstate relations. In the information era, it offers a centralized and allseeing way to control the geographically vast Russian state, its society and economy.
The Russian national segment of the Internet is also a manifestation of old Soviet
ideas in a new context and, thus, demonstrates the continuity of historical ideas in
Russian security thinking. Moreover, the system of systems is a Russian version of aclosed national network, which can be used for further studying the strategic-level
phenomena in cyberspace. Finally, this thesis argues for a critical re-evaluation ofsome of the premises of the Western research on Russian cyber strategy.
Keywords: Russian Federation, national segment of the Internet, cyber warfare, strategic culture, neoclassical realismiTIIVISTELMÄ
Digitaalinen Neuvostoliitto - Venäjän kansallinen internetsegmentti suljetun
kansallisen verkon strategiskulttuuristen ideoiden muokkaamana ilmentymänä

V

enäjän federaatio on ilmoittanut kehittävänsä Venäjän kansallisen internetsegmentin, joka voidaan tarvittaessa irrottaa globaalista internetistä. Tämä projekti liittyy laajempaan internetin militarisoitumiseen ja fragmentaatioon. Venäjän kansallinen internetsegmentti ei ole pelkästään sisäinen poliittisen kontrollin väline. Suljettuna kansallisena verkkona sen avulla voidaan saavuttaa strateginen etu kybertilassa. Tämän väitöskirjan tavoitteena on ymmärtää, miksi Venäjä rakentaa kansallista internetsegmenttiä ja miten tämä segmentti ymmärrettynä teoreettisena suljettuna kansallisena verkkona voisi toimia.
Modifioidun neoklassisen realismin teoriakehyksen perustalta voidaan väittää, että
strategiskulttuuriset ideat antavat järjellisen perusteen Venäjän sotilas- ja turvallisuuseliiteille noudattaa määrättyä politiikkaa kohdatessaan ennalta-arvaamattoman ja uhkaavan uuden ympäristön. Teorian mukaan valtiot kykenevät kontrolloimaan ja
muokkaamaan kybertilaa omaksi edukseen käyttämällä kybervoimaa. Tämän strategian lopputulokseen vaikuttavat strategiskulttuuriset ideat, joita kantavat episteemiset
yhteisöt. Näin ollen strategiskulttuurisia ideoita pitää tutkia, jotta ymmärretään, miten
ja miksi kansallisia internetsegmenttejä kehitetään teoreettisten suljettujen kansallistenverkkojen ilmentyminä.
Tämä väitöskirja väittää, että valtioiden välisen kamppailun, digitaalisen suvereniteetin, strategisen pidäkkeen, asymmetrisen vasteen, informaatioylivoiman, yhtenäisen
informaatiotilan, informaatioteknologisen sodankäynnin ja automatisoitujen johtamisjärjestelmien ideat tekevät Venäjän eliittien politiikan järkeenkäyväksi ja ymmärrettäväksi. Tarve kontrolloida internettiä vuoden 2011 jälkeen ja selkeä muutos Venäjän strategisessa ympäristössä vuonna 2014 edellyttivät uutta strategiaa ja näin ollen
uusia ideoita sovitettiin vanhoihin sopivan strategian laatimiseksi. Tuloksena oli projekti kansallinen informaatioturvallisuuden ja -puolustuksen järjestelmien järjestelmän
kehittämiseksi Venäjän puolustamiseksi informaatioteknologisilta ja -psykologisilta
uhilta sekä etuaseman hankkimiseksi teknologisesti kehittyneempiin vastustajiin nähden. Järjestelmien järjestelmä tarjoaa joustavan, keskitetyn ja hierarkkisen kontrollinkansallisesta internetsegmentistä kaikissa valtioiden välisten suhteiden vaiheissa. Informaatioaikakaudella se tarjoaa myös keinon kontrolloida Venäjän laajaa valtakuntaa,
yhteiskuntaa ja taloutta keskitetysti ja kaikkinäkevästi. Venäjän kansallinen internetsegmentti on vanhojen neuvostoaikaisten ideoiden ilmentymä uudessa kontekstissa ja
todistaa historiallisten ideoiden jatkuvuutta venäläisessä turvallisuusajattelussa. Lisäksi
järjestelmien järjestelmästä tehtyjä havaintoja voidaan käyttää kybertilan strategisen
tason ilmiöiden jatkotutkimukseen ja läntisen Venäjään kohdistuvan kybertutkimuksen taustaoletusten kriittiseen uudelleen arviointiin.
Avainsanat: Venäjän federaatio, internetin kansallinen segmentti, kybersodankäynti,
strateginen kulttuuri, neoklassinen realismiii

Note on transliteration and translation:

With the exception of some commonly occurring names, Russian words are transliterated according to the Library of Congress system. The titles of documents and specific noteworthy concepts are given in translated form with transliterations. Unlessotherwise indicated all translations are by the author.

iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
A2/AD
AI
AS
ASU
ASAT
BGP
C4ISR
CERT
CI
CII
CIS
CNA
CND
CNE
CSIRT
CSTO
DCO
DIKW
DDoS
DNS
DODIN
EEU
EIP
ESPD
EU
FPE
FSB
FSO
FSTEK
GosSOPKAGRU (G.U.)
GS
IAB
IANA
ICANN
ICT
IESG
IETF
IO
IR
IRR

Anti-Access/Area-Denial
Artificial Intelligence
Autonomous System
Automated System of Command and Control/Management
Anti-Satellite
Border Gateway Protocol
Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and ReconnaissanceComputer Emergency Response Teams
Critical Infrastructure
Critical Information Infrastructure
Commonwealth of Independent States
Computer Network Attack
Computer Network Defence
Computer Network Exploitation
Computer Security Incident Response Teams
Collective Security Treaty Organization
Defensive Cyber Operations
Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy
Distributed Denial of Service attack
Domain Name System
Department of Defence (of the U.S.) Information Networks
Eurasian Economic Union
Unified Information Space
Unified Data Network
European Union
Foreign Policy Elites
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation
The Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation
The Federal Service for Technical and Export Control of
the Russian Federation
Government System for Detecting, Preventing and Eliminating the Effects of Computer Attacks
Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forcedof the Russian Federation
The General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces
Internet Architecture Board
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
Information Communication Technology
Internet Engineering Steering GroupThe Internet Engineering Task Force
Information Operation
International Relations (a school of)Internet Routing Registry
iv

IoT
IXP
ISOC
ISP
ITU
IW
KGB
LEO
LPWAN
MFA
MGU
MGIMO
Minkomsviaz’
MPLS
MOD
MTSS
MVD
NATO
NDMC
NGO
NCR
NCW
NKTsKI
NOC
NSUD
NTIA
OATsSS
OCO
OPK
ORI
OSCE
PLC
POTS
RFC
RFP
RIR
RKTsKIRMA
Roskomnadzor
SCADA
SCO
SDN
SOC
SORM

Internet of Things
Internet Exchange Point
Internet SocietyInternet Service Provider
International Telecommunications Union
Information Warfare
Committee for State Security
Low-Earth Orbit
Low Power Wide Area Networks
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Moscow State University
Moscow State Institute of International Relations
Ministry of Digital Development, Communications andMass Media of Russian Federation
Multiprotocol Label Switching
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
Multiservice Transport Network
The Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
National Defence Management Centre
Non-Governmental Organization
Neoclassical Realism
Network Centric Warfare
National Coordination Centre of Computer Incidents
Network Operation Centre
National System of Information Management
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Integrated Automated Digital Communication System
Offensive Cyber Operations
The Defence-Industrial Complex
Register of Information Dissemination Organizers
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
Programmable Logic Controllers
Plain Old Telephone Networks
Request for Comments
Russian Foreign Policy
Regional Internet registries
Regional Coordination Centres of Computer Incidents
Revolution in Military Affairs
Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom,
Information Technologies and Mass Communications of
the Russian Federation
Supervisory control and data acquisition systems
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Software Defined Network
Security Operation Centre
System (of technical means) for Operative Investigative
Activities
v

SIW
SVR
TCP/IPTLD
TsMUSSOPTTsI
UN GGE
WCIT
WTO

Strategic Information Warfare
Foreign Intelligence Service
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
Top-Level Domain
Centre for Monitoring and Managing Public Communication Networks
Technical Centre Internet
UN Group of Governmental Experts on Information Security
World Conference on International Telecommunications
World Trade Organizationvi

KEY CONCEPTS

T

he key concepts used in this thesis are presented and briefly explained below
to assist the readability of the thesis. The formulations given below are necessarily brief and explicit. The contested nature of some of the concepts is
acknowledged and thus the references given below indicate the Chapter where theconcepts are introduced from previous studies, defined or derived.
Closed national network. A state-controlled segment of the Internet that can betechnically disconnected from the global Internet. Chapter 3.
Cybernetics or kibernetika. A science based on studying control and communication in complex systems, i.e. goal-directed machines, living organisms, and society.
Chapters 3 & 4.
Cyberspace. A man-made and governed global domain within the information environment whose distinct and unique character is framed by the use of electronics andthe electromagnetic spectrum to create, store, modify, exchange, and exploit information via interdependent and interconnected networks using information-communication technologies. The Russian concept of information space includes the information infrastructure, systems, information as well as the users and their interaction.
Chapter 3 & 5.
Cyber power. An ability that empowers an actor to influence others in or throughcyberspace and to control and shape cyberspace to its advantage according to its preferences. The Russian concept of cyber power is an abstract idea based on control ofsystems and information, effectiveness, efficiency and resilience, and measurable material and human potential. Chapter 3 & 5.
Cyber resilience. The ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt toadverse internal and external conditions of systems that include cyber resources. The
Russian concept consists of the ability of communication systems and networks tooperate according to specifications under internal and external disturbances and toreturn to their initial state. Chapter 3 & 6.
Cyber security and defence. The former refers to measures to protect computer
systems, networks, and information from intentional or unintentional harm. The latter refers either to protective systems or functions explicitly designed against malicious attacks or to defensive military actions in cyberspace. Chapter 3.
Cyber warfare. The use of force based on cyber power in or through cyberspace witha coercive intent to make political gains in the context of the continuum of interstate
relations. The Russian concept of information-technological warfare includes cyberor computer warfare. Chapter 3 & 5.
Cyber strategy. Ways to use means based on power to produce effects in or throughcyberspace for some end. These ends, ways, means and power derive their characteristics from cyberspace but might have effects outside it. The Russian understandingvii

of issues related to cyber strategy are incorporated in the wider concept of strategicplanning and information security. Chapter 3 & 5.
Cyber asymmetry. A disproportional and exploitable offensive and defensive advantage of a nation closing its networks over a nation that has kept its national networks open. A related concept is structural cyber asymmetry which is a property ofcyberspace produced by shaping it through technology, governance, norms, and politics. Chapter 3.
Defence and security elites. A group of people making decisions on state policy
and use of force and responses to perceived threats. Chapter 2.
Digital territory. An analytical concept which refers to the material, functional, normative, and political elements of cyberspace. It enables the visualization and mappingof hardware, software, infrastructure, interconnections, information, human resources, protocols, services, policies and norms. Chapter 3.
Epistemic community. A network of individuals or groups sharing values, and principled and causal beliefs with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge
within their domain of expertise and a common policy project. Chapter 2.
Information warfare. Actions aimed at destroying, degrading, and exploiting the information systems and information of adversaries while protecting own systems andinformation. This includes both kinetic and non-kinetic means. The Russian concept
of information warfare has technological and psychological aspects. The latter consists of computer attacks, electronic warfare, electromagnetic attacks, guided kinetic
weapons and exotic weapons. It has a geopolitical, systemic, and operational variations. Chapter 3 & 5.
Internet. A global network of interconnected networks sharing compatible protocols
of communication and enabling the sharing of information and services. Part of cyberspace. Chapter 3.
Internet governance. Policies and administration related to the technology which
are necessary to keep the Internet operational and the norm-building and regulation
related to the relationships and interaction of the users of the Internet. Chapter 3.
National segment of the Internet. A portion of the Internet infrastructure and services which resides on a state’s territory and under its sovereign jurisdiction. A real
representation of a theoretical closed national network. Chapter 5.
Power ministries. A number of federal ministries, services, agencies and directorates
that have armed personnel and militarized formations under their command or are
authorized to use violence to respond to threats to national security. Chapter 4.
RuNet. RuNet refers to a relatively closed, online environment that is based on the
Russian language but also includes a social aspect. It is the sociocultural basis of theRussian segment of the Internet. Chapter 5.

viii

Siloviki. Group of active duty or retired but still influential officers of the ‘power
ministries’. Chapter 4.
Sovereignty. A state’s autonomous and exclusive authority over its territory and arecognized position by other states in the international system. The Russian conceptof sovereignty includes different spheres of sovereignty, for example, economic, technological and information. Chapter 2 & 5.
Strategic cultural ideas. Causal beliefs and sometimes principled beliefs held bypeople representing epistemic communities and, consequently, defence and security
elites about the threat and use of force, and about how the means and ends fit together
in issues concerning state security interests. In this thesis these include the concepts
of interstate struggle, digital sovereignty, strategic deterrence, asymmetric response,
unified information space, information superiority, information-technological warfare, and automated command and control systems. Chapter 2.
Strategic effect. The effects of a military use of force that have a direct relationshipwith policy goals or have political consequences. Conversely, an enabling effect does
not directly achieve the objectives of war. The concept of enabling is sometimes usedinterchangeably with ‘force multiplier’. Chapter 3.
System of systems. A complex system composed of multiple interconnected subsystems able to achieve results beyond the capabilities of the individual subsystems.
The subsystems have their own functions are capable of operating on their own.
Chapter 3.
West/Western. ‘The West’ denotes the United States of America and its political andmilitary allies which were opposed by the Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold
War from the late 1940s until 1989/1991. In the period after the Cold War the Westand Western refer to the United States of America, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, including collective institutions of NATO and the European
Union. It also refers to academic circles writing in English-language journals published by institutions located in the above mentioned countries. Chapter 3.

ix

xTABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5

Background and previous research .................................................................... 1
Research purpose and objectives ..................................................................... 10
Theory, structure and methodology ................................................................ 13
Sources .................................................................................................................. 19
Research limitations and self-reflection .......................................................... 22

2 NEOCLASSICAL REALISM AND STRATEGIC CULTURE .................25
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6

Philosophies of sciences .................................................................................... 25
Realism and constructivism ............................................................................... 31
Neoclassical realism ............................................................................................ 36
Ideas and power .................................................................................................. 40
Strategic culture ................................................................................................... 45
Synthesis ............................................................................................................... 53

3 CYBER CONCEPTS AND CLOSED NATIONAL NETWORK ............57
3.1 A short history of cyber issues.......................................................................... 57
3.2 Cyberspace ........................................................................................................... 60

3.2.1 Previous concepts of cyberspace............................................................................. 60
3.2.2 Wires, protocols and governance ............................................................................ 63
3.2.3 Definition of cyberspace ......................................................................................... 72

3.3 Cyber power ......................................................................................................... 73
3.4 War and warfare .................................................................................................. 79

3.4.1 Cyberwarfare .............................................................................................................. 80
3.4.2 Dialectics of cyber offensive and defence ............................................................. 84
3.4.3 Cyber use of force ..................................................................................................... 86
3.4.4 Cyber strategy ............................................................................................................. 91

3.5 Closed national networks................................................................................... 93
4 HISTORICAL IDEAS ............................................................................... 101
4.1 Russian information warfare and strategic cultural ideas ........................... 101
4.2 The strategic cultural ideas in the period of 1950–2000 ............................ 109

4.2.1 Interstate struggle .................................................................................................... 109
4.2.2 Strategic deterrence ................................................................................................. 120
4.2.3 Asymmetric response .............................................................................................. 126
4.2.4 Kibernetika ............................................................................................................... 132
4.2.5 Information superiority .......................................................................................... 136
4.2.6 Information-technological warfare ....................................................................... 139
4.2.7 Automated command and control systems .......................................................... 142
4.2.8 Unified information space ...................................................................................... 147
4.2.9 Digital sovereignty ................................................................................................... 152

4.3 Summary of historical ideas ............................................................................ 153
5 PUTIN ERA IDEAS .................................................................................. 157
5.1 Strategic planning and the national security documents ............................ 157
5.2 Interstate struggle .............................................................................................. 160
5.3 Strategic deterrence ........................................................................................... 185
xi

5.4 Asymmetric response ....................................................................................... 193
5.5 Digital sovereignty ............................................................................................ 201
5.6 Unified information space ............................................................................... 215
5.7 Information superiority .................................................................................... 228
5.8 Information-technological warfare ................................................................ 236
5.9 Automated command and control systems .................................................. 247
5.10 Cyber power and the life of strategic cultural ideas .................................... 255
6 THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL SEGMENT OF THE INTERNET ........ 263
6.1 The environment............................................................................................... 263

6.1.1 Development of the Russian Internet and the information society ................ 264
6.1.2 Development of the international environment ................................................. 274
6.1.3 Development of cyberspace .................................................................................. 284

6.2 Policies and ideas .............................................................................................. 293

6.2.1 Decision-making elites and institutions................................................................ 294
6.2.2 International treatises and ideas ............................................................................ 307
6.2.3 The early policies and laws of 2000–2011 ........................................................... 316

6.3 The developments of 2012–2019 ................................................................... 321

6.3.1 The laws .................................................................................................................... 322
6.3.2 The strategies ........................................................................................................... 330
6.3.3 The policies .............................................................................................................. 336

6.4 The systems ........................................................................................................ 344

6.4.1 Civilian systems ........................................................................................................ 344
6.4.2 The Military .............................................................................................................. 351

6.5 The system of systems of information security and defence..................... 359
7 CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................... 371
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6

Strategic cultural ideas ...................................................................................... 371
The national segment as a reasonable answer .............................................. 376
Epistemic communities.................................................................................... 387
The segment as a closed national network ................................................... 389
Russian cyber strategy ...................................................................................... 392
Reflections .......................................................................................................... 395

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 399

xii

1
INTRODUCTION
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I comefrom Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of thepast to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty
where we gather. […] We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it
be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.
– John Perry Barlow (1947–2018), Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, February
8, 19961
You should simply always bear in mind that such is the reality created by the Americans. They are the ones who did it. You know that it all began initially, when theInternet first appeared, as a special CIA project. And this is the way it is developing.
– Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (1952–), Media Forum of Independent Local and Regional
Media, April 24th, 20142
We are engaged in a long-term strategic competition with China and Russia. These
States have expanded that competition to include persistent campaigns in and throughcyberspace that pose long-term strategic risk to the Nation as well as to our allies andpartners.
– The United States Department of Defence, Cyber Strategy – Summary 20183
1.1

Background and previous researchT

he dream of a free, or even anarchical, Internet has passed as some states,
great powers among them, are carving out sovereign-territory-based blocks ofcyberspace, and international IT firms are creating ecosystems centred aroundtheir proprietary systems, platforms and ‘terms of service’.4 The multi-stakeholder
governance model of the Internet is increasingly being challenged by a model basedon multilateral state control. The digital markets are being divided by monopolisticcompanies as data itself is being localized, based on the concepts of citizenship andstate jurisdiction. This process has been referred to as the ‘splintering’, ‘fragmentation’or ‘balkanization’ of the Internet.5
1 Barlow, John Perry. A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Davos, Switzerland February 8, 1996

[Online]. Available: https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence [Accessed: 6th August 2018].
2 Kremlin.ru. Media Forum of Independent Local and Regional Media, President of Russia’s Official Web
Portal, April 24, 2014 [English] [Online]. Available: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20858 [Accessed: 13th July 2019].
3 The United States Department of Defence. Cyber Strategy – Summary 2018 [Online]. Available: https://media.defense.gov/2018/Sep/18/2002041658/-1/-1/1/CYBER_STRATEGY_SUMMARY_FINAL.PDF [Accessed: 3rd May 2019].
4 DeNardis, Laura. The Global War for Internet Governance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014;
Musiani, Francesca, Cogburn, Derrick L., DeNardis, Laura and Levinson, Nanette S. (Eds.) The Turn to Infrastructure in Internet Governance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; Milton Mueller. Will the Internet Fragment? Sovereignty, Globalization, and Cyberspace, Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2017.
5 Drake, William J., Cerf, Vinton G. and Kleinwächter, Wolfgang. Future of the Internet Initiative White Paper.

1The reason for the changing character of cyberspace is that it is a domain of humanactivity. Human beings create it and act in and through it. Cyberspace is a man-madeand malleable environment.6 For example, Nazli Choucri and David Clark have described it as “a new arena of human interaction”7 and Jan-Frederik Kramer and Benedict Müller have used the term “cyberization of international relations [IR]” to referto the way cyberspace has become an indistinguishable part of international politics.8
According to scholars such as Martin Libicki and Joseph Nye Jr., states are increasingly interested and required to consider cyberspace as a domain of politics and warfare.9 The regulation and governance of the Internet are thus becoming an issue ofgreat power politics.10 Consequently, what can be controlled and shaped can be converted to power through human action guided by historical ideas.
Already in 2011 Chris Demchak and Peter Dombrowski proposed a concept of‘Cyber Westphalia’ for understanding how states delineated borders and reaffirmed
state sovereignty in cyberspace. They foretold that states succeeding in this project
could wield military cyber power more effectively than those that fail to create necessary laws and organizations. Demchak and Dombrowski were optimistic in that they
saw Western nations having a material and technological advantage in this competition.11 However, there is no reason why the advantage might not go to those states
who are willing to tightly delimit and control their national networks and restrict theflow of information irrespective of technological challenges or economic difficulties.12
Moreover, Patricia Vargas-Leon has argued that the ‘shut-down’ practices of somestates, i.e. the disconnection of mobile and Internet networks in times of domestic

Internet Fragmentation: An Overview. World Economic Forum, January 2016. [Online] Available:
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_FII_Internet_Fragmentation_An_Overview_2016.pdf[Accessed:
9th August 2018].
6 Libicki, Martin. Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar. Santa Monica: RAND, 2009; Sheldon, John B. The Rise ofCyberpower. In Baylis, John, Wirtz, James J. and Gray, Colin S. Strategy in the Contemporary World (4th ed.)Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 301-319; Bryant, William D. International Conflict and Cyberspace
Superiority: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2016.
7 Choucri, Nazli and Clark, David D. Who controls cyberspace? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 69, No.
5 (2013), 21-31, 22. More precisely a domain of politics and interaction. Cf. Choucri, Nazli. Cyberpolitics inInternational Relations. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2012.
8 Kremer, Jan-Fredrik and Müller, Benedikt (eds.) Cyberspace and International Relations: Theory, Prospects
and Challenges. Heidelberg: Springer, 2016, xi.
9 Libicki, Martin C. Cyberspace in Peace and War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2016; Nye, Joseph. The
Future of Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2011. Cf. also Perry, Jake and Costigan, Sean S. (eds.) Cyberspaces
and Global Affairs. Surrey: Ashgate, 2012.
10 Tikk, Eneken and Kerttunen, Mika. Parabasis. Cyber-diplomacy in Stalemate. Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://nupi.brage.unit.no/nupi-xmlui/bitstream/handle/
11250/2569401/NUPI_Report_5_18_Tikk_Kerttunen.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [Accessed: 6th May
2019].
11 Demchak, Chris and Dombrowski, Peter. Rise of the Cybered Westphalian Age. Strategic Studies Quarterly,Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring 2011), 32-61.
12 Kukkola, Juha. Russian Cyber Power and Structural Asymmetry, 13th International Conference on Cyber
Warfare and Security (ICCWS), 8-9 March 2018, Washington DC, USA. Cf. also Kukkola, Juha. Cyber asymmetry – Towards new strategic thinking? In Kukkola, Juha, Ristolainen, Mari and Nikkarila, Juha-Pekka. Game
Changer: Structural Transformation of Cyberspace. Riihimäki: Finnish Defence Research Agency, 2017, 131188.

2disorder, demonstrate that the control over the flow of information is a beneficial
tool in the hands of authoritarian regimes.13
The theoretical musings of Demchak, Dombrovski, Vargas-Leon and others are currently being put into reality by the Russian Federation. It has tried to achieve comprehensive state control over the Internet from the beginning of the third term (2012–2018) of President Vladimir Putin. In 2014 the Russian Security Council declared that
Russia would seek to create the ability to disconnect the Russian Internet from theglobal Internet.14 This declaration was followed by the Information Security Doctrine
in 2016, which stated that Russia would protect its sovereignty in the information
space and develop a national system for the management of the Russian segment of
the Internet.15 In 2017 Russia adopted the Law on Critical Information Infrastructure
which made it mandatory for public and private actors to protect certain critical objects of the Internet residing on Russian territory and to connect these systems to acyber security system controlled by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB).16 The National Program of Digital Economy adopted and complemented in 2017–2018 declared that Russia would achieve ‘digital sovereignty’ in 2020.
Finally, in 2019 president Putin signed the so-called Law on Sovereign Internet, which
will, if fully implemented, create a truly unified, resilient, and secure Russian segmentof the Internet which can be disconnected from the global Internet by the order ofthe government.17 The Digital Economy Program and related laws could, in principle,
great a state-led and controlled digitalized Russian economy and society. As will beshown, this was something already dreamed of by the Soviet era scholars of cybernetics.
In previous research the above described Russian process of taking control of thenational segment of the Internet has been mainly interpreted as a domestic affair andan attempt to ensure authoritarian political control over the Internet. This is the emancipatory view taken by many human rights organizations such as Russian Agora andWestern Freedom House.18 However, there are other views. Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan have researched the birth of the Russian Internet and emphasised the
13 Vargas-Leon, Patricia. Tracking Internet Shutdown Practices: Democracies and Hybrid Regimes. In Musiani,

Francesca, Cogburn, Derrick L., DeNardis, Laura & Levinson, Nanette S. (Eds.) The Turn to Infrastructure inInternet Governance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 167-188.
14 Совет Безопасности РФ. Заседание Совета Безопасности Российской Федерации по вопросу «О противодействии угрозам национальной безопасности Российской Федерации в информационной сфере»1 октября 2014 года [Online]. Available: http://www.scrf.gov.ru/news/allnews/831/ [Accessed: 16th May
2019].
15 Указ Президента РФ от 5 декабря 2016 г. N 646 “Об утверждении доктриныинформационной безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://rulaws.ru/president/Ukaz-Prezidenta-RFot-05.12.2016-N-646/ [Accessed: 21st March 2019].
16 Федеральный закон от 26.07.2017 N 187-ФЗ “О безопасности критической информационной инфраструктуры Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/
cons_doc_LAW_220885/ [Accessed: 21st March 2019].
17 Распоряжение Правительства РФ от 28.07.2017 N 1632-р “Об утверждении программы "Цифровая
экономика Российской Федерации" [Online]. Available: http://static.government.ru/media/files/
9gFM4FHj4PsB79I5v7yLVuPgu4bvR7M0.pdf [Accessed: 16th May 2019]; Федеральный закон от 01.05.2019№ 90-ФЗ “О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон ”О связи” и Федеральный закон ”Об информации, информационных технологиях и о защите информации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_323815/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
18 Агора. Свобода интернета 2018: делегирование репрессий [Online]. Available: https://meduza.io/
static/0001/Свобода-интернета-2018.pdf [Accessed: 1st March 2019]; Freedom House. Freedom in the3role of the security services and the KGB mentality in ‘the taming of the Internet’ andthus the historical continuity in the Russian approach to security issues.19 Another,
historical-cultural view is offered by Julian Nocetti who has argued that the idea ofstate sovereignty has influenced the Russian understanding of the Internet. In thisview, Russia is thus trying to build virtual borders in cyberspace through internal policies and external norm-building diplomacy.20 According to Nocetti, the Russian policy is in principle defensive and considers the Internet as a soft power tool.21 The
importance of the concept of sovereignty was already pointed out by Margarita Jaitnerand Jari Rantapelkonen in 2013 when they argued that “the Russian information policies follow a distinct line of thought and focus, namely on sovereignty and independence in every possible aspect…”22 Moreover, Nocetti’s views on the norm-building
aspect are confirmed by Eneken Tikk and Mika Kerttunen who have traced Russia’s
efforts to push through its version of global Internet governance in the context of theUnited Nations Group of Government Experts on information security (UNGGE).23
Russian policies have also been studied from the viewpoint of the economy and internal security. Carolina Vendil Pallin has described how state control over the independently developed Russian Internet has been achieved through the direct or indirect control of Internet companies by the state since Russian authoritarianism reasserted itself in 2012.24 She has also provided an up-to-date overview of the Russianstate policies related to the Internet.25 Moreover, Katri Pynnöniemi has tracked thedevelopment of the Russian concept of critical infrastructure from the concept ofemergency situations, through critical objects to infrastructure. In her work Pynnöniemi notes that recent development of the concept has focused on cyber vulnerabilities.26 Thus Russia’s policies are not entirely isolated from current Western trends
concerning the protection of ‘critical information infrastructure’, however this is defined.
The above presented research is largely based on the view that the Russian Internet
policy is largely a political, cultural and governance issue. However, since the annex-

World 2018 – Russia. [Online]. Available: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/russia [Accessed: 25th March 2019].
19 Soldatov, Andrei and Borogan, Irina. The Red Web. The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and
The New Online Revolutionaries. New York: Public Affairs, 2015; Soldatov, Andrei. The Taming of the Internet. Russian Social Science Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (January–February 2017), 39-59; Soldatov, Andrei and
Borogan, Irina. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Legacy of the KGB. New
York: Public Affairs, 2010.
20 Nocetti, Julian. Contest and conquest: Russia and global internet governance. International Affairs, Vol. 91,
No. 1 (2015), 111-130.
21 Nocetti, Julian. Cyber Power. In Tsyganov, Andrei P. Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy. London and New York: Routledge, 2018, 182-198.
22 Jaitner, Margarita and Rantapelkonen, Jari. Russian Struggle for Sovereignty in Cyberspace. Tiede ja Ase, Vol.
71 (2013), 64-89, 83.
23 Tikk & Kerttunen 2018.
24 Vendil Pallin, Carolina. Internet control through ownership: the case of Russia. Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 33,
No. 1 (2017), 16-33.
25 Vendil Pallin, Carolina. Russian information security and warfare. In Kanet, Roger E. Routledge Handbookof Russian Security. London and New York: Routledge, 2019, 203-213.
26 Pynnöniemi, Katri (ed.) Russia´s Critical Infrastructures - Vulnerabilities and Possibilities, FIIA Report 35,
2012.

4

ation of Crimea in 2014, the alleged Russian offensive cyber and information operations have produced vast amounts of Western research on Russian views and techniques of information warfare.27 As will be argued in Chapter 4 of this thesis, theseinterpretations are largely based on the works of Mary Fitzgerald and Timothy L.
Thomas. Especially Timothy Thomas has provided the English-speaking audience
with a window into the Russian military strategic thinking through multiple accounts
based on primary sources starting from the 1990s. In his latest text, Thomas argues
that “Russia is motivated by dangers and threats to its information space, whether
they be political, economic, military, diplomatic, or other” and that it continues tosearch for asymmetric means to counter its enemies.28 Dmitry Adamsky has also analysed Russian strategic thinking on information warfare and argued that the information struggle is central to the Russian doctrine and that it is holistic, unified, anduninterrupted in its nature.29 Kier Giles is perhaps one of the most well-known current scholars on Russian information warfare although his ideas are largely based on
Thomas.30 Giles has especially warned about using Western concepts in analysing
Russian thinking. He argues that Russian thinking diverges decidedly from the Western ideas on cyber and information warfare.
The main premise around which Western theories about Russian information warfare
coalesced in 2016–2018 was that the Russians did not use the concept of cyber but
instead differentiated between technological and psychological information warfare.
Moreover, they had somehow devised a holistic, integrated, continuous and centrally
controlled method of strategic-level information warfare to destabilize their opponents, i.e. the West.31 Thus, Vendil Pallin states that Russia “sees information warfare
as an integrated entity, where propaganda, electronic warfare and IT operations are
all used simultaneously.”32 More recently, Katri Pynnöniemi has argued that Russia is
actively defending itself through an asymmetric approach which includes a wide spectrum of information means to prevent and neutralize threats.33 It could thus be argued
that the Russian ‘information offensive’ is seen by Western scholars as a part of thestrategic defence by an actor which is distinctly different from the West. The problem
is that this line of thought has led to serious misconceptions, for example, during theCold War.34 Moreover, ‘holists’ and those emphasizing culturally and ethnically pri-

27 For example, Google Scholar produced 40 hits on “Russian information warfare” between the time range

2000–2013 and 790 between 2014–2019 in 17th November 2019. Cf. Also NATO library guides(http://www.natolibguides.info/library/find/library_pubs).
28 Thomas, Timothy. Russia’s Expanding Cyber Activities: Exerting Civilian Control While Enhancing Military
Reform. In Blank, Stephen J. (ed.) The Russian Military in Contemporary Perspective. Carlisle Barracks, PA.,U.S. Army War College Press, 2019, 491-574.
29 Adamsky, Dmitry (Dima). From Moscow with coercion: Russian deterrence theory and strategic culture,
Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1-2 (2018), 33-60.
30 This is apparent in Giles, Keir. Handbook of Russian Information Warfare. Fellowship monograph 9. Rome:
NATO Defence College, 2016.
31 Giles 2016a; Adamsky 2018; Nocetti 2018; Thomas 2019, Jonsson 2019.
32 Vendil Pallin 2019, 211.
33 Pynnöniemi, Katri. The Asymmetric Approach in Russian Security Strategy: Implications for the Nordic
Countries, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol 31, No. 1 (2019), 154-167.
34 Cf. Garthoff, Raymond L. Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine. Washington D.C.: The
Brookings Institution, 1990; Gray, Colin, S. War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History. New York: Routledge, 2007.

5mordial distinctive features of Russian thinking disregard the fact that Western military theories have adopted holistic ‘complex adaptive systems’ as their primary building block since the early 2000s.35
The importance the Russians put on information as a military strategic issue is reflected in the works by Roger N. Dermott, Jakob W. Kipp and Tor Bukkvoll.36 Theyand others have argued that Russia is deeply interested in Western models of Network
Centric Warfare (NCW) and is constructing its own version of this doctrine. Moreover, Julian Cooper and Andrew Monaghan have pointed out the role of strategic planning in Russian strategy.37 Following their logic, Russia’s Internet policy should beincorporated in its national economic and military planning, which aims to produce
security, economic prosperity, and power. This top-down, centrally state controlled
comprehensive approach to information and technology issues has its roots in theSoviet era political culture, which has been researched by Ilmari Susiluoto, Slava Gerovich and Benjamin Peters. One of their main arguments has been that the Soviet
version of the science of cybernetics heavily influenced the way in which the Soviet
Union tried to build its national networks.38 They implicitly argue that it is possible
for a state to construct its networks according to historical and cultural ideas, and thus
the future of the Internet might not be homogenous. Moreover, in a recent study,
Valeriano, Jensen and Maness have proposed that the United States, Russia and China
have differing cyber strategies and understandings of the use of cyber power, whichmight be the result of differing strategic cultures.39 Thus, cyberspace is what we as
encultured human beings make of it. This logic is compatible with the idea that Russia,
like the Soviet Union before it, is trying to find a culturally and historically bound way
into something called modernity.40
The issues of defence and threat are also present in Martti J. Kari’s doctoral thesis“Russian Strategic Culture in Cyberspace”, written in parallel to this study, in which

35 Cf. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Department of Defence. Planner’s Handbook for Operational Design,January 2011 [Online]. Available: https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pams_hands/
opdesign_hbk.pdf [Accessed: 24th January 2020].
36 McDermott, Roger N. The Transformation of Russia’s Armed Forces. Twenty Lost Years. New York:
Routledge, 2015; Kipp, Jacob W. ‘Smart’ Defense. From New Threats: Future War from a Russian Perspective:
Back to the Future after the War on Terror, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2014), 3662; Bukkvoll, Tor. Iron Cannot Fight – The Role of Technology in Current Russian Military Theory, Journalof Strategic Studies, Vol. 34, No. 5 (2011), 681-706.
37 Cooper, Julian. What If War Comes Tomorrow: Who Russia Prepares for Possible Armed Aggression, RUSI,Whitehall Report 4-16, 2016; Monaghan, Andrew. Power in Modern Russia. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017.
38 Susiluoto, Ilmari. Suuruuden laskuoppi: Venäläisen tietoyhteiskunnan synty ja kehitys [Arithmetic of greatness: The birth and development of the Russian information society]. Juva: WSOY, 2006; Gerovitch, Slava.
From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002; Peters,
Benjamin. How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet. MIT Press: Cambridge,
2016.
39 Valeriano, Brandon, Jensen, Benjamin and Maness, Ryan C. Cyber Strategy: The Evolving Character of Powerand Coercion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
40 Sakwa, Richard. The Soviet collapse: Contradictions and neo-modernisation. Journal of Eurasian Studies,Vol. 4, No. 1 (2013), 65-77; Kivinen, Markku Kivinen and Cox, Terry Cox. Russian Modernisation—A New
Paradigm. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 68, No. 1 (2016), 1-19.

6

Kari uses the concept of strategic culture to explain the Russian cyber threat perception and Russia’s response to cyber threats.41 Kari uses a content-analysis-based
grounded theory to create a “model of Russian cyber threat perception and responseto that threat”. This model is based on computerized analysis of 140 official Russian
government documents. He then argues that central elements of Russian strategic
culture, i.e. “a sense of vulnerability, the concept of permanent war and the narrativeof the besieged fortress, a Clausewitzian belief in the use of force, and a fear of external and internal enemies” can be identified as a list of preferences which guide theRussian cyber threat perception and responses to threats.42 However, Kari’s codingof Russian cyber threat perceptions is based only on official published government
documents, which is a limited view. Moreover, his view of the central paradigm ofRussian strategic culture is based on previous, mainly Western, studies. Additionally,
he does not explain how he has come to choose the elements of the paradigm. This
leads him to argue that the Russian strategic culture in cyberspace revolves aroundthe concept of a ‘besieged fortress’ even though he does not critically analyse theconcept and its historical and contextual roots. Additionally, as Kari conflates strategic preferences with behaviour, i.e. responses to cyber threats, his claim of ‘explaining’
observed behaviour can be considered suspect. Interestingly, although Kari does notstate that he explores the development of threat perceptions and responses, he nevertheless offers such a summary in his conclusions. Here he differs from those suchas Andrei Soldatov, who have placed the start of the Russian ‘taming of the Internet’
around 2012 and attributed it to reasons connected to internal policies.43
A more ‘unorthodox’ and intriguing interpretation of Russian motives has been offered by Mari Ristolainen and Juha-Pekka Nikkarila from the Finnish Defence Research Agency who proposed in a conference paper written in December 2016 that,instead of political objectives, the Russian regime might be, in fact, aiming at achievinga military advantage in cyberspace.44 They referred to Russia with its disconnectedInternet as a ‘closed network nation’, and argued that when its relationship to open
network nations was analysed through the basic elements of combat power, the closed
network nation would indeed have an upper hand. As a research officer from the
National Defence University, I was invited to comment on the paper by Ristolainen
and Nikkarila, after which, during the period of 2017–2019, we have written over adozen articles together, individually or with other contributors on the subject of theRussian national segment of the Internet and its military implications. This multidisciplinary, interdepartmental academic research project has produced two publishedcollections of conference papers titled: Game Changer: Structural Transformation ofCyberspace, and Game Player: Facing the Structural Transformation of Cyberspace
and is still producing further research.45
41 Kari, Martti J. Russian Strategic Culture in Cyberspace Theory of Strategic Culture – a tool to Explain Russia´sCyber Threat Perception and Response to Cyber Threats. JYU Dissertations 122. Jyväskylä, Jyväskylän yliopisto, 2019.
42 Kari 2019, 89.
43 Soldatov 2017.
44 Nikkarila, Juha-Pekka and Ristolainen, Mari. ‘RuNet 2020’ – Deploying traditional elements of combat powerin cyberspace. Presented in the International Conference on Military Communications and Information Systems (ICMCIS), Oulu, Finland, May 15.-16., 2017.
45 Kukkola, Ristolainen & Nikkarila 2017a; Kukkola, Juha, Ristolainen, Mari and Nikkarila, Juha-Pekka. Game
Player. Facing the structural transformation of cyberspace. Finnish Defence Research Agency Publications 11.
Riihimäki: Finnish Defence Research Agency, 2019.

7

In the conference papers we examined Russian policies, laws and the writings of theRussian information security theorists and concluded that Russia was shaping thestrategic-level cyber battlefield to gain an asymmetric advantage through a closed national network. By disconnecting its national segment of the Internet Russia would
gain a disproportionate and exploitable advantage in situational awareness, decisionmaking, and freedom of action.46 As the asymmetry was based on the properties ofcyberspace, I decided to call it structural cyber asymmetry.47 Furthermore, by pursuinga cyber security policy related to an authoritarian state control over the Internet, Ristolainen, Nikkarila and I argued that Russia was shaping the entire nature of the Internet in a way that challenged the way it was governed and perhaps even the wholevalue base of the so-called Western world-order48. We continued our studies by further examining the nature of the Russian segment of the Internet and digital sovereignty, the nature of structural cyber asymmetry, and the ideas behind it, by conducting a mathematical analysis of cyber asymmetry, and even examining how wargaming
could be used to understand how closed national networks worked.49
This thesis and its research aims and objectives are inherently tied to my research with
Ristolainen and Nikkarila. I first started this work as an attempt to solve the riddle of
how the Russian state viewed and used cyber power as a tool of military strategy, but
as time has passed, knowledge has been accumulated, and realities have been established, I decided to concentrate on the phenomena of the closed national network.
We had argued that this kind of state controlled, and disconnected segment of theInternet would provide an asymmetric advantage, but we had not truly asked why Russia was pursuing this kind of network and how it would function. I felt that it was important tounderstand what the reasons behind the policies of the Russian regime were, what has
made the Russian regime to choose those policies, and how a theoretical concept ofa closed national network corresponded to real-life phenomena.
Moreover, throughout our research, Ristolainen, Nikkarila and I have argued that
there has been something elementary missing in the current Western cyber and military strategic research on Russia.50 We mostly based our arguments on the regrettably
scarce use of primary, Russian language sources in that research.51 Additionally, theview of Russia as an aggressive, revisionist troublemaker and antagonist to Western

46 For more on the theoretical background cf. Chapter 3.
47 Kukkola 2017a & 2018a.

48 Cf. Definitions. More precisely the term refers to a contested and admittedly political concept of the post II

World War international political and economic system based on the power of the United States and its allies
and some supposedly universal and modern values such as democracy, human rights, domestic and international rule of law and liberal economics. (Gill, Stephen. Power and Resistance in the New World Order (2nded.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; Kundnani, Hans. What is the Liberal International Order? GMF,
Policy Essay No. 17 (2017) [Online]. Available: http://www.gmfus.org/publications/what-liberal-international-order [Accessed: 15th July 2019]; Stuenkel, Oliver. Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers Are
Remaking Global Order. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016).
49 Kukkola, Ristolainen & Nikkarila 2017 & 2019.
50 This was first claimed by Mari Ristolainen (Ristolainen, Mari. Should ‘RuNet 2020’ be taken seriously? Contradictory views about cyber security between Russia and the West. In Scanlon, Mark and Le-Khac, Nhien-An(eds.) Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ECCWS), Dublin, Ireland,
June 29.-30., 2017, 370-379).
51 A noteworthy exception is Oscar Jonsson whose book on the Russian understanding of war was publishedin November 2019 when this thesis was already under review (Jonsson, Oscar. The Understanding of War.
Blurring the Lines between War and Peace. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2019, 33-34).

8

states and values did not really contribute to a scientifically neutral discussion.52 Furthermore, it seemed that Cold War era mirror-imaging of the enemy did little to further the understanding of how the Russians truly view cyberspace, cyber power, cyber
warfare or strategy.53 There was also the question of the interaction of Western andRussian ideas, that is, who had learned from whom and did it matter?54 Thus, I decided to complement the research on Russian policies with a strategic cultural approach. More precisely, I wanted to investigate what kind of strategic cultural ideas made Russian policies reasonable and how they affected the shaping and control of the Russian national segmentof the Internet in the case of creating a closed national network. I explicitly wanted to concentrate on individual ideas, not culture, as culture is quite a contested and amorphousconcept.55 I especially wanted to analyse as wide as possible a range of primary Russian sources myself, avoiding the ‘idolatry’ and authority-bound approach, which only
repeats ‘self-evident’ truths and offers them as new research. Thus, I also made thedecision to include original sources in this report for others to use and reflect upon,even though the manuscript may at times be demanding to read and somewhat
lengthy.
I also felt that our previous research and my thesis required a robust theoretical basis.
The mere listing of Internet laws, programs and projects was not enough. I wanted tooffer a theoretical explanation for why states choose to shape cyberspace in certain ways and what therole and essence of cyber power is in all of this. Clearly, states are approaching cyberspace
more and more as a sphere of action, interest and security. Cyberspace to me seemed
to be a material and objective reality that state elites understand through various ideas
and shape them accordingly. Thus, the basic theoretical argument is that the strategic
environment in which state elites operate motivates them to behave and legitimize
their actions according to strategic cultural ideas offered by groups of professionals
and specialists, i.e. epistemic communities. By examining these ideas, it is possible tointerpret the reasons for the policies promoted by the state defence and security elites.
Because these understandings and ideas have long roots, it is necessary to examine
how the legacy of the Soviet Union might still be felt in the way the Russian state
approaches the Internet. Moreover, the Russian state policy is so multifaceted andmultidimensional that some kind of systematic synthesis is required to make sense ofit.
Against this background, I have chosen to examine the closed national network, cyberspace, power, warfare, and strategy as theoretical cross-cultural phenomena largely
52 Cf. Chapter 4 and also Jonsson 2019.
53 During the Cold War the Soviet views on the possibility of a nuclear war was a source of confusion anddebate between game-theorists and ‘culturalists’. The Russian and Chinese views on cyber warfare have reignited this discussion and whether there are or are not grounds to claim that the military strategic culture affects
the making of strategy. (Gray, Colin. Soviet nuclear strategy and new military thinking. In Leebaert, Derek andDickinson, Timothy (eds.) Soviet Strategy and the New Military Thinking. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 1992, 28-54; Lindsay, Jon R., Cheung, Tai Ming and Reveron, Derek S. China and Cybersecurity. Espionage, Strategy, and Politics in the Digital Domain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015; Mizokami, Kyle.
How the Pentagon Exaggerated Russia’s Cold War Super Weapons. The National Interest, June 5, 2016
[Online]. Available: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-the-pentagon-exaggerated-russias-coldwar-super-weapons-16468?page=2 [Accessed: 14th July 2019].)54 As shall be argued in the following chapters, whereas Western scholars have usually kept quiet about theirborrowing of Russian ideas, Russians have, to the contrary, developed their ideas in open discussion with Western ideas, although, arguably in the spirit of ‘creative plagiarism’.
55 Cf. Chapter 2.

9based on Western theorizing to be able to offer some comparable and generalizableknowledge. I then investigate a particular Russian understanding of these concepts tooffer a more inclusive, comparable, and comprehensive interpretation of them. Thisapproach provides an understanding on how Russian culture and history guide its
approach to warfare and modernity. Furthermore, I want to take a critical look at how
the Russian cyber policies have been interpreted in the West. Ultimately, I hope toprovide an explanation of why the dream of late John Perry Barlow never materialized
and humankind has yet again managed to transform one sphere of life into a domainof state control and ultimately, war.
1.2

Research purpose and objectives

The aim of this thesis is to understand why Russia is creating a national segment of the Internet andhow this segment, operating as a closed national network could, function. My research problem
has two parts, theoretical and analytical. The theoretical part examines the role ofideas in strategy making, and the related concepts of cyberspace, cyber power, cyber
warfare, cyber strategy, and a closed national network. The analytical part examines
the Russian strategy to control and shape a part of cyberspace into ‘a national segmentof the Internet’ as a real case of a state creating a closed national network. In a question form the research problem is presented as: How do strategic cultural ideas give reason
to the Russian Federation’s strategy to control and shape a part of cyberspace into ‘a national segmentof the Internet’, how does this segment function in a context of conflict and what does it say aboutclosed national networks? By answering this problem, I aim to provide an increased understanding of Russian strategic thinking on cyber issues and its current policies andprovide a case study of a closed national segment that can be adopted for comparative
research on other networks and nations.
I intend to find answers to my research problem’s theoretical and analytical part byanswering six auxiliary research questions or subproblems, which also provide thestructure of the thesis. These are:
A. What is a strategic culture and a strategic environment and how do strategic
cultural ideas come to affect strategic state behaviour?
B. What is cyberspace, cyber power, cyber warfare and cyber strategy and how
do states use cyber power to achieve military ends and political objectives?
C. How is cyberspace shaped by utilizing cyber power and what is a closed national network?
D. What are the Russian strategic cultural ideas of: interstate struggle, digital sovereignty, strategic deterrence, asymmetric response, information superiority,
unified information space, information-technological warfare, and automatedcommand and control systems and how they have developed?
E. How do the strategic environment and strategic cultural ideas provide reasonsfor the Russian strategy of shaping and controlling a part of cyberspace intoa national segment of the Internet?
F. What is the Russian national segment of the Internet and how does it function?

10

These subproblems are informed by four theory-based premises, which are comprehensively explained in Chapters 2 and 3. The first is that the changes in a state’s
strategic environment and strategic cultural ideas affect the way state elites develop
strategies by making some actions reasonable. The second is that cyber power enables
states to shape cyberspace into a closed national network and control it. The third isthat Russia is shaping cyberspace to control a part of it as a national segment of theInternet through a strategy which is reasonable in the context of strategic culturalideas. The fourth premise is that the Russian national segment of the Internet corresponds to the theoretical concept of a closed national network and thus could provide
a strategic advantage. The research purpose and objectives of this thesis are admittedly
informed by a critical view of the current state of Western cyber research on Russia.56
Moreover, they are directed towards building an interpretive understanding and no
causal, positivist explanations are offered in this study. The analytical part of the research problem of this study thus forms a case study of a closed national network.
The case being the Russian national segment of the Internet.57
This thesis’ treatment of the theoretical part of the research problem is based on earlier Western or English-language scholarship. For example, the ideas of Laura DeNardis, Chris Demchak, Martin Libicki, Joseph Nye Jr., Daniel Khuel and David Betz
and Tim Stevens on cyber governance and power are crucial to my own theorizing.58
I hope to add to their knowledge by using their ideas to analyse contemporary andreal manifestations of the Russian thinking on the Internet and its consequences. Thisis justifiable as my research strives to study the same objective and material reality that
Russian officials and scholars are facing.59 Moreover, this thesis is based on earlier
research conducted by myself, Ristolainen and Nikkarila. That research is not duplicated here but it is updated and refined where necessary. When using material fromearlier research I will refer to either Game Changer or Game Player books.60 The theoretical part is therefore an attempt to adapt existing IR theory and cyber security concepts to the study of a new phenomenon, i.e. a closed national network—the nexus
being cyber power and its use by states.

56 By this I mean an emphasis on the study of actual or potential aggressive and offensive Russian behaviour

against Western states in cyberspace in Western academic and policy circles, usually based on English-language
secondary sources. For example cf. Jensen, Benjamin, Valeriano, Brandon and Maness, Ryan. Fancy bears anddigital trolls: Cyber strategy with a Russian twist, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2019), 212-234;
Blank, Stephen. Cyber War and Information War ál la Russe. In Perkovich, George and Levite, Ariel E. (eds.)
Understanding Cyber Conflict: Fourteen Analogies. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 2017, 81-98;
Geers, Kenneth (ed.) Cyber War in Perspective: Russian Aggression against Ukraine. Tallinn: CCDCOE, 2015.
Moreover, cyber security itself is recognized as dependent of the knowledge practices of different communities(Dunn Cavelty, Myriam and Andreas Wenger. Cyber security meets security politics: Complex technology, fragmented politics, and networked science, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 41, No. 1 (2020), 5-32).
57 Cf. George, Alexander L. and Bennett, Andrew. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004; Van Evera, Stephen. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1997; Bennett, Andrew and Elman, Colin. Qualitative Research: Recent Developments in Case Study Methods. Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 9 (2006), 457-458.
58 Cf. Libicki 2009 & 2016; Kuehl, Daniel T. From Cyberspace to Cyberpower - Defining the Problem. In
Kramer, Franklin D., Starr, Stuart H. and Wentz, Larry K. Cyberpower and National Security. Washington,
D.C.: National Defence University Press, 2009, 24-42; Betz, David and Stevens, Tim. Cyberspace and the State:
Toward a Strategy for Cyberpower. Adelphi Series, Vol. 51, No. 424 (2011); Nye 2012; DeNardis 2014; Demchak & Dombrowski 2011.
59 On the philosophical foundations behind this claim Cf. Chapter 2.
60 Kukkola, Ristolainen & Nikkarila 2017 & 2019.

11

The analytical part of this thesis is to a large degree founded on the work done byRaymond Garthoff, Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott, David Glantz, Willian
Odom, Mary Fitzgerald, Timothy Thomas, Julian Cooper, Andrew Monaghan andDmitri Adamsky, who have done a remarkable job in analysing the different elementsof Russian strategic thought. I also refer to the research done by Petteri Lalu, Katri
Pynnöniemi and Pentti Forsström on Russian operational and strategic thought andthus aim to add to the Finnish discussion on Russian military thinking. Moreover,
Slava Gerovich, Benjamin Peters and Ilmari Susiluoto have provided an invaluable
analysis of the Soviet ‘kibernetik’ thinking which I use to contextualize my own historical approach.61
The analytical part concentrates, firstly, on the writings of the Russian civilian andmilitary scholars in the time period from the late 1950s up to 2019, and, secondly, on
the official policies of the Russian defence and security elites in the time period of
2000–2019. The reasons for these limitations are as follows. Firstly, as will be arguedin Chapter 2, strategic cultural ideas are carried by epistemic communities and are
adopted from them by the decision-making elites. Thus, the ideas promoted by thecommunities must be analysed in the period before any visible change in the policiesof the elites. To understand the historical roots of the strategic cultural ideas the timeperiod from the 1950s to the end of the 1990s is chosen as a background timeframe
for analysis because it includes the adoption of cybernetic ideas as the basis of Soviet
science, and the first and second Soviet Military-Technological Revolutions, and the
beginning of the third.62 During this timeframe, the terms still influencing the Russian
language on computers and networks were adopted for official use.63 Additionally,
the Soviet Union was faced with a technology-based arms race in relation to theUnited States64, and the Russian ‘information society’ began to develop which led to
61 Adamsky, Dima. The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in

Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel. Stanford, Caroline: Stanford University Press, 2010; Fitzgerald,
Mary C. Marshal Ogarkov and the New Revolution in Soviet Military Affairs. Alexandria, Virginia: CNA, 1987;
Thomas, Timothy L. Russian Views on Information-Based Warfare. Airpower Journal – Special Edition 1996,
26-35; Lalu, Petteri. Syvää vai pelkästään tiheää: neuvostoliittolaisen ja venäläisen sotataidollisen ajattelun lähtökohdat, kehittyminen, soveltaminen käytäntöön ja nykytilanne. Näkökulmana 1920- ja 1930-luvun syvän
taistelun ja operaation opit [Deep or just dense: Soviet and Russian military thinking, development, applicationin practice and current situation. From the viewpoint of the theory of the 1920s and 1930s deep battle andoperations]. Doctoral thesis. NDU Publication series 1, Department of Tactics, 3/2014. Helsinki: National
Defence University, 2014; Forsström, Pentti. Venäjän sotilasstrategia muutoksessa. Tulkintoja Venäjän sotilasstrategian perusteiden kehityksestä Neuvostoliiton hajoamisen jälkeen. opit [The Russian military strategy underchange. Interpretations on the development of the fundaments of the Russian military strategy after the fall of
the Soviet Union]. Doctoral thesis. NDU Publication series 1, Research Publication No. 32. Helsinki: National
Defence University, 2019; Pynnöniemi 2019a; Gerovitch 2002; Peters 2016; Susiluoto 2006; Cooper 2016;
Monaghan 2017.
62 Sushentsov, Andrei. The Russian Response to the RMA: Military Strategy towards Modern Security Threats.
In Collins, Jeffrey and Futter, Andrew (Eds.) Reassessing the Revolution in Military Affairs: Transformation,
Evolution and Lessons Learned. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2015, 112-131; Gerovitch 2002; Adamsky
2010; Glantz, David M. The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union: A History. Abingdon, Oxon: Frank Cass,
1992; Frank, Willlard, C. and Gillette, Philip S. (Eds.) Soviet Military Doctrine from Lenin to Gorbachev, 19151991. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1992; Kokoshin, Andrei A. Soviet Strategic Thought, 191791. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998; Odom, William E. The Collapse of the Soviet Military.
New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1998; Westad, Odd Arne. The Cold War: A World History.
London: Penguin Random House, 2017.
63 Susiluoto 2006; Peters 2016; Gerovitch, Slava. InterNyet: why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide
computer network. History and Technology Vol. 24, No. 4, (December 2008), 335–350; Gerovitch 2002.
64 Sushentsov 2015; Adamsky, Dima. Through the Looking Glass: The Soviet Military-Technical Revolution
and the American Revolution in Military Affairs. Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2008), 257-294;

12the formative years of the first Information Security Doctrine in 1997–1999.65 The
basic premise is that the strategic cultural ideas analysed in this study were formed
during this period so that the elites could employ them in 2000–2019.
Secondly, the presidency and premiership of Vladimir Putin (2000–) was arguably aclear break from the somewhat chaotic period of Boris Yeltsin.66 It has been the endof the ‘Time of Troubles’ (or smutnoe vremia) after the collapse of the Soviet Union.67
Thirdly, between 2000 and 2019 several changes occurred in the strategic environment in Russia, which could have affected its policies towards cyberspace, and theInternet.68 Fourthly, during the time-period of 2000–2019 the Russian Internet developed rapidly, was ‘tamed’, and, according to some, militarized.69 Consequently, thisperiod offers a good timeframe to analyse how the changing environment has forced
the state security and defence elites to adopt and adapt old ideas to new unknown andpossibly threatening situations.
1.3

Theory, structure and methodology

This thesis belongs to the field of international relations (IR)70 and more precisely tothe multidisciplinary field of Strategic Studies.71 The focus of Strategic Studies is thestudy of the use of force as an instrument of policy from a theoretical and practical

Adamsky 2010; Wolfe, Audra J. Competing with the Soviets. Science, Technology, and the State in the Cold
War America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
65 Thomas 1996; Thomas, Timothy I. Russia’s information warfare structure: Understanding the roles of the
security council, Fapsi, the state technical commission and the military, European Security, Vol. 7, No. 1(Spring1998), 156-172; Heickerö, Roland. Emerging Cyber Threats and Russian Views on Information Warfare
and Information Operations. Stockholm: FOI, 2010; Soldatov & Borogan 2010; Soldatov & Borogan 2015.
66 Sakwa, Richard. Russian Politics and Society (4th ed.) London and New York: Routledge, 2008; Lo, Bobo.
Russia and the New World Disorder. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2015; Myers, Steven Lee.
The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. New York: Vintage Books, 2015; Cadier, David andLight, Margot. Russia’s Foreign Policy: Ideas, Domestic Politics and External Relations. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015.
67 Blank, Stephen J. The Sacred Monster: Russia as a Foreign Policy Actor. In Stephen, Blank J. Perspectives
on Russian Foreign Policy. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), 2012, 25-194 [Online]. Available:
http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1115.pdf [Accessed: 29th October 2018]. ‘Time of Troubles’ is not
used in this thesis as an analytical concept. It refers more to a perception of time and history that actual chronological events. On the concept of ‘smutnoe vremia’ cf. Kåre, Johan Mjør. Smuta: cyclical visions of history incontemporary Russian thought and the question of hegemony. Studies in East European Thought, No 70(2018), 19–40; Petersson, Bo. The eternal great power meets the recurring times of troubles: twin political
myths in contemporary russian politics. European studies, No. 30 (2013), 301-326.
68 Cf. Chapter 6.
69 Soldatov 2017, 39-59; Агора. Россия. Свобода интернета 2016: на военном положении [Online]. Available: https://meduza.io/static/0001/Agora_Report_2017_Internet.pdf [Accessed: 8th August 2018].
70 In this thesis I use the term International Relations to denote the discipline of study of international relations
to separate it from the object of that discipline i.e. international relations. (Cf. Dunne, Tim, Kurki, Milja andSmith, Steven. International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (4th ed.) Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013, v).
71 On Strategic Studies cf. Baylis, John, Wirtz, James J. and Gray, Colin S. Strategy in the Contemporary World(4th ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 1-6; Mahnken, Thomas G. The Future of Strategic Studies.
The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2003), x-xviii.

13

perspective.72 It has a close and somewhat strained relationship with security studies73,
which takes a broader and more critical view on security issues, and to military studies74, which deals with operational and tactical issues, or pedagogical and psychologicalissues. Strategic Studies was established during the Cold War and afterwards it has
faced extensive criticism from multiple directions. It has been accused of being amoral
in its search for the efficient use of force, nuclear force in particularly.75 Additionally,it has been charged of misunderstanding the nature and character of war, of being
state-centric and ethno-centric, of not taking social and cultural forces and historicalchange seriously, and of being generally theoretically barren.76 This criticism has led toa certain amount of self-reflection and infighting between ‘strategists’ but not to theend of Strategic Studies.77 To be clear, Strategic Studies is not a theoretical school andhas not produced explanative or constitutive theories in the social scientific sense.78 It
primarily offers a conceptual framework which is based on the study of historical phenomena.79
I will address the shortcomings of the philosophical and theoretical side of Strategic
Studies in Chapter 2 where I will construct a theoretical framework for this study. In
that Chapter, I will adopt a form of ‘realist analytic pragmatism’ as my philosophicalapproach. Basically, this means that reality exists and can be studied on a case-by-casebasis in its social and historical context and scientific truth, and generalizations are the

72 Jordan, D., Kiras, James D. Lonsdale, David J., Speller, Ian, Tuck, Christopher, Dale, Walton. Understanding

Modern War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 17-22. According to Robert Ayson ”[S]trategic
studies has been focused primarily on the role of armed force in the context of security challenges that arise fromthe nature of the international system of political relations.” (Ayson, Robert. Strategic Studies. In Reus-Smith,
Christian & Snidal, Duncan (2010): The Oxford Handbook of International Relations. Oxford University Press:
Oxford. 558-575, 571).
73 Vennesson, P. Is strategic studies narrow? Critical security and the misunderstood scope of strategy. Journalof Strategic Studies, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2017), 358 - 391; Williams, Paul D. (ed.) Security Studies: An Introduction(2nd ed.) New York: Routledge, 2013; Miller, Benjamin. The Concept of Security: Should it be Redefined? The
Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2001), 13-42; Smith, Steve. The increasing insecurity of security
studies: Conceptualizing security in the last twenty years, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1999,
72-101.
74 On Military Studies Cf. Williams, Alison J., Jenkings, Neil K., Rech, Matthew F. and Woodward, Rachel. The
Routledge Companion to Military Research Methods. New York: Routledge, 2016.
75 Strachan, Hew. The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 41; Vennesson 2017, 359; Mahnken 2003, x.
76 Creveld Van, M. The Transformation of War. New York: The Free Press, 1991; Keegan, J. A History of
Warfare (2nd ed.). London: Pimlico, 2004; Kaldor, Mary. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global
Era (3rd edition). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012; Hammes, T. X. The Sling and the Stone: On War
in the 21st Century. St Paul: Zenith Press, 2006; Smith 1999.
77 Gray, Colin S. Modern Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; Strachan, Hew and Herberg-Rothe,
Andreas. Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009; Mahnken, Thomas
G. and Maiolo Joseph A. Strategic Studies: A Reader, Routledge, New York, 2014; Sloan, Elinor C. Modern
Military Strategy: An introduction. New York: Routledge, 2012; Milevski, Lucas. The Evolution of Modern
Grand Strategic Thought, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016; Strachan 2013; Freedman, Lawrence. The
Revolution in Strategic Affairs. The Adelphi Papers, Vol. 45, No. 379, 2006.
78 Cf. Gray 1999; Freedman, Lawrence. Strategy: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013; Strachan
2013. Caveat to this claim are the game-theoretical and rationalistic models produced by, for example, the
RAND corporation during the Cold war. Cf. Klinger, Janeen M. Social Science and National Security Policy.
Deterrence, Coercion, and Modernization Theories. Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
79 “In this bewildering world, the search for predictive theories to guide strategy has been no more successful
than the search for such theories in other areas of human existence.” (Murray, Williamson, Knox, MacGregor
and Bernstein, Alvin (eds.) The Making of Strategy: Rulers, State, and War. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009, 645).

14

product of the judgement of the scientific community. Then I will introduce the neoclassical realist (NCR) theory of IR which attempts to explain state behaviour throughboth internal and external variables. As the original version is mainly interested in material power and foreign policy, I amend it with the ontological and epistemologicalpremises of the Constructivist theory of IR. I will also add to it my own interpretationof the concept of strategic culture to build a theory that supports the study of ideas
and the shaping of cyberspace by state defence and security elites for military purposes.
Consequently, the theory will legitimize the study of cyber issues in the context ofRussian strategic thought through the writings of scholars, or epistemic communities,
as well as official documents such as strategies, policies and laws and news about real
events. This is important as the Russians do not use terms with a ‘cyber’ prefix inofficial legal or policy level documents and instead use the term ‘information’. As will
be demonstrated in Chapter 4 and 5 this terminological difference does not mean that
the Russians would not be thinking and writing about the same objective reality. Political and intentional use of certain terms are, however, a different issue.
Proceeding from my IR theoretical approach, in Chapter 3, based on previous cybersecurity and warfare scholarship, I will construct definitions for the concepts of cyberspace, cyber power, cyber warfare, cyber strategy, and closed national network as
descriptions of real objects or processes. Thus, the concepts might be understood,
created and used differently by different actors, but still have an objective, independent substance and effects. A nuclear bomb is still a nuclear bomb, and a router is stilla router whatever we might think of them. Most importantly Chapter 3 presents atheory on how cyberspace is shaped through cyber power, how this shaping is a distinct way to use power, and how this way relates to the concept of strategy in thecontext of threats and the use of military force. A closed national network is one of
the results of this kind of use cyber power, and because strategy is informed by strategic cultural ideas, all closed national networks are, by definition, different. Ultimately, Chapters 2 and 3 provide answers to the subproblems from A to C.
Chapter 4 introduces the strategic cultural ideas chosen for analysis in this study. It
uses the concepts defined in Chapter 3 to interpret certain Russian terms or words as
denoting/signifying the same real phenomena.80 The ideas have been chosen because
they appear frequently in the current official and unofficial Russian texts which relate
to issues which Western sources would call cyberspace, cyber power, and cyber warfare. They have also been noted by previous scholars and/or seem to have had temporal persistency in the Russian discourse.81 Thus, through a preliminary reading of
Russian texts and Western research on Russian information and cyber warfare and byobserving ideas related to the Russian discourse on the developing digital society andeconomy, I have chosen a group of ideas that I argue offer a comprehensive understanding of the Russian thinking about cyberspace, power, warfare and strategy. This
process has been admittedly hermeneutical and thus is not free of personal bias orpotentially failed interpretations. The chosen ideas are interstate struggle (protivo-

80 To put it simply, terms signify concepts which indirectly relate to real world objects (Chandler, Daniel. Se-

miotics. The Basics. New York and London: Routledge, 2007, 16-17).
81 On the concept of discourse cf. Milliken, Jennifer. The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A
Critique of Research and Methods. European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1999),225-254.

15

borstvo), digital sovereignty (tsifrovoi suverenitet), strategic deterrence (strategicheskoe sderzhivanie), asymmetric response (asimmetrichnyi otvet), information
superiority (informatsionnoe prevoskhodstvo), information-technological warfare(informatsionno-tekhnicheskaia voina/bor’ba), automated command and control systems (avtomatizirovannaia sistema upravleniia), and unified information space(edinnoe informatsionnoe prostranstvo). I will present the arguments for choosing
these ideas in Chapter 4.
My overall argument is that the above-presented terms have persistent historical meanings attached to them. Their contemporary terms and formulations are consistently
and often used in the texts produced by modern Russian military and civilian scholars
and in official policy documents. It is probable that there exist other causal and principled Russian beliefs82 on cyber issues, but I argue that I have chosen the most influential strategic cultural ones, and I claim to be able to show that the chosen ideas are
persistent and central to interpreting how the Russians understand cyberspace andwarfare in its context. Nevertheless, if my analysis brings forth other important ideas,
I will acknowledge them and incorporate them into my analysis. Moreover, I am awarethat I might miss some ideas altogether because of the way I have chosen my sources
or conducted my analysis. There is also the possibility that the sources I use do notreflect genuine Russian thinking. This is not a problem because I do not strive for adeductive nomological causal explanation.83 Further research may well complement
my study. I also recognize that there has been interaction between Soviet/Russian andforeign (such as Western or Chinese) ideas, but I shall partially set this issue aside as it
would be a study subject of its own. However, I will note the cases where I think that
the Russians have adopted ideas from the outside. This is critical for understanding
how Russian ideas themselves have developed.
Chapter 4 is structured around the analysis of the chosen strategic cultural ideas in the
period of late 1950s up to the year 2000. It is based on an inductive content analysis
in which I interpret the substance of the ideas from previous studies and primary Russian sources.84 The method used to collect the sources in Chapter 4 and 5 is based on
the appearance of particular Cyrillic words, or English-translated versions of them,

82 Causal beliefs are about means and ends—they provide an understanding of the world and guidelines forachieving goals in this context. Principled beliefs consist of values and attitudes describing right and wrong andproscribing appropriate behaviour. (Tannenwald, Nina. Ideas and Explanation: Advancing the Theoretical
Agenda. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 2005), 165–173; Tannenwald, Nina and Wohlforth,
William C. Introduction: The Role of Ideas and the End of the Cold War. Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 7,
No. 2 (Spring 2005), 3–12).
83 D-N law: An explanation is only valid if it invokes a law which covers all the cases of the phenomena to be
explained (Wight, Colin. Philosophy of Social Science and International Relations. In Carlsnaes, Walter, Risse,
Thomas and Simmons, Beth A. (eds.) Handbook of International Relations. London: SAGE Publications, 2005,
23-51, 41-42).
84 Here a content analysis refers to reading sources using the terms related to the strategic cultural ideas as ameans to discover the meanings attached to those terms. The reading involves such an amount of texts produced by certain sources designated as belonging to the subject of the study that no more new meanings arefound, i.e. saturation is achieved. This is not a formal process involving coding or statistics—it is qualitativeand interpretive process. In this thesis a content analysis is a method of interpretation and understanding
through texts to gain as comprehensive understanding of an idea in its historical context as possible.

16

denoting the presence of strategic cultural ideas in primary sources or secondary studies.85 Although this is a crude method for collecting material, the over 1,000 Russian
language sources analysed in this thesis should provide a level of certainty that a necessary limit of saturation has been achieved. During the analysis I provide the historicalcontext for the ideas and provide an overview of the Soviet ‘kibernetik’ thinking fromwhich many of the ideas are derived. I do not strive to achieve a historical analysis—
only a preliminary understanding of the ideas and a proof of their existence and nature
before the 2000s. In both Chapters 4 and 5 I will present short descriptions and biographies of the institutions and writers producing the texts in footnotes, which enables
me to make arguments about the sources of ideas and the relationship between epistemic communities and the elites.
Chapter 5 continues the analysis of strategic cultural ideas in the period of 2000–2019.
This chapter aims to examine what kinds of ideas were present when the Russianpolicy towards cyberspace changed after 2011 and the state began to increase its control over the national segment of the Internet. The analysis is based on an inductive
content analysis, but it analyses a wider group of sources than in Chapter 4. It introduces the Russian concept of strategic planning to help understand the process ofmaking national strategy in Russia and to understand how ideas might end up as partof policies. Accordingly, the highest-level strategic planning documents are analysed inthis chapter to examine the interaction of epistemic communities, ideas, and elites.
After I have analysed the strategic cultural ideas, I present an interpretation of theRussian understanding of cyber power, cyberspace, cyber warfare, and strategy. Thisis an abductive86 exercise in which my theory and concepts meet my interpretation of
Russian ideas. I then summarise the development of strategic cultural ideas and examine the composition and role of epistemic communities related to cyber and information security issues. Chapters 4 and 5 provide answers to subproblem D and provide the basis for answering subproblem E because the interpreted substance of strategic cultural ideas is used in Chapter 6 to analyse how the ideas resonate with Russianpolicies and thus have perhaps provided reasons for adopting them.
Chapter 6 provides answers to the thesis’ subproblems E and F. The Chapter is mostly
based on an exercise of a loose process tracing87 in which I firstly follow the developments in Russia’s strategic environment between 2000 and 2019 to demonstrate that
there was cause for a clear change in the perceptions of the defence and security elites
85 The Cyrillic versions of the words used in the collection of material were: противоборство, цифровой

суверенитет, стратегическое сдерживание, асимметричный ответ, информационное превосходство, информационная техническая война / борьба, автоматизированные системы управления, единое информационное пространство and their derivatives. There are several issues related to the translations of these
Russian words into English and they will be discussed accordingly in the following chapters.
86 In this thesis abduction is understood as interpreting social and material reality though interaction between
existing theories and concepts and data to produce new understanding of a phenomenon. Cf. Chapter 2.
87 “[Process tracing] involves the detailed study of a case to determine whether or not the hypothesized causal
variables were present and/or reached the thresholds specified by the theory being tested; whether they were
temporally linked (and appropriately sequenced) with any hypothesized intervening variables and the changes
in the dependent variable that one is trying to explain; and whether there is evidence that the purported causal
mechanism, and not other factors, actually brought about those changes.” (Ripsman, Norrin M., Taliaferro,
Jeffrey W. and Lobell, Steven E. Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Relations. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2016, 132; Mahoney, James. Process Tracing and Historical Explanation. Security Studies,Vol. 24, No. 2 (2015), 200-218; Tannenwald, Nina. Process Tracing and Security Studies. Security Studies, Vol.
24, No. 2 (2015), 219-227; Waldner, David. Process Tracing and Qualitative Causal Inference. Security Studies,Vol. 24, No. 2 (2015), 239-250).

17

in 2011–2014.88 A new and threatening change in Russia’s international environment
required the ‘fitting’ of new and old strategic cultural ideas to find ways to reasonably
answer the new challenges. This part includes an analysis based on the news, reports,
statistics and previous studies of the development of the Russian Internet, the international system, and cyberspace as real material or social phenomena. Secondly, I will
analyse the international treatises, strategies, policies and laws that have been formedby the Russian government to tackle the new security issues brought forth by thechanges in the strategic environment. I analyse the documents in a chronological order to demonstrate that they were adopted in synchronization with the changes in thestrategic environment. Here official documents are considered to be representative of
the will and beliefs of the elite, although their intentional political use is also noted. I
will also take note of the different actors participating in this process of making andimplementing strategy to better understand how Russian cyber strategy is made. I will
limit myself to official declarations and news from established Russian sources andwill not speculate on Russian offensive capabilities or actors. Thirdly, I will examine
the civilian and military information systems and networks that the Russian regime isbuilding or directing the private sector to build. These are approached as the practicalresults of making strategy and thus they reflect the ideas driving the strategy. I will
use Russian news, reports, statistics, publications of various organizations and militaryjournals as sources representing objective reality, although I retain a critical view ofthe declarations about the developments and the actual state of different systems.
Fourthly, the question of how the national segment as a closed national network could
function is answered through a synthesis of Russian and Western ideas. I will present
a model of the Russian national segment of the Internet as a system of systems of
information security and defence in a continuum of interstate relations in the context
of military threats to understand how a closed national network could function. Thiscross-cultural, theoretical concept aims to make Russian strategic thinking understandable and offers a model or a framework to analyse other national segments.
Moreover, this approach highlights the continuity of Russian thinking and the Soviet
legacy it imposes upon the efforts to digitalize Russia. This is purely an abductive
theoretical construct and it is not offered as a representation of a true object or an
example of genuine Russian thinking. It is however an interpretive model that makes
sense in the context of strategic, Russian, cultural ideas. It also provides a systemic
synthesis of Russian strategic thinking instead of just listing separate laws and programs.
Finally, Chapter 7 provides a summary of the thesis main findings and a conclusion.
The main emphasis is on demonstrating how the strategic cultural ideas and Russian
88 The research on the influence of epistemic communities starts by discovering some interesting policy change

in the past. It then backtracks to study what kinds of communities had corresponding or competitive ideas or
subcultures before the policy change was initiated. External events and decision-makers, as well as interpretations of and initial reactions to them are examined to understand what the policy change was a reaction to.
Then, the way in which epistemic communities package their ideas, i.e. develop statements, is studied and how
different statements compete on public forums, including media. This debate might take place long before theelites discover they have a need for a new policy. After that, the process of how the elites choose from thestatements or subcultures available is examined through policy documents and official statements by the elite.
The actual interaction between communities and elites might be opaque, particularly in autocracies. Consequently, the implementation of a chosen policy is observed to see if it corresponds to the ideas one or anotherepistemic community had. (Libel, Tamil. Explaining the security paradigm shift: strategic culture, epistemic
communities, and Israel’s changing national security policy. Defence Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (2016), 137-156).

18

policies have interacted, facilitated by epistemic communities, over time and in a certain strategic environment to produce a national segment of the Internet as a reasonable strategic answer to perceived challenges. I will also provide critical reflections on
this project and its possible future as well as on the nature of closed national networks.
Furthermore, I will discuss the broader issue of the Russian understanding of cyberspace, power, and warfare. I will also reflect upon my own research and possible avenues of further research.
1.4

Sources

I use previous Western scientific-philosophical writings on IR, and neoclassical realist
and constructivist IR theoretical texts, and research on strategic culture and cybersecurity and warfare in Chapters 2 and 3. The material consists mainly of monographs
published by leading scholars and articles published in peer-reviewed IR, political science and Strategic Studies journals.89 I have used article databases such as the EBSCO
Military & Government Collection, JSTOR Arts & Sciences and Taylor & Francis
Strategic, Defence & Security Studies to ensure that I have included a comprehensive
and current scholarship on international relations, strategy, and cyber security issues
as best as possible up to January 2019. I have added some more recent sources as they
appeared during and after the review process of my manuscript from August to December 2019.
The collection and selection of sources in both Chapters 4 and 5 is based on mytheoretical arguments in Chapter 3, according to which there are separate althoughtightly connected epistemic communities discussing Russian policies towards cyberor information space. ‘Tightly’ is a qualitative modifier indicating that many of thepeople who write publicly about cyber or information security issues have similar
backgrounds in military or security services. I have chosen the sources listed below
based on the premise that the members of these communities publish their ideas in agroup of military and other journals, and that either the writers or their products reachthe elites. I have complemented the journals with monographs published by individual writers who I have deemed to be influential, as they have either been referred toin other works or have held important advisory positions in the Russian government.
Because of how I have chosen my source material I will not be able to analyse allcommunities and all ideas. For example, civilian technology experts and academicians
publishing in regional journals are not included. Nevertheless, I claim that the material
allows me to capture some of the most important communities and ideas possibly
influencing the defence and security elites.90 However, it must be kept in mind that
89 The journals include among others Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Security

Studies, International Affairs, Survival, European Security, World Politics, Political Science Quarterly, Contemporary Security Policy, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, International Organization, Connections,
Strategic Analysis, Comparative Strategy, Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, Problems of Post-Communism,
Baltic Defence Review, Journal of Information Warfare, International Studies Quarterly, International Security,
European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Review, among others.
90 My argument is based on Fitzgerald 1987a; Fitzgerald, Mary C. Marshal Ogarkov on Modern War: 19771985. Alexandria, Virginia: CNA, 1987; Thomas, Timothy. Russia – Military strategy: Impacting 21st Century
Reform and Geopolitics. Fort Leavenworth, KS: FMSO, 2015; Thomas, Timothy. Kremlin Kontrol: Russia’s
Political’ Military Reality. Fort Leavenworth, KS: FMSO, 2017; Adamsky 2008 & 2010; Bukkvoll 2011; Nocetti
2015; Marten, Kimberly. The ‘KGB State’ and Russian Political and Foreign Policy Culture, Journal of Slavic
Military Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), 131-151; Bateman, Aaron. The Political Influence of the Russian Security

19not much is known about the theoretical thinking of the Soviet or Russian secretservices, and that knowledge about Soviet strategic thought is still based on testimonies, declassified military journals and interviews.91 My analysis of strategic culturalideas is based on strictly open and public sources.
The Russian language primary source materials for Chapter 4 and 5 were initially chosen by searching through the EastView Russian Military & Security Periodicals database, the Russian eLibrary database and the Electronic Dissertation Library of theRussian State Library using key words deducted from the strategic cultural ideas.92 I
also searched the databases of declassified Cold War era documents of the CIA andsome others for translated secret Soviet material.93 Thus, the source material includes
both the available basic and top-secret versions of the Military Thought journal.94
After analysing the initial findings in the context of previous studies, the databases
were explored again to collect the final set of source material. Lastly, this set of sources
was complemented with sources indicated by the previous research on Russian IW
but not found in the above-mentioned databases. A second set of sources is a collection of monographs which were chosen because they were referred to multiple times
in the journal articles or because their writers have participated as experts on the formulation of Russian cyber/information policy.95 Some articles from these same writers have also been chosen to add more depth and actuality to the quite theoreticalmonographs. Consequently, much of the source material comes from the people associated with the Russian Academy of the Military Sciences and other various military
academies, various military research centres, and State Universities who write in theleading military and information security journals and who have had some connection
Services, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2014), 380-403; Skak, Mette. Russian strategic
culture: the role of today’s chekisty. Contemporary Politics, Vol. 22, No. 3 (2016), 324-341; Soldatov &Borogan, 2010 & 2015; Haslam, Jonathan. Near and Distant Neighbours. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2015; Garthoff, Raymond L. Soviet Leaders and Intelligence: Assessing the American Adversary During theCold War. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015.
91 The most current history of Russian secret services is a proof of this statement. Cf. Haslam 2015.
92 Key words were: кибер*, информацион*, асимметр*, сетев*, сетецентрическ*, автоматиз*, управлени*,противоборств*, суверенитет* and сдерживани*. The main journals used as sources are the Bulletin of the
Academy of Military Sciences (Вестник Академии военных наук), the Military Thought (Военная Мысль),the Red Star (Красная звезда), the Military Industrial Courier (Военно-промышленный курьер), the Nezavisimaia Gazeta - Military Review (Независимая газета - Военное обозрение), the Information wars
(Информационные войны), the Bulletin of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (Вестник
МГИМО) and some others. EastView [Online]. Available: https://www.eastview.com/ [Accessed: 16th July2019]; Electronic Dissertation Library (Russian State Library) [Online]. Available: http://sigla.rsl.ru/
search.jsp?e=Cp1251&c=14i&i18n=ru&s= [Accessed: 5th December 2018]; Научная электронная
библиотека [Online]. Available: https://elibrary.ru/defaultx.asp [Accessed: 16th July 2019].
93 University of Texas Libraries [Online] Available: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/c.php?g=524005&p=
3584595 [Accessed: 5th December 2018]; Central Intelligence Agency Library [Online]. Available:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/historical-collections [Accessed: 5th December 2018]; Wilson Center – Digital Archive [Online]. Available: https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/37/end-of-thecold-war/2 [Accessed: 5th December 2018].
94 Cf. Lalu, Petteri and Kivimäki, Veli-Pekka. The leading Russian Military journal Voennaia mysl’ available in
the EastView digital database. The Finnish National Defence University Department of Warfare Series 3:
Working Papers No. 15, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/173304/
Lalu%26Kivim%C3%A4ki_VoeannaiMysl_database_web.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [Accessed: 28th December 2019].
95 The writers are, among others, I. Ashmanov (И. Ашманов), A. A. Efremov (А.А. Ефремов), A. Kondrat’ev(А. Кондратьев), S. I. Makarenko (С. И. Макаренко), A. V. Manoilo (А.В. Манойло), I. Panarin (И.
Панарин), S. P. Rastorgyev (С.П. Расторгуев), L. V. Savin (Л.В. Савин), A.A. Streltsov (А. А. Стрельцов),and V. N. Tsygichko (В.Н. Цыгичко).

20

to the defence and security elites of the Russian Federation in the time frame of 2000–
2019. The guiding principle in choosing the source material has been saturation—not
a total and comprehensive representation—because no amount of time would beenough to analyse all that the Russians have written about information or cyber security.96 The earliest of these sources are from the 1950s and the most recent from thelate 2019.
A third set of sources are the official government documents, strategies, policies andfederal laws, of the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation.97 The documents havebeen chosen based on their place in the hierarchy of official security documents, theimportance that previous research has given to the documents, and their relation to
the subject of cyber or information security.98 Every strategy, policy and law from theperiod of 2000–2019 concerning the cyber or information security is included in theanalysis.99 Some important documents from the early 2020 have also been included.
Although speeches and statements by foreign and security policy elites could be considered a legitimate source of analysis I shall, nevertheless, omit them almost completely and concentrate on strategies, policies and laws because it is through these thatcyberspace is shaped—through administration, planning, and resource allocation not
so much by the statements Vladimir Putin or people around him.
In Chapter 6 I will almost exclusively use previous studies or news to track the development of the strategic environment of Russia. Previous studies quite often provide
data on both real events and the interpretations of the Russian decision-making eliteof the events. Furthermore, they use sources that complement the ones used in thisstudy, i.e. statements of the elites, media and public opinion and economic data.
Sources on the Russian segment of Internet and its systems consist of a multitude ofnews, reports, statistics, and statements. I will use news services such as TASS, RIA
Novosti and Izvestiia, which could be considered non-independent, but also RBK,
Kommersant and Vedomosti, which at least try to remain semi-independent, andMeduza, Novaia Gazeta and Roskomsvoboda, which are definitely critical of the Russian regime. I shall also use public statements, reports and other publications by the
96 Journal articles or monographs based on mathematical modelling are not included in this study. I do not havethe required competency to examine these models. In the context of the era of 2000-2018 one group that is leftout are the private sector lobbyists with commercial interest and the second are the ‘technopeople’ i.e. engineers,
programmers etc. The third group are the active representatives of security services and others who do not
publicly publish their ideas but may still write memorandums etc. which affect the elites. The fourth and perhaps
the most important group are some of the private think-tanks such as the Medvedev era liberal INSOR thinktank and the Putin era anti-liberal Izborskii Club and forums such as the Valdai Club. I have included someNGOs that directly and actively engage in information security issues but have tried to otherwise avoid think
thanks whose main audience are foreign experts and governments. (Cf. Vendil Pallin, Carolina and Oxenstierna,
Susanne. Russian Think Tanks and Soft Power. FOI, August 2017 [Online]. Available: https://www.foi.se/
rapportsammanfattning?reportNo=FOI-R--4451--SE [Accessed: 5th April 2019].)
97 A list of webpages and databases is provided at the end of the Bibliography.
98 The main documents are the National Security Concept of 1997 and 2000, the National Security Strategies
of 2009 and 2015, the Basic Provisions of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation of 1993, the Military
Doctrines of 2000, 2010 and 2014, the Foreign Policy Concepts of 2008, 2013 and 2016, and the Information
Security Doctrine of 2000 and 2016.
99 The Law on Strategic Planning lists the main national strategic planning documents and it has been used tocollect the middle and lower level implementation documents analysed in Chapter 6. (Федеральный закон от
28.06.2014 N 172-ФЗ (ред. от 31.12.2017) “О стратегическом планировании в Российской Федерации”[Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_164841/ [Accessed: 26th March2019]).

21

Russian military, government, institutions and private companies to investigate thenature of Russian information networks and systems. Throughout the thesis I makea conscious choice to use as many Russian-language primary sources as possible tooffer some new substance to the Western debate on Russian cyber strategy.
1.5

Research limitations and self-reflection

I have already discussed some of the limitations of this thesis above. Here I will reflect
on some more normative issues. Firstly, I am a Finnish military officer writing about
Russian cyber strategy in the context of the threat or use of force and thus I am awareof my own cultural and political biases. I try offer as an objective interpretation of theRussian strategic cultural ideas and Russian policies as I can. Secondly, I am highly
aware of the possible Western cultural bias inherent in IR research and theories (andStrategic Studies) as IR is a predominantly Northern American -Western discipline andits theories are very much based on interpretation of American-European history.100
The theories of IR and Strategic Studies are induced from temporal experiences andmight not be transferable in time. What Thucydides said about Athens and Sparta, is
not directly translatable to the United States and Russia or China—to say nothing
about cyberspace.101 Moreover, theories might travel poorly between cultures and touse Western concepts to study Russian thinking might be considered problematic. My
argument is that we all inhabit the same reality and there is knowledge to be gained bycomparing our understandings. Some concepts are needed to initiate this comparison.
I choose to start this comparison from the West, and then advance to the Russian side.
I accept that my theory and concepts might lose their connection to the material andsocial reality as time passes.102 This is in fact the case, as during the writing of thisthesis the Russians began to adopt the term cyber into their official vocabulary.
Thirdly, I have made a conscious decision not to discuss the literature on alleged Russian offensive cyber operations or information-psychological operations. This is because this study does not examine offensives or operations and concentrates on the
defensive information-technological aspects of the Russian IW. Fourthly, I also recognize that many of the documents I analyse are part of the diplomatic and strategic
signalling, agenda setting, and are meant for domestic audiences to legitimize the policies of the elites. Nevertheless, I approach these documents as genuine expressionsof worldviews, beliefs, interests, and intentions. Moreover, in Chapter 6 I analyse documents which are meant for implementation, and their effects can be observed in the
allocation of resources, making of laws, and construction of information systems andnetworks. Thus, ideas materialize. Many of the Russian scholars whose texts I analysein Chapters 4 and 5 write for semi-propagandistic purposes or at least to promote
their own interests. This does not present a problem as the thesis examines ideas
100 Darby, Philip. A Disabling Discipline. In Reus-Smith, Christian and Snidal, Duncan. The Oxford Handbookof International Relations. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010, 94-105.
101 On the uses of Thucydides Cf. Misenheimer, Alan Greeley. Thucydides’ Other “Traps” The United States,
China, and the Prospect of “Inevitable” War. Washington, D.C.: National Defence University Press, 2019.
102 I argue that the analysis of strategy or international relations is based on pragmatic knowledge. As such, I
acknowledge that this thesis is not only an academic effort but also an attempt to make sense of the strategic
behaviour of the Russian Federation. I also acknowledge that my study is connected to a certain political andhistorical context, to the resurgence of great power competition in the 2010s, and as such is itself a historicallybound endeavour.

22about reality, not reality itself. Furthermore, I use such a large mass of sources thatno single view becomes too prominent. However, I do acknowledge that some military and civilian academicians have taken part in preparing national security documents and the relationship between their texts and official policies might be complex
and political.
Fifthly, many of the concepts used in the thesis are ‘essentially contested concepts’.103
They have no agreed meaning and their definitions might carry political and culturalconnotations. Culture is one such a contested concept as are concepts related to cyberspace, power and warfare.104 Thus, I try to be as precise as I can in defining andusing these concepts. Sixthly, my qualitative and interpretive methodology based on
the pragmatic philosophy of science makes issues about reliability moot. The validityof this thesis is based upon the judgement of the scientific community. Thus, as I
proceed with my analysis, I strive to compensate for the lack of rigorous, positivistic
method with sharp, logical and critical thinking. Finally, as the Russian project toshape and control its national segment of the Internet is still ongoing, this thesis will
not provide the final word on the issue.

103 Collier, David, Hidalgo, Fernando Daniel and Maciuceanu, Andra Olivia. Essentially contested concepts:

Debates and applications. Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol. 11, No. 3 October 2006), 211–246.
104 On contested nature cf. Lango, Hans-Inge. Competing academic approaches to cyber security. In Friis,
Karsten Friis and Rinsmose, Jens (eds.) Conflict in Cyber Space. Theoretical, strategic and legal perspectives.
New York: Routledge 2016, 7-26.

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2
NEOCLASSICAL REALISM AND STRATEGIC CULTURE

For its loose theoretical framework, this thesis adopts a tailored version of neoclassical realism (NCR), which is a school of IR. In this chapter I position
my study in the theoretical field of IR and at the same time construct my theoretical framework. I start by presenting my philosophical and metatheoretical premises and then move on to examine the IR schools of realism and constructivism whose
interaction has produced NCR as a school of IR. I then move on to examine the basic
premises of NCR, which will form the basis of the theoretical framework of this thesis. I continue with an overview of the role of ideas and power in IR theory so that I
can modify NCR for the needs of this study. Furthermore, I examine the theory ofstrategic culture so that I can draw together ideas, power and the use of force. I conclude this chapter by presenting a synthesis that will provide an NCR-based theoretical framework for this thesis. In the next chapter I will further develop my theoreticalframework by introducing the key concepts of cyberspace, cyber power and cyber
warfare. Additionally, I will integrate these concepts in the theoretical framework
through the concept of strategy.
2.1

Philosophies of sciences

According to Steve Smith “The study of international relations has classically focusedon the analysis of the causes of war and the conditions of peace.”105 The definition of
the IR is however contested for many reasons, politics of science being not the least
among them.106 One reason that the definition of IR is so contestable is its disciplinary
history, which has been under a constant review for the last 30 years. TraditionallyIR’s disciplinary history is understood through ‘debates’ between various theoretical
positions, sometimes called ‘paradigms’ or ‘research programs.’ In some accounts
these ‘debates’ have been seen as discourses about the scientific nature of IR, and inothers more emphasis has been given to the historical context and to the change ofinternational system or practical knowledge required by the clientele of IR.107 The
view shared by many textbooks is that there have been at least three maybe four great

105 Dunne, Kurki & Smith 2013, 1.
106 Brown, Chris and Ainley, Kirsten (eds.) Understanding International Relations (3rd ed.) Palgrave Macmillan:

New York, 2005,7; Waever, Ole. Still a discipline after all these debates? In Dunne, Tim Kurki, Milja and Smith,
Steven. International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity (4th ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013, 300-321. For other views cf. Schieder, Siegfried and Spindler, Manuela (eds.) Theories of International
Relations. New York: Routledge, 2015; Reus-Smith, Christian and Snidal, Duncan. The Oxford Handbook ofInternational Relations. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010; Carlsnaes, Walter, Risse, Thomas and Simmons, Beth A. (eds.) Handbook of International Relations. London: SAGE Publications, 2005; Burchill, Scott,
Linklater Andrew, Devetak, Richard, Donnelly, Jack, Paterson, Matthew, Reus-Smith, Christian and True,
Jacqui. Theories of International Relations (3rd), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
107 Schmidt, Brian C. On the History and Historiography of International Relations. In Carlsnaes, Risse, &Simmons 2005, 3-22; Schieder & Spindler 2015; Reus-Smith & 2010; Carlsnaes, Risse & Simmons 2005;
Burchill, Linklater, Devetak, Donnelly, Paterson, Reus-Smith, C. & True 2005; Brown & Ainley 2005.

25

‘debates’.108 The first two were between idealists and realists (1930–1940) and between traditionalists and behaviourists (1950–1960). The nature of their issues are
relatively widely accepted. The third ‘debate’ (1970–1980/1990) is much more controversial and has been variously described as neorealism versus neoliberalism or realists versus pluralists versus Marxists109 or positivism110 versus post-positivism111 or
rationalism112 versus reflectivism113. Clearly, there have been many simultaneous debates.114
What is important about the third ‘debate’ in the context of this thesis is that IR
started to incorporate more ideas from the social sciences.115 This gave birth to,among other things, the field of Security Studies116 and back in the 1970s this affected
108 Dunne, Kurki & Smith 2013; Schieder & Spindler 2015; Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010; Carlsnaes, Risse &Simmons 2005; Burchill et al. 2005; Brown, & Ainley 2005. It is only natural that the whole idea of ‘debates’
has been challenged by critical disciplinary historiography in the spirit of post-positivist self-reflection (Schmidt,
Brian. Lessons from the Past: Reassessing the Interwar Disciplinary History of International Relations. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3 (September 1998), 433-459; Katzenstein, Peter J., Keohane, RobertO. and Krasner, Stephen D. International Organization and the Study of World Politics. Vol. 52, No. 4, pp.
645-685).
109 Neorealism refers to Kenneth Waltz’s structural realism and its later versions by other authors. Neoliberalism
concentrates on the effects of international institutions on rational actors and builds on the seminal work ofRobert Keohane and Joseph Nye. Realism is a name for a heterogenous collection of approaches emphasizing
the role of states, power and the balance of power in international relations. Pluralism refers to an even wider
collection of approaches with or without a normative agenda which emphasize the role of sub-state actors.
Marxism in IR can be described as critical approach to the current (capitalist) world-order. (Cf. Dunne, Kurki& Smith, 2015).
110 “(a) ‘a commitment to unified view of science, and the adoption of methodologies of the natural sciences to
explain the social world’; (b) ‘the view that there is a distinction between facts and values, and, moreover, that”facts” are theory neutral’; (c) ‘a powerful belief in the existence of regularities in the social as well as the natural
world. This, of course, licenses both “deductive-nomological” and the “inductive statistical” forms of covering
law explanation’; and (d) ‘a tremendous reliance on the belief that it is empirical validation or falsification thatis the hallmark or ”real” enquiry’”. (Adler, Emmanuel. Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World
Politics. European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1997), 319-363, 348-349) Also cf. Smith,
Steve. Positivism and Beyond. In Smith, Steve, Booth, Ken, and Zalewski, Marysia: International theory: Positivism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 11-44). According to Wight, Positivism isbased on the following premises 1) Phenomenalism (appearances, not realities, are the only objects ofknowledge) 2) Nominalism (there is no objective meaning to the words we use) 3) Cognitivism (value judgements and normative statements have no cognitive value) 4) Naturalism (unity of scientific method i.e. social
sciences do not differ from natural sciences). (Wight 2005, 41-42).
111 An approach that “rejects the possibility of a science of international relations which uses standards of proof
associated with the physical sciences to develop equivalent levels of explanatory precision and predictive certainty.” (Burchill et al. 2005, 2).
112 “…conscious goal-seeking agents pursuing their interests within an external environment characterized byanarchy and the power of other states.” (Adler 1997, 348.)
113 “[Reflectivists] … stress the role of impersonal social forces as well as the impact of cultural practices, norms,
and values that are not derived from a calculation of interest.” (Wight 2005, 23-51, 39).
114 Ole Weaver has provided perhaps the most detailed and empiricist accounts of the debates. (Waever, Ole.
The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International
Relations, International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4, Autumn, 1998, 687-727; Waever 2013. Katzenstein andSil have proposed a divide between positivism (inductive and deductive reasoning) and subjectivism (interpretation) and pragmatism (context bound consensus-based knowledge) (Katzenstein, Peter and Sil, Rudra. Eclectic Theorizing in the Study and Practice of International Relations. In Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010, 109-130.) On
debates Cf. Katzenstein, Keohane & Krasner 1998.
115 For the role of sociology in the development of IR cf. Lawson, George and Shilliam, Robbie. Sociology andinternational relations: legacies and prospects. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2010,69-86.
116 Buzan, Barry. People, States and Fear: An agenda for international security studies in the post-cold war era.
Colchester: ECPR Press, 2007; Buzan, Barry, Wæver, Ole and de Wilde, Jaap: Security: A New Framework forAnalysis. London: Lynne Rienne Publishers inc., 1998; Buzan, Barry. ‘Change and insecurity’ reconsidered.
Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 20, No.3, 1999, 1-17; Smith 1999; Williams 2013.

26

the then heavily rationalistic and materialistic Strategic Studies by introducing the concept of strategic culture.117 It also gave birth to the school of constructivism which
has challenged (neo)realism’s authority on the questions of power and the use of force
in international relations. This has forced realists to refine their theories and has led
to the development of the neoclassical realist school. Additionally, the third ‘debate’
made understanding or interpretivism a legitimate epistemological approach in IR—
although what was exactly meant by it has been debated ever since.118 All in all, thethird ‘debate’ produced many of the theoretical ideas applied in this thesis.
The debates have not ended. Some accounts link a part of the third ‘debate’ to thefourth one beginning in the 1990s, and some consider the fourth ‘debate’ to be basedon the convergence of IR and social theory characterized by ‘the cultural turn’119, ‘thepractice turn’120, and ‘the pragmatic turn’.121 The debate has been framed by a philosophical disciplinary reflections and has led to the fragmentation of the field.122 In
this context, Patrick Jackson and Daniel Nexus argue that because IR theories are notincommensurable they should be viewed as alternative ‘cuts’ or ‘ideal types’ of theobject that is studied.123
Discussions about the philosophy of science were already strongly present in IR during the 1990s and have continued up until this day.124 This is understandable because
IR is interested in the social reality, which is arguably a complex entity because of thevaried and changing nature of social objects and their relations. It is also full of unobservable aspects—including its main objects of study: states, norms, power and theinternational system itself. The main points of the debate can be summarized by asking: Is there a reality? What kind of reality is it? What can be known about this reality?
How can we gain that knowledge? and what kind of methods should be used for
117 Snyder, Jack L. The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations. R-2154-AF.

Santa Monica, RAND corporation, 1977 [Online]. Available: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/
pubs/reports/2005/R2154.pdf. Accessed: 28 May 2018; Strachan 2013, 136-137.
118 The distinction between explaining and understanding was first introduced to IR by Martin Smith and Steve
Hollis (Smith & Hollis 1991). Their views have been criticized, for example, by Colin Wight who argues thatthe separation of explaining and understanding has no basis in the philosophy of science (Wight 2005, 23-51).
119 Michael Desch has argued that there have been at least three cultural turns or ‘waves’ in IR studies. In 1998
he predicted that the current third wave will fail to supplant Realism. Desch, Michael C. Culture Clash. Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies. International Security, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Summer 1998), 141170.
120 “In seeing ‘practices’ as the stuff that drives the world and makes it ‘hang together’, the everyday practicesof diplomats, terrorists, environmentalists, or financial analysts become the object of investigation.” Bueger,
Christian and Gadinger, Frank. The Play of International Practice. International Studies Quarterly Vol. 59, No.
3 (2015), 449-460, 449.
121 Schieder & Spindler 2015, 4-9.
122 Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010, 32; Katzenstein & Sil 2010; Kurki, Milja and Wight, Colin. International Relations
and Social Science. In Dunne, T., Kurki, M. and Smith, S. International Relations Theories: Discipline andDiversity (4th ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 14-35.
123 Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus and Nexon, Daniel H. Paradigmatic Faults in International-Relations Theory.
International Studies Quarterly Vol. 53, No. 4, (December 2009), 907-930. This view is also reflected in theapproach taken in Strategic Studies at the Finnish National Defence University (Sivonen, Pekka. Suomalaisia
näkökulmia strategian tutkimukseen [Finnish approaches to Strategic Studies]. Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu, Julkaisusarja 1: Strategian tutkimuksia No. 33. Tampere: Juvenes Print, 2013).
124 For a discussion about this in the context of political science cf. Gunnell, John G. Realizing Theory: The
Philosophy of Science Revisited. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 57, No. 4 (November 1995), 923-940; Jonathan,
Joseph and Wight, Colin (eds.) Scientific Realism and International Relations. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010;
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. The conduct of inquiry in International Relations: philosophy of science and its
implications for the study of world politics. London and New York: Routledge, 2011.

27

gaining knowledge? In the context of these debates, my thesis positions itself in the
middle-ground between realism, pragmatism and practise theory.
Realism as a philosophy of science is understood in IR either as Alexander Wendt’s
Scientific Realism or Critical Realism advocated, for example, by Heikki Patomäki,
Milja Kurki, Jonathan Joseph and Colin Wight.125 Highly simplified basic premises ofrealism are that there is a material and social reality independent of the mind, and that
we can have theories about this reality, study it through observation, but positivistic
causality126 is refuted.127 Some versions of realism propose elaborate theories about
the structure and mechanisms of reality—the nature of which can be observed though
events etc. The critical version highlights these structures as a form of power and has
an openly emancipatory nature.128 However, to avoid determinism, Emmanuel Adler
has argued that realism accepts ‘emergent’ properties of structures and mechanisms.129 This basically means that social reality changes over time and we have toadapt our theories to it and thus cannot have universal explanative theories aboutsocial reality.130
Pragmatism131 is a counter reaction to Marxist and overtly theoretical critical realism.
It has been offered as a via media between rationalism/positivism and relativism.132
Pragmatism has converged with ‘the practice turn’ which seeks to overcome, among
other things, the agency – structure dichotomy133 by introducing practices as an objectof analysis. These developments cross-cut almost all schools of IR and there havebeen hopes that a synthesis of pragmatism and practice theory could provide IR with

125 Wendt, Alexander. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999;

Chernoff, Fred. Scientific Realism as a Meta-Theory of International Politics. International Studies Quarterly,Vol. 46, No. 2, (June 2002), 189-207; Patomaki, Heikki and Wight, Colin. After Post-positivism? The Promisesof Critical Realism. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Jun. 2000), 213-237; Jackson 2011, xiv.
126 According to Wight this is based on the D-N law, i.e. an explanation is only valid if it invokes a law which
covers all the cases of the phenomena to be explained (Wight 2005, 41-42). Cf. also Wendt 1999, 79.
127 Wight 2005; Jonathan & Wight 2010; Jackson 2011.
128 Archer, Margaret, Roy Bhaskar, Andrew Collier, Tony, Lawson and Alan Norrie (eds.) Critical Realism:
Essential Readings. London and New York: Routledge, 1998; Nash, Roy. Explanation and quantification in
educational research: the arguments of critical and scientific realism. British Educational Research Journal, Vol.
31, No. 2, (April 2005), 185-204; Patomäki & Wight 2000, 223.
129 Cooper, Luke. Can contingency be ‘internalized’ into the bounds of theory? Critical realism, the philosophy
of internal relations and the solution of ‘uneven and combined development’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2013), 573-597.
130 Kurki & Wight 2013, 28-29.
131 Pragmatism has been claimed as ‘the American philosophy’. Although, it has gained renewed popularity atthe beginning of 2000s, it was already applied in IR in the first half of the 1990s. Kaag, John and Kreps, Sarah.
Pragmatism’s contributions to international relations, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 25,
No.2, 2012, 191-208; Hamati-Ataya, Inanna. Beyond (Post)Positivism: The Missed Promises of Systemic Pragmatism. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 2 (June 2012), 291-305.
132 Hellman, Gunther (ed.) Pragmatism and International Relations. International Studies Review, Vol. 11, No.
3 (September 2009), 638–662; Pratt, Simon. Pragmatism as Ontology, Not (Just) Epistemology: Exploring theFull Horizon of Pragmatism as an Approach to IR Theory. International Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3 (September 2016) 508–527.
133 This dichotomy refers to the relationship between structure and agent, i.e. which causes or constitutes which?
“The agent-structure problem then, is concerned with the relationship between active and self-reflecting agentsand the structural context in which their activity takes place.” (Wight 2005, 24). Also cf. Wight, Colin. Agents,
Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006;
Banerjee, Sanjoy. Rules, Agency, and International Structuration. International Studies Review, Vol. 17, No. 2(June 2015), 274–297; Knafo, Samuel. Critical approaches and the legacy of the agent/structure debate in international relations. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 3, (September 2010), 493-516).

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a new, unified path in the future.134 The basic, yet again highly simplified, premises ofpragmatism are: There is truth but it is context-bound, i.e. knowledge is situated; theory must be adapted to the reality it is describing; knowledge is achieved throughacademic consensus otherwise called the consensus theory; and the relationship ofagents and structures is not a priori postulated.135 Friedrichs and Kratochwil haveproposed the ideas of a theory synthesis136, analytic eclecticism137, and abduction138
as pragmatic methods of research. They also make a point about the importance of‘triple hermeneutics’ in pragmatic research, involving: understanding human practice,
the reflexivity of intersubjective rationalizations of the practitioners, and taking a critical approach to the concepts researchers themselves use.139 Pragmatism has enjoyedincreasing popularity in IR theorizing, but IR has also been criticized for a free-handed
application of pragmatism’s philosophical foundations.140 Although pragmatism
seems to share many similarities with realism(s) there are some differences which
seem to be about the status of ‘unobservable’ entities and causal mechanisms.141
However, because both theories acknowledge the ideal and material nature of ‘social
reality’ it could be argued that what the differences boil down to is what kind of claims
we can make before doing research and how comprehensively we can make them,whether we should study actions and experiences or structures and power, and whatkind of universalist claims we can make about our findings. As Patrick Jackson hasargued, the differences between IR approaches are methodological.142 Thus, from a
pragmatist point of view it is quite possible to adopt a scientific or critical realist ontology if the case under study so requires. The philosophical premises of the theoryof this thesis are thus realist but analytically eclectic.
In the context of the ‘third/fourth debate’ discussions about pragmatism and scientific realism have mainly stayed on the metatheoretical level. On a more concrete level‘Practice theory’ has been proposed as one way to move forward. It tries to step
134 Adler, Emanuel and Vincent Pouliot. International practices. International Theory, Vol. 3 No. 1 (February2011), 1-36.
135 Jackson & Nexon 2009; Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. Situated Creativity, or, the Cash Value of a Pragmatist
Wager for IR. In Hellman 2009, 656-659; Friedrichs, J. and Kratochwil, F. On Acting and Knowing: How
Pragmatism Can Advance International Relations Research and Methodology. International Organization, Vol.
63, No. 4 (Fall, 2009), 701-731.
136 Different theories on different levels of explanation which share the same ontology are compared to alternative theories with a different ontology. (Friedrichs & Kratochwil 2009, 723-724).
137 The reinterpretation of analysis through different methods to find different explanations. (Friedrichs &Kratochwil 2009, 723-724). According to Katzenstein and Sil, analytic eclecticism means the problem-based
application of different theories and methods, combining them creatively—not using the same theories andmethods as the criteria for the accumulation of knowledge (Katzenstein & Sil 2010; Sil, Rudra. Simplifying
Pragmatism: From Social Theory to Problem-driven Eclecticism. In Hellman 2009, 648-652).
138 “We therefore start collecting pertinent observations and, at the same time, applying concepts from existing
fields of our knowledge. Instead of trying to impose an abstract theoretical template (deduction) or “simply”
inferring propositions from facts (induction), we start reasoning at an intermediate level (abduction).” (Friedrichs & Kratochwil 2009, 709).
139 Friedrichs & Kratochwil 2009.
140 On recent theoretical efforts cf. Bauer, Harry and Brighi, Elisabetta (eds.) Pragmatism in International Relations. Oxon: Routledge, 2009; Ralston, Shane J. (ed.) Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations.
Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2013; Pratt 2016.
141 Cf. Patomäki & Wight 2000; Kurki & Wight 2013; Wight 2005; Kratochwil, Friedrich. Of False Promises
and Good Bets: A Plea for a Pragmatic Approach to Theory Building (The Tartu Lecture). Journal of International Relations and Development, Vol. 10, No. 1, (March 2017), 1-15; Wight, Colin. A Response to Friedrich
Kratochwil: Why Shooting the Messenger Does Not Make the Bad News Go Away. Journal of International
Relations and Development, Vol. 10, No. 3 (September 2007), 301-315.
142 Jackson 2011.

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around the agent vs. structure debate and proposes practices as an object of study.143
According to Emmanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot practices are characterized by“the patterned nature of deeds in socially organized contexts.”144 They depend onreflexive, normative, and instrumental judgments. Practices are political processes that
occur between communities, and they can be studied as intervening variables in theconstitution of strategic interaction. Although agents and structures are persistent,
practices are introduced to explain why states act as they do—practice precedes socialization.145 Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger divide Practice theory into criticalcontinental and American pragmatist versions. The critical version concentrates on
power and domination, that is, stability, regularity and reproduction of power, and thepragmatist version on continuous stream of acts without end i.e. situations, contingency, creativity, and change.146 The importance of Practice theory for this thesis is inthat it highlights the process of strategy making which I will return to below.
Before summarizing my philosophical scientific position, it is important to note thediscussion on the normative characteristics of IR theory. Firstly, there is the uneasy
possibility that researchers choose their theories based on ideology—that the way wescientifically approach international relations is based on political beliefs.147 Secondly,
it has been argued that many academics have flown ‘too close to the sun’, i.e. that thepractical policy needs they have tried to serve have affected their research, or that
their theorizing has been somehow amoral.148 And thirdly, it is now widely acceptedthat IR is characterized by American/Western intellectual hegemony and insularity.149
However, the claim that a more pluralistic, inclusive and regionalist IR would besomehow superior is suspect.150 If ‘Western exceptionalism’ is replaced by ‘Russian
exceptionalism’ based on a politically motivated ontology and relativistic epistemology then locally produced knowledge does not advance IR as a global discipline.151
This is the main reason I do not apply Russian theories in my thesis. Although I
subscribe to interpretivist epistemology, I believe that by using the so-called Western
theories and by writing in English I expose my research to a wider audience, andthrough that to a more comprehensive criticism of the scientific community.
Because this thesis approaches social phenomena, such as power, states and their environment and cyberspace as a priori real, I subscribe to the realist philosophy of
143 Vincent Pouliot introduced the concept to IR (Pouliot, Vincent. The Logic of Practicality: A Theory ofPractice of Security Communities. International Organization, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Spring, 2008), 257-288).
144 Adler & Pouliot 2011.
145 Ibid.
146 Bueger & Gadinger 2015.
147 Rathbun, Brian. Politics and Paradigm Preferences: The Implicit Ideology of International Relations Scholars. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 3 (September 2012), 607-622; Onuf, Nicholas. Of Paradigms
and Preferences. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 3 (September 2012), 626-628.
148 Shapcott, Richard. Critical Theory. In Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010, 331-334.
149 Maliniak, Daniel, Peterson, Susan, Powers, Ryanand and Tierney, Michael J. Is International Relations a
Global Discipline? Hegemony, Insularity, and Diversity in the Field, Security Studies. Security Studies, Vol. 27,
No. 3 (2018), 448-484; Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010, 27.
150 Cf. Acharya on ‘Global IR’ (Acharya, Amitav. Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds - A
New Agenda for International Studies. International Studies Quarterly (2014) 58, 647-659).
151 Makarychev, Andrey and Morozov, Viatcheslav. Is “Non-Western Theory” Possible? The Idea of Multipolarity and the Trap of Epistemological Relativism in Russian IR. International Studies Review, Vol. 15, No. 3(September 2013), 328-350; Omelicheva, Mariya Y. and Zubytska, Lidiya. An Unending Quest for Russia’sPlace in the World: The Discursive Co-evolution of the Study and Practice of International Relations. New
Perspectives, Vol. 24, No. 1, (2016), 19-51.

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science. Nevertheless, I do not claim that these phenomena are unchanging or thatthey can be a priori objectively known to be true. They must be understood in thecontext of time and place through the interpretation of meanings given to them bysocial actors. Although knowledge about the social is fleeting, it does not mean weshould not make claims about it. We must accept that these conceptual and theoreticalclaims are contextual and related to specific cases and based on the knowledge that iscurrently available. Therefore, my approach is based on a synthesis of pragmatism,
scientific and critical realism and practice theory. Realism provides the basis for making a priori, ontological, theoretical assumptions about social reality but does not provide any practical views on methodology. Pragmatism provides a beneficial approachto theory-building and methodology which is based on abduction, problem-based
theory synthesis and analytic eclecticism but is silent about ontology. It also emphasises the study of specific cases and unique outcomes the generalization of which is a
result of the judgement scientific community. Both accept similar kinds of scientificexplanations—claims about social reality in a specific context.152 Practice theory provides an approach for studying the role of ideas in a social process that affects boththe structure and the actors. It helps me to bring different schools of IR and Strategic
Studies together. What these philosophical choices mean in the framework of thisthesis is that I can claim that both Western and Russian concepts are representations
related to the same reality and can be compared and used to examine that reality in a
specific context.153 In conclusion, I resort to throwing one more ‘philosophical hand
grenade’154 and claim to be a realist analytic pragmatist.155 To add some more ‘shrapnel’ to this grenade I also incorporate elements of Practice theory in my own theory
through the concept of ‘making of strategy’ as will be shown in this and subsequent
chapters. I will now continue to examine the IR schools of realism and constructivism
to legitimize the theoretical part of my research question: why power matters and why
ideas are important.
2.2

Realism and constructivism

The roots of the realist school can be traced either to a line of premodern politicalthinkers or to the first debate in IR in the 1930-1940s between idealists and realists—
the first party were named idealists by the self-declared realists. Realism has gone
through multiple phases and has branched into various distinct theories and schools
which share some common basic assumptions which can be distinguished from eachother, for example, by their chosen level-of-analysis and ontological assumptions
about the agent-structure relationship.156 For example, classical realists are interested
in state action and usually find causes from the subunit level, whereas neorealists or
152 For a discussion about Critical Realism and Pragmatism see Jackson 2009; Hamati-Ataya 2012; Kratochwil

2017; Wight 2007.
153 “Social facts emerge from the attachment of collective meaning to a previously existing material reality […]Material reality is made meaningful by rules, reasoning and collective understandings. That can be studied to
explain social reality.” Adler, Emmanuel. Constructivism and International Relations. In Carlsnaes, Risse &Simmons 2005, 95-118, 98.
154 The phrase is from Colin Wight (Wight 2005, 26)
155 Pratt 2016; Gunnell 1995.
156 Cf. Wohlforth, William C. Realism. In Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010, 131-149; Elman, Colin and Jensen, Michael A. Realism. In Williams 2013, 15-31; Temby, Owen. What are levels of analysis and what do they contribute to international relations theory? Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 28, No. 4 (2015), 721742.

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structuralists examine the international system and explain state actions based on the
structure of the international system.157 Realism has been defined, mainly by its critics,
to consists of the following theoretical assumptions: instrumentally rational158 unitarystates are the most important actors in international relations; the main interest of
states is power because international relations are characterised by anarchy, self-help
and thus a struggle for power and survival; and power is material and thus a relative
resource.159 One important concept of realism is balancing, which refers to the way
great powers try to match their power with other great powers either by acquiring more
power or through alliances.160 Balancing is difficult because states are faced with ‘thesecurity dilemma’.161
Realism is, in principle, based on materialism162 and positivism, which has been asource of substantial criticism since the 1980s. It has also, unsurprisingly, been unable
to produce a theory that manages to generally and universally explain international
relations even if some of its versions have adopted elements of other theories—asource of further criticism.163 Constructivists, for example, have criticized realism for
not taking the effects of ideas seriously or for smuggling ideas into their theories to
explain inconvenient outcomes.164 Some of this criticism is a bit unfair, because there
is no ‘monolithic’ realist school.165 It is easy to construct some simplified version of
157 Narizny, Kevin. On Systemic Paradigms and Domestic Politics: A Critique of the Newest Realism. Interna-

tional Organization, Vol. 42, No. 2, (Fall 2017), 155-190; Wohlforth 2010. Neorealism is usually associated with
Kenneth Waltz. The basic premises of Waltz’s theory of the international political system consist of the ordering
principle (hierarchy or anarchy); the differentiation of the functions of units (states are like units—there cannot
be any differentiation of tasks under insecurity so self-help is the only possible way to succeed); and the distribution of capabilities (number of great powers is the only explaining variable). Cf. Waltz, Kenneth. Theory ofInternational Politics. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1979; Mearsheimer, John J. Structural Realism. In Dunne,
Kurki & Smith 2013, 51-67; Vasquez, John A. The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Programs: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz’s Balancing Proposition. The American
Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 1997), 899-912.
158 “The efficient pursuit of exogenously determined interests within the constraints of available information,
the interests and strategies of other actors, and the distribution of power.” (Reus-Smith, Christian. The Moral
Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1999, 159-160).
159 Vasquez 1997, 899-912; Elman & Jensen 2013; Legro Jeffrey W. and Moravcsik, Andrew. “Is Anybody Stilla Realist?” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 1999), 5-55.
160 On the balance of power theories cf. Levy, Jack S. and Thompson, William R. Hegemonic Threats andGreat-Power Balancing in Europe, 1495-1999. Security Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1 (January–March 2005), 1-33;
Donnelly, Jack. Realism. In Burchill, et al. 2005, 29-54.
161 Basically, when one actor becomes more secure the security of others is reduced. On security dilemmas cf.
Jervis, Robert. Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma. World Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2 (January 1978), 167214; Glaser Charles L. The Security Dilemma Revisited. World Politics, Vol. 50, No. 1, Fiftieth Anniversary
Special Issue (October 1997), 171-201.
162 According to Ian Hurd Realism at its core is “… about materialism (that is, the theory that states respondto material need, incentives, and power) and rationalism to be about instrumentalism (that is, the theory thatstates pursue individual advantage by calculating costs and benefits).” (Hurd, Ian. Constructivism. In ReusSmith, & Snidal 2010, 298-316, 299).
163 Vasquez 1997; Legro & Moravcsik 1999; Feaver, Peter D., Hellman, Gunther, Schweller, Randall L.,
Taliaferro, Jeffrey W., Wohlforth, William C., Legro, Jeffrey W. and Andrew Moravcsik. Brother, Can You
Spare a Paradigm? (Or Was Anybody Ever a Realist?). International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2000),
165-93; Finel, Bernard I. Black Box or Pandora’s Box: State Level Variables and Progressivity in Realist Research Programs. Security Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Winter 2001/2) 187-227; Narizny 2017.
164 Cf. Ruggie, John Gerard. What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge. International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4, (Autumn, 1998), 855-885; Katzenstein, PeterJ. (ed.) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996; Lebow, Richard N. Why Nations Fight: Past and Future Motives for War. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2010.
165 Wohlforth 2010, 131-149.

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realism and argue against it. In fact, realists do not agree amongst themselves on thesources of conflict in international systems, on how states assess one another’s intentions and promote security for themselves, or even on the likelihood and causes ofmajor wars.166 The constant criticism has led to some self-reflection and historicism
by realists.167 Additionally, by drawing on classical realism, realists have tried to fix theperceived problems of Structuralist theories and to build some kind of synthesis.168
NCR can be considered such a synthesis, although it is primarily a theory of foreign
policy.169
The main challenger of realism has been constructivism which has also affected thedevelopment of neoclassical realism.170 Constructivism developed in IR as a criticism
of positivist, structuralist, rationalist and materialist theories in the 1980s and drew its
inspiration from sources such as sociology and the English school.171 Constructivism
used its novel approach to study such phenomena as intersubjective172 meaning inworld politics, social norms, rules, and discourse173, and the co-constitution of agentsand structures174.175 This process divided Constructivist into diverse groups sometimes called ‘conventionalist’, ‘critical’, and ‘postmodern.’ Many of the groups are definitely anti-realist, anti-foundational and critical.176
Because of this multiplicity, constructivism has been called “a theoretically informed
approach” instead of a theory or school and its core features have been defined byJohn Ruggie as follows: “…the building blocks of international reality are ideational
166 Cf. Lobell, Steven N., Ripsman, Norrin M. and Taliaferro, Jeffrey W. Neoclassical Realism, the State, andForeign Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009; Mearsheimer, John. The Tragedy of GreatPower Politics. New York: Norton, 2001; Glaser, Charles L. Rational Theory of International Politics: The
Logic of Competition and Cooperation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010; Jervis, Robert. Dilemmas
About Security Dilemmas. Security Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2011), 416-423; Elman & Jensen 2013.
167 Scheuerman, William E. Hans Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2009; Williams, Michael C. Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and theMoral Construction of Power Politics. International Organization, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Fall 2004), 633-665; Cozette,
Murielle. What Lies Ahead: Classical Realism on the Future of International Relations. International Studies
Review, Vol. 10, No. 4 (December 2008), 667-679; Parent, Joseph M. and Baron, Joshua M. Elder Abuse: How
the Moderns Mistreat Classical Realism. International Studies Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 2011), 193-213.
168 Wohlforth 2010.
169 Lobell, Ripsman & Taliaferro 2009.
170 Although Liberalism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, Constructivism, Critical theory and Postmodern theories
have all influenced the development of Realism I shall concentrate here only on Constructivism. This is because‘ideas matter’ and strategic cultural ideas in the minds of security elites matter greatly. On the other theories Cf.
Burchill et al 2005; Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010.
171 Reus-Smith, Christian. Constructivism. In Burchill et al. 2005, 188-212; Ulbert, Cornelia. Social Constructivism. In Schieder & Spindler 2015, 248-268; Adler 2005; Ruggie 1998; Reus-Smith 2005.
172 “…occupying a public space external to the individual minds of the participants but not therefore independent of all minds in general.” (Jackson 2011, 129.
173 This can mean either the analysis of communication through speech or writing as a system of signs etc. or
the analysis of discursive practices as process producing social reality. (Chandler, 2007).
174 This view is based on Anthony Giddens’s concept of structuration. Social structures are temporally andspatially persistent social practices (re)created by those same practices. Transformation of structures is possibleat the macrolevel when time and space start to move and emergent phenomena transpire. (Giddens, Anthony.
The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984).
175 McCourt, David M. Practice Theory and Relationalism as the New Constructivism. International Studies
Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 3 (September 2016), 475-485.
176 Katzenstein, Keohane, & Krasner 1998; Weber, Cynthia. International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2013; Kratochwil, Friedrich. Sociological Approaches. In Reus-Smith & Snidal
2010, 444-461; Sterling-Folker, Jennifer. Competing Paradigms or Birds of a Feather? Constructivism and Neoliberal Institutionalism Compared. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 1 (March 2000), 97-119.

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as well as material; the ideational factors have normative as well as instrumental dimensions; that they express not only individual but also collective intentionality; andthat the meaning and significance of ideational factors are not independent of time andplace.”177 Another proponent of constructivism, Emmanuel Adler, has defined it as“…the view that the manner in which the material world shapes and is shaped byhuman action and interaction depends on dynamic and epistemic interpretations of
the material world.”178 Accordingly, both the social reality and knowledge about it are
constructed. This view does not dispute the reality of the material world. It only claims
that the material world holds meaning for human action through collective and intersubjective understandings—this understanding enables objects to become agents andact in a meaningful way.179 Constructivism thus focuses on the social construction ofinternational politics.180
Constructivism has its own theoretical and especially methodological problems.
These include the inability to devise empirical solutions to the study of the mutual
constitution of agents and structure; the underdevelopment of constitutive explanations—and therefore the tendency to turn to causal explanations; and the ambivalentnature of agency which is related to choices in the level and unit of analysis, and how
to explain rationalism.181 Despite these problems constructivism has been extended
to the examination of national security issues and has contributed to the opening upof the ‘black-box’ of state. It has provided concepts and theories for studying state
actions based on internal attributes and the processes of states such as culture182,
norms183, identities184, and interests.185
Norms have been one of the main interests of Constructivist research. The basic questions have been how states’ identities and interests are constituted by international
norms, how international norms come into being in the first place186, and why some177 Ruggie 1998, 879. For another summary cf. Hurd 2010; Fierke, K. M. Constructivism. In Dunne, Kurki &Smith 2013, 161-178; Reus-Smith 2005.
178 Adler 1997, 322.
179 Adler 1997 & 2005.
180 Barkin, Samuel J. Realist Constructivism. International Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (September 2003),
325–342, 326. The most famous example is Alexander Wendt’s social theory of international relations (Wendt
1999).
181 Adler 2005; McCourt 2016.
182 For Katzenstein et al. culture is an environment which consists of constitutive and regulatory norms whichprescribe and proscribe behaviour and describe how to behave (Katzenstein 1996, 54).
183 Björkdahl has provided a good summary on Constructivist research on norms: “From a constructivist perspective, norms are generally considered as a set of intersubjective understandings and collective expectations
regarding the proper behaviour of states and other actors in a given context or identity. Norms entail a collective
evaluation and future expectations of behaviour in terms of what ought to be done.” (Björkdahl, Annika.
Norms in International Relations: Some Conceptual and Methodological Reflections. Cambridge Review ofInternational Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 1, (June 2002), 9-23, 15).
184 Wendt defines state identity as: “…a property of intentional actors that generates motivational and behavioral dispositions.” (Wendt 1999, 224).
185 Katzenstein 1996. According to Adler: “…national interests are intersubjective understandings about what
it takes to advance power, influence and wealth, that survive the political process, given the distribution of
power and knowledge in a society. In other words, national interests are facts whose ‘objectivity’ relies onhuman agreement and the collective assignment of meaning and function to physical objects.” Adler 1997, 337.
186 Anna Björkdahl has presented the following “mechanism” for the birth of norms: Social practices (international interaction based on cultural knowledge), demand and supply (perceived needs, exogenous shocks, policy
failures – supply from interest groups), domestic norms (socialisation and internalisation). (Björkdahl 2002).

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ideas become norms and others do not.187 The effect of norms is important because
they are constitutive parts of the social structure of the international system. i.e. structure and are thus part of the explanation of how agents and structures are mutuallyconstitutive188—one explanation being that states become socialized to norms.189
Through norms, Constructivism has challenged realism’s assumption about the rationality of states because the ex-ante objective nature of rationality and interests has
been challenged. The point is that state rationality is context bound and only throughan interpretive approach can state preferences190 be discovered and examined in relation to behaviour.191 As Barkin and other Constructivists have claimed, interests aresocially constructed so their content is a context-bound empirical question.192 Theremight be other interests also such as economic well-being and self-esteem.
Epistemologically and methodologically constructivism concentrates on language as
it is the bridge between the reality and the mind. This calls for interpretation or, what
John Ruggie has described as understanding the meanings subjects give to phenomena. This occurs firstly by understanding actions from the vantage point of the actor,
secondly, explaining the act in the context of social practice recognized by a relevantsocial collective, and thirdly, by producing explanations.193 These explanations areusually constitutive, that is “X is a Y in context C” where C represents ideas, norms,
identities etc. C also provides reasons as causes.194 As Adler has argued, “doing something for reasons means applying an understanding of “what is called for” in a given
set of circumstances’ […] norms and rules socially constitute the cause.’”195 Thismeans that all behaviour must be understood from the actor’s point of view and put
into a historical and intersubjective context to generate any explanation for it.196 On
a methodological level this has led to calls for abduction (or some variant of it) instead
187 Cf. Checkel, Jeffrey. The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory. World Politics, Vol. 50, No.

2 (January 1998), 324-348; March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P. The Institutional Dynamics of International
Political Orders. International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), 943–969.
188 Checkel, Jeffrey. Norms, Institutions, and National Identity in Contemporary Europe. International Studies
Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 1 (March 1999), 83-114; Checkel, Jeffrey. Social Learning and European Identity
Change. International Organization, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Summer 2001), 553-588; Zürn, Michael and Checkel, Jeffrey T. Getting Socialized to Build Bridges: Constructivism and Rationalism, Europe and the Nation State.
International Organization, Vol. 59, No. 4 (October 2005), 1045-1079.
189 Zürn & Checkel 2005.
190 Preferences are ranked dispositions to outcomes. Usually referred from behaviour which is tautologicallyproblematic. They reflect the self-interest of the actor— the best and probable ways to achieve ‘satisfaction’.
(Yee, Albert S. Thick Rationality and the Missing “Brute Fact”. The Limits of Rationalist Incorporations ofNorms and Ideas. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 59, No. 4 (November 1997), 1001-1039).
191 “…an analysis of interpretation and intersubjectivity can mitigate some of the anomalies and problems ofthin rationality by illuminating the sources of actors’ preferences. Instead of problematically assuming that
preferences are given, analysts can ascertain the actual preferences of actors, prior to undertaking rational choicemodelling, by examining their cultural ideas and beliefs.” (Yee 1997, 1029-1030).
192 Barkin, Samuel J. Realist constructivism: Rethinking International Relations Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010, 70-71.
193 Ruggie 1998. Hollis and Smith introduced the concepts of explaining and understanding to IR. Understanding referred to Weberian hermeneutics, i.e. understanding from the inside. (Hollis, Martin and Smith, Steve.
Explaining and Understanding International Relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990; Patomäki & Wight,
2000).
194 Banerjee 2015, 278-279.
195 Adler 2005, 329. On reasons as causes cf. Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2006; Hall, Ian. What Causes
What: The Ontologies of Critical Realism (Review). International Studies Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (September2009), 629–630; Kurki, Milja. Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008.
196 Kratochwil 2010. Cf. Fierke on criticism on this (Fierke 2013).

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of induction or deduction.197 Abduction has been given many definitions in IR theory.198 In this thesis it is understood to mean interpreting social and material reality
though the interaction between existing theories and concepts and data to produce a
new understanding of a phenomenon. There is no testing or positivistic explanation
involved, although hypotheses are possible as a form of preliminary understanding.
Abductive reasoning combined with realist ontology is not without its pitfalls as concepts used in abduction lead to reification of social reality and chronocentrism. Thiscan only be overcome through categories induced from historical analysis.199
Despite their differences, some forms of realism and constructivism can be combined.
Both accept that ideas matter on the level of state foreign policy—the difference is by
how much.200 Samuel Barkin has in fact proposed that constructivism and classicalrealism can be combined into a realist constructivism.201 One of the main assumptionsof Barkin’s theory is that foreign policy is the use of power by agents to effectively andintentionally reconstitute social structure. The agency’s relationship to the structure isalways positional and situational, which means that rationality is contextual. For Barkinnational interest is an issue-specific social purpose, held by the foreign policy elite, and
it is a reason for action. There can be multiple national interests and they consist ofcollective ideas.202 The elite is intentional and reflexive, so it is capable of strategic
action. This view is supported by James Gow who draws on Barkin’s ideas and argues
that the necessity for security is based on both material and social needs.203 I find Barkin’s approach to power as an intentional reconstitution of social structure to be helpful.204 It provides tools for bringing neoclassical realism closer to constructivism andlegitimizes the emphasise of ideas as reasons for strategy, or in other words, for utilizing power. After I have reviewed the theory of neoclassical realism, I shall return tothis synthesis.
2.3

Neoclassical realism

In contrast to Neorealism and much of Constructivist theory, NCR is a theory of
foreign policy. It tries to explain foreign policy behaviour of states and system-level

197 Here induction and deduction refer to modes of reasoning. (Blagden, David. Induction and Deduction inInternational Relations. Squaring the Circle Between Theory and Evidence. International Studies Review, Vol.
18, No. 1 (June 2016), 195-213)
198 Ruggie 1998.
199 Lapointe, Thierry and Dufour, Frédérick Guillaume. Assessing the historical turn in IR: an anatomy ofsecond wave historical sociology. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 25, No.1 (March 2012), 97121.
200 Cf. Twomey, Christopher P. Lacunae in the Study of Culture in International Security. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 29, No. 2, (August 2008), 338-357, 52; Gray, Colin S. Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time forStrategic Culture. Comparative Strategy, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2007), 1-20.
201 Barkin 2010.
202 Ibid., 66-71.
203 Gow, James. The Essence of Strategy: Constructivist realism and necessity. In Wilkinson & Gow 2017, 259278.
204 Samuel Barkin’s ideas have been criticized, for example, by Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus and Nexon, Daniel
H. Constructivist Realism or Realist Constructivism. International Studies Review Vol. 6, No. 2, 2004, 337-352;
Sterling-Folker, Jennifer. Realist-Constructivism and Morality. International Studies Review Vol. 6, No. 2(2004), 337-352; Mattern, Janice Bially. Power in Realist Constructivist Research. International Studies Review
Vol. 6, No. 2 (2004), 337-352.

36

outcomes based on both structure and unit-level variables. Thus, NCR relies on foreign policy analysis (FPA)205 for some of its premises. Walter Carlsnaes has described
FPA’s unit of analysis as those goal-directed actions pursued by governmental representatives acting on the behalf of their sovereign communities which are directed toward external actors or objectives.206 Concurrently, state action is the action taken bystate foreign policy decision-makers, so, from the analytic point of view, they are thestate.207 However, FPA is quite ambivalent about the level of analysis at which thesedecisions are analysed. It could be in the minds of decision-makers, or it may concern
domestic politics or state relations.208 NCR tries to square this circle by incorporatingthem all and then distancing itself from FPA to become a full-blown theory of IR.
The term ‘neoclassical realism’ was coined by Gideon Rose in a review article.209 According to him NCR: “…explicitly incorporates both external and internal variables,
updating and systematizing certain insights drawn from classical realist thought. Its
adherents argue that the scope and ambition of a country’s foreign policy is driven
first and fore most by its place in the international system and specifically by its relative material power capabilities. This is why they are realist. They argue further, however, that the impact of such power capabilities on foreign policy is indirect and complex, because systemic pressures must be translated through intervening variables at
the unit level. This is why they are neoclassical.”210 According to Rose, NCR theory
accepts an international system based on anarchy and the distribution of power but
assumes that states do not have full knowledge of this system. States themselves aredifferentiated internally based on their political system, culture, power resources etc.
The theory’s causal logic follows from independent systemic variables which are influenced by the state’s internal intervening variables to explain foreign policy as thedependent variable. Because the theory is realist, power is a central concept. This isunderstood in terms of material capacity or resources and it is used “to control andshape their the external environment.”211 How the structural incentives based on
power distribution are interpreted and how the state’s power resources are mobilized
is based on the perceptions of the policy makers and the intervening domestic variables. To study these causal relationships Rose calls for “…theoretically informed narratives, ideally supplemented by explicit counterfactual analysis, that trace the ways
different factors combine to yield particular foreign policies.”212

205 FPA is not a coherent theory, research program or paradigm, but parts of it have been interested in theinfluence of ideas. Cf. Hill, Christopher and Light, Margot. Foreign Policy Analysis. In Light, Margot and
Groom, A. J. R. International Relations: A Handbook of Current Theory. London: Bloomsbury Academic,
1985, 156-173; Carlsnaes, Walter. Foreign Policy. In Carlsnaes, Risse & Simmons 2005, 331-349.
206 Carlsnaes 2005, 335.
207 Stuart, Douglas T. Foreign-Policy Decision-Making. In Reus-Smith, Christian and Snidal, Duncan. The Oxford Handbook of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, 576-593.
208 Kaarbo, Juliet. A Foreign Policy Analysis Perspective on the Domestic Politics Turn in IR Theory. International Studies Review, Vol. 17 (2015), 189-216; Hudson, Valerie M. and Vore, Christopher S. Foreign Policy
Analysis Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Meshon International Studies Review, Vol. 39 (1995), 209-238.
209 Rose, Gideon. Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy. World Politics, vol. 51, no. 1 (1998),
144-172.
210 Ibid., 146.
211 Ibid., 152.
212 Ibid., 154.

37

After Rose’s article, Steven Lobell, Norrin Ripsman and Jeffery Taliaferro summarized a neoclassical theory as a basis of a research program.213 Their neoclassical realist
theory states that the international system is a form of anarchy and states can rely only
on self-help to achieve security. However, states are not like-units and state interests
derive from the system through the interpretation of foreign policy elites (FPEs) andare pursued based on domestic incentives and constraints.214 According to neoclassical realism, the basic interest is survival. The ways and means of using power are
dependent on the state’s ability to extract and mobilize the nation’s material resources.
These variables come together in a ‘transmission belt’, which is a concept describing
how national power resources are converted to state power at the international
level.215 Lobell et al. describe the underlying causal logic as follows: Relative power
distributions are independent variables, domestic constraints and elite perceptions216
are intervening variables, and foreign policy is the dependent variable.217 Lobell et al.
come very close to Rose’s definition, but they argue that NCR should be based on
deductive theorizing and hypotheses testing. Moreover, NCR should be based on theunderstanding of explicitly material and relative of power resources and instrumentally
rational FPEs, and on the premise that ideas are only tools for power or ‘wrong’ beliefs.218
Ripsman, Taliaferro and Lobell developed their theory further in their book Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics.219 In it they presented a more coherent theoryof NCR, according to which systemic stimuli or independent variables are based on
the structure of the international system, which can be understood as a polarity basedon material capabilities, but modified by ‘systemic modifiers’, i.e. geography, rates oftechnological diffusion, and the offense-defence balance in military technologies.
Ripsman et al. add ‘clarity’ to systemic stimuli as a systemic variable to explain how
system “uncertainty” conditions the responses of states—through the nature of
threats, time frames and optimal policy responses—and provides room for intervening variables to affect policy choices. They also add the ‘strategic environment’ toexplain how the imminence and magnitude of threats and opportunities affect the
freedom of action of states. Consequently, there are then, in fact, three independent

213 Lobell, Ripsman & Taliaferro 2009. Other prominent scholars labelled Neoclassical realist cf. Zakaria, Fareed

From Wealth to Power. The Unusual Origins of Americas World Role. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1998; Schweller, Randall L. Deadly Imbalances. Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1998.
214 States are defined as: “…variety of autonomous polities with different geographic scopes, internal attributes,
and relative material capacities [interacting] in an anarchic environment” and “In the foreign policy realm, thestate consists of the foreign policy executive, principally the head of government and key ministers and officials
charged with the conduct of foreign policy.” Lobell, Ripsman & Taliaferro 2009, 26 & 280-281.
215 State power is defined as the relative ability of the state to extract and mobilize resources from domestic
society (Ibid., 38).
216 These perceptions mainly relate to the level of threat based on “…the function of the relative distributionof power (both in the international system and in the particular region), the offense-defense balance in militarytechnology, and geographic proximity.” (Ibid., 213).
217 Lobell, Ripsman & Taliaferro 2009, 20. On the application of NCR in a case study cf. Saltzman, I. Z. Growing Pains: Neoclassical Realism and Japan’s Security Policy Emancipation. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.
36, No. 3 (2015), 498 – 527.
218 Lobell, Ripsman & Taliaferro 2009.
219 Ripsman, Taliaferro, & Lobell, 2016.

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variables.220 Ripsman et al. replace the “transmission belt”221 with perceptions, decision-making and policy implementation. These processes are affected by the intervening variables of leader images (beliefs), strategic culture222, state-society relations,and domestic institutions. Ripsman et al. go on to propose NCR as a theory of international politics by naming state foreign policies, grand strategies and systemic outcome dependent variables. They claim that state balancing activities can eventuallylead to structural change and, thus, they propose they can explain systemic change,
which is deemed a weakness of structural realism.223
In their book Ripsman et al. explain ‘soft positivism’224 as an epistemological approach but seem to be more ambivalent about the rationality of FPEs who are “[officials] charged with the conduct of foreign and defence policy”225 but separated fromsociety due to their position, authority, perspective, access to information and attitudes.226 They argue for a positivist approach with a standard methodology, i.e. process tracing, which should be based on the a priori deductive or inductive inferenceof independent, intervening, and dependent variables.227 However, this approach has
been rightfully criticized for being able to find a needed variable for any explanation.228 Therefore, Ripsman et al.’s Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics is, firstly, an attempt to answer the criticism levelled against NCR and, secondly,
an attempt to distinguish it as a research programme or ‘school’ from other IR theories. As such, it ‘reifies’ a version of NCR which I consider unbeneficial but shall,nevertheless, adopt in a modified form.
The problem with the approach by Ripsman et al. in the context of this thesis is thatthey treat ideas and beliefs as exogenous variables and leave them under-defined.
Ripsman et al. claim that: “When states confront more permissive strategic environment, our theory expects ideas and ideology to exert a greater influence on states’
foreign policies.”229 The challenge is to empirically claim when a system is restrictive
220 That is, the distribution of power, systemic modifiers, and imminence and magnitude of threats, i.e. percep-

tion and interpretation (Ibid., 182).
221 These are now closer to Schweller’s definition: “[D]omestic processes act as transmission belts that channel,
mediate and (re)direct policy outputs in response to external forces (primarily changes in relative power). Hence,states often react differently to similar systemic pressures and opportunities, and their response may be lessmotivated by systemic-level factors than domestic ones.” (Schweller, Randall L. Unanswered Threats. A Neoclassical Realist Theory of Underbalancing. International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2004), 159-201, 164).
222 Rispman et al. have defined strategic culture either as organizational culture or wider culture shared by asociety as a whole. It is a set of inter-related beliefs, norms, and assumptions or collective expectations whichshape understanding of strategic environment and acceptable and unacceptable strategic choices. Ripsman
Taliaferro, & Lobell 2016.
223 Ripsman, Taliaferro, & Lobell, 2016.
224 Ripsman, Taliaferro and Lobell argue that they search for law-like generalizations across cases and test thesegeneralizations with rigorous case-study analysis of well-selected cases. Research should produce generalizations which allow prediction but not experimentation as theories are still probabilistic and are not falsifiable.
(Ripsman et al. 2016, 106-107.) Ripsman et al. are closer to Patrick Thaddeus Jackson’s Neopositivism than
Positivism, which can be summarized as the evaluation of hypothetical statements to approximate nomothetic
explanations. (Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. Fear of Relativism. International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 16 (2015),
13-22.)
225 Ripsman et al. 2016, 61.
226 Ibid., 123-126.
227 Ibid., 132.
228 Tang, Shipping. Taking Stock of Neoclassical Realism. International Studies Review, Vol. 11 (2009), 799803.
229 Ripsman et al. 2016, 159.

39

or permissive. Moreover, contrary to Ripsman et al.’s claims, studies of strategic culture have shown that ideas matter when unexpected shocks, i.e. unpredicted significant negative events, occur.230 Thus Ripsman et al. seem to be ready only to give ideas
power when nothing else matters.
The second problem is that Ripsman et al. define an international system as a systemof states based on the distribution power. This does not include ideas, or, most importantly, cyberspace. States can shape their environment only by changing its polarity
through ‘grand strategies’.231 In relation to these deficiencies Michael Foulon points
out the subjectivity of the geopolitical environment. NCR cannot ignore the meanings
the FPEs give to the environment and how they perceive it.232 Moreover, the elites
play two-level games, as state decision-makers must satisfy both domestic and international constituencies—their rationality is thus connected to two different levels.233
Admittedly, NCR is an amalgamation of different theories and thus suffers from poor
parsimony as an IR theory.234 The problems of NCR lie in the way it tries to be atheory of everything. To make its framework suitable for this thesis it must be streamlined, and its positivism and materialism must be replaced by Barkin’s synthesis ofideas and power described above. Moreover, the concept of ideas must be distinguished from norms and structures like culture so that I can examine the role of individual ideas in elite decision-making as reasons for action.
2.4

Ideas and power

Ideas have been understood in the IR theory variously as individual, shared, collective
or intersubjective beliefs.235 Individual beliefs reside in the minds of individual humanbeings, while shared beliefs are based on consensus in a social group, and collective
or intersubjective beliefs reside in some respects outside individual minds and have
independent staying power.236 In addition to levels of possessions, ideas have been
230 Cf. Chapter 2.5
231 “[T]he organizing principle or conceptual blueprint that animates all of the state’s relations with the outside

world… It is a future-oriented enterprise involving considerations of external threats and opportunities, as wellas the specific material, political, and ideological objectives of the state.” (Ripsman et al., 84.)
232 Foulon, Michael. Neoclassical Realism: Challengers and Bridging Identities. International Studies Review.
Vol. 17 (2015), 635-661.
233 Their idea of two-level games was developed during 1980-1990s. (Katzenstein, Keohane, & Krasner 1998).
234 For further criticism cf. Narizny, Kevin. The New Debate: International Relations Theory and American
Strategic Adjustment in the 1890s. Security Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, (Autumn 2001), 151-170, 181; Legro &Moravcsik 1999; Feaver et al. 2000; Narizny 2017; Finel 2001; Rathbun, Brian. A Rose by Any Other Name:
Neoclassical Realism as the Logical and Necessary Extension of Structural Realism. Security Studies, Vol. 17,
294-332; Tang 2009; Kaarbo 2015. Moravcsik, Andrew. Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory ofInternational Politics. International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4, (Autumn 1997), 513–553; Schieder, Siegfried.
New Liberalism. In Schieder, Siegfried and Spindler, Manuela (ed.) Theories of International Relations. New
York: Routledge, 2015, 107-129; Rathbun, Brian C. Is Anybody Not an (International Relations) Liberal? Security Studies, Vol. 19 (2019), 2-25).
235 The terms ideas and beliefs are used interchangeably. Yee defines them “as mental events that entail
thought.” (Yee, Albert S. ‘The Causal Effect of Ideas on Politics’. International Organization, Vol. 50 (1996),
69-108, 69). Ruggie, among others, has claimed that ideas were ‘introduced’ to IR by Judith Goldstein andRobert Keohane. They proposed world views (identities), principled beliefs (right-wrong) and causal beliefs(cause-effect) as norms affecting policy outcomes. They influence decision-making through ‘road maps’, ‘focal
points’ (deciding in equilibrium situations), and ‘institutionalization’ (guiding policy in the absence of innovation). (Ruggie 1998).
236 Laffey, Mark and Weldes, Jutta. Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relations. European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 2 (June 1997), 193–237; Goldstein,40

divided into types such as policy prescriptions, norms, principled beliefs, cause-effectbeliefs, ideologies, shared belief systems, and broad worldviews according to theirgeneralizability.237 According to Nina Tannenwald, worldviews are all-encompassingorientations to reality with changing and contradictory elements. She sees ideologies
and shared belief systems as “a systematic set of doctrines or beliefs that reflect thesocial needs and aspirations of a group” which usually include an orientation to the
future. In her view cause-effect or causal beliefs are about means and ends and they
provide an understanding of the world and guidelines for achieving goals in this context. She notes that norms and principled beliefs consist of values and attitudes describing right and wrong and proscribing appropriate behaviour and policy prescriptions are derived from causal and principled beliefs which provide specific and exact
solutions to problems.238 This thesis will use the concept of causal beliefs to argue forthe existence of specific strategic cultural ideas explained below. They are somethingthat can be observed from texts and provide direct connection to policies. Admittedly,
the borders of different types of ideas on the empirical level are blurred, so causal
beliefs usually include elements of principled beliefs.
Ideas should be differentiated from norms which are “…standards of appropriate
behavior for actors with a given identity”239 or more exactly in an IR context “a setof intersubjective understandings and collective expectations regarding the proper behaviour of states and other actors in a given context or identity.”240 According to
Annika Björkdahl norms have been seen to have regulative, constitutive and enabling
powers through a variety of mechanisms, whereas ideas and beliefs might not havedirect behavioural effects.241 Ideas reside in the realm of the mind, culture, language,
frames, representations and discourse—more as a potential than as a manifested social fact.242 Ideas should also be distinguished from institutions which are “a relatively
stable collection of practices and rules defining appropriate behavior for specificgroups of actors in specific situations.”243 Institutions have their own causal and constitutive powers and independent existence outside people’s minds, although, theymight also be the carriers of ideas through their organizational processes, structure,and culture.244 Nevertheless, the distinction between norms and ideas is not clear-cut
and depending on theoretical approach they have been used interchangeably.245
Judith and Keohane, Robert O. (eds.) Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993; Jacobsen, Kurt. Much Ado about Ideas: The Cognitive Factor in Economic Policy. World Politics, Vol. 47 (1995), 283-310; Risse-Kappen, Thomas. Ideas Do Not Float Freely:
Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War. International Organization, Vol.
48 (1994), 185-214; Legro, Jeffrey W. The Transformation of Policy Ideas. American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Jul. 2000), 419-432; Wendt 1999, 158; Checkel, Jeffrey. Ideas and International Political
Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior at the End of the Cold War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
237 Tannenwald 2005; Tannenwald & Wohlforth 2005.
238 Tannenwald & Wohlforth 2005, 16-17. Cf. Laffey & Weldes 1997; Legro 2000.
239 Finnemore, Martha and Sikkink, Kathryn. International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. International
Organization, Vol. 52, No. 4, (Autumn, 1998), 887-917, 891.
240 Björkdahl 2002, 15.
241 Björkdahl 2002, 21.
242 Laffey & Weldes 1997; Yee 1996; Barnett, Michael. Culture, Strategy and Foreign Policy Change: Israel’s
Road to Oslo. European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1999) 5-36.
243 March & Olsen 1998, 948.
244 Legro, Jeffrey W. Culture and Preferences in the International Cooperation Two-Step. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Mar. 1996), 118-137; Yee 1996; Finnemore & Sikkink 1998.
245 Cf. Farrell, Theo. Constructivist Security Studies: Portrait of a Research Program. International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2002), 49-72.

41

The traditional IR theory has usually approached ideas as commodities that are carried, owned and intentionally manipulated by actors, whereas postmodernists andpost-structuralists have argued that ideas are independent of actors and have theirown constitutive power.246 Sometimes ideas are used to define preferences of instrumental rationalistic decision-making.247 From a Constructivist point of view, ideas
give meaning and causal effects to matter, and formulate decision-making throughcausal beliefs.248 This means that rationality itself is contextual and affected by culturalbeliefs and ideas.249 When this kind of understanding of ideas is connected to explaining things, problems of proving causality follow. Thus, the use of ideas to depict
causes usually results in producing descriptive research.250
The relation of ideas to material aspects has remained problematic in IR theory.251 If
reality is seen as a material aspect, then ideas do not matter or matter only a little —which is a slippery slope. On the other hand, if reality is a social phenomenon, then IR
research is in danger of turning into a pure analysis of language, speech, and discourse
without any claims on knowledge of reality which would be policy relevant, prediction
included.252 Related to this is the problem of change: How do ideas (norms) change
and why some ideas become accepted as collective beliefs and others do not? Arguably,material and ideational aspects of reality interact and the interaction of actors andstructures has emergent properties.253 One solution to these problems would be toengage in mid-level theorising, which would mean concentrating on case studies andprocess tracing to evaluate both ideational and material effects on contextual decisionmaking and strive for causal explanations with limited generalizability or an interpretive understanding.254 This is the approach taken in this thesis and it is in line with thephilosophical assumptions presented above.
Ideas have a life of their own through a cycle of adoption or reformulation or production and then transmission, reception, and implementation.255 They emerge out of
external events or shocks necessitating new thinking, from outside pressure or domestic politics.256 The adoption of external ideas or the promotion of domestic ideas
246 Laffey & Weldes 1997.

247 Frieden, Jeffry. Actors and Preferences in International Relations. In Lake, David and Powell, Robert (eds.)

Strategic Choice and International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, 39-76.; Tannenwald& Wohlforth, 2005.
248 Tannenwald 2005.
249 Yee 1997.
250 Laffey & Weldes 1997; Finnemore & Sikkink 1998; Tannenwald & Wohlforth, 2005.
251 This problem can be summarized as: do states primarily react to material or ideational incentives? (Barkin
2010, 49).
252 This is exactly the criticism that Ripsman et al. express in relation Barkin’s Realist constructivism. (Ripsman
et al. 2017; Barkin 2010).
253 Yee 1997; Moravcsik 1997; Guzzini, Stefano and Leander, Anna. A Social Theory for International Relations: An Appraisal of Alexander Wendt’s Theoretical and Disciplinary Synthesis. Journal of International Relations & Development, Vol. 4, No. 4, (December 2001), 316-338; Brooks, Stephen G. and Wohlforth, William
C. Power, Globalization, and the End of the Cold War. Reevaluating a Landmark Case for Ideas. International
Security, Vol. 25, No 3 (Winter 2000/2001), 5-53; Brooks, Stephen G. and Wohlforth, William C. From Old
Thinking to New Thinking in Qualitative Research. International Security, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Spring 2002), 93111.
254 Tannenwald 2015; Mahoney 2015; Waldner 2015.
255 Legro 2000; Nye 2011a; Finnemore & Sikkink 1998; Tannenwald 2005.
256 De Souza, Denise E. Culture, context and society —The underexplored potential of critical realism as aphilosophical framework for theory and practice. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 17 (2014), 141-151.

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to an external audience is contested.257 The life of ideas is connected to ‘epistemic
communities.’258 This concept was invented by John Ruggie and developed by Ernst
Haas and was later elaborated by Peter Haas and Emmanuel Adler.259 Adler and Haas
have described an epistemic community as: “…a network of individuals or groups
with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within their domain of expertise. The community members share knowledge about the causation of social andphysical phenomena in areas they have a reputation for competence in. They also
have a common set of normative beliefs about what will benefit human welfare insuch a domain. While members are often from a number of different professions anddisciplines, they adhere to the following: (1) shared consummatory values and principled beliefs; (2) shared causal beliefs or professional judgment; (3) common notionsof validity based on intersubjective, internally defined criteria for validatingknowledge; and (4) a common policy project.”260 Epistemic communities are notpurely domestic actors. They have contacts with other communities across borders
and this facilitates the exchange of ideas internationally beyond state interaction.261
Epistemic communities are not lobbyists. Their influence is based on the need fortechnological or other expert knowledge (residing mostly in academic circles) by decision-making elites to understand their changed, novel environment.262 Ideas are notnecessarily new but might be combinations of old ideas.263 Ideas proposed by epistemic communities are not necessarily revolutionary or liberal in a normative sense.
To have purchase, they must be constructed to ‘fit’ into or ‘resonate’ with existingideas of decision-making elites.264 In this way, through communicative actions andtheir bureaucratic position, epistemic communities provide decision-makers withprincipled and causal beliefs and perhaps also policy prescriptions which guide but do
not determine their decisions.265 This process is contested and the elites do not get tojust pick-and-choose, and neither do communities get their ideas through intact.266
257 Lantis, Jeffrey S. Nuclear cooperation with non-NPT member states? An elite-driven model of norm con-testation. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 39, No. 3 (2018), 399-418.
258 An alternative concept of the epistemic community are ‘norm entrepreneurs’ proposed by Finnemore andSikkink. (Finnemore & Sikkink 1998).
259 Ruggie, John Gerard. International Responses to Technology: Concepts and Trends. International Organization, Vol. 29, No. 3, International Responses to Technology (Summer, 1975), 557-583; Adler, E., and Haas,
P.M. Conclusion: epistemic communities, world order, and the creation of a reflective research program. International organization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (1992), 367–390; Haas, Peter M. Introduction: Epistemic Communities
and International Policy Coordination. International Organization, Vol. 46 (1992), 1-35; Ruggie, John Gerard,
Katzenstein, Peter J., Keohane, Robert O. and Schmitter, Philippe C. Transformations in World Politics.: The
Intellectual Contributions of Ernst B. Haas. Annual Reviews of Political Science, Vol. 8 (2005), 271-96. For asummary cf. Davis Cross, M.K. Rethinking epistemic communities twenty years later. Review of international
studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2013), 137-160.
260 Adler & Haas 1992, 101.
261 Ibid.
262 Ruggie was discussing technological changes in the 1970s which resonates quite well with the subject of thisthesis: The unknowability and novelty of cyberspace and information society. (Ruggie 1975). See also, RisseKappen 1994; Rathbun 2010, 15; Rathbun, Brian. Uncertainty about Uncertainty: Clarifying a Crucial Concept
for International Relations Theory. International Studies Quarterly, Vol.51, No. 3 (2007), 25-47.
263 Adler, Emanuel. The Emergence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the International
Evolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control. International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1, Knowledge, Power,and International Policy Coordination (Winter, 1992), 101-145, 105, 123.
264 Adler & Haas 1992; Yee 1996; Laffey & Weldes 1997.
265 Haas & Adler 1992; Faleg, Giovanni. Between knowledge and power: epistemic communities and the emergence of security sector reform in the EU security architecture. European Security, Vol. 21, No. 2 (2012), 161184.
266 Faleg 2012.

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Epistemic communities thus provide reasons for the actions of state decision-makers
through causal and principled beliefs.267 Michael Barnett has called this ‘framing’. It
is the intentional deployment of contextual meaning-providing structure268 to makesense of the underlying reality, to fix meanings, organize experience, and to suggest
courses of action.269 This does not exclude strategic or instrumental rationality understood as means to ends calculations. It only means that rationality must be set in acontext and an interpretive analysis must be used to understand how decision-makers
understand their environment and its restrictions and their means and goals. Causal
and principled beliefs and epistemic communities explain how ideas end up affecting
decision-makers or elites in the NCR and transform them from intervening variables
into reasons to use power in accordance with Barkin’s ideas. 270
A few words on power are required at this point. Ideas are related to power. This isbecause the concept of power that I subscribe to views power as relational and contextual.271 Power is power over something and it gains its effect and meaning fromthis relationship and context. This is why cyber power must be discussed in the context of cyberspace and I shall return to this concept in Chapter 3. On a more theoretical level, power is basically understood as a material capacity or a set of resources andis used “to control and shape […] the external environment.”272 Related to this, constructivism offers a ‘deeper’ understanding of changing the environment of theagents. Agent behaviour changes the environment because it is guided by meanings
given to power, behaviour and the environment.273 In other words, Russia’s project
to control and shape cyberspace can be considered as a part of a process that willchange cyberspace for everyone. Power then is imbued with meaning and, therefore,
ideas are important.
It is also important to point out that power as a potential is only a set of resources
and means.274 It must be extracted, mobilized and used for some purpose to become
what NCR calls ‘state power’. This is compatible with Lawrence Freedman’s definition of strategy as an art of creating power through process or practice which is informed by cultural ‘scripts’.275 I shall examine the relationship between strategy andpower more in Chapter 3, but here it is essential to insert strategy, “the use that is
made of force and the threat of force for the ends of policy”276, into Ripsman et al.’smodel.277 Perception, decision making, and policy implementation are incorporated
into the concept of strategy when we are discussing military matters. The making ofstrategy is a continuous process of these elements to create, mobilize and utilize power
for strategic effect, the ultimate manifestation of which is the use of force.
267 Yee 1996, 94.

268 Hamati-Ataya 2012.
269 Barnett 1999, 15 & 25.

270 Cf. Libel2016), 137–156.
271 Baldwin, D. A. Power and International Relations. In Carlsnaes, Walter, Risse, Thomas and Simmons, BethA. (eds.) Handbook of International Relations. London: SAGE Publications, 2013, 273-297, 275; Barnett, Michael and Duvall, Raymond. Power in International Politics, International Organization, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Winter,2005), 39-75.
272 Rose, 1998, 152.
273 Kratochwil 2010, 451-452; Barkin 2010.
274 Although some Structural realists like Mearsheimer would argue that it is also the end (Mearsheimer 2001).
275 Freedman 2013, xi, 620-621.
276 Gray, Colin. S. Modern Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 17.
277 Ripsman et al. 2016, 59.

44A few words on the state are also required at this point. Although NCR opens the‘black box’ of the state, it still considers states as the primary actors in international
politics through FPEs. This might seem an anachronistic approach because the concept of modern state and its current role in international relations has been challenged.278 Research has shown that state sovereignty is a socially constructed concept
which has changed over time.279 Nevertheless, the state can be characterized as a setof institutions and relationships of governance which are partially independent of society. Max Weber’s definition of an institution that possesses a monopoly over thelegitimate means of coercion is still widely accepted.280 States have a foreign policy281,
and a security282 and defence policy283 based on their internal, autonomous, and exclusive authority over their territory, and externally recognized position by otherstates, i.e. sovereignty.284 These policies are managed by designated foreign, defence
and security policy elites—elites meaning here a group of people with official authority to represent the state. These have the legitimacy to use state power. This does notmean that they are independent of international or domestic pressures.285 In the context of this thesis, and in line with NCR, defence and security elites are the people
who make decisions on the state use of power for military and security ends and in
responses to national threats. Thus, states use power based on the decisions made by
the elites who are provided with reasons from ideas offered by, among others, epistemic communities. Power can be used in different ways and in different domains. As
I will argue in Chapter 3, cyberspace is such a domain, in fact an environment, andpower can be used to control and shape it. The connection of military power or use
of force to state power can be found in ideas belonging to the sphere of strategic
culture.
2.5

Strategic culture

Culture is either a type of idea, shared belief system, worldview, discourse, or a social
structure, depending on the theoretical approach. It could be an environment which
consists of constitutive and regulatory norms, which prescribe and proscribe behaviour and how to behave, or it could be “bundles of ideas and matter linguistically,

278 Biersteker, Thomas J. State, Sovereign and Territory. In Carlsnaes, Walter, Risse, Thomas and Simmons,

Beth A. (eds.) Handbook of International Relations. London: SAGE Publications, 157-176; Kaldor 2012, 91.
279 Glanville, Luke. The Myth of ‘Traditional’ Sovereignty. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 57 (2013), 7990; Caporaso, James A. Changes in the Westphalian Order: Territory, Public Authority, and Sovereignty. International Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 2000), 1-28; Schmidt, Sebastian. To Order the Minds of Scholars: The Discourse of the Peace of Westphalia in International Relations Literature. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 55 (2011), 601–623; Osiander, Andreas. Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian
Myth. International Organization, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Spring 2001), 251-287; Branch, Jordan. Mapping the Sovereign State: Technology, Authority, and Systemic Change. International Organization, Vol. 65 (Winter 2011), 136.
280 Biersteker 2005, 159.
281 On the concept security foreign policy cf. Carlsnaes 2005, 335.
282 On the concept security cf. Miller 2001.
283 Understood in this thesis as the part of state policy which handles the threat or use of force by the state,including the assessment of threats, planning and preparation for, and implementing the threat or use of force.
284 Biersteker 2005, 168. European Union seems to be an exception to this rule cf. Biscop, Sven and Whitman,
Richard G. The Routledge Handbook of European Security. London: Routledge, 2013; Larivé, Maxime H.
A. Debating European Security and Defense Policy: Understanding the Complexity. Surrey: Ashgate, 2014.
285 Adler & Haas 1992, 373-374.

45

materially and intersubjectively mediated.”286 For Alexander Wendt, international system is a social structure consisting of “distribution of ideas” where shared ideas forma “culture” which gives meaning to power and defines the substance of interests.287
Strategic culture is a concept which was first used in the context of Strategic Studies
by Jack Snyder in a study of Soviet nuclear strategy for the RAND corporation in the1977.288 Snyder was openly critical of the rational game-theoretical approaches of histime and of ‘mirror-imaging’ US nuclear strategic thinking to the Soviets.289 He described strategic culture as: “the sum total of ideas, conditioned emotional responses,
and patterns of habitual [cognitive] behaviour that members of national strategic community have acquired through instruction and imitation and share with each otherwith regard to nuclear strategy […] the body of attitudes and beliefs that guides andcircumscribes thought on strategic questions, influences the way strategic issues areformulated, and sets the vocabulary and conceptual parameters of strategic debate.”290
This culture had a certain amount of staying power because individuals were socialized into it and because institutional interests were involved. It could change throughevolution of technology, but it also affected how new technologies were implemented.
Snyder also recognized that there were strategic subcultures which were traditions
related to specific institutional associations.291 Snyder proposed some ideas on how
to connect culture to state behaviour but was cautious of giving either one too muchcredence or making overly precise predictions from them.292
After Snyder, there have been at least three maybe four ‘generations’ of thoughts on
strategic culture.293 Alistair Johnston was the first to describe different strains of strategic culture research as generations and his later debate with Colin Gray ingrained
this division.294 In short, Johnston claimed that the first generation was based on
Snyder’s concept of strategic culture. It had its heyday from the 1970s to mid-1980s
and was theoretically over- and under-determined. This meant that strategic culture
286 Katzenstein 1996, 54; Adler & Pouliot 2011, 14-15.
287 Wendt 1999.

288 Snyder 1977.
289 Cf. also Gray, Colin S. What Rand Hath Wrought. Foreign Policy, No. 4 (Autumn 1971), 111-129; Strachan

2013, 136-137. Snyder also argued that public sources could be used to study Soviet strategic thinking because,
for example, the ideas presented in the Soviet military journals, restricted to officers, did not drastically diverge
from the secret versions (Snyder 1977). Garthoff has later pointed out that secret versions had more substancebut rarely differed from the restricted ones (Garthoff 1990).
290 Snyder 1977, 8-9.
291 Ibid., 10.
292 Ibid., 15-16. Jaffrey S. Lantis has summarized Snyder’s thinking as follows: “Snyder suggested that elites
articulate a unique strategic culture related to security-military affairs that is a wider manifestation of public
opinion, socialized into a distinctive, semi-permanent mode of strategic thinking.” Lantis, Jeffrey S. Strategic
Cultures and Security Policies in the Asia-Pacific, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.35, No.2 (2014), 166-186,
171.
293 Ibid.; Tamil Libel has argued that the fourth generation combines ideas of Snyder and Alastair Johnston by
accepting multiple subcultures and competition between them (Libel 2016).
294 Gray, Colin S. Strategic Culture as Context: the First Generation of Theory Strikes Back. Review of International Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1 (January 1999), 49-69; Johnston, Alastair Iain. Strategic Cultures Revisited:
Reply to Colin Gray. Review of International Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (July 1999), 519-523; Uz Zaman, Rashid.
Strategic Culture: A “Cultural” Understanding of War. Comparative Strategy, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2009), 68-88;
Bloomfield, Alan. Time to Move On: Reconceptualizing the Strategic Culture Debate. Contemporary Security
Policy, Vol. 33, No. 3 (2012), 437-461; Poore, Stuart. What is the context? A reply to the Gray-Johnston debate
on strategic culture. Review of International Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Apr. 2003), 279-284; Sondhaus, Lawrence.
Strategic Culture and Ways of War. New York, Routledge, 2006, 123-126.

46

alone strongly determined behaviour and culture was considered as an amalgam ofpotentially competing variables and inputs.295 The second generation from the mid1980s to early 1990s approached strategic culture as a tool or instrument but was
unable to differentiate between occasions when decision-makers used culture andwhen they were influenced by it.296 The third generation from the mid-1990s, thatJohnston himself represented and improved upon, saw culture as an independent variable. It separated behaviour from culture and thereby avoided tautology and enabledculture to vary through subcultures and temporal change, and, most importantly, allowed competitive testing of positivist theory.297 Later in 1999, Colin Gray defended
the first generation, of which he had been a proponent, and introduced the idea ofculture as a ‘context’ and thereby connecting strategic culture to Constructivist traditions.298 Johnston and Gray are, of course, not the only ones who have tried to definestrategic culture, but they and Snyder are the ‘founding fathers’ to which almost every
scholar has referred and built upon.299
Johnson defined strategic culture as “as an integrated system of symbols (i.e. argumentative structures [causal axioms]300, languages, analogies, metaphors, etc.) that acts
to establish pervasive and long-lasting strategic preferences by formulating conceptsof the role and efficacy of military force in interstate political affairs, and by clothingthese conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the strategic preferences seemuniquely realistic and efficacious.”301 This system of symbols consists of basic assumptions about the strategic environment, i.e. a ‘central paradigm’ and a limited
ranked set of preferences derived from basic assumptions, which, based on hypotheses, could be tested against behaviour. For Johnston, culture should be persistent andchange slowly for it to have a causal effect on decision-making. Most importantly, heseparated culture from behaviour, because otherwise he would have been guilty ofthe same tautology of which he accused the first generation.302
Gray’s definition of strategic culture is more complex than Johnston’s and he hasdeveloped his concept over time. In his book Modern Strategy, Gray gave the following
definition: “Strategic culture consists of the socially constructed and transmitted assumptions, habits of mind, traditions, and preferred methods of operation—that is,behavior—that are more or less specific to a particular geographically based security
community. A security community may not be monolithic and can have several strategic (and military) cultures […] and it or they will be challenged constantly to adapt
to new conditions. Strategic culture is likely to manifest itself in strategic behavior,though certainly not in a mechanistic or deterministic way.”303 For Gray, culture is295 Johnston, Alastair Iain. Thinking about Strategic Culture. International Security, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Spring1995), 32-64 33.
296 Ibid., 40-41.
297 Ibid., 41-43.
298 Gray 1999b. Johnston’s reply to Gray did not really build any bridges between their approaches. (Johnston
1999; Poore, 2003).
299 Cf. Booth, Ken. The Concept of Strategic Culture Affirmed. In Jacobsen, C.G. (ed.) Strategic Power:
USA/USSR. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1990, 121-128, 121; Rosen, Stephen Peter. Military Effectiveness:
Why Society Matters. International Security, Vol. 19, No.4 (Spring 1995), 5-31; Katzenstein et al. 1996, 6-7.
300 Johnston, Alastair John. Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China. In Katzenstein 1996, 216-268, 222.
301 Johnston 1995, 46.
302 Johnston 1995 & 1996.
303 Gray 1999a, 28.

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both the shaping context of strategic behaviour304, which gives it meaning, and ‘thetotal warp and woof of matters strategic’ (i.e. constituent of that behaviour).305 Not
surprisingly, this definition has caused some confusion.306 Especially confusing is
Gray’s claim that that polities cannot always follow their culturally preferred policy
choices and that all dimensions of strategy affect behaviour.307 The influence of constructivism on Gray is clear when he claims that strategic culture and strategic behaviour are mutually constitutive, and the state’s culture evolves based on how it itself
and others interpret its behaviour.308 Gray insists that behaviour is part of culture andby doing so disputes Johnston’s project for a positivist study of strategic culture.309
This has led Gray to champion interpretivist epistemology, although, however, always
keeping in mind the practical needs of strategy. Moreover, according to Gray, strategic
culture’s influence is issue-dependent and changes gradually, but it also adopts outside
influences through shocks, and it is negotiated and so always constrained by domestic
factors and the international environment.310
Although the debate between Johnston and Gray did not solve the differences between their approaches, it highlighted some of the basic problems of a strategic cultural approach.311 Strategic culture is difficult to operationalize for empirical study,
the reasons for its stability or change are difficulty to prove, its added value to material
explanations is suspect, and its ability to produce forecasts is low, and thus its policy
relevance has been challenged.312 Additionally, it has been claimed that by concentrating on sui generis cases, strategic cultural studies do not produce comparable knowledge
or generalizations for scientific advancement.313 Moreover, IR and Strategic Studies
rely heavily upon the works of historians which are already interpretations in themselves and include implicit and explicit underlying assumptions.314 They usually referto historical studies or English-language media sources for their material. For example, many strategic cultural studies of Russia or China use mostly English-language
secondary sources.315 If a researcher aims to understand foreign social meanings andculture, he/she must immerse himself/herself in the subject, i.e. get to know the history, language, and the culture of foreign nations.
304 By strategic behaviour Gray meant behaviour relevant to the threat or use of force for political purposes.

(Gray 1999b, 49-69, 50).
305 Ibid. It might also be a plot or a way of thinking (Gray 2007).
306 Poore 2003.
307 Gray1999a, 53, 130 & 150.
308 Bloomfield, Alan and Nossal, Kim Richard. Towards an Explicative Understanding of Strategic Culture:
The Cases of Australia and Canada. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2007), 286-307, 288.
309 Here Gray follows Raymond Williams. Cf.
Storey, John (ed.) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A
Reader (5th ed.) London: Pearson Longman, 2015.
310 Gray 2007.
311 Christopher Twomey has summarized these as over-determination, empirical failings, and the unresolvedrole of causality in epistemology (Twomey 2008, 344).
312 Lantis, Jeffrey S. and Darryl Howlett. Strategic Culture. In Baylis, Wirtz & Gray 2013, 84-101, 91-95; Strachan 2013, 136-140. Desch 1998; Twomey 2008.
313 Desch 1998. For response to Desch’s criticism cf. Duffield, John S., Farrell, Theo, Price, Richard and Desch,Michael C. Correspondence—Isms and Schisms: Culturalism versus Realism in Security Studies. International
Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999) 156-180.
314 Quirk, Joel. Historical Methods. In Reus-Smith & Snidal 2010, 518-536.
315 For example, Payne, Keith B. and Foster, John S. Russian strategy Expansion, crisis and conflict. Comparative Strategy, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2017), 1-89; Eitelhuber, Norbert. The Russian Bear: Russian Strategic Culture
and What it Implies for the West. Connections, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter 2009), 1-28; Becker et al. 2016; Marten
2017.

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During the 2000s-2010s, the study of strategic culture has moved away from a monolithic understanding of culture towards subcultures, and the object of study haschanged from national culture to decision-making elites who are given a larger role inshaping the culture. Instead of exploring the effects of persistent ideas, the researchhas explored why some ideas persist and others change.316 One aspect of strategic
culture which has remained unresolved is its source, the other is what exactly belongs
to strategic culture. Current trends in strategic cultural studies have been categorized
in diverse ways. For example, Jeffrey Lantis and Darryl Howlett describe approaches
to strategic culture as value adding, explanatory and immersive, the distinction being
what kind of explanatory power is given to culture. Value-adding perspectives areused to explain variation in realist models, explanatory views use culture as an independent variable to explain behaviour and the immersive approach is based on understanding and does not produce falsifiable theories.317 On the other hand, John
Glenn identifies four ‘conceptions’ of strategic culture: the epiphenomenal concept
which considers culture as intervening variable, the conventional constructivist viewwhich considers culture as the source of reasons, the post-structuralist conception
which considers culture as an instrument to recreate reality through language, and theinterpretivist view which considers culture as a framework of understanding.318
Below some ideas of current scholars of strategic culture are presented which specifically inform this thesis’s theoretical framework. The synthesis is offered in Chapter
2.6. The starting point is that I will subscribe to the immersive or constructive category of strategic cultural research, and will thus bracket the issues of causality and theseparation of ideas and behaviour, and I will abandon the concept of culture for amore fine-grained concept of strategic cultural ideas. Moreover, I will use Russian
language primary sources in tracing the development of those ideas.
Jeffrey Lantis has been one of the most prolific writers on strategic culture in the
2000s and he points out that strategic culture has cognitive, evaluative and expressive
dimensions.319 The cognitive dimension includes empirical and causal beliefs, while
the evaluative dimension consists of values, norms and moral judgement, and theexpressive or affective dimension encompasses emotional attachments, patterns ofidentity and loyalty, and feelings of affinity, aversion, or indifference.320 This definition pays attention to the nature of beliefs or ideas that restrict or constitute behaviour. It also explains how beliefs can at the same time guide strategic decision-makers
and offer them tools for justification and legitimization policies—beliefs are frames

316 Farrell 2002; Uz Zaman 2009; Sondhaus 2006; Gray 2007; Bloomfield 2012; Lantis 2014; Lantis & Howlett

2013.
317 Lantis & Howlett 2013.
318 Glenn, John. Realism versus Strategic Culture: Competition and Collaboration? International Studies Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2009), 523-551. For other categories cf. Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger (2015) The
Play of International Practice. International Studies Quarterly (2015) 59, 449–460, 451; Adler, Emanuel andPouliot, Vincent (2011). International practices. International Theory, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp 1-36, 14; Desch 1998;
Twomey 2008, 340.
319 This is similar to what Alan Bloomfield has called ‘schemas’ or cognitive shortcuts (Bloomfield 2012, 451452).
320 Lantis, Jeffery S. Strategic Culture and National Security Policy. International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 3(Autumn 2002), 87-113., 90. Lantis takes this division from John Duffield (Duffield, John S. World Power
Forsaken: Political Culture, International Institutions, and German Security Policy After Unification. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1998, 23).

49

for understanding but also tools for mobilization. Lantis has also argued that institutions socialize members and provide ‘frames’ which offer them a cognitive framework
to interpret what counts as a problem, how problems are presented, what strategies
should be used to solve problems, and what kinds of constraints and requirements
are placed on the solutions.321 As Lantis has perhaps been more interested in continuity, Kelly Longhurst has instead argued that a change of culture is based on continuous self-evaluation vis-á-via external reality (fine-tuning) or occurs through shocks.
Stability is based on institutional practices which sustain knowledge and limit the rangeof conceivable actions and responses. However, generational change may lead to reevaluation.322 The ideas of Lantis and Longhurst need to be kept in mind when analysing the continuity of Soviet ideas from one regime to another.
De Souza has offered a definition of culture based on critical realism.323 According toher, community and culture are not united. The cultural system consists of all knowable proposed ideas and socio-cultural interaction, i.e. the relationship between social
order and ideas. Change comes from internal and external sources. Internal changes
come from how ideas interplay with each other and how the social system affects therelationship between the political and social order and ideas. External changes arise
from events and outside influences. Cultural and social systems are open, emergent
systems consisting of structures, powers and mechanisms. They produce intentional
agents which adopt, adapt and manipulate ideas. Souza claims that knowledge of objects is based on prior social products (knowledge). This means that all new ideas mustbe fitted to old ones and are, in fact, products of the old ones.324 Another view on
this changing and reproductive nature of culture is to approach it as a practice or acontinuous performance.325 Thus, Soviet and Russian ideas interact, merge, and produce new meanings and the political, social and cultural elements cannot be disconnected.
Tamil Libel has studied Israel’s changing security policy. He combines the ideas of‘epistemic communities’ and subcultures with strategic culture to examine how policy
crisis challenges hegemonic culture, how communities organize themselves aroundinnovative statements, how they compete in public and how their ideas are diffused,
how policy-makers select one of the subcultures and incorporate it to their policies
and how a subculture then gains persistence and hegemony. Epistemic communities
are not only academic circles whose influence is based on expertise, they also havepower and resources needed to compete in public.326 Libel’s model is made to correspond to democratic systems so the ‘competition’ phase could be opaquer in autocratic political systems. Moreover, the existence and strength of distinct subcultures
is also suspect or at least empirically difficult to prove in opaque political systems with
one-party-rule.

321 Lantis, Jeffrey S. Strategic Culture and Tailored Deterrence: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice,Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2009), 467-485.
322 Longhurst, Kelly. Germany and the use of force. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.
323 De Souza, 2014.
324 Adler 1992, 101–145.
325 Adler & Pouliott, 2011; Bueger & Gadinger 2015.
326 Libel 2016.

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Renny Babiarz’s study is also interesting in which he explains the Chinese approachto nuclear deterrence during the Mao Zedong era with strategic culture based on theconcept of the ‘People’s War’.327 Babiarz argues that instead of process-tracing certain foreign policy decisions, competing and hegemonic ideas about a particular issue can be studied. Then the development of concrete projects related to that issue
are analysed, and finally the correspondence of ideas and the project can be analysed. This type of analysis is based on finding reasons for action, not on the causality of ideas. However, Babiarz’s study concentrates only on one idea, whereas it isquite possible that there are any number of ideas influencing certain policy issues atany point of time. Finally, Dima Adamsky has proved the important point that theSoviet Union’s or Russia’s and the United States’ strategic cultures have at least been
in indirect contact and ideas have flown between them.328 Ideas thus flow even between ideologically competing superpowers, which proves the point that epistemic
communities are not necessarily insular.
Before I summarize my approach on strategic culture, a few parallel concepts of strategic culture need to be defined. These are: political culture, national character, security culture, organizational culture, military culture, the national way of war, and thecharacter of war. Political culture refers to a subset of beliefs and values of a societythat relate to a political system.329 The national character is associated with the primordial characteristics of some ethnically related group of people and it is connected
to a collective identity which might have effects on state foreign policy.330 Security
culture is more of a synonym of strategic culture than a parallel concept, but its scopeof ‘owners’ and ‘objects’ of security is more extensive.331 Organizational culture is aculture of a particular organization providing a collective understanding and shapes
the perceptions of its members and thus frames and constrains the decision-making.332 Military culture concerns only the military and includes perceptions of strategy,
operations, and tactics.333 The national way of war has been used to describe, and insome cases to predict, how nations use military power. It is sometimes derived from327 Babiarz, Renny. The People’s Nuclear Weapon: Strategic Culture and the Development of China’s Nuclear

Weapons Program, Comparative Strategy, Vol. 34, No. 5 (2015), 422-446.
328 Adamsky 2010.
329 Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963, 11-14; Elkins, David J. and Simeon, Richard E. B. A
Cause in Search of Its Effect, or What Does Political Culture Explain? Comparative Politics, Vol. 11, No. 2(1979), 127-128; Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973; Lane, Ruth.
Political Culture: Residual Category or General Theory? Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 25 (October 1992),
362-387.
330 Kowert Paul A. National Identity: Inside and Out. Security Studies, Vol. 8 (Winter 1998/99–Spring 1999),
1-34.
331 Krause, Keith. Conclusions: Security culture and the non‐proliferation, arms control and disarmament
agenda. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1998), 219-239, 221-222. Monica Gariup has claimed
that security and strategic culture are two sides of the same coin: the first defines threats and the latter themeans to counter them. (Gariup, Monica. European Security Culture: Language, Theory, Policy. Surrey: Ashgate, 2009, 41).
332 Kier, Elizabeth. Culture and French Military Doctrine Before World War II. In Katzenstein 1996, 186-215,
202.
333 Ruffa, Chiara. Military Cultures and Force Employment in Peace Operations. Security Studies, Vol. 26, No.
3 (2017), 391-422, 393.

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a larger strategic culture and includes both culture and observed behaviour.334 The
concept of the character of war is based on the beliefs about the current and future
meaning of war, its legitimate means and goals, and the utility of force.335 Both theconcepts of way of war and the character of war can be understood as component
parts of strategic culture, although the character of war transcends national and stateborders because war can be understood as an international social fact or a subjective
understanding.336
What separates strategic culture from the above discussed parallel concepts is its connection to the threat or use of force to achieve political ends by the state military andsecurity elites. Force in the context of strategic must been understood as all means ofnational power, i.e. military, political, diplomatic, economic etc. National ways of war
and the character of war are incorporated in strategic culture as ideas and beliefs about
the threat and use of force. Nevertheless, this culture is not a monolithic structure but
it is fragmented, contested, and changing.337
To summarize, my approach to strategic culture is sympathetic to Snyder who on aconceptual level included almost everything that has been rediscovered by the later
strategic culture scholars. Where I diverge from Snyder, and from many others, is that
I concentrate on specific ideas and beliefs instead of a culture as a system or structure.
I consider ‘culture’ as a pool of ideas whose influence and persistence are very muchbased on epistemic communities and the institutions carrying them. This is more inline with De Souza, Adler, and generally critical realism which excludes the possibility
that culture is a closed system. From this it is clear, that I consider ideas as ‘objects’,the interaction of which produces emergent results. Ideas have power because theyaffect how agents understand their environment and their possible ways of action. I
use the concept of ‘strategic cultural ideas’ to denote causal beliefs and sometimes
principled beliefs as being about the threat and use of force—about how means andends fit together on issues concerning state security interests—held by people belonging to epistemic communities and, consequently, to defence and security elites. These
ideas are communicated by and connected to certain concepts (symbolic representations, i.e. words with meaning) which carry meanings about the reality. I must be clear
here: I am not interested in how these ideas construct identities and interests, i.e.
discourse analysis. Nor am I interested explicitly in the lifecycle of ideas or epistemic
communities. I am interested in how agents understand certain objects or processesof reality through these persistent but adaptable ideas and what kinds of reasons foraction these ideas might offer. I do not strive to explain Russian strategic behaviour
in cyberspace through cultural preferences. I only want to examine how certain strategic cultural ideas resonate with Russian actions, how they provide reasons to shape
334 Freedman, Lawrence. A Western way of war? Adelphi Papers, Vol. 38, No. 318 (2008), 11-17; Hoffman,Frank. Strategic Culture and Ways of War: Elusive Fiction or Essential Concept? Naval War College Review,Vol. 70, No. 2 (Spring 2017), 137-142; Gray 2007, 5; Hoffman 2017; Echevarria II, Antulio J. Strategic Culture
Is Not a Silver Bullet. Naval War College Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Autumn 2017), 121-124.
335 Raitasalo, Jyri and Sipilä, Joonas. Sodan tutkimus strategian näkökulmasta [The study of war from the perspective of Strategic studies]. In Raitasalo, Jyri and Sipilä, Joonas. Muuttuva sota [Changing war]. Jyväskylä:
Kustannusosakeyhtiö Suomen Mies, 2005, 15-23; Milevski, Lukas. The nature of strategy versus the characterof war. Comparative Strategy, Vol. 35, No. 5 (2016), 438-446.
336 Of the latter ‘the generations of war’ literature is an exemplary case. Cf. Junio, Timothy J. Military History
and Fourth Generation Warfare. Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2009), 243-269.
337 Gray 2007.

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cyberspace in specific ways.
By combining NCR, Barkin’s constructivist realism and an interpretive version ofstrategic culture with practices it can be argued that the ideas carried by strategic culture are made real through practices—through the making of strategy. Security elites
apply culturally persistent ideas to understand and shape reality either consciously or
unconsciously. They choose these ideas based on their interpretation of international
system and rationally bounded means-ends calculations. In this way, through the practices of states, cultural ideas shape ideational and material reality, produce power byshaping reality, and by changing social reality, change the actors themselves. However,
because reality constrains actions and has emergent properties, and because there areother international intentional actors with cultural ideas of their own, and because thedefence and security elite’s control of ideas is restricted and because elites must consider both international and domestic ‘games’, strategic cultural ideas do not determine outcomes. This is even more true when we are talking about cyberspace, which
is a manmade and malleable environment. The point in combining constructivism,
NCR, and strategic cultural ideas is to demonstrate how ideas affect the state’s policies
by influencing elite reasoning and how this shapes reality by directing power in a certain way. There is an objective, material reality but how this is understood and how
the use of force is comprehended and then utilized differs between states. This is especially true concerning new environments, resources, and means like cyberspace,cyber power, and cyber warfare.338
2.6

Synthesis

The theoretical framework I am proposing here is by its nature constitutive. It describes the process through which ideas influence the way power is understood andused in a certain environment but does not make any claims of causality. It is also alens to the world. Its task is to legitimize the approach I take in understanding how
certain strategic cultural ideas influence the way in which the Russian state shapes cyberspace. It is a middle-level foreign policy theory more than a theory of IR. Accordingly, the basic premises of my theory are: power matters, while the material and social
environments constrain and enable actors, and can be changed, ideas are important,and dissimilar states guided by elites are the primary actors in international relations.
Because power matters in state to state relations, the international system, or environment of states, is based on a division of power. Power by its nature is both materialand social. Its division does not directly cause states to behave in any fixed way because
power is affected by geography, institutions, norms, technology, and the offence anddefence balance. Most importantly, this environment is strategic, and it gains its meaning through the perception of defence and security elites. Power is relational and contextual—one such context being cyberspace understood as a subdomain of the international system. Strategic cultural ideas as causal or principled beliefs are about thethreat and use of force for political ends and they affect the way in which state defence

338 To prove a point cf. Jordan et al. 2008; Sloan 2012; Angström, J. and Widen, J. Contemporary Military

Theory: The Dynamics of War. New York: Routledge, 2015; Gartzke, E. J. and Lindsay, J. R. Weaving Tangled
Webs: Offense, Defense, and Deception in Cyberspace. Security Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2015), 316-348.

53

and security elites understand their environment, of which clear and complete information is not available per se. Incentives of the environment are real but subjective.339
Ideas influence the continuous strategic decision-making process, consisting of assessment, formulation, and implementation of strategy, i.e. its practice. Ideas affect ‘themaking of strategy’340 but they do not determine it. This is because reality constrains
actions and has emergent properties, and there are other international, intentional actors with cultural ideas of their own who the defence and security elites do not control(i.e. epistemic communities have power), and because elites must consider both international and domestic ‘games.’
The ways in which a state uses power to pursue its interests, including creating more
power, are influenced by ideas and thus ideas shape reality through power.341 In otherwords, ideas shape the understanding of the environment, give meaning to material
power, indicate acceptable and unacceptable strategic choices, and affect the interpretation of the use of power. In this way they are reasons for contextual social action.342
Ideas have constructive effects, that is, they change the social and material reality
through intentional and positional agents and emergent processes. Together ideas
might amount to constitutive effects, but their individual effects and interaction isbetter captured by the concept of construction.343
Ideas influencing the state elites might be quite persistent. However, in situations whenthe environment is understood to be confusing or threatening, old and new ideas are
employed in creative and innovative ways to make sense of it and to guide action.
Cyberspace is arguably a new environment with unknown or poorly understood potential threats.344 This does not mean that the material reality is ontologically prioritizedover social reality—what matters is how defence and security elites understand theenvironment. Elites get their ideas primarily from epistemic communities who are thecarriers of ‘all knowable and proposed ideas’ in society. This system of ideas is open
and changing. Ideas are born through interaction of old ones and through influencesfrom the outside. New ideas must be ‘fitted’ to old ones—they must make sense inorder to have legitimacy. When old policies fail, or new ones are needed because ofchanges in the environment, epistemic communities articulate ideas in statements
which might compete with each other. Defence and security elites choose and adapt
339 Foulon 2015.
340 Freedman 2013, xi; Popescu, Ionut C. Grand Strategy vs. Emergent Strategy in the conduct of foreign policy.

The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2018) 438-460.
341 Foulon 2015; Freedman 2013, xi; Popescu2018.
342 Although I do not deny that ideas produce meaning for identities and interests, I bracket this process, andconcentrate on interpretive dispositions for intentional actions which I shall call reasons.
343 To study constructive effects is to show that particular ideas are present and then to examine how an agent’s
behaviour reflects these ideas in the temporal dimension and how that behaviour constructs reality. It starts byexamining the meanings given to a certain phenomenon (how something is understood through ideas), thenproceeds to examine how these meanings are present in intentional behaviour (how ideas are reflected in actions
connected to this something), and finally examines how reality is changed (how this something is changed). In
sum, ideas have the constructive potential to change reality. This potential actualizes as they provide reasonsfor actions, but do not determine it. Ideas shape reality through actions of intentional agents and ideas need tobe carried and used. It is an emergent process because it consists of human beings and as such, it is not determined by either ideas or the environment. My concept of ‘constructive’ effects could be criticized for being justa synthesis of constitutive and causal effects. It might just be a new name for the process between agents andstructures. Nevertheless, I consider it a beneficial tool to conceptualize how ideas affect reality by intentional
agents adopting them and using them.
344 On these arguments cf. Chapter 3.

54those ideas that ‘fit’, i.e. those which are understandable and provide guidelines forappropriate means to ends. These are formed into policies and then implemented. The
above described process is theoretical. Every real society and state have their own constellation of epistemic communities and elites and rules for their interaction.
Based on the above, an empirical analysis to understand how ideas affect the strategic
decision-making in any particular case of state use of power must consider the strategic environment, the internal characteristics, and the internal processes of a state.
Thus, the particulars of a political system and the composition of elites with power
related to the issue under study must be examined. However, to be clear, I am interested in understanding how ideas influence the ways and means of implementing
strategy and the outcomes of the implementation, not the specific decision-making
process or the success or failure of policies, or the effects of the objective environment on state behaviour. Therefore, I reject NCR’s search for causality, explanation,and prediction. Nevertheless, I accept NCR’s modified ontological framework as proposed by Ripsman et al. as a middle-range theory of social reality.345
My ontology relies more on constructivism than the admittedly overly complex one
proposed by critical realism.346 Observations and theories are therefore dependent on
the scholar. There is a social ‘reality’ but it cannot be fully captured, and knowledge
claims can only be justified through ‘rational adjucation.’347 I claim no direct causality
between ideas and action, only that ideas shape the understanding of agents of theirenvironment and of their own actions.348 My epistemological approach is ‘interpretative’ in the sense that I believe ideas carried by elites can be known and understoodin a similar way in which the elites themselves understand the ideas and the reasons
they provide—I make no claims beyond conscious understanding. MethodologicallyI am interested in the constructive effects of ideas and beliefs held by agents to practices and structures—or in the context of this thesis: how ideas held by Russian defence and security elites shape cyberspace through Russian strategy and policies. Thus
I am interested in the representations of particular ideas in the texts produced byepistemic communities and in the policies (texts and behaviour) formulated by thedecision-making elites. My choices can be criticized, but I argue that I have constructed a theory and approach tailored for this study and its subject and that this isin accordance with realist analytic pragmatist philosophy. in the next Chapter, I will
introduce the main concepts, which will enable me to apply my theoretical framework
to the study of Russian Federation’s strategy to control and shape a part of cyberspace
into ‘a national segment of the Internet.’

345 On middle-level theory cf. Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press,

1968.
346 Adler 2005, 100.
347 Adjucation refers to “a relative, working truth, that is, claims to validity that I expect to be true only in
relation to other interpretive claims, not to some objective reality. The claims to validity are ‘working’ because
they operate.” Hopf, Ted. Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002, 24. Cf. also Wight 2005; Kurki & Wight 2013.).
348 Patomäki & Wight 2000; Adler & Pouliot 2013; Lebow 2010.

55

56

3
CYBER CONCEPTS AND CLOSED NATIONAL
NETWORKIn this chapter I examine and develop the main concepts of this thesis: Cyberspace, cyber power, cyber warfare, cyber strategy and a closed national network.
These are based on previous research and are offered as theoretical concepts tounderstand how states shape cyberspace in the neoclassical realist theoretical framework that was adopted in the previous chapter. The concepts guide the empiricalanalysis conducted in the following chapters in three ways: 1) They inform me of thekind of ideas or causal beliefs I should be looking for when interpreting Russian thinking on cyberspace and power—they provide a preliminary description of the objectsof reality to which ideas give meaning; 2) they provide tools for analysing how Russianpolicies shape cyberspace; and 3) they enable the analysis of the Russian segment ofInternet as a closed national network.
3.1

A short history of cyber issues

Strategic thinking about cyberspace and cyber power started in the 1990s but really
got off the ground at the beginning of the 2000s.349 Accordingly, concepts and theories
have not yet matured or stabilized enough to form a coherent theory of cyber issues,‘cyber warfare’ least among them, and many of the concepts with the cyber -prefix
are academically and politically contested.350 Additionally, cyberspace and military issues related to it are not defined by international law and there is no international
consensus about them—although a UN workgroup of experts has proposed that international law should be applicable to cyberspace and there have been non-governmental efforts to create a basis for cyber law.351 IR theory has just started to incorporate cyber issues in International Relations.352 Thus, cyberspace and the scholarly understanding of it have both been in a constant flux for the past thirty years.353 In thiscontext, it is clear that no common definition of cyberspace or power, to say nothing
about warfare can be found. Here I shall bracket the social and economic aspects of
349 On the development of ‘cyber’ cf. Rid, Thomas. Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History. New York: W.

W. Norton & Company Inc., 2016; Kaplan, Fred. Dark Territory. The Secret History of Cyber War. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2016.
350 Valeriano, Brandon and Maness, Ryan C. Cyber War versus Cyber Realities Cyber Conflict in the International System. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, 21-22; Choucri, Nazli and Goldsmith, Daniel. Lostin cyberspace: Harnessing the Internet, international relations, and global security, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 68, No. 2 (2012), 70-77; Lango 2016.
351 Kavanagh, Camino. The United Nations, Cyberspace and International Peace and Security—Responding toComplexity in the 21st Century. UNIDIR, 2017; Schmitt, Michael N. (ed.) Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
352 Cf. Choucri 2012; Kremer & Müller, 2016.
353 On the development of the scientific discourse on cyber security cf. Dunn Cavelty & Wenger 2020; Sharp,
Travis. Theorizing cyber coercion: The 2014 North Korean operation against Sony. The Journal of Strategic
Studies, Vol. 40, No. 7 (2017), 898-926. It should be noted that as late as in 2012 a scholar complained that“there has been little systematic theoretical or empirical analysis of the cyber issue from the perspective ofinternational security.” Kello, Lucas. The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft.
International Security, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Fall 2013), 7-40, 8,57

cyberspace and concentrate mostly on texts produced from a military-strategic perspective.
The term cyberspace was coined by a science-fiction writer William Gibson in 1982.354
Gibson defined the term as “‘consensual hallucination’ that takes place when humans
interact with networked computers”.355 The prefix to space used by Gibson has its
roots in the concept of ‘cybernetics’ which was developed by the mathematician
Norbert Wiener in the 1940s. He was writing about human-machine analogies, thenature of information, control and feedback mechanisms, and borrowed the term
cyber from the Greek word for steersman.356 Cybernetics had its theoretical high tidein the West in the 1950-1960s when a group of American and British academics elaborated it into theories of automatization, robotization, and cyborgization.357 Some of
the academics were later involved in the development of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)—the network upon which the Internet was later
built.358 Cybernetics later branched into multiple different theories under diverse disciplines and the term itself was largely abandoned. It was replaced in the 1980s by theterm ‘information’ in management, business, and social sciences and policy circles,
either referring to systems and artefacts of a new transformative technology or to a
new kind of social order brought about by technological revolution—information society.359
In the 1980-1990s Western militaries got interested in virtual reality, precision guided
weapon systems, sensor fusion, information warfare (IW), and Network Centric Warfare (NCW), in short, during the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which brought
information technology to the forefront of military affairs.360 At same time information society361 started to develop along with the Internet362. The cyber-term made354 Rid 2016, 209-201.

355 Sheldon 2013, 304.
356 Peters 2016, 17; Kline, Ronald R. The Cybernetics Moment, Or Why We Call Our Age the Information

Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015, 11-12.
357 Peters 2016, 20-21; Kline 2015.
358 ARPANET was the predecessor of the Internet put online in 1969 partly to explore the feasibility of packet
switching techniques. It was not primarily meant as a ‘nuclear war resistant network’ but nevertheless later
developed as a testbed for robust and survivable communications (Internet Society. Brief History of Internet.
1997. [Online]. Available from https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ISOC-History-of-the-Internet_1997.pdf. [Accessed 5 August 2018]. Cf. also Peters 2016, 18-19; Rid 2016, 47-53.
359 Kline 2015.
360 Cf. Alberts, David S. and Papp, Daniel S. (eds.) Information Age Anthology – Volume III: The Information
Age Military – Volume III. CCRP Publication Series, 2001; Cooper, Jeffrey. Another View of the Revolutionin Military Affairs, July 15, 1994 [Online]. http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/00232.pdf [Accessed: 28th
September 2018].
361 According to Manuel Castells: “…a specific form of social organization in which information generation,
processing, and transmission become the fundamental sources of productivity and power because of new technological conditions emerging in this historical period.” (Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society(2nd ed.) Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 21 ft. 31). Cf. also Webster, Frank. Theories of the Information
Society. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
362 The Internet was born from the interconnecting and commercialization of research networks in the 1980s(Internet Society 1997). “Internet” refers to the global information system that (i) is logically linked together by
a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons;(ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and (iii) provides, uses
or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related
infrastructure described herein.” (U.S. Federal Networking Council. Resolution of October 24, 1995. Cited inInternet Society 1997, 17). Or more briefly “A global system of interconnected computer networks that use the58a ‘comeback’ when the popular culture (ála Gibson and others) and the need for novel
concepts to understand the changing reality merged in the 1990s. In the Englishspeaking world the term ‘cyber’ transformed gradually to mean almost anything related to networks and computers.363 Currently, ‘information’ and ‘cyber’ live side-byside in English-language military discourses but have a somewhat contested andstrained relationship.364
Cybernetics had a significant impact on the development of robotics, computers andnetworks during the Cold War on both sides of the confrontation.365 It was adopted
from Western thought by Soviet scientists as kibernetika which expanded later to influence large parts of the Soviet scientific field and guided the faith in the promise ofcomputer based technocratic governance.366 As Benjamin Peters has argued, Soviet
science ”...rejected, rehabilitated, adopted and adapted cybernetics for historically expedient and changing purposes.”367 The force of ‘kibernetik’ ideas was such that Slava
Gerovitch claims that cybernetics affected almost all of the Soviet sciences.368 Despiteof the enthusiasm for cybernetics the Soviet Union never managed to produce its own
version of the Internet.369 The Soviet military was aware of the changing nature of war
caused by the development of information technology perhaps earlier than its Western counterparts, and in fact provided the West with the concept of the MilitaryTechnological Revolution. Nevertheless, it had only limited success in putting its own
ideas into practise before the fall of the Soviet Union.370
Cybernetics left a whole sublanguage of input-output-feedback systems based oncomputer technology in the Russian language.371 However, modern Russian official
texts do not use the term cyber but instead use the term information.372 Unofficiallythe term cyber is quite commonly used.373 Previous studies have argued that the Russians see ‘cyber’ only as a technological (information-technical) subcomponent of amuch larger ‘information space’ which includes cognitive, informational and infrastructural components and that there might be political motivations behind the usageof the term information.374
Internet Protocol suite and a clearly defined routing policy.” (Schmitt 2017, 565).
363 Rid 2016, 303-307; Kaplan 2016, 46.
364 Cf. Betz, David. J. The more you know, the less you understand: The problem with information warfare.
Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2006), 505-533; Porche, Isaac III, Paul, Christopher, York, Michael,
Serena, Chad C., Sollinger, Jerry M., Axelband, Elliot, Min, Endy Y., Held, Bruce J. Redefining Information
Warfare Boundaries for an Army in a Wireless World. Santa Monica: RAND, 2013.
365 Rid 2016, 76-82, 110; Peters 2016; Gerovitch 2002; Gerovitch2008.
366 Peters 2016, 32-48; Gerovitch 2008, 337. It should be pointed out that similar ideas were circulated in theSoviet scientific circles already in the 1930s but were repressed by Stalin’s purges (Susiluoto 2006.)
367 Peters 2016, 29.
368 Gerovitch 2008, 337.
369 Gerovitch 2008, 336; Peters 2016, 172-175; Susiluoto 2006.
370 Adamsky 2008, 257-294; Adamsky 2010, 54-57.
371 Gerovitch 2002 & 2008.
372 Russians favour the term ‘information’ (informatsionnyi or informatsiia). Cf. Godwin III, J. B., Kulpim, A.,
Rauscher, K. F. and Yaschenko, V. (eds.) Critical Terminology Foundations 2. Russia-U.S. Bilateral on Cybersecurity. Policy Report 2/2014. East West Institute and the Information Security Institute of Moscow State
University [Online]. Available: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/178418/terminology2.pdf [Accessed: 22nd June2019].
373 5th of July 2018 Yandex.ru produced 186 million hits on the word ‘кибер’ (cyber). For comparison
Google.com produced 345 million hits on the word ‘cyber’.
374 Thomas, Timothy L. Dialectical versus empirical thinking: Ten key elements of the Russian understandingof information operations, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1998), 40-62; Thomas 2015a;

59Based on this short history of terminology it can be argued that the meanings of cyberspace and power are cultural constructs, i.e. that they are based on strategic culturalideas. Moreover, there has been a transfer of ideas between, arguably hostile, cultures.
Thus, I argue, based on the theoretical framework adopted in Chapter 2, that behinddiffering meanings there are real and objective phenomena that different cultures have
tried to comprehend in their own way. To denote these objects this thesis uses theterm ‘cyber’ as a prefix that gets its meaning in combinations with other terms. Brandon Valeriano and Ryan C. Maness have described cyber as meaning “computer anddigital interactions.”375 It seems to resonate adequately with both Western and Russian
understandings.376
3.2

Cyberspace

This chapter examines what previous studies have claimed about cyberspace. It willthen proceed to take a more throughout look at cyberspace and the Internet to see
how well previous, perhaps somewhat abstract definitions correspond with the technical and functional reality of local and global networks. Lastly, I will adopt a definition of cyberspace that will correspond with the empirical reality and my theoreticalframework.
3.2.1 Previous concepts of cyberspace
In the Western cyber literature, there are many different definitions for cyberspace
and the formulation of the definitions depends on the context they are used in. The
Tallinn Manual 2.0, for example, defines cyberspace as: “The environment formed byphysical and non-physical components to store, modify, and exchange data using
computer networks.”377 Many definitions claim that cyberspace is a manmade space,medium or environment, distinct from the land, sea, air, and outer space.378 Somedefinitions emphasize the electromagnetic transfer of information, interconnection ofsystems and networks.379 Others concentrate more on the functionality of cyberspace,

Giles, Keir and Hagestad II, William. Divided by a Common Language: Cyber Definitions in Chinese, Russianand English. In K. Podins, J. Stinissen, M. Maybaum (Eds.) 5th International Conference on Cyber Conflict2013 - Proceedings. NATO CCD COE Publications, Tallinn, 2013, 413-429; Fitzgerald, Mary. Russian Views
on IW, EW, and Command and Control: Implications for the 21st Century. CCRTS 1999. U.S. Naval War
College, Rhode Island. June 29 - July 1, 1999 [Online] Available: http://www.dodccrp.org/events/1999_
CCRTS/pdf_files/track_5/089fitzg.pdf [Accessed 5th August 2018].
375 Valeriano & Maness 2015, 22.
376 Cyber is also adopted as a central term instead of information because the understanding of information ismuch wider in both English and Russian. By concentrating my analysis on ‘cyber’ I can more clearly analyse
the technical aspects of the Russian information space and produce comparable information structured aroundconcepts created in this chapter.
377 Schmitt 2017, 564.
378 For different concepts cf. Reardon, R. and Choucri, N. The Role of Cyberspace in International Relations:
A View of the Literature. Prepared for the 2012 ISA Annual Convention, San Diego, CA, 2012 [Online] Available:
https://nchoucri.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/%5BReardon%2C%20Choucri%5D%202012%20The%20Role%20of%20Cyberspace%20in%20International%20Relations.pdf [Accessed: 6 August 2018]; Maurer, Tim and Morgus, Robert. Compilation of Existing Cybersecurity
and Information Security Related Definitions. New America, Report October 2014 [Online]. Available:
https://www.newamerica.org/ cybersecurity-initiative/policy-papers/compilation-of-existing-cybersecurityand-information-security-related-definitions/ [Accessed: 6th August 2018].
379 Rattray, Gregory J. Strategic Warfare in Cyberspace. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001, 95.

60

i.e. creating, transmitting, receiving, storing, processing and deleting data.380 Furthermore, some combine these two approaches.381 Yet some take a more holistic view andcombine cyberspace with the information sphere or environment.382 They designatecyberspace as a platform or facilitator for the flow and use of information. Others
have tried to separate the physical infrastructure, software, rules and processes, andinformation and its users from each other.383 For example, the current United States’
Joint Doctrine defines the ‘information environment’ as an aggregate of individual,organisation and system levels and physical, informational and cognitive dimensions;and cyberspace as a part of the information environment consisting of layers of physical network, logical network, and cyberpersona.384 On the civilian side, Martin C. Libicki’s division into physical (boxes and wires), syntactic (instructions and rules) andsemantic (information useful for humans or instructions for services) levels is one of
the most influential definitions.385 John B. Sheldon has further divided the physicaldimension into infrastructure (cables etc.) and the electromagnetic spectrum.386 In
these definitions the control of one level does not necessarily mean control of otherlevels.387
The architecture of cyberspace has been described as a flat, worldwide, interconnected
network, without a centre.388 Some argue that cyberspace is in fact not a separate spaceor domain, but a ‘substrate’ underlying all other domains.389 Although cyberspace as aconcept conveys a feeling of borderless and limitless space, it might also be consideredinherently fragmented. This is because while cyberspace consists of networks that arelargely technologically compatible, a conscious decision is required to connect anddisconnect them.390 The more philosophical understandings of cyberspace havechanged over time. They have gone through visions of self-organizing anarchy to ‘theWild West’ to global commons and now more towards regime or territorial and sovereign state-centric visions.391

380 Kuehl 2009.

381 Nye, Joseph. Cyber Power. Cambridge: Harvard Kennedy School, 2010, 2.
382 Betz & Stevens 2011, 122-123; Sheldon 2013, 309.
383 Nye 2011a, 123; Choucri 2012, 5.

384 Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Department of Defence. Information operations (Joint Publication 3-13), 2014

[Online]. Available: http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_13.pdf [Accessed: 6th August 2018]; Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Department of Defence. Cyberspace operations (Joint Publication 3-12), June 8th 2018
[Online]. Available: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3_12.pdf [Accessed: 17th August 2018].
385 Libicki 2009, 12-13; Libicki 2016, 21.
386 Sheldon, John B. Towards a Theory of Cyber Power: Strategic Purpose in Peace and War. In Reveron 2012,
207-224.
387 Ibid., 215.
388 Mattioli, R. The ´States(s)´of Cybersecurity. In: Giampiero, G. (ed.) Security in Cyberspace. Targeting Nations, Infrastructures, Individuals. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014, 23-28, 27.
389 Dombrowski, Peter and Demchak, Chris. Cyber War, Cybered Conflict, and the Maritime Domain. Naval
War College Review, Vol. 67, No. 2 (2014), 71-96, 75.
390 Mueller 2017, 49.
391 Rid 2016, 239-240; Nye 2010, 15; Raymond, M. Puncturing the Myth of the Internet as a Commons.
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, International Engagement to Cyber III, 2015, 57 – 68, 61-62;
Choucri 2012, 235; Demchak & Dombrowski 2011, 32-61; Sterling, Bruce. Short History of the Internet. The
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1993 [Online] Available: https://www.internetsociety.org/
internet/history-internet/short-history-of-the-internet/ [Accessed: 6th August 2018].

61

Cyberspace has its own characteristics. Nazli Choucri lists instantaneity, geographicaltranscendence, permeation, fluidity, participation, non-attribution and non-accountability.392 John Sheldon describes cyberspace as having a low cost of entry, multiple
actors, an existence based on reliance on the electromagnetic spectrum and man-madeobjects, constant replication, and instantaneity.393 According to Gregory Rattray, thestrategic features of cyberspace are: the laws of physics, software logic, mutability,interconnectivity, limited limitlessness (actors have power but it is limited), humanresources, and know-how.394 Joseph Nye points out that the virtual level provides a
low cost entry to the physical level and that technology has a dominant role in changing the nature of cyberspace.395 This means that the architecture leads to diffusion of
power and empowers multitude of actors.396 Thus, cyberspace has been described asa domain of human activity with its own characteristics which affect the use of powerin and through it.397 When discussing cyber deterrence Martin Libicki emphasizes therole of man-made rules.398 He also highlights the problem of attribution, that is, how
to link actors in cyberspace to actors in the physical world.399 A preliminary summaryof these definitions is that the cyberspace is a manmade and malleable technologicalenvironment.
The connection between information space and cyberspace is apparent in the definitions presented above. This relationship can be understood through Russell Ackoff’s
data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy.400 According to Jennifer
Rowley, data consists of discrete, objective facts which are unorganized and without
meaning. When data is structured and given context and meaning it becomes information. Knowledge is information as part of the human mind, embedded in experience and values and enables action. Wisdom might be an ability for abstraction or
critical reflection.401 If we compare the American military definitions of the information space or environment to the DIKW hierarchy it seems logical that electronic
data and electronic information reside in cyberspace, which is a subcomponent of the

392 Choucri 2012, 4.
393 Sheldon 2013, 288.

394 Rattray, Gregory J. An Environmental Approach to Understanding Cyberpower. In Kramer, Franklin D.,

Starr, Stuart H. and Wentz, Larry K. Cyberpower and National Security. Washington, D.C.: National Defence
University Press, 2009, 253-274, 256-257.
395 Nye 2010, 4.
396 Ibid., 9.
397 Choucri 2012.
398 Libicki 2009, 18.
399 Ibid., 41-52.
400 Rowley, Jennifer. The wisdom hierarchy: representations of the DIKW hierarchy. Journal of Information
Science, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2007), 163-180; Zins, Chaim. Conceptual Approaches for Defining Data, Information,
and Knowledge. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 58, No. 4(2007), 479-493.
401 Rowley 2007, 170-174.

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information space.402 The idea that the information environment is composed of information, systems, infrastructure and users of information seems to be widespreadamong the militaries of the great powers.403
Based on the above, cyberspace forms the basis for the information space and is thuspart of the material and social structure of the international system. This relationshipbetween cyberspace and the information space is contested because of the political
implications inherent in the use of information. Moreover, it can be argued that whenstates try to shape cyberspace, they are influencing something that is shared in objective reality. However, our understanding of this space is constantly changing.404
Therefore, I shall take more comprehensive and technical look at what cyberspace iscomposed of.
3.2.2 Wires, protocols and governanceTo understand how the Internet and the wider cyberspace really works it is necessary
to briefly examine the physical and logical infrastructure of the Internet and its governance. This review is also necessary for understanding Russia’s policies towards cyberspace in the later chapters of this thesis because cyberspace is shaped by controlling its physical and logical levels through governance. Therefore, I will highlight thepotential vulnerabilities and threats related to the Internet. The overview will also help
in devising the concept of a closed national network.
The Internet refers to an interconnected group of global networks whereas cyberspace is a collection of all computer networks, open and closed, public and private.405
Therefore, the political and social borders of cyberspace refer more precisely to the402 “The information environment is the aggregate of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, pro-cess, disseminate, or act on information.” (United State Department of Defence (U.S. DoD). Cyberspace Operations, JP 3-12, 8th June 2018, viii [Online]. Available: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3_12.pdf [Accessed: 15th August 2018].) “The information environment is where humans and systems observe, orient, decide, and act upon information, and exists throughout the JFC’s OE. The information environment consists ofthree interrelated dimensions—physical, informational, and cognitive—within which individuals, organizations,and systems continuously interact.” (The United State Department of Defence (U.S. DoD). Joint Publication
3-0: Joint Operations, 2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/ jp3_0.pdf [Accessed 20 August 2017]. How cyberspace become part of information environment in the American military
doctrine cf. Khuel, Daniel T. Information Operations, Information Warfare, and Computer Network Attack:Their Relationship to National Security in the Information Age. International Law Studies 76. Newport, Rhode
Island: U.S. Naval War College, 2002.
403 This view is also shared by the Russians (cf. Chapter 6) and the Chinese Cf. Wortzel, Larry M. The Chinese
people’s liberation army and information warfare. The Strategic Studies Institute of The United States Army
War College, 2014 [Online]. Available: https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/2263.pdf [Accessed:
22nd June 2019]; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Allied Joint Doctrine for Information Operations, AJP-3.10, November 2009 [Online]. Available: https://info.publicintelligence.net/NATO-IO.pdf [Accessed: 22nd September 2018].
404 A case in point are the two books written, respectively in 2010 and 2019, by Richard A. Clarke and Robert
K. Knake. In the first book the authors claimed that ‘cyber war’ was imminent and in the second book theyclaimed that cyber threats had become part of the normal order of things. (Clarke, R. A. and Knake, R. K.
Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It. New York: Harper Collins, 2010;
Clarke, Richard A. and Knake, Robert K. The Fifth Domain. Defending Our Country, Our Companies, andOurselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. New York: Penguin Press, 2019).
405 Internet Society 1997; Schmitt 2017.

63

borders of the Internet—not the entirety of cyberspace. The Internet is not a commons.406 The physical infrastructure of the Internet is always operated by someone
and networks cannot be separated from the geographical territory in or through which
they operate.407 In fact, fibre cables, servers, routers etc. are owned and operated primarily by private, commercial, profit-seeking actors.408 Additionally, the Internet is nota finite resource—bandwidth can always be increased409—and openness is in reality
limited because states have shown the ability to pressure Internet Service Providers(ISPs) to shut down connections.410
On a physical level or layer411, cyberspace consists of computers, servers, wires andoptic fibre cables, satellite-communications or radio relay links and routers, switches
and other equipment, i.e. mechanical, electrical, functional and procedural means oftransferring bits (0s and 1s) as electrical signals or light.412 On a logical level, cyberspace consists of intranets, extranets, internets and the Internet and protocols andapplications running them and in them. Intranets are private networks, while extranets
are networks which can be connected to the Internet in a limited manner and internets
are multiple networks connected using the same protocols.413 In all of these ‘nets’ thede facto414 standard protocol for internetworking is the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). It is used to transfer packets of data (‘packet-switching’) between different networks to their destination in the right order and without
errors.415 Every host, i.e. computer, requires an IP address to take part in this networkand networks are connected by routers, which are responsible for transmitting packets
between networks.416 These connect to other routers and advertise the addresses of
the networks (hosts) they are connected to and keep registers of known addresses
received from other routers.417 It is important to note that the ARPANET and later
TCP/IP (and many other protocols) were not designed for security but with accessi-

406 Raymond 2015, 61-62; Nye 2010, 15.

407 Cf. Starosielski, Nicole. The Undersea Network. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2015; Dodd,

Annabel Z. The Essential Guide to Telecommunications (5th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012.
408 Pijenberg Muller, Lilly. How to govern cyber security? The limits of the multi-stakeholder approach and theneed to rethink public-private cooperation. In Friis, Karsten & Ringsmose 2016, 116-129.
409 Raymond 2015.
410 For the state’s ability to shut down the Internet cf. Vargas-Leon 2016, 167-188.
411 Layer as a concept points to Open System Interconnections Reference Model (International Organizationfor Standardization. Information technology -- Open Systems Interconnection -- Basic Reference Model: The
Basic Model. ISO/IEC 7498-1:1994. 15 June 1996 [Online] Available: http://standards.iso.org/ittf/ PubliclyAvailableStandards/index.html [Accessed: 7th August 2018].) Level is a more abstract concept and is connected to e.g. Martin Libicki’s model of Cyberspace (Libicki 2016).
412 Perlman, Radia. Interconnections, Second Edition: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2012.
413 Fall, Kevin R. and Stevens, Richard W. TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle
River NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2012, 19-20.
414 Although ARPANET used TCP/IP it was not at all determined that this protocol would win the competition
for the leading network layer protocol (Perlman 2012).
415 There are also several other important protocols related to internetworking which have their own functions
and weaknesses (Fall & Stevens 2012).
416 Fall & Stevens 2012, 234-235; Perlman 2012, 408-423; Oki, Eiji, Rojas-Cessa, Roberto, Tatipamula, Mallikarjun and Christian Vogt. Advanced Internet Protocols, Services, and Applications. Hoboken, New Jersey:
John Wiley & Sons, 2012, 13.
417 Fall & Stevens 2012, 34-40, 48-50.

64bility, reliability and connectivity in mind. Therefore, malicious actors can easily obfuscate their identity, manipulate and block data packets, access systems without authorization, launch Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks etc.418
The Internet as a one type of network has its own architecture. The physical levelconsists of hundreds of fibre optic cables running under seas and oceans whichtransport the main portion of global data traffic.419 These are owned by private cable
companies or groups of companies.420 These magisterial lines connect to smaller regional networks managed by service providers which use mainly land-built fibre cables
and radio link relays to create their own backbone networks.421 These Internet service
providers (ISPs) are private and state owned companies who own and control almost
all of the physical infrastructure of the Internet. ISPs run their own networks which
provide connectivity to end users, companies, state institutions and private citizens.
These networks may consist of edge routers, core routers, connections between them,data centres and different types of operations centres and client networks. They route
their traffic based on protocols such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).422
Smaller ISPs rent capacity from larger ones and run their services virtually over theunderlying infrastructure.423 Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are physical points
where networks run by the largest ISPs physically connect. These are run by nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies and government agencies.424 Routing between large networks on the Internet is based on the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
which is based on Autonomous System (AS) addresses. The ISPs use BGP to createconnections between and through their networks. This is a system based on agreements, usually commercial. The BGP protocol advertises IP subnets found under itor through it so that the rest of the Internet can know where to send traffic reliably
and efficiently.425 It is possible to hijack these advertisements and manipulate the traffic flow of the Internet for example to spy or temporarily deny services.426
In addition to IP addresses and AS numbers, the Internet relies on the Domain Name
System (DNS). The DNS protocol was developed to convert domain names to IP
addresses in a process known as name resolution because human users could not be
expected to memorize IP addresses. Domain names are organized as a tree. Top-leveldomains (.com) include generic TLDs (gTLDs), country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) (.su,418 Fall & Stevens 2012, 34-40, 25-26. Efforts to fix these deficiencies have included different forms of encryp-tion, certification and authentication such as DNSSEC, TLS, IPsec and WPA (Fall & Stevens 2012).
419 Submarine Cable Map 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/ [Accessed: 7thAugust 2018].
420 Oki et al. 2012, 33-35.
421 Lee, Timothy B. 40 maps that explain the Internet 2 June 2014 [Online] Available: https://www.vox.com/
a/internet-maps [Accessed: 7th June 2018]; Tanenbaum, Andrew S. and Wetherall, David J. Computer Networks (5th ed.) Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011.
422 Dodd 2012.
423 Network operators can be categorized as Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 classifications. Tier 1 is based on mutual
peering (mutual exchange of traffic), Tier 2 refers to limited mutual peering and purchases and Tier 3 to resellingtransit capacity (DeNardis 2014, 109-111).
424 Internet Society. IXPs [Online] Available: https://www.internetsociety.org/issues/ixps/ [Accessed: 7th August 2018]; Oki et al, 2012.
425 [RFC 4271] Y. Rekhter, T. Li, S. Hares “A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)” RFC 4271, January 2006.
426 Winter, Martin. Monitoring BGP Anomalies on the Internet. 27 July 2018. RIPE NCC. [Online]. Available:
https://labs.ripe.net/Members/martin_winter/monitoring-bgp-anomalies-on-the-internet [Accessed: 7th August 2018]; Demchak, Chris C. and Shavitt, Yuval. China’s Maxim – Leave No Access Point Unexploited: The
Hidden Story of China Telecom’s BGP Hijacking. Military Cyber Affairs: Vol. 3, No. 1 (2018), Article 7.

65.ru) and internationalized country-code TLDs (IDN ccTLDs) (.рф) and these are further divided into two levels of subdomains (example.com and www.example.com).
Registry operators maintain domain name databases (registry) and provide zone files,
which map IP addresses to domain names for domain name servers. ccTLD servers
are delegated to national registry operators. DNS registrars are service providers who
have a mandate to sell domain names to customers. On the technical side, name servers can provide a domain name to IP address resolutions. Thirteen root servers andtheir multiple backups maintain the root zone files which include TLD name server
addresses and thus enable the Internet’s global connectivity. The TLD servers maintain their own zone files as do subdomain servers. These servers usually have multiple
logically and physically dispersed backups. In principle, name servers answer to thehost name it requests. However, in practise, names are usually resolved throughcaches maintained by recursive servers.427 The DNS is important for the functioningof the modern information society and state. If the names and addresses of a state’s
country code domain name servers were removed from the global root and otherzone files, or access to the TLD servers were blocked, that country’s Internet traffic
would be greatly affected, perhaps even halted.428 It is also possible to hijack andeavesdrop on DNS traffic.429
The Internet would not work without IP addresses, DNS root files and servers andAS numbers.430 They are distributed and managed by a non-profit multi-stakeholder
organization called Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN) which functions as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
ICANN uses Regional Internet registries (RIRs) to distribute IP and AS addresses tocustomers.431 This is a critical function because assigning duplicate addresses to networks and hosts would break the Internet routing. RIRs also maintain the Internet
Routing Registry (IRR) which provides information on BGP routing policies of ISPs
for common use and routing planning.432 ICANN/IANA approves changes to theroot zone file and has a contract with VeriSign which is responsible for distributing
the file to the operators of root name servers.433 Despite their functions and mandates
ICANN and its associates do not control the Internet. Contrary claims have been

427 Fall & Stevens 2012; Cloudflare. What is DNS? How DNS works [Online] Available: https://www.cloud-flare.com/learning/dns/what-is-dns/ [Accessed: 7th August 2018]; IANA [Online]. Available:
https://www.iana.org/about [Accessed: 7th August 2018]; Merrill, Kenneth. Domains of Control: Governanceof and by the Domain Name System. In Musiani, Cogburn, DeNardis & Levinson 2016, 89-106.
428 For example, cf. Sozeri, Efe Kem. Turkish Internet hit with massive DDoS attack, The Daily Dot, 17th
December 2015 [Online] Available: https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/turkey-ddos-attack-tk-universities/[Accessed: 29th December 2019].
429 Greenberg Andy. Cyberspies Hijacked the Internet Domains of Entire Countries. A mysterious new groupcalled Sea Turtle targeted 40 organizations in a DNS hijacking spree, WIRED, 17th April 2019 [Online] Available: https://www.wired.com/story/sea-turtle-dns-hijacking/ [Accessed: 29th December 2019].
430 There is a finite number of each. AS numbers are not a problem but original IP addresses have already runout. Currently, a global transition from the IPv4 to IPv6 protocol is ongoing which should provide enoughaddresses for the Internet’s future needs.
431 RIPE NCC. Regional Internet Registry [Online] Available: https://www.ripe.net/about-us/what-we-do/regional-internet-registry [Accessed: 7th August 2018].
432 RIPE NCC. The RIPE Routing Registry [Online]. Available: https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-andasns/db/the-ripe-routing-registry [Accessed: 7th August 2018].
433 Fall & Stevens 2012; IANA 2018; Merrill2016.

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based on the fact that for historical reasons the United States’ National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has supervised ICANNs IANA
functions up until 2016.434
ICANN is not the only non-governmental multi-stakeholder organization with an influence on Internet governance.435 The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) and Internet Architecture Board (IAB) areresponsible for setting technical standards for the Internet through meetings, working
groups and Request for Comments (RFCs). The Internet Society (ISOC) functions as
an umbrella organization connecting academics, governmental representatives andthe private sector to govern and develop the Internet.436 In effect, the technical standards regulating the development of the Internet are not controlled by nation-states,
although there have been efforts to increase states’ control through the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU).437 The tug-of-war between theprinciples of state sovereignty and the multi-stakeholder model in the context of information (cyber) security has been visible in the work of the United Nations Groupof Governmental Experts on Information Security (UN GGE) from 2004–2019. The
UN GGE has tried to find some common global understanding on the questions of
information security, wars and weapons but has so far failed to produce binding agreements.438 Basically, the United States and some European countries and Russia andChina and their allies have promoted conflicting views, and this has paralyzed international cyber security norm building on the UN level.439 This does not mean thatcyberspace is unregulated on the international level. There are already a great numberof bi- and multilateral accords which regulate cyberspace440 and create some level oftransparency, confidence, and trust—as do the multitudes of commercial agreements.441 The point is that cyberspace is not an anarchic or uncontrollably malleable

434 ICANN. Stewardship of IANA Functions Transitions to Global Internet Community as Contract with U.S.

Government Ends, 1 October 2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-201610-01-en [Accessed: 8th August 2018]; The United States Department of Commerce, 6 January 2017 [Online].
Available:
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/strickling-to-crocker-06jan17-en.pdf[Accessed: 8th August 2018].
435 “The primary task of Internet governance involves the design and administration of the technologies necessary to keep the Internet operational and the enactment of substantive policy around these technologies.”(DeNardis 2014, 6).
436 Denardis 2014, 69-70.
437 Kavanagh 2017, 54-56.
438 Osula, Anna-Maria and Rõigas, Henry (eds.) International Cyber Norms: Legal, Policy & Industry Perspectives. Tallinn: CCDCOE, 2016; Tikk, Eneken and Kerttunen, Mika. The Alleged Demise of the UN GGE: An
Autopsy and Eulogy. New York: Cyber Policy Institute, 2017 [Online] Available: http://cpi.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017-Tikk-Kerttunen-Demise-of-the-UN-GGE-2017-12-17-ET.pdf [Accessed: 7thAugust 2018]; Tikk, Eneken. International Cyber Norms Dialogue as an Exercise of Normative Power.
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. 17 (2016), 47-59. 10.1353/gia.2016.0036. [upcoming] [Online]
Available: (http://ict4peace.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tikk-Normative-Power.pdf) [Accessed: 17
December 2017].
439 Tikk & Kerttunen 2017; Schmitt, Michael and Vihul, Liis. International Cyber Law Politicized: The UN
GGE’s Failure to Advance Cyber Norms, 30 June 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.justsecurity.org/42768/international-cyber-law-politicized-gges-failure-advance-cyber-norms/[Accessed: 8th August 2018].
440 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Cyber Norms Index [Online]. Available: http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/cybernorms. [Accessed: 8th August 2018].
441 For a deeper discussion cf. Osula & Rõigas 2016.

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space and that there are political, economic and judicial constraints to the actions ofstates and non-state actors—and these constraints are sources and objects of power.442
There are still other elements and functions that are important for the operation of
the Internet and cyberspace. Encryption and authentication have become critical resources for the Internet and indeed for the whole of cyberspace.443 Ben Buchanan haseven claimed that encryption has affected state sovereignty as the use of public key
encryption restricts states’ access to information on their own territory.444 As was
mentioned above, the Internet protocol suite was and is not inherently secure. Froma nation state’s point of view this means that strong encryption is a national security
interest, as is the capability to break potential or real opponent’s encryption.445 New
and more powerful supercomputers and quantum computing are challenging current
encryption solutions, although this ‘arms race’ is nothing new in computer-based
cryptography.446 Additionally, the importance of authentication, which is the cornerstone of public-key encryption, means that Certificate Authorities447 are a point ofvulnerability. If someone could fake certificates distributed by these authorities, theconfidentiality of information on the Internet would be in danger.448
Despite of what some of the above-mentioned definitions claim, cyberspace is not acollection of independent, equal and similar nodes changing information. Content
delivery networks have appeared inside the Internet to balance the ever increasing
traffic load.449 Cloud computing has led to the establishment of big data centres thatoffer computing and storage capacity for the public and private sector.450 Public services and even government institutions have located critical data in commercial datacentres outside states’ territorial borders and jurisdictions.451 Disconnection from foreign data centres could lead to major disruptions, even the loss of life. Additionally,
data located in some countries is, in principle, subject to that country’s laws and is

442 Cf.

Buchan, Russell, Tsagourias, Nikolaos K. (eds.) Research Handbook on International Law and Cyberspace. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015; Stevens, Tim. A Cyberwar of Ideas? Deterrence andNorms in Cyberspace. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2012), 148-170.
443 This is a point made by Thomas Rid. According to him, public-key encryption changed the nature of cyberspace and started the still ongoing ‘arms race’ between encryption and decryption (Rid 2016).
444 Buchanan, Ben. Cryptography and Sovereignty, Survival, Vol. 58, No. 5 (2016), 95-122.
445 Sanger, David E. The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age. Melbourne: Scribe, 2018;
Rid, Thomas. Cyber War Will Not Take Place. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
446 Castro, Daniel and McQuinn, Alan. Unlocking Encryption: Information Security and the Rule of Law. ITIF,
March 2016 [Online]. Available: http://www2.itif.org/2016-unlocking-encryption.pdf [Accessed: 11th August
2018].
447 GlobalSign. Certificate Authorities & Trust Hierarchies [Online]. Available: https://www.globalsign.com/
en/ssl-information-center/what-are-certification-authorities-trust-hierarchies/ [Accessed: 22nd June 2019].
448 Kuhn, Richard D., Hu, Vincent C., Polk, Timothy W., Chang, Shu-Jen. Introduction to Public Key Technology and the Federal PKI Infrastructure. NIST, 26 February 2001 [Online]. Available: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/legacy/sp/nistspecialpublication800-32.pdf [Accessed: 8th August 2018].
449 A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of geographically dispersed servers that enables faster web
performance by locating copies of web content closer to end users or facilitating the delivery of dynamic content (e.g., live video feeds). (IBM. Content Delivery Networks: A Complete Guide, 3 June 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/content-delivery-networks [Accessed: 17th July 2019]).
450 Data Center Map [Online] Available: https://www.datacentermap.com/ [Accessed: 8th August 2018]; Dodd,
2012, 25-33.
451 Scrutton, Alistair and Mardiste, David. With an eye on Russia, Estonia seeks security in computing cloud.
Reuters, 4 December 2015 [Online]. Available: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-estonia-cybersecurity/
with-an-eye-on-russia-estonia-seeks-security-in-computing-cloud-idUSKBN0TN1BT20151204 [Accessed: 8thAugust 2018].

68vulnerable to espionage at its destination and during traffic.452 The geography, locationof physical infrastructure, state borders and jurisdictions all affect the ‘borderless’ cyberspace.
Satellites have become part of cyberspace and at the same time are vulnerable to its
threats. Although global data communications are not dependent on satellites someremote areas are. Moreover, satellites provide TV transmissions, navigation and timesignal services, and most importantly communications needed by the command andcontrol of modern armies, including nuclear early-warning systems.453 Satellites arevulnerable to attacks using software and malicious code through their terrestrial control links, and to electromagnetic interference and kinetic attacks. The number of satellites is increasing as micro-satellites are being deployed in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO).
There are plans to create global Internet services based on hundreds or thousands ofsmall satellites which would provide Internet services unhindered by terrestrial or
governmental borders.454 These satellites would in principle create a world-wide network connecting millions of IoT devices.455 This service will aggravate the difficulties
some states are facing in controlling the Internet-access of their citizens. Moreover,after the development of mobile broadband, plain old telephone networks (POTS)
have been transformed into data networks. Digitalized telecommunications services
have become indistinguishable from cyberspace—and also its threat landscape.456 WiFi and other short-range connections such as Bluetooth and Low Power Wide Area
Networks (LPWAN), as well as 5G mobile, fixed broadband connections and different types of satellites will create a truly global multi-layered and multi-access data network in the near future. These kinds of connections make cyberspace truly ubiquitousand challenge the territorial borders of nation states.
Cyberspace, and in fact, the Internet now reaches inside factories and power plants,
to electric networks, transportation and sewage systems. There is no cyberspace without electricity and as automatization proceeds soon there might not be electricity
without cyberspace. Malfunctions or intentional attacks against a program runningsome logistical system might lead to the disruption of air or sea traffic and shortagesof critical imports. These interdependencies and collateral effects make cyberspace aninherent part of information society, its security and defence.457

452 Wolff, Josephine. Borders in the Cloud. Countries are increasingly putting limits on how data travels. Slate,

20 November 2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/11/
countries_are_increasingly_imposing_borders_on_the_cloud.html?via=gdpr-consent [Accessed: 8th August
2018].
453 Bardin, Jeffrey. Satellite Cyber Attack Search and Destroy. In Vacca 2014, 309-323.
454 Scoles, Sarah. Maybe Nobody Wants Your Space Internet. Wired, 15 March 2018 [Online] Available:
https://www.wired.com/story/maybe-nobody-wants-your-space-internet/ [Accessed: 8th August 2018].
455 Qu, Zhicheng, Zhang, Genxin, Cao, Haotong and Xie, Jidong. LEO Satellite Constellation for Internet ofThings. IEEE Access, Vol. 5 (2017), 18391-18401.
456 Dodd 2014; ENISA. Signalling Security in Telecom SS7/Diameter/5G EU level assessment of the current
situation, March 2018 [Online] Available: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/signalling-security-in-telecom-ss7-diameter-5g [Accessed: 10th August 2018].
457 Edwards, Matthew (ed.) Critical Infrastructure Protection. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series.
Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2014; Zhang, Nan, Krishna, Kant and Sajal K. Handbook on Securing Cyber-PhysicalCritical Infrastructure. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2012.

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Lastly, as big data analytics, neural network modelling, and machine learning advance,
cyberspace might be populated by some kinds of self-modifying Artificial Intelligences (AIs).458 Currently, the usefulness and effectiveness of AIs is an open question
but their development is nevertheless taken seriously by state and private research
institutions.459 On a more mundane level the technical governance of cyberspace isbeing automatized and virtualized through semi-intelligent and self-learning programs
which enable the control and configuration of networks from remote locations independently of hardware or software solutions. Security is increasingly being handled bycentralized systems that can inspect traffic and react to anomalies semi-autonomously.460 Arguably, as states are increasingly interested in controlling cyberspace, thatspace is being increasingly controlled by machines.
What makes all the above-mentioned systems and protocols critical resources for cyberspace is that if someone would disturb their governance, or logically or physicallydamage them or hinder their action, the Internet could temporarily stop working in acertain, perhaps targeted area. Confidential and critical information could be lost. Decision-making of governments could be impaired. Military, including nuclear weaponscommand systems, could be affected. Great economic losses could be suffered. Societal disorder could ensue, and people could die.461 Local and regional services might
be available, but international banking services such as SWIFT462 and any foreign
cloud-based services might be affected. Information could be secretly compromisedor corrupted. Conversely, the inability of states and their security institutions to control connections to the global Internet, encrypted traffic inside their borders, and services located outside their borders can create political, social and economic problems—and weaken military defence.463 It is thus understandable that states might seek
guarantees against these vulnerabilities especially if their political system is authoritarian or if they fear outside interference based on information flowing on the Internet.
Another common theme that emerges from the issues discussed above is the ‘newness’ and constant change of cyberspace. The technology underneath cyberspace israpidly evolving, new protocols are emerging, new hardware and software solutions
are being produced.464 Sometimes novel threats appear that seem to challenge the458 AI refers, for example, to an artificial entity that acts in response to its environment and performs ‘well’based on its purpose and rationality i.e. doing the right thing based on knowledge and logical reasoning. (Russell,
Stuart and Norvig, Peter. Artificial intelligence—A Modern Approach. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2014).
459 Scharre, Paul. Army of None. Autonomous Weapons and the Future War. New York & London: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2018.
460 Software Define Network (SDN) technology allows hardware and software independent controlling of networks ([RFC 7426] E. Haleplidis, Ed. Software-Defined Networking (SDN): Layers and Architecture Terminology RFC 7426, January 2015). Semi-automated Security Incident and Event Management systems like EISENSTEIN, GosSOPKA and HAVARO could be automated to a great degree. Cf. The United States Department of Homeland Security. EISENSTEIN. [Online] Available: https://www.dhs.gov/einstein [Accessed: 8thAugust 2018]; Viestintävirasto. HAVARO havainnoi ja varoittaa tietoturvaloukkauksista. 24th May 2016 [Online] Available: https://www.viestintavirasto.fi/kyberturvallisuus/tietoturvanyt/2016/05/ ttn201605241520.html [Accessed: 8th August 2018]. For GOSSOPKA see Chapter 6.
461 On threat images cf. Rattray 2001; Kramer, Starr & Wentz 2009; Clarke & Knake 2010.
462 SWIFT. Messaging and Standards [Online] Available: https://www.swift.com/about-us/discover-swift/
messaging-standards [Accessed: 7th August 2018].
463 DeNardis 2014; Musiani et al. 2016; Mattioli 2014.
464 Cerf, Vinton G. On the Evolution of Internet Technologies. Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 92, No. 9,
September 2004 [Online]. Available: http://www.ismlab.usf.edu/dcom/Ch5_Cerf_IEEE_2004_Evolution.
pdf [Accessed: 9th August 2018]; Naughton, John. The evolution of the Internet: from military experiment to70whole infrastructure of Internet.465 According to the World Economic Forum, cyberattacks are one of the main risks facing the world today.466 This means that state defence and security elites are continuously forced to find new solutions to the challenges emerging from cyberspace.467 Related to the constant change is the problem of
attribution, i.e. the possibility to identify the source of an attack.468 The constant evolution of cyberspace makes it hard to devise attribution techniques. This has directconsequences on strategic issues such as deterrence, early warning and the possibility
for retaliation.469
Behind the idea of freedom and openness of the Internet has been the governancemodel of multi-stakeholderism, i.e. ‘an ecosystem’ that includes state and non-state
actors.470 This model is being increasingly challenged by states which claim that territorial state sovereignty, with its jurisdiction and borders, should be reflected into cyberspace.471 This process has been called ‘fragmentation’, ‘balkanization’ and ‘CyberWestphalia’.472 A World Economic Forum report divides this phenomena into technical, governmental and commercial fragmentation.473 Technical fragmentation challenges the universal connectivity of the Internet by affecting its technical standards
and processes. Governmental fragmentation arises from the intentional policy tobuild ‘national Internets’ by blocking and filtering traffic. Commercial fragmentation
is based on the manipulation of digital markets by companies and is manifested inpolicies such as network neutrality and the geo-blocking of content.474 Proponents ofthis ‘fragmentation’ see it as the ‘normalization’ of the state role and interstate relationships in cyberspace or as economically logical policy to protect nascent digital
economies, for example.475
General Purpose Technology, Journal of Cyber Policy, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2016, 5-28.
465 As the ENISA Threat Landscape Report 2017 claims: “Cyber-war is entering dynamically into cyberspacecreating increased concerns to critical infrastructure operators, especially in areas that suffer some sort of cybercrises.” (ENISA. ENISA Threat Landscape Report 2017: 15 Top Cyber-Threats and Trends Version 1.0. January 2018 [Online] Available: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/enisa-threat-landscape-report-2017[Accessed: 9th August 2018].
466 World Economic Forum. The Global Risks Report 2018 – 13th Edition. Geneva: WEF.
467 Cf. Hayden, Michael V. The Future of Things “Cyber. Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring2011), 3-7. For a summary of the development of cyber threats cf. Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Significant Cyber Incidents Since 2006 [Online]. Available: https://www.csis.org/programs/cybersecurity-andgovernance/technology-policy-program/other-projects-cybersecurity [Accessed: 9th August 2018]; Council on
Foreign Relations. Cyber Operations Tracker, September 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.cfr.org/ interactive/cyber-operations [Accessed: 19th September 2018].
468 Libicki 2016, 238-250; Rid 2017.
469 Liff, Adam. Cyberwar: A New ‘Absolute Weapon’? The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War. Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3 (2012) 401-428; Nye, Joseph. Deterrence and Dissuasion in Cyberspace. International Security, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2016/2017), 44-71; Harknett, Richard J. and Nye,
Joseph S. Jr. Correspondence – Is Deterrence Possible in Cyberspace. International Security, Vol. 42, No. 2(2017), 196-199.
470 Levinson, Nanette S. and Marzouki, Meryem. International Organizations and Global Internet Governance:
Interorganizational Architecture. In Musiani, Cogburn, DeNardis 2016, 47-71.
471 Tuukkanen, Topi. Sovereignty in the Cyber Domain. In Rantapelkonen & Salminen 2013, 37-45; Mueller
2017; Musiani et al. 2016.
472 Demchak, Chris and Dombrowski, Peter. Cyber Westphalia. Asserting State Prerogatives in Cyberspace.
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Volume International Engagement on Cyber III, 2013, 29-38;
DeNardis 2014; Mueller 2017.
473 Drake, Cerf & Kleinwächter 2016.
474 Ibid., 6.
475 Demchak & Dombrowski 2011 & 2013; Inkster, N. China's Cyber Power. New York: Routledge, 2016;
Siboni, Gabi and Kronenfeld, Sami. Iran and Cyberspace Warfare. Military and Strategic Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 3,(December 2012), 77-99; Агора 2016.

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There are obstacles in this process of nationalization of the Internet. The private sector owns the infrastructure and services of the Internet and also the critical infrastructure connected to it. Protocols running the data traffic in networks do not inherently
support concepts such as ‘national borders’ or ‘citizenship’. Encryption and proxyservices are available to those wanting to circumvent state control. There could bemajor economic expenses in creating ‘national Internets’ and in engaging in ‘digitalprotectionism’, and, according to the current understanding concerning cyber-attacks,
computer networks will always be vulnerable to attacks either from outside or inside.476 Therefore, based on all the technological, governance and political issues examined above, I argue that cyberspace is an environment which can be shaped bystate actions influenced by strategic cultural ideas, but that it is not absolutely malleable and efforts to build closed national ‘Internets’ will be severely challenged.
3.2.3 Definition of cyberspace
Based on the above analysis and because this thesis is focused on the shaping of cyberspace by state actors who carry particular cultural ideas about strategic issues, amodified version of the definition by Daniel T. Khuel is used to describe cyberspace:“…cyberspace is a [man made and governed] global domain within the information environment
whose distinct and unique character is framed by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum
to create, store, modify, exchange, and exploit information via interdependent and interconnected networks using information-communication technologies.”477 ‘Man made and governed’ is an addition to Khuel’s definition. This definition highlights cyberspace’s nature as a collection of networks, its physical and logical levels and its malleable character. It includes
a distinction between physical, syntactic and semantic layers that have different rules,
and which are interdependent but not necessarily controlled by each other. Cyberspace can be shaped by intentional actors by controlling its infrastructure, technicaldesign and standards, and by laws, regulations and institutions. Through electronics
and the electromagnetic spectrum, the definition connects cyberspace to the physicalworld, territoriality and kinetic effects. Information gives substance, resources, andeffects to cyberspace and makes it possible to describe it as a domain, and a sphereof human activity478. The processing of information gives cyberspace meaning beyond
its borders. The manipulation of information affects human activity. Khuel’s definition combines structure (medium), substance (information) and processes (creationetc.) and emphasizes technical aspects. The additions emphasise the aspect of humancontrol.

476 Choucri & Clark 2013; Cerf 2004; Naughton 2016; Buchanan 2016; Aaronson, Susan A. What Are We

Talking About When We Discuss Digital Protectionism? Institute for International Economic Policy, 14 July
2017 [Online] Available: https://www2.gwu.edu/~iiep/assets/docs/papers/2017WP/AaronsonIIEPWP
2017-9.pdf [Accessed: 9th August 2018]; Sanger 2018.
477 Kuehl 2009, 24-42, 28. A more ‘objective’ definition would be “an electronic medium through which information is created, transmitted, received, stored, processed and deleted” taken from East-West Institute’s Critical terminology foundations report. From a theoretical and research problem point of view East-West institutions definition is too narrow to be used in this thesis. (Godwin et al. 2014, 17).
478 The term ‘sphere’ as a concept describing human activity was popularized by Jürgen Habermas. It was
originally meant to describe the space where the public opinion is formed. (Habermas, J., Lennox, S. and Lennox, F. The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964). New German Critique, No. 3 (Autumn, 1974), 4955).

72Based on Khuel’s definition and previous discussion a short summary of the basic
characteristics of cyberspace can be deduced. These are: its artificial nature, physicalbase, inherent rules, interconnectivity, mutability, replication, ease of access, multiplicity of actors, difficulty of attribution, diffusion of power, non-significance of distance, and machine speed.479 This means that cyberspace is clearly different from otherphysical domains, i.e. land, sea, air and the outer space. Its nature and properties canbe intentionally shaped by states which may be affected by strategic cultural ideas, andby private companies and institutions if they have sufficient resources. However, theshaping may be contested by others and even by the functional logic of the space
itself. This means that components of cyberspace can be damaged, but it is difficult
to permanently destroy any part of it—backups can be restored—and even kinetic
effects can be negated by rerouting traffic and by replicating services to other locations. This does not mean that cyberspace is invulnerable—it is based on physicalinfrastructure, electricity and human-made software which may contain errors andbugs. Cyberspace also differs from other domains because it is not continuous—it isa collection of internetworked or independent, air gapped, networks—the Internet
being the most important. There are physical and logical control or pressure points in
the Internet and other networks that can be used to control traffic and connections.
Borders in cyberspace are perhaps even more real than in the physical realm where
no human action can change the laws of nature.
Based on the above discussion I argue that cyberspace is indeed a new environment
and is in fact a constantly changing environment which gives rise to unknown andpoorly understood threats. This environment requires elites to fit new ideas to oldones to understand their position and to produce strategies to create power. It alsoenables the creation of closed national networks, although this might be difficult toachieve.
3.3

Cyber power

Power is a contested concept.480 In IR theory there are three or four (depending on
the view) different concepts of power, the so called ‘Faces of power’.481 The first one
is based on Robert Dahl’s formulation of “A getting B to do something B would
otherwise not do.”482 This is basically the direct power over resources or effects approach and sees power and its results as measurable. The second one is based on
Bacrach’s and Barantz’s critique of Dahl and states that “…power works more indirectly through both actors being positioned in an institutional setting and the abilityof A to influence this setting ‘against’ B.”483 This approach is interested in agendasetting, and the ability of A to exclude some agendas from the political process altogether. A structuralist version of this ‘face’ is an approach where the positions of A
and B order their power relationship without direct intentionality from the part of479 These are quite close to Fred Schreier’s list Cf. Schreier, Fred. On Cyberwarfare. DCAF Horizon 2015

Working Paper No. 7 [Online] Available: https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/
OnCyberwarfare-Schreier.pdf [Accessed: 10th August 2018].
480 Nye 2011a, 5.
481 Nye 2011a, 11-14; Barnett & Duvall 2005, 42. Barnett and Duvall have categorized these as compulsory,
institutional, structural, and productive.
482 Quoted in Berenskoetter, Felix. Thinking about power. In Berenskoetter, Felix and Williams, M. J. Powerin World Politics. London: Routledge, 2007, 1-22, 4.
483 Ibid., 8.

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A.484 The third face is based on Steven Lukes who was interested in how A can manipulate B’s inherent interests, basically changing B’s preferences.485 Finally, the fourth‘face’ is based on poststructuralism and especially on the writings of Michel Foucault.
Here power is seen as productive power, shaping the identities and interests of A andB.486 It should be noted that all the different ‘Faces of power’ are based on different
theoretical premises and are not necessarily commensurable.487
There are unresolved theoretical problems behind these seemingly simple presentations of the ‘faces’ of power. First, the causality of power is still being debated —do
we identify power with change or continuity? Second, how do we make claims about
unintentional and indirect effects of power? Third, what is the relationship between
causal and constitutive power?488 There is also the question of power as an objective
material capacity and measurable quantity—either segmented and issue-specific or an
aggregated ‘lumped’ indicator—versus the understanding of power as a relational andcontextual phenomenon.489 How are we supposed to measure power and how do wemeasure potential power? Measurement is linked to the question of the fungibility of
power, i.e. the convertibility of power resources, which has been advocated, among
others, by Robert Art and criticized by Stephen Baldwin and Stefano Guzzini. In
short, the theoretical dispute is about whether one kind of power can be changed toanother kind through some spill-over effects or linkage.490 Art sees state power as acomposite of wealth, political skill and military power which can be given net worth.
However, for Baldwin power is multidimensional.491 The dimensions are its scope(aspect of behaviour), domain (size of the target of power), weight (probability of
influence), costs (cost of influence) and means (military, economic etc.)492 To these
dimensions could be added societal norms because power must have meaning, at least
to its target, and norms influence the way power is used.493 Any meaningful analysisof power must empirically define these dimensions that is, put power in a relationshipand a context.
Consequently, Joseph Nye has argued that “…there is no standard value that cansummarize all relationships and contexts to produce an agreed overall power total.”494
Nye himself has formulated the concept of ‘soft power’ which is “the ability to affectothers through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting
484 Guzzini, Stefano. The Limits of Neorealist Power Analysis. International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 3(1993), 443-478, 450.
485 Berenskoetter 2007, 10-11; Lukes, Steven. Power: A Radical View (2nd ed.) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
486 Digiser, Peter. Fourth Face of Power. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 54, No. 4 (1992), 977-1007, 982-984.
487 Barnett & Duvall 2005.
488 Berenskoetter 2007, 13–14.
489 Guzzini, Stefano. Power, Realism and Constructivism. London and New York: Routledge, 2013, 48-51.
490 Cf. Baldwin, David A. Paradoxes of Power. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989; Krasner, Stephen. Structural
Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985; Art, Robert J. and Greenhill, Kelly M. The Use ofForce: Military Power and International Politics (8th ed). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers inc., 2015;
Guzzini 2013.
491 Art, Robert J. Force and fungibility reconsidered, Security Studies, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1999), 183-189.
492 Baldwin 2013, 275.
493 For the meaning of power cf. Barkin 2010; Guzzini 2013, 4-5. John A. Gentry has argued that, for example,
casualty aversion, international norms and military culture affect the way military power is used. (Gentry, John
A. Norms and Military Power: NATO’s War Against Yugoslavia, Security Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2006), 187224, 189).
494 Nye 2011a, 5.

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positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes.”495 Behind Nye’s concept is
the separation of power resources and power behaviour, which obtain their meaningand produce different outcomes depending on the context. According to Nye, different forms of power have different modalities, for example, military power can be used
to physically destroy, back up threats in coercive diplomacy, promise protection andprovide many forms of assistance.496 This is an interesting notion because it gives
different forms of power characteristics which are dependent on the environment it
is used in. Like Baldwin’s dimensions it is worthwhile to also consider cyber power
instead of just power.
Theorists of cyber power have had to combine the characteristics of cyberspace withdifferent theories of power.497 One of the most holistic descriptions is Betz’s and Stevens’: “…the variety of powers that circulate in cyberspace and which shape the experiences of those who act in and through cyberspace.”498 This is a product of theirattempt to combine all ‘Faces of power’ into one concept and what it gains in brevity
it loses in parsimony. In practice, Betz and Stevens use Barnett and Duvall’s categoriesof power to show that concepts of power formulated in the field of political science
are compatible with cyber studies.499 Joseph Nye describes cyber power as “…theability to obtain preferred outcomes through use of the electronically interconnected
information resources of the cyber domain. […] …[it] can be used to produce preferred outcomes within cyberspace or […] in other domains.”500 This is a subjectcentric, intentional use of power, compatible with the first and second faces of power,
and highlights the fungibility of cyber power, i.e. its convertibility and scope.501 Somewhat similar is Khuel’s version: “…the ability to use cyberspace to create advantages
and influence events in all operational environments and across the instruments ofpower.”502 The value of Khuel’s definition is that it highlights the possible synergistic
effect of cyber power. These formulations seem to suggest that cyber power is compatible with universal definitions (‘faces’) of power but has its own resources andcontext which give it a distinct character. In his survey of cyber power concepts
Schreier summarizes it as “the capability to control IT systems and networks in andthrough cyberspace”, which is in a sense tautology but nevertheless points to the object of power through which outcomes and effects are produced.503 Gregory Rattray
has also emphasised that power comes from the control of specific parts of the cyberenvironment which some have called ‘key terrain’.504
Besides the above presented more conceptual formulations, there have been attempts
to define cyber power by its resources. Nye, for example, offers infrastructure, edu-

495 Ibid., 20-21.

496 Ibid., 9-10 & 41-42.
497 See Sheldon (2013) and Schreier (2015) for comprehensive list of different definitions.
498 Betz & Stevens 2011, 44.
499 Barnett & Duvall 2005.
500 Nye 2011a, 8.

501 See Art, Robert J. American foreign policy and the fungibility of force. Security Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4 (1996),

7-42; Baldwin, D. A. Force, fungibility, and influence. Security Studies, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1999), 173-183.
502 Kuehl 2009, 38.
503 Schreier 2015, 14.
504 Rattray 2009, 262-272; Kern, Sean and Gaines, Charles. Expanding Combat Power Through Military Cyber
Power Theory. Joint Forces Quarterly, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Quartet 2015), 88-95.

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cation, legal control, markets, budgets, institutions and reputation as the power resources of states.505 Brandon Valeriano and Ryan C. Maness propose a resource-based
concept of power by differentiating between capabilities of offence, that is weapons
and training, and dependence, i.e. reliance on the Internet, and of defence, meaning
resilience, adaptation and protection.506 They later change their model to consist ofjust infrastructure, broadly understood as connectivity and knowledge capital.507
Somewhat similar is the more policy oriented view presented by Chris Demchak whoargues that institutions, national mentality, and offensive and defensive forces are resources of cyber power.508
Alexander Klimburg has offered coordinated government policy, international alliances and agreements, and cooperation with non-state actors as the three dimensions
for national cyber power.509 He advocates a ‘whole of nation’ policy-based view ofcyber power. Somewhat similarly, Robert Bebber has argued that potential cyber
power is “the available human and material resources within a strategic environmentthat can be utilized to generate effects in and through cyberspace.” These resources
are information culture, technology industry, information networks, political institutions, civil-government relations, global norms, foreign partnerships, mass and scale,and foreign relationships. The resources should produce skilled forces for effective
cyber power if the state organizes, trains, and resources them properly.510 Consideringpurely military cyber power Rebecca Slayton has proposed technology, skilled people
and well-developed organizations as resources of power.511
It is not surprising that education and thus human knowledge, technology, regulationand organizations are defined as resources because of the dual physical – non-physicalnature of cyberspace. The problem is, that these resources are more difficult to measure than purely physical capabilities, which have already in themselves been provento be notoriously difficult to measure, at least in the military context.512 Moreover,there is no shared understanding between the great powers on how to measure cyber
power.513 Because there has been no conflict categorized as cyber war, there is noteven a shared understanding of the enabling or strategic role of cyber power, i.e.
whether it has independent strategic effect or not.514 This means that the effect of, or
505 Nye 2011a, 133.
506 Valeriano & Maness 2015, 25-28.

507 Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018, 59-60.
508 Demchak, Chris. Cybered Conflict, Cyber Power, and Security Resilience as Strategy. In Reveron 2012, 121-

136. Demchak’s definition is quite similar to classical definitions of naval power (Gray 1999a, 261-262).
509 Klimburg defines these dimensions as: ‘integrated government capability’, ‘integrated systems capability’ and‘integrated national capability’. (Klimburg, Alexander. Mobilising Cyber Power, Survival, Vol. 53, No. 1 (2011),
41-60, 43, 56).
510 Bebber, Robert. Cyber power and cyber effectiveness: An analytic framework, Comparative Strategy, Vol.
36, No. 5 (2017), 426-436.
511 Slayton, R. What is the Cyber Offense-Defense Balance? Conceptions, Causes, and Assessment. International Security, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2017), 72-109.
512 Biddle, S. Military Power - Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2004; Biddle, Stephen. Military Power: A Reply, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2005), 453469; Schmidt, B. C. Realist conceptions of power. In Berenskoetter & Williams 2007, 43-61, 47-48.
513 Inkster, Nigel. Measuring Military Cyber Power, Survival, Vol. 59, No. 4 (2017), 27-34.
514 Colin Gray: “Strategic effect is the impact of strategic performance upon the course of events.” (Gray 1999a,20). In other words, the effects of a military use of force have direct relationship to with policy goals or politicalconsequences (Ibid., 296). According to Hew Strachan, an enabling effect means that power has only a tacticalor operational effect. It does not directly achieve the objectives of war. (Strachan 2013, 191-192). The conceptof enabling is sometimes used interchangeable with ‘force multiplier’ which means a particular use of force or76

at least, military effectiveness of cyber power is disputed.515 David Betz has, for example, criticised visions of cyber power that liken it to strategic air power, such as
long-range bombers, because Douhetian visions of cyber power have no empiricalbasis.516 Others have criticised discursive and technological comparisons between nuclear weapons and cyber weapons.517 Yet some have even seen cyber weapons as athreat to nuclear weapons, so in a sense, even more strategic in their effects than thethermonuclear bombs themselves.518 All this considered, the usefulness and effects ofstrategic offensive military use of cyber power is still suspect.519 Moreover, it is debatable if cyber power should be considered as a military means or a more comprehensive instrument of national or global politics. Consequently, Baylis, Wirtz and Grayargue that cyber power is used in the whole continuum of state relationships frompeace to war.520 This point is important because it takes note of the long term effectsof cyber power and argues that the use of cyber power is not restricted to wartime
even if it can be considered to have a military aspect.
The definitions presented above indicate that cyber power is not confined to cyberspace, it is not separate from other types of power and it can have persistent effects
even though its domain is changeable. In addition to these observations, scholars havelisted characteristics of cyber power. Stuart H. Starr would not apply the principles of
war from other domains to cyberspace because cyber power is more diffuse, its speed
and scope are different and it is very dependent on technology.521 John B. Sheldon
describes cyber power as pervasive, complementary, and stealthy.522 Elinor C. Sloantakes a more military oriented view and lists unconquerable space, continuous change
and adaptability, borderlessness, rapid and potentially wide scale effects and indirectness as characteristics of cyber power and space.523 Joseph Nye offers the extinct monopoly of violence by states, difficulty of attribution, cheap and plentiful resources,
low relevance of distance, strength of offense compared to defence, the unfeasibilityof conquering space or destroying opposing forces and the high fog of war.524 Erik
Gartzke and Jon Lindsay note that the effects of cyber power are only temporary andthat it is difficult to hoard it, because it is insubstantial and relative, and loses its utility
when used.525 Martin Libicki has declared that there is no forced entry into cyberspace,which means that power is tied to the rules of cyberspace, e.g. if you try to blow yourmeans enhances other uses of force (Valeriano & Maness 2015, 60).
515 Cf. Rid 2017; Stone, John. Cyber War Will Take Place! Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2013),
101-108; Valeriano & Maness 2015; Libicki 2016; Dombrowski & Demchak 2014.
516 Betz, David. Cyberpower in Strategic Affairs: Neither Unthinkable nor Blessed, Journal of Strategic Studies,Vol. 35, No. 5, 2012, 689-711.
517 Cf. Nye, Joseph. Nuclear Lessons for Cyber Security? Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Winter2011b), 18-38; Geist, Edward. Deterrence Stability in the Cyber Age. Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 4(Winter 2015), 44-61; Libicki 2016.
518 Cimbala, Stephen J. Nuclear deterrence and cyber warfare: coexistence or competition? Defense & Security
Analysis, Vol. 33, No. 3 (2017), 193-208.
519 This is the main point of Thomas Rid’s criticism of ‘cyber war’ hype (Rid 2017). John Stone is correct inpointing out that Rid is writing about a very narrow definition of warfare (Stone 2013).
520 Baylis, John, Wirtz, James J. and Gray, Colin S. Strategy in the Contemporary World (4th ed.) Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013, 306.
521 Starr, S. H. Towards a Preliminary Theory of Cyberpower. In Kramer, Starr & Wentz 2009, 43-81.
522 Sheldon 2013, 289.
523 Sloan 2012, 89-90.
524 Nye 2010, 5.
525 Gartzke & Lindsay 2015, 345-346.

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way in, you do not have cyberspace anymore.526 Maness and Valeriano point out thatcyber power can have a spill-over effect into other domains or issue areas and there
can be unintentional second or third order effects. 527 Other definitions tell us thatcyber power has its own physical, logical, organizational and cognitive aspects depending on which level power is used. It may be kinetic or non-kinetic depending on
its object. As a defensive power it is resilient as it is based on networks. Furthermore,
it might or might not be cheap—depending on creativity and vulnerabilities.528 Concepts of cyber power have often concentrated on the active and offensive military useof power. Peaceful or civilian definitions of cyber power are scarce. However, theinterest in offensive aspects has recently begun to change as resilience, deterrence,and offensive operations have been integrated into cyber strategy proposals.529
Because I am interested in the military strategic aspects of cyber power and approach
power through a neoclassical realist framework, it is natural that the definition of
cyber power adopted for this thesis should be centred on the first and second facesof power. This does not imply a concentration on just the direct influence or agendasetting but also includes the shaping of the space or environment where direct poweris used. Therefore, cyber power can have persistent effects and its means and ways
are not necessarily military. This is the reason why the term cyber power is used inthis thesis and not that of military cyber power. Accordingly, cyberspace can beshaped and controlled, and it retains its attributes for a length of time, even outside
conflicts, and without the use of exclusively military means and resources. Cyber
power’s resources can be anything if the effect is in cyberspace or transmitted throughit. However, the main resources can be argued to be technological, scientific, economic, normative, doctrinal, organizational and professional. Cyber power can be utilized in peace or wartime. It can be used to achieve strategic or enabling effects aspart of a state’s grand or military strategy.530 Through strategic cultural ideas cyber
power has meaning to its users. Thus, the use of cyber power is planned, intentional,
and strategic and it is dependent on the actors’ understanding and perceptions ofcyberspace and cyber power. In short, cyber power is an ability that empowers an actor to
influence others in or through cyberspace and to control and shape cyberspace to its advantage according
to its preferences.531 This is not a universal definition of cyber power. It emphasises thecreative aspect of power and lays the ground for understanding how closed national
networks or ‘national segments of the Internet’ are shaped into being and controlled.
It does not exclude the direct use of force but, on the contrary, highlights an actor’sability to create conditions for a more efficient use of both offensive and defensive
direct force. This kind of power cannot be measured outside the relationship andcontext it is used, although resources or its potential can be. Cyber power is based on

526 Libicki, Martin C. Conquest in Cyberspace. National Security and Information Warfare. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2007, 35.
527 Valeriano & Maness 2015, 46-47.
528 Andress, J. and Winterfeld, S. Cyber Warfare - Techniques, Tactics and Tools for Security Practitioners,(2nd ed.). Waltham: Syngress, 2014, 35-36, 182-183; Schreier 2015, 14; Bryant 2016.
529 For example, cf. Geist 2015; Chen, Jim. Cyberdeterrence by Engagement and Surprise. PRIMS, Vol. 7, No.
2 (2017), 100-107.
530 On grand and military strategy cf. Milevski 2016a.
531 This definition is modified from Endresen, R. S. Hard Power in Cyberspace: CNA as a Political Means. In
Pissanidis, N., Rõigas, H., Veenendaal, M. (Eds.) 8th International Conference on Cyber Conflict: Cyber Power.
Tallinn: NATO CCD COE, 2016, 23-36, 25.

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constantly evolving technological, human, regulatory and organizational potential andit becomes military only through its use, effects or outcomes.
3.4 War and warfare
To understand how strategic cultural ideas, i.e. ideas about the use of force, relate tocyber power and how this power becomes military power, the concept of cyber warfare needs to be examined. Cyber power is exercised in a military strategic context
through the threat or use of force. This definition includes both offensive and defensive uses. Force is here understood as power that has been given (even if only implicitly) direction and/or an objective in a military context, that is a purpose. Power canbe used or utilized based on a belief of effectiveness when applied for specific effect.532 In line with these definitions, cyber power might be utilized as a force withpotential violent consequences in and from cyberspace. Although there is legitimate
criticism against defining cyberspace and cyber power in military terms, it does notrelinquish us from the fact that cyberspace has become a military domain and as suchrequires study from a military perspective.533
War is a central term for understanding the use of force. According to the perhaps
most famous Western military scholar Carl von Clausewitz war is “…a continuationof political intercourse, with the addition of other means.”534 Clausewitz and his followers have enshrined the idea of war as a political instrument understood as a struggle between two opposing sides affected by friction, and defined by an unchangeable
nature composed of passion, chance and reason. However, war is also a ‘chameleon’by character. The last premise means that war is a changing and historical phenomenon.535 Clausewitz’s views have been criticized over time but much of the criticism
has been disputed, or has been adjusted to fit Clausewitz’s ideas (or other way
around).536 Others have added to Clausewitz’s ideas, for example, by pointing out that
war is a social phenomenon, it is defined by people in historical context, or that theuse of military force is not restricted to states or the state of openly declared interstate
war.537
532 The use of force does not explicitly include clear, political objectives. It might be disorganized, mindlessviolence. The use of force can also be implied, e.g. used to threaten (cf. Bufacchi, V. Two Concepts of Violence.
Political Studies Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005) 193 - 204.) Utility implies that force has a purpose and it isbelieved to be useful and efficient (function of cost and effectiveness) in the context of a pursued objective.
Utility is the function of both costs and benefits or cost and effectiveness. (Knorr, Klaus. On the uses of
Military Power in the Nuclear Age. Princeton University Press, 1966; Duyvesteyn, I. Exploring the utility offorce: some conclusions. Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2008), 423-443; Smith, Rupert. The Utilityof Force: The Art of War in the Modern World. New York: Vintage Books, 2008, 6-8; Milevski 2016a, 146150).
533 NATO has defined cyberspace as a military domain (North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Cyber
Defence Pledge, 8 July 2016 [Online].
Available: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_133177.htm [Accessed: 19 August 2017]). On
militarization of cyberspace see Dunn Cavealty (Dunn Cavelty, M. From Cyber-Bombs to Political Fallout:
Threat Representations with an Impact in the Cyber-Security Discourse. International Studies Review, Vol. 15,
No. 1 (2013), 105 – 122).
534 Quoted in Gray 1999a, 12.
535 Gray 1999a, 91-100; Strachan 2013, 48-55; Angström & Widen 2015, 17-20.
536 Levy, J. S. Review Roundtable. Clausewitz on Small War. The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 40, No. 3(2017), 450 – 456; Gray 2007, 28-29; Kaldor 2012, 220; Creveld 1991, 57-58; Keegan 2004, 12; Milevski, 2016a,
439-441; Angström & Widen 2015, 15-17.
537 Creveld 1991; Keegan 2004; Levy 2017.

79Warfare is about fighting, the making of war.538 Like war, warfare is an ambivalentconcept because its use has emigrated from physical violence to cultural, economic
and purely political realms.539 It has acquired qualifiers such as ‘information’, ‘economic’ or ‘political’ warfare. In a way, this problem is inherent in the Clausewitzianidea of the changing character of war and, of course, also in the politicized use of theterm.540 In addition to war and warfare, conflict is defined as the use of force below
the level of open war. Conflict is limited in its means and ends and perhaps outcomes.541 Moreover, terrorism, insurgency, civil war, and intrastate war are associatedwith organized violence for political purposes inside states, possibly with the covert
or semi-open interference from other states. Between states competition and confrontation might take such forms as political, economic, and military pressure, including sanctions, blockades and the show of military power. Different kinds of power
can be used overtly or covertly, directly or indirectly in state to state relations before
the threshold of war is crossed.542 This means that state relations related to the use offorce and warfare are a continuum from peaceful relations to open war and this affects
the ways power is utilized for force and other purposes. More importantly, the understanding of this continuum changes as the understanding of war changes when, forexample, new technologies are introduced, societies change, or the views on morally
acceptable means of influence evolve.
3.4.1 Cyberwarfare
Cyberwarfare and war are part of the changing character of war. John Arquilla andDavid Ronfeldt coined the term ‘cyberwar’ in 1993 which: “…refers to conducting,and preparing to conduct, military operations according to information-related principles. It means disrupting if not destroying the information and communications
systems, broadly defined to include even the military culture upon which an adversary
relies in order to “know” itself.”543 Their concept was rooted in the growing role ofknowledge in warfare (“…who knows what, when, where, and why, and about how
secure a society or a military is regarding its knowledge of itself and its adversaries”).544
During the 1990s the original concepts of cyber war and warfare where partly subsumed by the concepts of RMA, NCW, and Information Warfare or Operations(IW/IO).545 The RMA and NCW emphasised the fusion of sensors, intelligence, communications and precision weapons enabled by new technology which promised to
538 Jordan et al.

2008, 3.

539 The latest evolution is the return of the concept of ‘political warfare’ cf. Robinson, Linda, Helmus, Todd C.,

Cohen, Raphael S., Nader, Alizera, Radin, Andrew, Magnuson, Madeline and Migacheva, Katya. Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible Responses. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2018.
540 War and warfare have established meanings in international law which leads to politicized uses of the terms,
cf. Rousseau, D. L., Thrall, T. A., Schulzke, M. and Sin, S. S. Democratic leaders and war: simultaneously
managing external conflicts and domestic politics. Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 66, No. 3(2012), 349-364, 361.
541 Cf. Valeriano & Maness 2015, 31-33; Libicki 2016; Valerio, Jensen & Maness 2018.
542 Cf. Gray 1999a; Gray 2007; Jordan et al. 2008; Kaldor 2012; Kane, Thomas M. and Lonsdale, David J.
Understanding Contemporary Strategy. New York: Routledge, 2012; Sloan 2012; Strachan 2013.
543 Arquilla, John and Ronfeldt, David. Cyberwar is Coming. Santa Barbara: RAND, 1993, 30. According toThomas Rid, the term was used already in 1987 by the Omni magazine and even before that Jonathan Post
used the term ‘cybernetic war’ in 1979 (Rid 2016, 294, 301). Cf. also Ventre, Daniel. Information Warfare (2ndrevised ed.) Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2016, 75.
544 Ibid., 27.
545 For conceptual and operational histories, cf. Mitchell, P. Network Centric Warfare: Coalition operations in

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change the future way of war.546 NCW could be characterized as a semi-doctrine under
RMA which emphasised the use of networks, the self-synchronization of units, andsuperior situation awareness in dominating the battlespace through increased speed
and effectiveness command, control and communications.547 The central concept for
NCW is information superiority which is “[the] ability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information, while exploiting and/or denying an adversary the ability to do the same.”548
The concept of an ‘information war’ was first used by Thomas P. Rona in 1976.549
According to Daniel Khuel, Rona described information warfare later in 1994 as “thesequence of actions undertaken by all sides in a conflict to destroy, degrade, and exploit the information systems of their adversaries. Conversely, information warfare
also comprises all the actions aimed at protecting information systems against hostile
attempts at destruction, degradation and exploitation. IW actions take place in allphases of conflict evolution: peace, crisis, escalation, war, de-escalation and post conflict periods.”550 At the beginning in the 1990s, IW in the United States was understood as counter command and control warfare. It was about the development andadoption of digital technology.551 As the 1990s advanced, information warfare wasincreasingly seen as a new generation of warfare in which material resources were
replaced by information. Edward Waltz, whose book Information Warfare: Principles
and Operations contained many of the ideas NCW theorists would adapt, claimed
that: “Information warfare operations concepts are new because of the increasing
potential (or threat) to affect capacity and perception in the information and perception domains as well as the physical domain. These information operations are also
new because these domains are vulnerable to attacks that do not require physical force
alone […] The second new aspect to information warfare is the expansion of thebattlespace beyond the traditional military realm. Information targets and weapons
can include the entire civil and commercial infrastructure of a nation.”552
Consequently, IW was later upgraded in the Western military doctrines to apply to
the whole information environment, explicitly targeting an adversary’s information
through information operations (IO) or protecting own information.553 In the US
the age of US military primacy. IISS, The Alelphi Papers, Vol. 46, No. 385, 2006; Rid 2016; Kaplan 2016. For
the concept of ‘information society’ cf. Webster 2006; Castells 2010.
546 Krepinevich, Andrew. The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment. Washington: Center
for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2002; Jensen, Benjamin M. The role of ideas in defense planning:
revisiting the revolution in military affairs. Defence Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2018), 302-317.
547 Network Centric Warfare refers to the doctrinal concept developed in the armed forces of the United Statesof America during the 1990s. Its main theorists were Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Gartska (Cebrowski, A.
K. and Garstka, J. J. Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future. Proceedings Magazine, Vol. 124, No. 1(1998), 28 - 35).
548 An information position is defined by the dimensions of timeliness, accuracy and relevant information (Alberts, David S., Gartska, John J. and Stein, Frederick P. Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging
Information Superiority (2nd ed.) CCRP Publications, 2000, 54, 56).
549 Rona defined it as “degrading the opponent's information flow and, conversely, to protect or improve ourown.” (Rona, Thomas. Weapon Systems and Information War. Washington, D.C.: Office of the secretary ofdefence, 1976, pp. 5 [Online]. Available: http://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Science_and_Technology/09-F-0070-Weapon-Systems-and-Information-War.pdf [Accessed: 14th
August 2018].
550 Khuel, 2002, 36.
551 Kaplan 2016, 33.
552 Waltz, Edward. Information Warfare: Principles and Operations. Boston: Artech House, 1998.
553 Khuel 2002, 50-53; Jones, A. and Kovacich, G. Global Information Warfare: The New Digital Battlefield.

81doctrine, IO consists, among other things, of kinetic attacks, psychological operations, military deception, operational security, electronic warfare and computer network operations.554 NATO defines the targets of IO as the will, understanding ofsituation, and command and control capabilities of an adversary.555 The substance of
information warfare and operations has been debated in the 2000s-2010s because themeans (kinetic and non-kinetic), targets (systems), information, people, behaviour,
methods (direct and non-direct), and the environment (physical, electronic and cognitive) are more or less mixed in definitions.556 The addition of ‘strategic information
warfare’ and ‘strategic communications’ further muddled the distinction between thetactical, operational, strategic and political use of information.557 It speculated that
information means could be used for strategic effect by affecting the military andinfrastructure of the opponent.558
After 2001 officials and politicians in the United States’ administration started to talkabout cyber catastrophes or ‘Cyber Pearl harbours’.559 Attempts were made to understand this new threat based on the ideas about the strategic role of the air force from
1920s and ideas about nuclear forces from the1950—1960s.560 The cyber threat was
combined with terrorism, which gave birth to the concept of ‘cyber terrorism’ where
non-state actors would be able to use cheap and formidable cyberattacks to cripple
modern societies. 561 Cyber threats became a high priority for states globally, which
led to the creation of cyber military units, as well as the development of cyber weapons, and the writing of state strategies to militarily defend national networks (insteadof delegating this to the realm of broader security) and, if need be, to attack hostilenation’s networks.562 In this context Adam Liff defined cyber warfare as “the deliberate hostile and cost-inducing use of Computer Network Attacks (CNAs) against an
adversary’s critical civilian or military infrastructure with a coercive intent to extract
Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2016.
554 For an example, cf. U.S. Army War College. Information Operations Primer: Fundamentals of Information
Operations. November 2011 [Online] Available: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/info_
ops_primer.pdf [Accessed: 14th August 2018].
555 NATO 2009.
556 Libicki, Martin C. What Is Information Warfare? Washington DC: National Defense University, Institutefor National Strategic Studies, 1995; Libicki 2007, 16-17; Hammes 2006.
557 Brooks, Rosa. How everything became war and the military became everything. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016, 86-90; Brooks, Rosa. Evolution of Strategic Communication and Information Operations Since 9/11:
Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Emerging Threats & Capabilities of the H. Comm. on Armed Services, 112th
Cong., July 12, 2011 (Statement of Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks) [Online] Available: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=cong [Accessed: 14th August 2014];
Paul, C. Strategic Communications. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2011.
558 Molander, R. C., Riddile, A. S. and Wilson, P. A. Strategic Information Warfare: A New Face of War. Santa
Monica: RAND, 1996, 31. Later on writers such as Gregory J. Rattray wrote about strategic information warfare
which was “…means for a state and non-state actors to achieve objectives through digital attacks on an adversary’s center of gravity.” (Rattray 2001, 14.)559 Geers, Kenneth. Strategic Cyber Security. Tallinn: NATO CCD COE, 2011, 29-31; Rid 2012, 5-6; Gartzke,
Erik. The Myth of Cyberwar: Bringing War in Cyberspace Back Down to Earth. International Security, Vo. 38,
No. 2 (Fall 2013), 41-73.
560 Rattray 2001; Libicki 2009.
561 Dorothy Denning. Is Cyber Terror Next? In Calhoun, Craig, Price, Paul and Timmer, Ashley (eds) Understanding September. New York: The New Press, 2002; Devost, M. G., Houghton, B. K. and Pollard, N. A.
Information terrorism: Political violence in the information age. Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 9, No.
1, (1997), 72 - 83; Lachow, Irving. Cyber Terrorism: Menace or Myth? In Kramer, Franklin D., Starr, Stuart H.
and Wentz, Larry K.: Cyberpower and National Security, National Defense University Press, Washington D.C.,
2009, 437-464.
562 Choucri 2012, 148-151; Dunn Cavealty 2013.

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political concessions, as a brute force measure against military or civilian networks inorder to reduce the adversary’s ability to defend itself or retaliate in kind or with conventional force, or against civilian and/or military targets in order to frame anotheractor for strategic purposes.”563 Interestingly, Liff’s definition is very similar to thestrategies of air power defined by Robert Pape with the addition of obfuscation andexclusion of decapitation.564
Cyber war ‘hype’ led to a pushback from sceptics, who discredited the idea ofcyberwar, cyber power’s ability to achieve strategic effects by itself, and the ability ofcyber weapons to create sustained and kinetic effects, i.e. casualties and destruction
on the magnitude compared to conventional weapons.565 Erik Gartzke claims thatcyberwar is a myth because as an isolated instrument cyber-attacks have only a temporal effect and lack coercive power, and deterrence is difficult to maintain without
revealing critical capabilities.566 Valeriano and Maness prefer the term cyber conflictbecause of the perception that cyberwar has not happened and that cyber weapons
might only have limited military effect anyways.567 There is no agreed, universal definition on what is to be considered an armed attack in cyberspace, and so no internationally accepted concept of the violation of sovereignty in cyberspace, or a basis forindividual or collective self-defence.568 However, there is an emerging consensus sincethe 2010s among academics that ‘cyber war’ will not take place.569 Some even proposethat cyber operations have become part of all conflicts and that the cyberspace is in aconstant state of ‘skirmish’.570 Recently, in the context of the so-called hybrid andpolitical warfare Martin Libicki has questioned the, admittedly Western, separation of
cyber and information warfare.571 This proves the earlier point that defining cyber
power as a strictly military power and concentrating purely on its destructiveness inthe context of the warfare aspect is too narrow an approach. Moreover, the Westerndebate demonstrates how the offensive military use of force has been overemphasised
and defence has been delegated to the realm of cyber security. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the understanding of cyber warfare has changed and there is no agreed
Western definition of what cyber warfare or war means.

563 Liff 2012, 408.
564 Cf. Pape, Robert A. Bombing to Win. Air Power and Coercion in War. Ithica and London: Cornell University

Press, 1996.
565 Libicki 2007, 100-101; Gartzke & Lindsay 2015; Rid 2017.
566 Gartzke 2013, 57-60.
567 Valeriano & Maness 2015, 19.
568 Schmitt & Vihul 2017. Although there have been attempts such as the Tallinn Manual and Tallinn Manual
2.0.
569 Liff 2012; Demchak 2012; Valeriano & Maness 2015; Rid 2017; Libicki 2016; Junio, Timothy J. How Probable is Cyber War? Bringing IR Theory Back into the Cyber Conflict Debate, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.
36, No. 1 (2013), 125-133; Mahnken, Thomas G. Cyber war and Cyber warfare. In Lord, Kristin M. and Sharp,
Travis (ed.) America’s Cyber Future Security and Prosperity in the Information Age volume II, Center for New
American Security, 2011, 57-64.
570 Lemieux, F. (ed.) Current and Emerging Trends in Cyber Operations. Policy, Strategy and Practice. New
York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2015, 1-3; Demchak 2012, 122-128; Valeriano & Maness 2015, 210; Betz & Stevens
2011, 97.
571 Libicki, Martin C. The Conversion of Information Warfare. Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 1,(Spring 2017), 49-65, 50. Timothy Thomas made a similar argument already in 2003 (Thomas, Timothy. Is The
IW Paradigm Outdated? A Discussion of U.S. IW Theory. Journal of Information Warfare, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2003),
109-116.

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3.4.2 Dialectics of cyber offensive and defence
War and warfare require weapons. Thomas Rid and Peter McBurney have defined
cyber weapon as a code that can do harm.572 The concept of cyber weapons is problematic because code (software) can be used in different ways and attacks are usuallybased on vulnerabilities of the target systems, not on tailor-made weapons as such.573
Additionally, the term weapon refers to a certain purpose and an effect which arguably
limits the ways in which the use of malicious code can be understood.574 Instead of
weapons, the term cyber-attack or threat has been used to categorize different formsof tools or methods.575 Targeted cyber-attacks are, in fact, operations consisting ofvariously described chains of actions.576 The code used in the attacks is constantly
modified and malware polymorphs into new versions with new signatures which degrade the ability to detect them.577 This means that attacks are constantly evolving,
using newly found and unknown vulnerabilities, and, therefore, attribution based oncode is difficult and defence based on previous incidents always lags behind. The
problem of designating malware as a weapon is that computer code does not directly
kill people and attacks usually consist of dual-use code. This is something that hascaused a lot of consternation for those who have tried to define cyber weapons inlegalistic terms and the whole concept has been politized.578 Conversely, Forrest Hare
has argued that developing precision cyber weapon systems to be used during a lawful
conflict ought to be legitimized as it would reduce the need for conventional weapons
and thus could be more ethical, operationally effective, and cheaper.579 The problem
is that cyber-attacks can be used by states, state proxy-actors and non-state actors(criminals and terrorists) and distinguishing them from each other based on the methods used is practically impossible.580
IR and cyber scholars have differentiated cyberattacks or weapons to more abstractcategories to manage a world of constantly changing malware names and technicalslang. The most common categorization of cyberattacks is by effect: deny, disrupt,

572 Rid, T. and McBurney, P. Cyber-Weapons. The RUSI Journal, Vol. 157, No. 1 (2012), 6-13, 7.
573 Libicki 2009; Slayton 2016/2017; Rid 2017.

574 Fischerkeller, Michael. Incorporating Offensive Cyber Operations into Conventional Deterrence Strategies,

Survival, Vol.59, No.1 (February-March 2017), 103-134, 114-115.
575 Carr, Jeffrey. Inside Cyber Warfare (2nd ed.) Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 2012, 141-159; ENISA 2017; CrowdStrike.
Global Threat Report 2018: Blurring the lines between statecraft and tradecraft. 26 February 2018 [Online],
Available: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/crowdstrike-2018-global-threat-report-reveals-the-trends-insights-and-threat-actors-you-need-to-know/ [Accessed: 9th August 2018]; FireEye. M-Trends, Special Report2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/collateral/en/mtrends-2018.pdf [Accessed:
15th August 2018].
576 Hutchins, Eric M., Clopperty, Michael J. and Amin, Rohan M. Intelligence-Driven Computer Network Defense Informed by Analysis of Adversary Campaigns and Intrusion Kill Chains. Lockheed Martin, 2011
[Online]. Available: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/rms/documents/
cyber/LM-White-Paper-Intel-Driven-Defense.pdf [Accessed: 15th August 2018]; Kim, Hyeob, Kwon,
HyukJun, Kwon and Kim, Kyung Kyu. Modified cyber kill chain model for multimedia service environments.
Multimedia Tools and Applications Vol. 78 (2019), 3153–3170.
577 Libicki 2016, 46-55.
578 Cf. Osula 2016; Schmitt 2017.
579 Hare, Forrest B. Precision cyber weapon systems: An important component of a responsible national security strategy? Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2019), 193-213.
580 Claimed objectives and used resources have been used to make claims about state influence behind somecyber-attacks. For examples of these claims cf. Sanger 2018. On cyber-proxies cf. Maurer, Tim. Cyber Mercenaries. The State, Hackers, and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

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degrade, or destroy.581 Martin Libicki argues that a cyberattack is about making a codeor system do something it should not by manipulating it or giving it incorrect information. He also emphasises that a cyberattack is different from espionage or crime—
mostly based on the agenda, not the means used.582 Others have abandoned the concept of a weapon and have categorized actions or emphasised the nature, mechanismor technical aspects of the attack instead of the effects of attacks.583 Western militaries
have integrated weapons and attacks into cyber operations which include Computer
Network Attack (CNA), Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) and Computer Network Defence (CND) or more recently Offensive cyber operations (OCO), Defensive cyber operations (DCO) and DODIN operations (securing and sustaining Department of Defence’s information networks).584
Networks are inherently vulnerable to attacks and thus networks and the services running inside them have been protected with various systems and policies. Martin Libicki has categorised these as those minimizing exposure to attacks, increasing resilience, accelerating recovery, and defeating cyberattacks.585 A more technical approach
distinguishes perimeter protection, filtering, monitoring, response, information sharing, authentication, encryption, deception, and patching systems which range frommanually human controlled to fully autonomous. 586 These systems can be combinedin a complex of hardware and software or a system of systems587 that provides allservices with centralized interfaces and control.588 Information has a definite role insecurity: threat intelligence must be shared inside and outside an organization if constantly evolving cyber-attacks are to be countered.589 Cyber security should be separated from cyber defence. The former refers to measures to protect computer systems, networks and information from intentional or unintentional harm. The latter
refers either to protective systems or functions explicitly designed against malicious

581 These terms were already used, although not in this format, by Andrew Krepinevich in his report on the

Military-Technical Revolution in 1992 (Krepinevich 2002). For a more coherent use cf. Joint Chiefs of Staff
2018. Martin Libicki has categorized effects to destruction, disruption and corruption based on how the attack
affects confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information (Libicki 2016, 19).
582 Libicki 2016, 19-20.
583 Denning, Dorothy. Reflections on Cyberweapons Controls. Computer Security Journal, Vol. XVI, No. 4(Fall 2000), 43-53; Fischerkeller 2017; Rid & McBurney 2012; Whyte, Christopher, Valeriano, Brandon, Jensen,
Benjamin and Maness, Ryan. Rethinking the Data Wheel: Automating Open-Access, Public Data on Cyber
Conflict. In Minárik, T., Jakschis, R. and Lindström, L. (eds.) 10th International Conference on Cyber Conflict
CyCon X: Maximising Effects. Tallinn: NATO CCD COE, 2018, 9-30.
584 Lemieux 2015, 1. In the new version exploitation is part of all kinds of cyber operations, and whereas security
is more about eliminating vulnerabilities, defence is composed of actions taken against anticipated or manifested
threats. (Joint Chiefs of Staff 2018.)
585 Libicki 2016, 53.
586 Wu, Chwan-Hwa and Irwin, David J. Introduction to Computer Networks and Cybersecurity. Boca Raton:
CRC Press, 2013, 786-788.
587 Cf. Chapter 3.6.
588 Kakareka, Almantas. Detecting System Intrusion. In Vacca, John R. (ed.) Network and System Security (2nded.) Waltham: Syngress, 2014, 1-28, 20-21.
589 Cichonski, Paul, Millar, Tom, Grance, Tim and Scarfone, Karen. Computer Security Incident Handling
Guide: Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST (National Institute ofStandards and Technology), 2012 [Online]. Available: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/
NIST.SP.800-61r2.pdf [Accessed: 27th September 2018].

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attacks or to defensive military actions in cyberspace.590 Moreover, the meaning andscope of cyber security has changed over time.591
The management of networks and their security is usually given to designated organizations on corporate, governmental and national levels.592 These are organizations
run by humans, but because security systems are becoming increasingly complex andthey monitor massive amounts of data, AI solutions being sought.593 Additionally, thenetworks themselves have become so complex and expensive to maintain that technology is increasingly being used to manage heterogeneous network devices from acentralized location. This increases the efficiency of network security management,
but centralization may also cause new vulnerabilities.594 The threat of supply chain
attacks has made the domestic production of hardware and software part of the national cyber defence. Moreover, education, training and internal security are inherent
parts of cyber security as the insider threat, unintentional or intentional, is always
present.595
Cyberspace is full of potential malicious activity produced by various actors with various objectives.596 This makes it difficult to distinguish warfare from the ‘noise’ ofother activity. Cyber-attacks and security systems are both constantly evolving andnew vulnerabilities are discovered daily, and old exploits lose their effectiveness.597
Therefore, there cannot be persistent dominance in cyberspace. Every kind of power
relationship requires constant and proactive upkeep, or it will change and shift. Offensive and defensive cyber forces are in a constant dialectical relationship, even during peacetime, and cyber power provides a means to manage that relationship. Thus,
if there is such a thing as cyber warfare, it can be tentatively defined as the use of force
based on cyber power in or through cyberspace with a coercive intent to make political gains in thecontext of the continuum of interstate relations.
3.4.3 Cyber use of force
The use of cyber power on a strategic level has borrowed its language from nuclear
strategy scholars such as Bernard Brodie, Herman Kahn, Albert Wohlstetter, and

590 Rantapelkonen, Jari and Salminen, Mirva (eds.) The Fog of Cyber Defence. National Defence University,

Department of Leadership and Military Pedagogy, Series 2: Article Collection N:o 10. Tampere: Juvenes Print,
2013; ENISA. Definition of Cybersecurity: Gaps and overlaps in standardisation Version 1.0, December 2015
[Online] Available: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/definition-of-cybersecurity [Accessed: 7th August 2018].
591 Dunn & Wenger 2020, 7.
592 ENISA. Baseline Capabilities of National/Governmental CERTs. Update Recommendations 2012 [Online].
Available: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/national-governmental-certs-enisas-recommendationson-baseline-capabilities [Accessed: 5th August 2018].
593 Newman, Lily Hay. AI Can Help Cybersecurity – If It Can Fight Through the Hype. WIRED, 29th April
2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.wired.com/story/ai-machine-learning-cybersecurity/ [Accessed: 15th
August 2018].
594 Ahmad, Ijaz, Namal, Suneth, Ylianttila, Mika and Gurtov, Andrei. Security in Software Defined Networks:
A Survey. IEEE Communication Surveys & Tutorials, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Fourth Quarter 2015), 2317-2346.
595 Kello 2012; Libicki 2016, 35-36; Rid 2017.
596 Lemieux 2015, 6-9.
597 Smeets, Max. A matter of time: On the transitory nature of cyberweapons, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.
41, No. 1-2 (2018), 6-32.

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Thomas C. Schelling.598 This has led, with a slight variance in terminology, to theadoption of the concepts of persuasion, compellence, deterrence, coercion and brute
force as the ways to use cyber force in the Western cyber literature.599 It must be
noted that although the concepts are widely used there is variance in how they are
understood and used in non-Western countries.600 Also, these political-strategic-level
concepts lose their meaning on the tactical and technical levels.601
Persuasion is something like Joseph Nye’s ‘soft power’: agenda framing, persuading,and positive attraction.602 The object of the use of force does not even notice the useof force or accepts it as legitimate that he/she is being influenced. Deterrence is basedon the ability to hurt an opponent. It is based on the threat to use force to make an
opponent not to take an action. The threat is based on punishment or on denying the
opponents’ objectives by inflicting unbearable costs. This means that deterrence canbe divided into deterrence by punishment (imposing costs) and deterrence by denial(preventing gains). The latter is in practise achieved by an outwardly effective defence.
The opponent must know about the threat, it must to be credible and it must affectthe opponent’s cost-benefit calculations.603 Deterrence is about the manipulation of
the risk-calculations of an opponent.604 Deterrence is a theory on its own and has gone
through at least three, perhaps four, generations with substantial criticisms at every
turn. It is embedded in historical context and in the technological evolution of nuclear
weapons.605 The difference between deterrence and compellence is that the latter isaimed at making or stopping an opponent acting in a certain way. It is based on active
measures and the power to hurt the opponent more. Additionally, the opponent musthave a choice to comply or not to comply. Deterrence and compellence are the defensive and offensive or passive and active sides of coercion which is equated as thepower to hurt.606 Brute force does not include any kind of bargaining or cost benefit
calculations on the side of the opponent. Brute force is meant to destroy and kill, totake something or to hold something – to win without bargaining.607
Both Joseph Nye and Martin C. Libicki have written about persuasion and cyber
power. Nye gives it a role in his ‘soft power’ concept and Libicki writes about the‘friendly conquest of cyberspace.’ Based on their views it can be argued that cyber

598 Cf. Libicki 2009; Geers 2011; Lango 2016; Nye 2016/2017; Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018. On the de-velopment of the U.S. nuclear strategy theory cf. Freedman, Lawrence. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (3rded.) New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2003; Kaplan, Fred. The Wizards of Armageddon. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1983; Klinger 2019.
599 This taxonomy is based on the activity of the user of force, the perception of the opponent, and on theeffects of force.
600 For the Chinese and Russians cf. Babiarz 2015; Thomas 2015a; Adamsky 2018.
601 Schelling, T. C. Arms and Influence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008, 5.
602 Nye 2011, 21.
603 Schelling 2008, 5; Snyder, Glenn. Deterrence and Defence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961;
Angström & Widen 2015, 47-49; Freedman 2013, 159.
604 Freedman 2003, 303.
605 Jervis, Robert. Review: Deterrence Theory Revisited. World Politics, Vol. 31, No. 2 (January 1979), 289-324;
Knopf, Jeffrey W. The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research. Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 31, No. 1(2010), 1–33.
606 Schelling 2008, x. This terminology has not been fixed and some have used coercion to mean compellence(Cf. Pape1996, 12).
607 Schelling 2008, 2.

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power plays an enabling role in persuasion as a part of the wider information warfare.608 Cyber deterrence has been a hotly contested issue.609 The basic problems are:against whom to direct deterring actions; how to evaluate the costs and effects; howto compensate the loss of deterrent means after their usage; how to estimate collateral
damage; and how possible and desirable escalation610 into other domains would be.611
All things considered, deterrence exclusively by punishment in cyberspace seems quite
problematic. It would require proof, proximate temporal range, proportionality, anda specific weapon at the ready.612 Deterrence by denial, i.e. an effective defence whichmakes the expected costs too high for the potential attackers, might be a better solution. In fact, as time has gone by, and technology and the understanding of cyber
power have improved, the argument about ‘cyber weapons always getting through’has changed to a careful optimism about the denial aspect of deterrence.613 This aspect
has been subsumed under the concept of resilience. Cyber resilience has been definedas “the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions,stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that include cyber resources.”614 The
point is that whatever destruction an attack causes, systems can be restored in a quick
and ordered manner which deprives the attacker of the sought benefits. The downsideof resilience are the investments that must be made based on risk calculations.615

608 Nye uses also the term ‘entanglement’ which refers to the perception of interdependence and ‘normative

taboos’ and their effect on cost-benefit calculations (Nye 2016/2017, 58). Libicki (2007, 125-126) refers to thisas a ‘soft conquest’ or ‘dependency’.
609 Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018; Borghard, Erica D. and Lonergan, Shawn W. The Logic of Coercion in
Cyberspace. Security Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2017), 452-481.
610 “[A]n increase in the intensity or scope of conflict that crosses threshold(s) considered significant by one ormore of the participants.” (Forrest E. Morgan, Karl P. Mueller, Evan S. Medeiros, Kevin L. Pollpeter and Roger
Cliff. Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century. Santa Monica: RAND, 2008, xi.) In the
cyber literature escalation has been either connected to cross-domain escalation which means an inadvertent or
accidental spill-over of a conflict from cyberspace into the realms of conventional or nuclear warfare, or to
escalation dominance, i.e. “a condition in which a combatant has the ability to escalate a conflict in ways thatwill be disadvantageous or costly to the adversary while the adversary cannot do the same in return.” (Forrest
et al. 2008, 15-16; Valeriano & Maness 2015, 102-105; Valeriano, Brandon and Ryan C. Maness. Cyber Spillover
Conflicts: Transitions from Cyber Conflict to Conventional Foreign Policy Disputes?” In Ringsmore & Friis
2016, 45-64; Libicki 2016, 280-28; Borghard, Erica D. and Lonergan, Shawn W. Cyber Operations as Imperfect
Tools of Escalation. Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3 (FALL 2019), 122-145).
611 Deterrence is difficult because the problems of attribution make it hard to tailor the deterrence to any distinct
opponent, non-state actors react differently from state actors, secrecy limits the effectiveness of signalling,
proportionality cannot be guaranteed in the absence of information, repetition of punishment is difficult, andthe absence of rules reduces predictability and transparency and increases the probability of escalation. (Lantis2009, 470; Libicki 2009. xiv-xix; Liff 2012, 417-422; Andress & Winterfeld 2014, 92-96 Hare, F. The Significance of Attribution to Cyberspace Coercion: A Political Perspective. In Czosseck, C., Ottis, R. and Ziolkowski, K. (eds.) 4th International Conference on Cyber Conflict. Tallinn: NATO CCD COE Publications, 2012,
125 - 140; Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018).
612 Brantly, Aaron F. The Cyber Deterrence Problem. In Minárik, Jakschis, & Lindström, 2018, 31-53, 44-45.
613 Slayton 2017; Rivera, J. Achieving Cyberdeterrence and the Ability of Small States to Hold Large States at
Risk. In Maybaum, Osula & Lindström 2015, 7 - 24; Rid & Buchanan2015.
614 Ross, Ron, Graubart, Richard, Bodeau, Deborah and Mcquaid, Rosalie. Systems Security Engineering Cyber
Resiliency Considerations for the Engineering of Trustworthy Secure Systems. Draft NIST Special Publication
800-160 Volume 2, 2018 [Online]. Available from: https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Publications/sp/800160/vol-2/draft/documents/sp800-160-vol2-draft.pdf [Accessed 13 June 2018].
615 Gartzke & Lindsay 2015; According to one source, the total value of information security products andservices in 2018 was 114.15$ billion U.S. dollars up from 55$ billion in 2011. (Statista. Information security
products and services market revenue worldwide from 2011 to 2019 (in billion U.S. dollars) [Online]. Available:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/305027/revenue-global-security-technology-and-services-market/ [Accessed: 24th August 2018].

88Deterrence has branched out to include a so-called active defence, which basicallymeans penetrating potential aggressor’s networks and conducting intelligence gathering operations with the option of pre-emptive or preventive attack.616Admittedly, active defence might be considered the opposite to a deterrence because it is ‘active.’617
Some scholars claim that the development of technology enables more accurate andfaster attribution as well as better defence, which would allow cross-domain punishment to be used in cyber incidents.618 Cross-domain here means retaliation for cyberattacks with diplomatic, economic, conventional military and even nuclear weapons.619
There have also been attempts to fit cyber deterrence to the Cold War concept of theescalation ladder.620 Be that as it may, cyber deterrence still suffers from the ‘security
dilemma’, that is, an arms race and unintentional escalation induced by the search forsecurity.621 This is compounded by the fear that cyber-attacks could be used to degrade
the C3 systems of strategic nuclear weapons.622
The coercive or compelling use of cyber power is also a problematic concept becauseof the above mentioned strategic enabling effect.623 Consequently, Thomas Mahnken
has stated that for cyber weapons to have an effect they need to be combined withother uses of force which makes states the primary cyber actors.624 Additionally,
Thomas Rid has argued that the coercive or compelling use of cyber power would
require that there is a clear understanding of who is using force against whom and forwhat purpose. The inherent secrecy of cyberspace makes this difficult.625 Conversely,
cyber-attacks can target vulnerable and critical assets of a state and, consequently, aretools of strategic warfare.626 Instead of decapitation, a compelling use of cyber power
could be used to enhance negotiations by only temporarily paralysing the opposing
leadership, which would allow the resumption of the bargaining process after ademonstrative attack.627 The problem with arguments in favour of strategic effects isthe shortage of empirical data on them and their low perceived effectiveness so far.628
616 Libicki 2016, 84.

617 Harknett & Nye 2017.
618 Tor, Uri. ‘Cumulative Deterrence’ as a New Paradigm for Cyber Deterrence, The Journal of Strategic Studies,Vol. 40, No. 1-2 (2017), 92-117; Gartzke, Erik and Lindsay, John. Cybersecurity and Cross-Domain Deterrence:
The Consequences of Complexity [draft], 2016 [Online]. Available: http://deterrence.ucsd.edu/_files/ LindsayGartzke_ConsequencesofComplexity_Draft.pdf [Accessed: 16th August 2018].
619 Gartzke & Lindsay 2017.
620 Chen, Jim. Effectively Exercising Deterrence in the Cyber Domain. In Chen, & Hurley 2018, 120-125;
Fischerkeller 2017. On contrary views cf. Borghard & Lonergan 2017 & 2019.
621 Glaser, Charles L. The Security Dilemma Revisited. World Politics, Vol. 50, No. 1 (1997), 171 – 201.
622 Gompert, David C. and Libicki, Martin. Cyber War and Nuclear Peace. Survival, Vol. 61, No.4 (2019), 4562.
623 Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018, 32; Libicki 2009, xiv-xv; Libicki 2016, 201. Those in favour of strategic
effects include Kenneth Geers, Richard Clarke, Robert Knake, Gregory Rattray (Rattray 2001; Geers 2011;
Clark & Knake 2010).
624 Mahnken 2011, 61-62. Continuing advantages of states, cf. Betz & Stevens 2011, 131. On diffusion, cf. Nye
2011, 150-151.
625 Rid has been criticized by, for example, John Stone who claims that Rid confuses force, violence and lethality, and states that lethality is not a requisite of an act of war. (Rid 2012 & 2017; Stone 2013). Cf. also Nye, J.
2016/17, 48; Gartzke & Lindsay 2015, 347.
626 Rattray 2001.
627 Smeets, Max and Lin, Herbert S. Offensive Cyber Capabilities: To What Ends? In Minárik, Jakschis &Lindström 2018, 55-72.
628 On the shortage of data and the debate about the strategic effects of offensive cyber operations cf. Valeriano,
Jensen & Maness 2018, 17; Sanger 2018; Lindsay, Jon R. Stuxnet and the Limits of Cyber Warfare, Security
Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3 (2012), 365-404. For a brief history of cyber warfare cf. Green, James A (ed.) Cyber
Warfare: A multidisciplinary analysis. New York: Routledge, 2015. More on the debated cf.

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Brute cyber force is related to destructive attacks against the critical information infrastructure on a strategic scale.629 Be that as it may, destroying and killing with cyber
power without any element of bargaining has some of the same limitations as coercion. Additionally, as some have noted, there might be no supremacy in cyberspace.630
No one actor can control cyberspace in any meaningful way and destruction removes
the access to it from both the defender and attacker.631 Taking and holding cyberspaceare problematic concepts in a mutable, man-made environment. There is also the fearthat the use of brute force on a strategic level could trigger conventional and nuclear
counter retaliation.632 So, on a strategic level, brute force might be conceivable as anenabling and supporting force, but as a means to achieve political objectives, it could
be unreliable and possibly suicidal. On an operational or tactical level holding ‘key
terrain’ or even temporarily destroying or disrupting an adversary’s systems mightmake sense as part of conventional military operations.633
A couple of issues concern all the ways of using cyber force. Firstly, the security dilemma applies also to cyberspace as the feeling of constant vulnerability and the creation of cyber forces will make states feel vulnerable, which will result in an arms raceand possible conflict, which would reduce the security for all.634 Secondly, the security
dilemma in cyberspace has changed as the offensive has lost its claimed ‘asymmetrical’
advantage and trust in defence through resilience has increased. This asymmetry was
based on the logic that an offensive needed to get through only once, and that absolute defence was prohibitively expensive, and offensive weapons could not be preventively targeted.635 Thinking has changed as it was understood that true cyber weapons require nation-state-level resources, must be tailored for a specific use and do notstore well.636 Moreover, their effects are hard to predict, the risks are thus higher, andtheir acclaimed surprise effect is limited to the first strike.637 Thirdly, as the experienceand understanding on the cyber use of force has accumulated, its connection to war
629 Cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure might cause death and destruction and beat an opponent to surrender

without any bargaining by destroying the foundations of society and government, cf. Rattray 2001; Geers, Kenneth. The Cyber Threat to National Critical Infrastructures: Beyond Theory. Information Security Journal: A
Global Perspective, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2009), 1 - 7; Clark & Knake 2010; Wirtz, J. J. Life in the “Gray Zone”:
observations for contemporary strategists. Defense & Security Analysis, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2017), 106 - 114.
630 Libicki 2009, 141-142.
631 This view contradicts current Western, Chinese and Russian military doctrines which emphasize the importance of gaining ‘information superiority.’ (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2017. Joint Operations (Joint Publication3-0). [Online]
Available at: http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_13.pdf[Accessed 13 October 2017]; Указ Президента РФ от 05.12.2016 N 646 (2016b) “Об утверждении Доктрины информационной безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www. consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_208191/ [Accessed: 30th March 2019]; Johnson, James. China’s visionof future network-centric battlefield: Cyber, space and electromagnetic asymmetric challenges to the UnitedStates. Comparative Strategy, Vol. 37, No. 5 (2018), 373-390
632 Cimbala gives a warning on accidental nuclear war as a product of information warfare (Cimbala, S. J. Accidental/Inadvertent Nuclear War and Information Warfare. Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 25, No.4 (1999), 653- 675).)
633 Cf. Bryant 2016. The concept of ‘key terrain’ is present in the United States cyber doctrine as a physical,
logical or personal element that should be targeted for an effect or be protected (Kern & Gaines 2015).
634 Van Evera, Stephen. Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War. International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring1998), 5-43; Jervis 2011.
635 Cf. Alberts, David S. Defensive Information Warfare. Washington: NDU Press, 1996; Rattray 2001; Libicki
2007; Kramer 2009; Nye 2010; Nye 2016/2017; Schreider 2015; Sharp 2017, 899.
636 Libicki 2015; Rid 2017, 167-179; Gartzke 2013; Liff 2012.
637 Lindsay 2012.

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and thus to visions of massive destruction have been replaced by ‘normalcy.’ Cyberattacks are now seen as part of an already ongoing ‘grey zone’ conflict under a nuclear
strategic deterrence.638 And fourthly, as there are no commonly shared, tested oragreed rules or theories regarding the use of cyber force, different solutions based on
the strategic cultural ideas will be tried and this will affect the whole of cyberspacebecause of its man-made and malleable nature. Most importantly, the above-examinedstrategic-level concepts do not include the shaping of battlespace. However, cyber
power can be utilized to control and shape cyberspace as part of the strategy of a state
actor.
3.4.4 Cyber strategy
The use of cyber power and force require intentionality. This issue is captured by theterm strategy. Strategy as a term has lost its connection to military issues and has
become a synonym for ‘a plan’.639 Nowadays the term ‘military’ needs to be added in
the front of ‘strategy’ to make clear that what is meant by it is: “…the use that is madeof force and the threat of force for the ends of policy.”640 This is, of course, only one
way to define a military strategy.641 There are at least two opposing wills using force
to resolve their dispute.642 It is never done in a vacuum or out of context or relationship. ‘Linear logic’ in strategy produces failure. This is because, among other things,
a strategy is never enacted on a passive opponent, every measure produces a countermeasure and different levels of action interact in unforeseen ways.643 Strategy is also“the art of creating power”644 and “a plan of action designed in order to achieve someend.”645 It is also a process to identify the character of future war, prepare for it andmanage it.646 According to one influential definition, strategy is “concerned with ways
to employ means to achieve ends.”647 Hedley Bull states that military strategy “is theart or science of exploiting military force so as to attain given objects of policy.”648
Military strategy can even be considered as a culture-bound vision of the use of force.
Thus, different nations and militaries have different notions of strategy.649 In the

638 Whyte, Christopher and Mazanec, Brian. Understanding Cyber Warfare. Politics, Policy and Strategy. Lon-don & New York: Routledge, 2019, 163-164.
639 Strachan 2013, 249-252.
640 Gray 1999a, 17.
641 The term strategy can refer to the nature of a weapons system (e.g. nuclear), the nature of the target and themagnitude of the effects of an attack (e.g. leadership of a country), organizational level of armed forces (e.g.
combatant command or military theatre) or the level of decision-making in technical-tactical-operational-strategic-political continuum.
642 “The Art of the dialectic of two opposing wills using force to resolve their dispute.” (Quoted in (Gray 1999a,18) Strategy according to André Beaufre. Cf. Kolodziej, E. A. French Strategy Emergent: General Andre Beaufre: A Critique. World Politics, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1967), 417 – 444.
643 Luttwak 2001.
644 Freedman 2013, xii.
645 Wylie, J. C. Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014,14.
646 Handel, M. Masters of War: Classical Strategic Thought. London: Frank Cass, 1996, 36; Gray 1999, 24;
Strachan 2013, 118.
647 Lykke, Arthur F. Toward an Understanding of Military Strategy. Military Review Vol. LXIX, No. 5, (May1989), 2-8.
648 Bull, Hedley. Strategic Studies and Its Critics. World Politics, Vol. 20, No. 4 (1968), 593 – 605, 593.
649 Gray 1999a, 141-150. According to Timothy Thomas China and Russia have, for example, their own concepts of military strategy (Thomas, Timothy. Nation-state Cyber Strategies: Examples from China and Russia.
In Kramer, Starr & Wentz, 2009, 465-488).

91Western literature strategy is nowadays related hierarchically to the concepts of operational art and grand strategy and it interacts with doctrine.650
From an analytical perspective, military strategy has at least five aspects. Firstly, it canbe a theory about the conduct of war. Secondly, it can be a concept concerning national security objectives and the nature of current war, i.e. a national security concept.
Thirdly, it can be a concrete plan for how to fight a war and what forces to develop
for it at the strategic level of planning. Fourthly, it can be a process of analysing theenvironment and formulating plans. Fifthly, it can be the conduct of war on the highest level—sometimes referred to as theatre-level warfare. These aspects are based on
the notion that military strategy is subordinate to policy. Strategy gets its objectives
from politics and transforms them into military ends which are achievable by militaryand non-military means.651 This somewhat overly rationalistic and mechanistic topdown view of strategy is challenged by the idea of ‘emergent strategy.’ This emphasises the ad hoc nature of strategy or doing strategy. Strategy emerges from individual
acts through learning and practise in a continuous process.652
In the context of cyberspace, cyber strategies have been used mainly in the sense of aplan or concept.653 About 40% of the states of the world in 2017 had a national cybersecurity strategy that defined threats, opportunities, responses, responsibilities, resources and a vision in some combination.654 These strategies are not military strategies, but whole-of-government policies.655 As I want to emphasise the actions andtheir effects conducted through strategy I will not define cyber strategy as a plan or
document. Therefore, I combine Lawrence Freedman’s definition of strategy as “theart of creating power” with Colin Gray’s “the use that is made of force and the threatof force for the ends of policy” as the basis of my definition.656 Behind these shortdefinitions is the view that there are political ends which are achieved in various ways
using means to achieve them. According to Lawrence, strategy is more than just a
rational, materialistic plan. The unpredictability of human affairs challenges desired
650 Operational art is usually defined as the use of military forces, string of battles or a campaign to achieve theobjectives of war and grand strategy as the coordination of all of a nation’s assets to pursue a policy objective(Milevski 2016a). Bert Chapman defines doctrine as providing: “…a coherent and consistent framework ofconcepts, tenets, and principles that are applicable in planning and conducting operations, and that these doctrinal attributes are intended to assist in developing and executing operational plans.” (Chapman, Bert. Military
Doctrine: A Reference Handbook. California: ABC-CLIO LLC, 2009, 2). According to Barry Posen doctrines
are used to provide principles of how to fight and to reduce uncertainty. They prioritise efforts, the mobilize
the support of society, the provide guidance on how to fight and they provide reasons to fight (Posen, Barry.
The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1984).
651 Gray 1999a.
652 Popescu 2018.
653 Valerian, Jensen & Maness 2018, 9-10.
654 Cf. International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Global Cybersecurity Index (CGI) 2017 [Online].
Available: https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/str/D-STR-GCI.01-2017-R1-PDF-E.pdf [Accessed:
23rd August 2018]; Greiman, Virginia, Cyber Security and Global Governance. In Abouzakher, Nasser (ed.)
Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Cyber Warfare & Security. Hattfield: University of Hertfordshire, 2015, 71-78.
655 Luiijf, Eric, Besseling, Kim and de Graaf, Patrick. Nineteen national cyber security strategies. International
Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Vol. 9, No. 1-2 (2013), 3-31; Shafqat, Narmeen and Masood, Ashraf. Comparative Analysis of Various National Cyber Security Strategies. International Journal of Computer
Science and Information Security, Vol. 14, No. 1 (January 2016), 129-136; Sabillon, Regner, Cavaller, Victor
and Cano, Jeimy. National Cyber Security Strategies: Global Trends in Cyberspace. International Journal ofComputer Science and Software Engineering, Vol. 5, No. 5 (May 2016), 67-81.
656 Freedman 2013, xii; Gray 1999a, 17.

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ends and may change calculations altogether. Furthermore, strategy is a form of active
interaction involving bargaining, negotiation, threats, pressure and physical effects.657
Gray on the other hand specifies seventeen dimensions of strategy grouped under the
categories of people and politics, preparation for war and war proper. Strategy is done
under each of them. Gray argues that the use of force in specific ‘geography’ (meaning
land, sea, air, space and cyberspace) has its own grammar and it is always culturally
based. Material circumstances and ‘laws of warfare’ will punish those that try to overcome these objective rules.658 Somewhat similarly Freedman argues that, interests
which define ends are socially construed needs—they are connected to strategic cultural ideas, or scripts.659 Thus, based on Freedman and Gray, it can be argued thatcyber strategy is very much a cultural phenomenon and connected to the defence andsecurity elites’ understanding of their environment.
Cyber strategy is also a practice based on ‘art’ or experience and a knowledge-based
ability which allows for multiple resources, ways and means to create an effect. Thisidea follows Joseph Nye’s understanding of power resources which are converted to
power in some context and relationship, using different ways or modalities.660 This
formulation goes beyond the pure military use of force, and permits concentration on
non-kinetic and non-military ways of using cyber power for military ends during thewhole continuum of interstate relations. A cyber strategy can thus be understood asways of using means (based on power) to produce effects in or through cyberspacefor some end. These ends, ways, means and power derive their characteristics fromcyberspace, but might have effects outside it. To sum it up, cyber strategy is one componentof the ability to control and shape cyberspace when considering the use of military and non-militaryforce in the context of cyberspace and the continuum of interstate relations. It refers to the ‘ways’of using power resources— which are inherently connected to the actor itself and its
understanding of the environment and thus to strategic cultural ideas. The concept ofstrategy explains why power rarely produces lasting effects because conflicting objectives of a multitude of actors require constant evolution of ways and means.661 Cyber
power must be exercised constantly, and cyberspace must be shaped if any advantages
are to be had.
3.5

Closed national networks

Cyber power can be used to control and shape cyberspace in various ways. Arguably
states with significant resources and the sovereign authority over their territory are
the most capable actors to shape cyberspace. As was shown above, cyberspace ishighly dependent on physical connections and hardware which are tied to the geographical locations and international and domestic governance, over which the state
has either relative or theoretically absolute power. Thus, the Internet, as a part ofcyberspace, is not outside the scope of the states’ cyber power. It was also argued thatstates can use cyber power for military purposes even if this does not amount to a use

657 Freedman 2013, xi-xii.
658 Gray 1999a.

659 Gow 2017, 275-276.
660 Nye 2011, 40-41.

661 On instability of power relationships cf. Freedman, Lawrence. Strategic studies and the problem of power.

In Mahnken & Manoilo 2014, 9-21.

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of force. This could be considered as shaping the battlefield on a strategic level.662
Therefore, it is argued below that the shaping of cyberspace can have military strategic
objectives in all phases of intrastate relations.
According to the scholars of Internet governance, by shaping and controlling the Internet, states are mainly trying to protect and promote their traditional interests: managing the new threats emanating from and through the Internet, maintaining politicalcontrol of their population by controlling information, and supporting the digitalization and development of their economy.663 The most visible manifestations of the useof this power have been Internet ‘shutdowns’: the disconnections of Internet andmobile connections on a national level in times of domestic disorder.664 Chris Demchak and Peter Dombrovski have argued that states respond to the existential vulnerability brought on by the borderless Internet by building virtual borders, establishingnational cyber commands and ensuring the control of national cyberspace, i.e. territorial sovereignty in cyberspace.665 This is part of the fragmentation of the Internet
mentioned above.666 Moreover, this fragmentation could have direct military effects
if it results in ‘cyber blockades’ or Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) zones which
deny the use of cyberspace from designated actors.667 The states’ threat and use offorce therefore have a role in the way states shape cyberspace.
As was argued in the introduction of this thesis, the Russian regime’s project to control that portion of the Internet which resides on its territory and under its jurisdiction,i.e. its national segment of the Internet has been approached mainly as an issue ofcensorship, political control, and information warfare. However, Kukkola, Ristolainen and Nikkarila have argued that behind this project is an effort to gain military
strategic advantage by creating a closed national network.668 In this context a closed
national network is a state controlled segment of Internet that can be technically disconnected from the global Internet.669 The idea has its roots in a paper written by
Nikkarila and Ristolainen in which they applied traditional elements of combat power,i.e. manoeuvre, fire, and protection to analyse the military implications of Russia’s
662 A cyber battlefield is an area of confrontation within the cyber domain where adversaries battle for control

in order to achieve tactical and operational objectives. (Kukkola, Ristolainen & Nikkarila 2017b).
663 Choucri 2012; DeNardis 2014; Musiani et al. 2016; Mueller 2017; Aaronson 2017; Freedom House. Freedomon the Net 2017: Russia, 2017 [Online]. Available: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/ russia [Accessed 11 January 2018].
664 Vargas-Leon 2016.
665 Demchak & Dombrovski 2011.
666 Giampiero 2014; Mueller 2017; Kremer & Müller 2016.
667 Russell, A. L. Cyber Blockades. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014; Lawlor Russell, Alison. Strategic Anti-Access/Area Denial in Cyberspace. In Maybaum, Osula & Lindström 2015, 153-168. “An
anti-access [A2] strategy is a plan for keeping a strategically-superior military away from one’s region. It is
intended to either deter interference by an outside power while achieving a regional military conquest, or if
deterrence fails, achieve a quick victory while avoiding a force-on-force contest.” Area denial (AD) is a combat
tactic supporting A2. (Tangredi, Sam J. CNO vs A2AD: Why Admiral Richardson is Right about Deconstructing the A2/AD Term, The Navalist January 2017. [Online] Available at: https://thenavalist.com/home/2017/1/8/ dissecting-the-buzz-words-that-control-the-defense-debates [Accessed 19 August 2017]).
668 Kukkola, Juha, Ristolainen, Mari and Nikkarila, Juha-Pekka. Confrontation with a closed network nation:
Open network society’s choices and consequences. Presented at Military Communications (MILCOM) conference, Baltimore, USA, October 23.-25, 2017; Kukkola, Juha, Nikkarila, Juha-Pekka and Ristolainen, Mari.
Asymmetric frontlines of cyber battlefields. Presented at International Command and Control Research andTechnology Symposium (ICCRTS), Los Angeles, USA, November 6.-8., 2017.
669 Kukkola, Ristolainen & Nikkarila 2017b; Kukkola, Nikkarila & Ristolainen 2017.

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project to secure and, if needed, close its national Internet from outside traffic. They
argued that although increased protection is the main benefit of closing the national
Internet, Russia could gain a relative advantage in fire and manoeuvre in cyber warfare
against opponents who keep their networks open.670 Theoretically then, the closed
national network provides better protection and a military advantage against thosestates that are not able to disconnect their national networks.
Kukkola, Ristolainen and Nikkarila continued to analyse the possible results of closing
national networks and developed concepts of ‘cyber asymmetry’, ‘asymmetric cyber
frontlines’ and ‘structural cyber asymmetry’ to describe the military advantage that theclosing of national network could provide.671 Basically, ‘cyber asymmetry’ refers to an
offensive and defensive advantage of a nation closing its networks over a nation thatkeeps its networks open in cyberspace. ‘Asymmetric frontlines’ refers to a layered andecheloned defences inside a closed national network—a concept which has, in principle, been proposed by two Russian scholars. These ‘frontlines’ are asymmetric because open networks lack them. ‘Structural cyber asymmetry’ describes the result of
shaping and controlling closed national networks from cyberspace. It is an attributeof cyberspace created by manipulating the infrastructure and rules of cyberspace bymeans of technology, governance, norms and politics.672 The infrastructure and rules
can be understood as ‘digital territory’ which refers to material, functional, normativeand political elements of cyberspace.673 This is an analytical concept which enables
the visualization and mapping of hardware, software, infrastructure, interconnection,
information, human resources, protocols, services, policies and norms. Because cyberspace was defined above as a man-made and governed, the digital territory needs
to be mapped on a case-by-case basis. It this thesis, the case is the Russian national
segments of the Internet which will be ‘mapped’ as system of systems in the way
described below.674
The basic argument of Kukkola, Nikkarila and Ristolainen is that in a situation where
one nation manages to disconnect its national segment of the Internet from the global
Internet it would gain an asymmetrical advantage in computer network attack (CNA)
and computer network exploitation (CNE) operations.675 Figure 1 shows how theasymmetry achieved by closing national networks is achieved. In the figure, the attack
vectors (arrows) between a nation closing its networks (solid circle) and a nation with
open networks (smaller dotted cloud) towards the global Internet (larger dottedcloud) are illustrated. It is important to note that the closing does not necessarily mean
disconnecting all traffic. It can be done in steps based on increased control of traffic
to, from and inside the national segment of the Internet.676 The model is based on
670 Nikkarila & Ristolainen 2017. The paper was inspired by Ristolainen 2017a.
671 Kukkola, Ristolainen & Nikkarila 2017b.
672 Kukkola 2017a & 2018a.

673 The concept was first introduced in Kukkola 2018a.

674 The concept of digital territory is inspired by Critical Geopolitics which argues that geopolitical representa-

tions are products of power. Here its premises are deployed to point out that ‘objective’ pictures of networks
based on physical connections or protocols do not necessarily tell us how these networks are governed andcontrolled and what their political, economic or strategic function is. (Cf. Ó Tuathail, Gearoid and Simon Dalby(eds.) Rethinking Geopolitics London: Routledge, 1998).
675 Kukkola, Nikkarila & Ristolainen 2017.
676 The ‘closing process’ concept refers to the process of establishing standards and developing technology andsolutions for the ability to nationally control the reliability, integrity and availability of data transfer, storage andprocessing. The closing process is related to Internet fragmentation as a phenomenon. (Kukkola, Ristolainen

95

Russian policies which will be more extensively discussed in Chapter 6. The nation
closing its networks would control the Internet routing architecture inside its national
segment and so maintain operational capabilities, i.e. services outside the global Internet. Additionally, it could operate in the global Internet through various interfaces.

Figure 1. Schematic outline of the asymmetry between a closed and open national network.
Source: Kukkola, Nikkarila & Ristolainen 2017.

In a confrontation between open and closed network nations, CNA/CNE operations from the closed network to the open network (solid arrows) can be conducted
through interfaces officially designated for traffic, as well as through non-designatedinterfaces, through third-party networks and from inside the national network. Alternatively, CNA/CNE operations into the closed national network (dotted arrow)
can be conducted through designated interfaces, non-designated interfaces that require additional measures to penetrate the defences of the closed national network,and from inside the closed network. Third-party networks operate towards closed
networks like attacks through non-designated interfaces.
Designated interfaces are monitored and regulated points of traffic exchange points(IXPs) between national ISPs and their functions are based on agreements, AS advertisement, and physical lines of traffic. Traffic through these interfaces can be tracked,
attributed (at least to the previous hop), and analysed efficiently in real-time, and theinterfaces can be disconnected at will. The level of control of the designated interfacesby the state is an empirical question, but in the following analysis it is assumed thaton the side that is closing its networks designated interfaces are highly controlled andregulated by the state. Non-designated interfaces are unregulated and possibly illegal
interfaces, which nevertheless allow traffic from and into national networks.677 Thirdparty networks are maintained by instances not connected to either nation. Insider
interfaces require physical connections to the target network in the target country
using USB, side-channel techniques or other media.

& Nikkarila 2017a, 52-53).
677 These could be mobile data networks, satellite Internet services or unregulated optical fibre cable connections etc. which provide access into the wider national segment. They also include corporate networks which
reside on the territory of a nation but are physically or logically disconnected from the national segment.

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Kukkola, Nikkarila and Ristolainen analysed the interaction between open and closed
networks by examining how the closing of a national segment of the Internet could
affect the defence and offence of a nation closing its network contra a nation leaving
its networks open.678 In this context, Kukkola et al. used the freedom of movement,
situation awareness and decision-making679 capabilities to analyse a theoretical confrontation between an open and closed network nation on a conceptual level using
the interfaces as points of analysis.
The advantages point to a disproportioned and exploitable advantage for the nation
closing its networks. Furthermore, Kukkola et al. analysed the ‘asymmetrical frontlines’ inside closed national networks and claimed that this provided a further advantage for the closed network defender. This argument was based on a possible Russian project to use BGP routing, SDN technology and the nationalization of parts ofthe critical information infrastructure to create a centrally controlled national segmentof the Internet. A hypothetical version of this project is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. A simplified schematic outline of the asymmetrical frontlines inside a closed national
network. Source Kukkola, Nikkarila & Ristolainen 2017.

In Figure 2 a network of routers form frontlines through which all traffic must pass.
The first frontline is a border and customs zone through which all traffic must cross,and inside which its source and legitimacy are verified. It is a kind of nation-level
demilitarized zone (DMZ)680. At the later frontlines the traffic is analysed and monitored, and the legitimacy of packets is checked based on routing tables. In effect, all
678 Kukkola, Juha. The Russian Segment of Internet as a Resilient Battlefield. Presented at the International

Society of Military Sciences Conference (ISMS) Warsaw, Poland, October, 18.-19., 2018.
679 Kukkola et al. did not define these concepts. At this point, the following definition is sufficient for understanding the idea behind the analysis: Freedom of movement—the ability to conduct defensive and offensive
cyber-operations in friendly and hostile networks. It is the function of fire, manoeuvre, and protection. Situation
awareness—the ability to know all items of significance on the battlefield, predict the intentions of other players
and evaluate the future. Decision-making capabilities—the ability to make better and faster decision and put
them into effect faster and more efficiently than the opponent. (Kukkola, Nikkarila & Ristolainen & Nikkarila2017). These concepts will be further developed in my upcoming General Staff Course thesis [2021].
680 “A network segment outside an organization’s inside firewall, usually used for hosts providing services tocustomers or the public.” (Fall & Stevens 2012, 939).

97traffic is registered, and unauthorized traffic is dropped. The last frontline consists ofpoint defences, i.e. firewalls etc.681
To summarize, the claimed advantages in the defence and offence of the nation closing its networks are based on the argument that through technological solutions andby nationalizing the control of that portion of the Internet which resides on its territory and under its jurisdiction a nation can gain an asymmetrical advantage in freedomof movement, situation awareness, and decision-making capabilities because theproperties of cyberspace would be decidedly different for each belligerent. Kukkola
et al.’s main point is that if one nation or a group of nations decide to build national
systems to control and disconnect their national segments of the Internet, those nations leaving their networks open would be in a position of a serious strategic disadvantage in a time of conflict. The project to prepare for the disconnection of national
networks can be compared to the preparation of the battlefield on a strategic level.
Or put in a different way in the words by Philippe Maigret: “the best kind of fortresses
are those that forbid access to one’s country while at the same time giving an opportunity to attack the enemy in his own territory.”682
The Russian or any national segment of the Internet is a possible manifestation of theabove described closed national network. Every national segment is however different
because they are the result of the use of cyber power through strategy which is guided
by strategic cultural ideas. Therefore, it is important to study how they have been
shaped into being, how they are controlled and how they function. In this thesis I
shall approach the Russian national segment of the Internet as a system of systems.
This has been defined by Annette Krygiel as “a set of different systems so connectedor related as to produce results unachievable by the individual systems alone. [...] They
are capable of independent action. These constituents fulfil purposes of their own
and can operate when disassembled from the whole. They are managed for their own
purposes.”683 A system consist of objects in an interactive relationship which form awhole and thus have borders and relationships to other ‘wholes’. They also have afunction and a goal.684The argument is that the system of systems is designed for thestate control of the national segment to provide different functions in different phasesof interstate relations according to the reasons provided by the prevailing strategic
cultural ideas. Thus, I am not assuming that the Russian national segment is meant
for closing the national network, achieving cyber asymmetry, or any other predetermined function except as an exercise of cyber power. The reason why I choose toapproach the Russian national segment as a system of systems is that, as Chapters 4681 Ibid. The asymmetry has been proven also mathematically cf. Nikkarila, J-P., Åkesson, B., Kuikka, V., and

Hämäläinen, J. Modelling Closed National Networks – Effects in Cyber Operation Capabilities. Presented at
the 17th European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ECCWS), 28-29 June 2018, Oslo, Norway.
682 Guerlac, H. Vauban: The Impact of Science of War. In Paret, Peter (ed.) Makers of Modern Strategy from
Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, 64-90, 87.
683 Krygiel, Annette J. Behind the Wizard’s Curtain: An Integration Environment for a System of Systems.
CCRP Publication Series, 1999, 33-34.
684 Ackoff, Russell L. Ackoff’s Best. His Classic Writings on Management. New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
1999; Checkland, Peter. Soft Systems Methodology: A Thirty Year Retrospective. Systems Research and Behavioral Science Syst. Res. Vol. 17 (2000), 11-58; de Rosnay, Joël. The Macroscope A new world scientificsystem. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1975 [Online]. Available: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ macroscope/ [Accessed: 23rd September 2019].

98and 5 will demonstrate, cybernetic and systems theoretic thinking685 influences Russian information security theorizing. Moreover, several types of national systems of
information security and political control have been proposed by many Russian scholars. I do not argue that Russians are building such a system, just that it makes sensein the context of the prevailing strategic cultural ideas and provides one way to mapa digital territory as a functional, normative, and political construct. This in my mind
corresponds to the realist analytic form of pragmatism that was chosen as the thesis
philosophical premise.
Now, that I have defined the main concepts of this thesis and provided a framework
for analysing the Russian national segment of the Internet, and as such, answered thetheoretical problems of this thesis, I shall continue to the analytical part. I have argued
that the concepts developed here are preliminary descriptions of the objects of reality
to which strategic cultural, in this case Russian ones, give meaning. The concepts arethus also tools to discuss, analyse and understand the objective and real phenomenaof shaping and controlling cyberspace into a closed national network.

685 Systems thinking is a scientific approach which came into being in the 1930s and 1940s. It spans diverse

disciplines and includes multiple theories and methodologies which approach reality as holistic systems. Oneof the first developers of systems theory was the Russian Aleksandr Bogdanov (1873-1928). Austrian Karl
Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) is widely recognized as the actual creator of general systems theory. It aims
to examine the whole of reality as systems which are entities composed of parts and the relationships between
those parts. Systems theory is present in IR, for example, in the Neorealism of Kenneth Waltz (1924-2013).
The modern version of systems theory argues that it is the responsibility of the researchers to search, describe
and define systems. (Checkland 2000; Hammond, Debora. The Science of Synthesis. Exploring the Social Implications of General Systems Theory. Boulder: The University Press of Colorado, 2003; Lillienfeld, Robert.
The Rise of Systems Theory: an Ideological Analysis. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1978).

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4
HISTORICAL IDEAST

his chapter begins to find answers to the thesis’ research problem’s analyticalpart by identifying the main strategic cultural ideas related to cyberspace andcyber power present in the discourses of Russian defence and security policy
oriented epistemic communities and elites. I will begin this chapter by identifying agroup of strategic cultural ideas that are connected to cyberspace, cyber power andcyber warfare and at same time I will present a critical literature review of previous
studies on Russian information warfare. The ideas identified are: interstate struggle,
digital sovereignty, strategic deterrence, asymmetric response, information superiority, information-technological warfare, automated command and control systems, andunified information space. I continue by examining the historical roots of the identified ideas through previous research and secondary literature and through some of
the most important primary sources mainly to show the linguistic continuity of theterms and how the concepts were framed and perhaps understood in the time ofwriting. In the next chapter I follow the development of these strategic cultural ideas
between 2000-2018.
4.1

Russian information warfare and strategic cultural ideas

Kier Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, has been one of the mostprominent proponents of the view that the Russians see cyber warfare as a Westernconcept and when they use it, they refer to Western concepts and actions. He argues“that any research on Russian capabilities and intentions which includes the word
“cyber” risks providing fundamentally misleading results.”686 Instead of cyber, Russians use the term ‘information’. Giles’ argument can be empirically proven by examining the official information security documents of the Russian Federation.687 To myknowledge no one has produced a proper explanation for why the Russians, who doborrow words from other languages quite readily, have not adopted the term cyber inthe context of information and data networks of computers and software.688 I claimthat this phenomenon has at least three reasons. The first is the negative connotation
with the term ‘kibernetik’ which refers to the Soviet (pseudo)meta-science of cybernetics that was discarded in the 1980s by Soviet scientists themselves. Conversely, the686 Giles 2016. Cf. also Giles, Kier. The Next Phase of Russian Information Warfare. Research paper. Riga:

NATO STRATCOM COE, 2016; Giles, Keir. Russia’s Public Stance on Cyberspace Issues. In Czosseck, Ottis,& Ziolkowski 2012, 63-76; Giles, Keir. Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West – Continuity and Innovation in Moscow’s Exercise of Power. Chatham House, Russia and Eurasia Programme, March 2016; Giles,
Keir and Monaghan, Andrew. Legality in Cyberspace: An Adversary View. The Letort Papers, Strategic Studies
Institute March 2014. Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2014; Giles & Hagestad 2013.
687 Cf. Указ Президента РФ от 9 сентября 2000 г. N Пр-1895. ”Об утверждении Доктрины информационной безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://base.garant.ru/
182535/#ixzz4x5P8ZYEp [Accessed: 21st March 2019]; Указ Президента РФ 2016.
688 Mustajoki, Arto. Kevyt kosketus venäjän kieleen [A Slight Touch on the Russian Language]. Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2012, 147-151.

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term ‘kibernetik’ already has a legitimate and established meaning in the Russian language.689 The second is based on politics and relates to the official Russian policy ofclaiming that the content of information is a legitimate interest of sovereign states
and that information is a form of weapon that should be regulated.690 The third reason
is connected to the taken-for-granted claim that the Russian approach to information
is more holistic and consequently the cyber concept refers only to a means to aneffect. According to Giles, for Russians “information itself […] is important and is
the object of operations, independent of the channel through which the informationis transmitted. The aim is to control information in whatever form it takes. In thiscontext, cyber in particular is just a technical representation of information, standing
alongside other carriers such as print media, individual or mass consciousness, andmuch more besides.”691
Giles’ arguments are not novel. In her article from 1999 Mary Fitzgerald from the
Hudson Institute, who was the leading scholar on the Soviet Military Technical Revolution (MTR)692, claimed that by 1999 Russian military theorists were convinced of
the strategic effects of information warfare and considered it to be a continuum ofoperations starting already in peacetime to intimidate the opponent and escalating tomassive information-electronical warfare during conflict.693 Moreover, modernmeans, forms, and methods made it possible to attain strategic objectives of war without the conquest of territory.694 Fitzgerald claimed that the lessons drawn from theoperation Desert Strom convinced the Russians that, a successful use of information
warfare might resolve a conflict already at the initial period of war.695 According to
Fitzgerald, already in the late 1990s Russia was pursuing operational niche capabilities
or asymmetries to exploit the United States’ vulnerabilities and to counter its superiority until Russia managed to realize its own RMA. The defensive aspect of this strategy was the development of automated and autonomous (“intellectual”) commandand-control systems and a state-level (intergovernmental), territorial unified telecommunications networks combined with early-warning radars, EW and air-defence assets. This “unified information-management system” would integrate separate armed
forces networks and centralize the command. Fitzgerald presented the Deputy Defence Minister Andrei Kokoshin as one of the masterminds behind the idea of “scientific-technical reserve” which would allow Russia to leap-frog over a generation oftechnology to surpass the Western militaries.696 In her article Fitzgerald touched upon
689 Gerovitch 2002; Susiluoto 2006; Peters 2016.

690 Tikk & Kerttunen 2017; Thomas, Timothy L. Russian Information Warfare Theory: The Consequences ofAugust 2008. In Blank & Weitz 2010, 265-299; Patryk Pawlak. Reducing Uncertainties in Cyberspace throughConfidence and Capacity-Building Measures. In Giacomello 2014, 39-58; Nocetti 2015.
691 Giles 2016b, 6.
692 According to Soviet sources, the Soviet Union went through at least two Military Technological Revolutions.
The first was the mechanization of 1920s and the second was the development of the capability for intercontinental strategic nuclear weapons. The third would have been the 1970s and 1980s transition to technologicallyadvanced conventional armed forces. (Adamsky 2010, 26-28.)
693 Fitzgerald, 1999.
694 Ibid. For the original cf. Самсонов, Виктор. Точка зрения. Нужна новая система коллективной безопасности, или Что сегодня может угрожать национальным интересам государств СНГ. Красная звезда
1995, № 279.
695 This view was based on an analysis of the United States’ use of EW capabilities. From a defender’s viewpoint, effective defensive EW means were seen to reduce the surprise and the effectiveness of deep strikes, andto blind the enemy. The “electronic-fire” concept was considered as a new concept of war. (Fitzgerald, 1999).
696Ibid. For another view on the Russian ‘RMA’ cf. Kipp, Jacob W. The Russian Military and the Revolution in
Military Affairs: A Case of the Oracle of Delphi or Cassandra? Fort Leavenworth, KS: FMSO, 1995.

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many of the strategic cultural ideas I claim have had historical continuity, namely theinterstate struggle, asymmetric response, information superiority, automated command and control systems, and a unified information space.
Timothy L. Thomas from the Foreign Military Studies Office at the U.S. Army War
College has been steadfastly writing about the Russian approach to information warfare from the 1990s and because of this, his writings have had a defining effect on theWestern understanding of Russian IW.697 The writings of Thomas are important because he is one of the few Western scholars who has consistently and extensively used
Russian language primary sources to study the Russian approach to IW. Below, I will
briefly summarize his main points from different articles published first between
1996-2017.
Already in his 1996 article Thomas presented almost all the elements of Russian IW
thinking that he elaborates in his later articles.698 He introduced the concept of ‘informatsionnoe protivoborstvo’ which he translated as information war. He argued thatthe terms ‘informatsionnaia voina,’ ‘informatsionnaia bor’ba,’ and ‘informatsionnoe
protivoborstbo’ all relate to the Western concept of IW. Thomas also claimed that
the Russian approach to IW can be divided to information-psychological and information-technological/technical aspects699. The first refers to perception management,
the moral-psychological preparation of own forces, and the concept of ‘reflexive control’—which targets the brain.700 The second refers to counter command and control
warfare which includes attacks against the enemy’s information systems—which targets machine processors.701 According to Thomas, the Russians argued after the Gulf
War that superior information processing had become at least as important in warfare
as numerical superiority.702 Additionally, Thomas argued that the Russians considered
IW both in a broad national and societal context, where it might even have a strategic
impact and at the same time in tactical-operational level, where it was more an enabling factor.703 In a 2005 book ‘Cyber Silhouettes’ Thomas demonstrated that the information-psychological/technological divide, which he had proposed more as an analytical concept in 1996, was in reality concretely present in the Russian IW thinking
and writings by 2003. Moreover, Thomas acknowledged that the Russian terms for

697 In the Finnish context many of the studies written about the Russian IW are based on Timothy Thomas orscholars referring to his analysis. (Berger, Heidi. Venäjän informaatio-psykologinen sodankäyntitapa terrorismin
torjunnassa ja viiden päivän sodassa [Russia's information-psychological warfare in the fight against terrorism
and in the Five-day war], Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu, Johtamisen ja sotilaspedagogiikan laitos, Julkaisusarja 1,
5/2010; Saarelainen, Jorma. Informaatiosodankäynti – venäläinen näkökulma [Information warfare - a Russian
perspective]. In Saarelainen et al. 1999, 247-271; Pynnöniemi 2019a; Pynnöniemi, Katri. Information-Psychological Warfare in Russian Security Strategy. In Kanet 2019, 214-226).
698 Thomas 1996.
699 Thomas uses the terms technological and technical interchangeably (Cf. Thomas 1996; Thomas, Timothy.
Cyber Silhouettes. Shadows Over Information Operations. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies
Office, 2005.)
700 “Reflexive control involves creating a pattern or providing partial information that causes an enemy to react
in a predetermined fashion without the enemy realizing that he is being manipulated.” (Thomas 1996, 31-32;
Cf. Thomas, Timothy. Russia's Reflexive Control Theory and the Military, Journal of Slavic Military Studies,Vol. 17, No. 2 (2004), 237-256.)
701 Thomas 2005, 166-167.
702 Ibid., 31.
703 Ibid., 27.

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IW had important distinctions and he began to translate ‘informatsionnoe protivobortsvo’ first to mean confrontation and then later struggle.704
Through his articles Thomas has consistently referred to a group of Russian theorists
who he sees to have influenced the Russian thinking on IW. These are primarily Admiral Vladimir Pirumov, the Scientific Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation until 1997 and the first head of the Scientific Council of the Security Council;
a civilian analyst of the MoD V. I. Tsymbal; and a professor and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN) Colonel S. A. Komov. They have been later joinedby professor S. V. Rastorguyev, a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RAEN) and Academy of Military Sciences (AVN); professor Vitalii Tsygichko,a member of the RAS; and Major S. V. Markov.705 These scholars have offered diverging views on IW and I will return to them more closely when analysing strategic
cultural ideas. Nevertheless, Thomas’ examination of their ideas shows that ideas
about an information struggle, information superiority, and information-technological warfare were quite well-established by the early 2000s.706 Although Thomas does
not mention it, these scholars and probably many others with a security service background, especially from the FAPSI707, probably took part in the interagency
workgroup or committee on information security of the Security Council establishedin 1993-1996, and participated as experts in the subcommittee of information securityof the Committee of Security of the State.708
704 Ibid.
705 Thomas 2015a & 2017.

706 Thomas, Timothy L. The Russian Understandings of Information Operations and Information Warfare. In

Alberts & Papp 2001, 777-814, 785-786; Thomas 2001; Thomas 2005.
707 FAPSI was established in 1991 (its status was defined in law in 1993) to manage special communications,
cryptographic and engineering-technical security of encrypted communications, intelligence gathering activities
in the sphere of special communications, and the provision of special information to higher bodies of authority.
(Thomas 1996, 28) Organization and tasks were based on the KGB’s 8th Main directorate (communications
intelligence and cryptography), 16th Directorate (radio-electronic surveillance and technical intrusion) and 12th
Department (eavesdropping). FAPSI was a fully-fledged security service, in practice answering only to the president, and grew in personnel and power during the Yeltsin era. FAPSI was disbanded and its resources andresponsibilities divided between the FSB and FSO in 2003. (Bennett, Gordon. The Federal Agency of Government Communications & Information. Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, The Conflict Studies Research Centre 2000 [Online]. Available: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/96806/00_Aug.pdf [Accessed: 3rd December
2018]; Soldatov & Borogan 2010; Agentura.ru. В спецслужбе создали новую структуру для противодействия компьютерным Преступлениям. 12.09.2018 [Online]. Available: http://www. agentura.ru/news/28975/ [Accessed: 18th April 2019].)708 According to Thomas, the 1995 draft law on information security clearly saw IW as a military threat mainly
directed against command and control of military and critical information resources of military-industrial complex (Thomas 1998a, 159-160). What Thomas does not mention in his articles is that according to Professor
Igor’ Sheremet, Vice-President of the Academy of Military Sciences, in 1995 the Security Council of the RussianFederation formed an interagency workgroup consisting of the representatives from the SVR, FSB, FAPSI,MVD, MoD, Roskomnadzor, Academy of Sciences, military-industrial complex and Security Council. Its task
was to investigate the issues concerning the developing global information infrastructure. (Шеремет, Игорь.
Киберугрозы России растут — часть I. Ситуация в этой области изменяется в лучшую сторону гораздо
медленнее, чем того требует развитие геополитической обстановки. ВПК, № 5 (523) за 12 февраля 2014года.) It is possible that many of the articles published in military journals in the latter half of the 1990s, which
Thomas analysed, were influenced by this working group and that the 2000 Information security doctrine wasbased on the work done by the group. Anatolii Strel’tsov argues that an interagency commission of information
security under the Security Council was established already in 1993 (Стрельцов, А.А. Обеспечение
информационной безопасности России. Теоретичнские и методологические основы. М.: МЦНМО,2002, 10.). It is unclear if this is the same commission that Sheremet referred to. Strel’tsov also claims that in1996 under the Committee of Security of the State Duma a subcommittee of information security was established (Ibid., 11.) In 1998 President Yeltsin gave a degree that designated V. P. Sherstiuk, the director of FAPSI,
as the chairman of the Interagency Committee of Information Security (Указ Президента Российской

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Based on the writings of Russian theorists and some practitioners, Thomas argues
that the Russians purposefully did not copy American definitions because their needs
and structural incentives were different.709 Already in 1998, Thomas summarized ten
key elements of Russian IW thinking, which (in a very condensed form) are describedas follows: The incorporation of ‘object laws and principles’ of the military science
into IW; The main objective and methods of implementation of IW change frompeace to war time (peacetime includes reducing the information potential of the enemy and the protection own potential); The Russian focus is on society and consequently on information-psychological aspects; People are seen as information-psychological entities who can be influenced, for example, through energy; Superiority in
information technologies challenges the geo-strategic balance by compromising nuclear command systems; The information potential of a country is a measurable quantity; Modern information operations affect military art by changing the nature of theinitial period of war, tempo and importance of C4ISR; Computer research has produced and will produce unexpected results; IW is the interaction between opposing
systems not unidirectional combat operations; Lastly, ‘the infosphere’ is understoodto consist of computer programs and system are seen to become the most likely objects of military confrontation.710 Later, Thomas distinguishes at least four different,
non-exclusive, views of IW which are the geopolitical struggle of confrontation, information technology based military actions, systems-based warfare and an operational categorization of means including support, counter-measures, and defence.711
Timothy Thomas’ writing reflects the wider lack of Western interest in Russian IW
thinking from the mid-2000s to 2014 as he specialized in Chinese IW during those
years.712 During 2015-2017 Thomas wrote quite extensively about the Russian militaryand strategic thinking to an audience which was trying to understand the resurgent
Russian military actions in Ukraine.713 Thomas, for example, claimed that the RussianФедерации от 24 декабря 1998 года N 1637 ”Об утверждении составов межведомственных комиссий
Совета Безопасности Российской Федерации” Российская газета" No. 248 30 декабря 1998). It was established as a part of the structural reconfiguration of the Security Council ordered by President Yeltsin in 1996(Коротченко, Игорь. Реорганизация совета безопасности РФ завершена. Созданная структура, по мнению Ивана Рыбкина, позволяет решать задачи любой сложности. Незавизимая газета, № 9 21 января
1997.). According to Leonid Maiorov, vice-secretary of the Security Council in 1997, information security issues
were handled by ‘a directorate’ before the establishment of the interagency committee (Майоров, Леонид
Сергеевич. Информация и безопасность. Развитие современных технологий как реальная угроза будущему России. Незавизимая газета, № 180 25 сентября 1997.)
709 Thomas 1998b, 44; Thomas 2005, 186-187; Thomas, Timothy L. The Bear Went Through the Mountain:
Russia Appraises its Five-Day War in South Ossetia, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.22, No.1 (2009), 3167. Heickerö argues that the Russian views have been affected by observing American doctrinal development
and military successes from the viewpoint of a possible target, and also by the experiences of Afghanistan andChechnya (Heickerö 2010; Heickero, Roland. Russia’s Information Warfare Capabilities. In Lemieux, Frederick(ed.) Current and Emerging Trends in Cyber Operations. Policy, Strategy and Practice. New York: Palgrave
Macmillian, 2015, 65-83).
710 Thomas 1998b, 50-57.
711 Thomas 2005, 186-187; Thomas 2009.
712 Cf. Timothy, Thomas L. Decoding The Virtual Dragon - Critical Evolutions In The Science And Philosophy
Of China's Information Operations And Military Strategy - The Art Of War And IW. Fort Leavenworth, KS:
ISMS, 2007; Timothy, Thomas L. Three Faces Of The Cyber Dragon. Fort Leavenworth, KS: ISMS, 2012.
713 Thomas, Timothy. Russia’s 21st century information warfare: Working to undermine and destabilize populations, Defence Strategic Communications, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Winter 2015), 11-26; Thomas, Timothy. Russia’s
Military Strategy and Ukraine: Indirect, Asymmetric—and Putin-Led. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies,Vol. 28, No. 3 (2015), 445-461; Thomas 2015a; Thomas, Timothy. The Evolution of Russian Military Thought:
Integrating Hybrid, New-Generation, and New-Type Thinking. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 29,

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leadership believes that the country is in a state of information war and that the regime
survival is in question. He argued that Russia’s means are deception, reflexive control,
cognitive weapons, deflection and denial, fear mongering and building an alternative
reality, and that it aims to deceive and destabilize opponents and unite citizens
through fear of internal and external enemies.714 Thomas tried to push back on someof the more erroneous interpretations of Russian military thinking such as the ideasof the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ and ‘hybrid war/warfare’.715 According to Thomas, theRussians considered hybrid warfare to be a Western concept, waged against Russia,
and the Russians used it to deduce counter-forms and methods for their own use.
Consequently, Thomas argued that the Russians used the concepts of ‘New-generation warfare’ (NGW) and later ‘New-type war’ (NTW) to characterise future war. The
concepts were developed by civilians and adopted by the military.716 One of the key
arguments Thomas makes in his 2015-2017 texts is the Russian emphasis on information superiority.717 In the NGW concept this superiority was based on principles
similar to Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) with added EW and other capabilities todeny the aggressor information capabilities. In the NTW concept information superiority changed to emphasise the psychological aspect of IW.718 Thomas argued thatcurrent Russian military approach seems to emphasise the attainment of information
superiority before the initial period of war (IPW).719
The analysis of current Russian military thinking leads Thomas to the conclusion that
the Russians show a definite interest in an asymmetric strategy, operations, tactics,
actions and means at the theoretical and conceptual level. According to Thomas,
asymmetry seems to be about off-setting an opponent’s superiority, taking advantage
of an opponent’s unequal combat potential, avoiding direct confrontation, and deploying new and innovative forms and methods of conflict. Thomas argues that thisemphasis on non-military and non-direct means and asymmetry led to the formulation of the concept of ‘strategic deterrence’ as an asymmetric measure publicised by
M. A. Gareev in 2008.720 He even argues that the Russian concept of asymmetry ismore active than the American or British one, as it includes the creation of asymmetry.721

No. 4 (2016), 554-575; Thomas, Timothy. Thinking Like a Russian Officer: Basic Factors and Contemporary
Thinking on the Nature of War. Fort Leavenworth, KS: FMSO, 2016; Thomas 2017.
714 Thomas 2015b.
715 For these concepts cf. Galeotti, Mark: Hybrid War or Gibridnaya Voina? Getting Russia’s non-linear militarychallenge right, Mayak Intelligence, 2016; Thornton 2016; Bartles, Charles K. Getting Gerasimov Right. Military
Review, January-February 2016, 30-38; Renz, Bettina. Russia and ‘hybrid warfare’. Contemporary Politics, Vol.
22, No. 3 (2016), 283-399; Galeotti, Mark. I’m Sorry for Creating the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’. Foreign Policy, 5
March 2018 [Online]. Available: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/05/im-sorry-for-creating-the-gerasimovdoctrine/ [Accessed: 7th November 2018]; McDermott, Roger. Does Russia Have a Gerasimov Doctrine? Parameters, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Spring 2016), 97-105.
716 Thomas 2016a.
717 Ibid.
718 Thomas 2016a & 2017.
719 Thomas 2016b; Thomas 2015c.
720 Thomas 2015, 97. Jonsson and Seely argue that the concepts of asymmetric and non-linear do not describe
modern Russian doctrine because all strategy strives for asymmetry and non-linearity. They propose a conceptof ‘full-spectrum conflict’ which includes all military, information, economic and political means. (Jonsson,
Oscar and Seely, Robert. Russian Full-Spectrum Conflict: An Appraisal After Ukraine, Journal of Slavic Military
Studies, Vol.28, No. 1 (2015), 1-22, 21).
721 Thomas 2005, 294.

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The view that successive Russian regimes, and most importantly Putin’s current regime, have seen international relations as a geopolitical zero-sum competition between great powers, political and economic systems, or civilizations is a well-established view among Western Russia scholars.722 As recently as 2018, Dmitr Adamsky
claimed that the ‘information struggle’ (bor’ba/protivoborstvo)723 plays a central rolein modern Russian doctrine and that its nature is holistic (merges technological andpsychological means), unified (synchronises kinetic and non-kinetic activities) and uninterrupted (conducted during peacetime and wartime in all domains). This struggle
has both digital-technological and cognitive-psychological components. The information struggle includes electronic warfare, computer network operations, PSYOPS
and deception.724 This ‘holistic’ vision should not be pushed too far. No single state
can integrate such complex issues as national interests into an indivisible, homogenous and fully coordinated policy. As Thomas’ analysis of the 1990s has shown, there
were multiple voices and interests at work in Russia, and as Chapter 6 will show there
still are multiple voices. To perceive all Russian actions as a single approach only
serves to placated current Western distress in the face of alleged Russian informationor political warfare.725
Automated command and control systems and a unified information space have been
mentioned only passingly by Giles, Fitzgerald, Thomas and Adamsky. Nevertheless,automated command and control systems (ASU) have been the subject of intenseinterest for Russians for as long as they have debated the post-Soviet period militaryreform.726 Although the concept seems to include numerous different meanings it has
particular cultural connotations which can help to understand how the Russians perceive the relations between networks, computers, computer programs, and information. In addition to previous studies, the concept of ASU has a central place in the
Russian law on Critical Information Infrastructure.727 Similarly, the concept of unified
722 Trenin, Dmitri. The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization. Wash-

ington, DC: The Carnegie Moscow Center, 2001; Sondhaus 2006; Blank, Stephen. Threats to and from Russia:
An Assessment. Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3 (2008), 491-526; Mankoff, Jeffrey. Russian
Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics (2nd ed.) Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc,
2012; Donaldson, Robert H., Nogee, Joseph L. and Nadkari, Vidya. The Foreign Policy of Russia: Changing
Systems, Enduring Interests. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2014; Kipp 2014; Lo 2015; Porfiriev, Boris and Simons,
Greg (eds.) Crisis in Russia: Contemporary Management Policy and Practice From a Historical Perspective.
New York: Routledge, 2016 (original 2012); Cadier & Light 2015; Tsygankov, Andrei P. Russia’s Foreign Policy:
Change and Continuity in National Identity (4th ed.) London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; Jackson, William
D. Encircled Again. Russia's Military Assesses Threats in a Post-Soviet World. Political Science Quarterly, Vol.
117, No. 3 (Autumn, 2002), 373-400.
723 Adamsky seems to translate борьба and противоборство as ‘struggle’ (Adamsky 2018).
724 Ibid.
725 A case in point: “Russian military planners do not need to grapple with the problem of convergence in thesame way as their Western counterparts, because—thanks to the holistic and integrated approach to information warfare—they never went through a process of divergence in the first place.” (Giles 2016a, 69. Also,
Blank, 2017). Michael Kofman manages to combine all Russian foreign and security policy into a ‘grand strategy’(Kofman, Michael. Drivers Of Russian Grand Strategy. Frivärld, 23 April 2019 [Online]. Available:
https://frivarld.se/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Drivers-of-Russian-Grand-Strategy.pdf [Accessed: 31st December 2019]). Somewhat surprisingly a RAND report from 2018 is more objective in its approach (Robinson
et al. 2018).
726 Adamsky 2008; McDermott, Roger N. The Restructuring of the Modern Russian Army, The Journal of
Slavic Military Studies, Vol.22, No.4 (2009), 485-501; McDermott, Roger N. Russian Perspective on NetworkCentric Warfare: The Key Aim of Serdyukov’s Reform. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: FMSO, 2011; Kipp 2014;
McDermott, Roger N. Russia’s Electronic Warfare Capabilities to 2025: Challenging NATO in the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Tallinn: International Centre for Defence and Security, 2017.
727 Федеральный закон 2017a.

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information space seems to refer to an optimal way of arranging communications andit has been mentioned in both civilian and military context already in 1950s-1960s.728
Most recently it has been mentioned in the current Military Doctrine of 2014.729 It has
been replaced in the official documents by the concept of the national segment of theInternet since the publication of the 2016 Information Security Doctrine.730 Previous
Western research on Russian automated command and control systems and unified
information space has mainly concentrated on analysing the Russian military reform
and tactical and operational issues but they might also have national and strategic levelapplications.731
The most apparently novel aspect of the strategic cultural ideas chosen for the subjectof this study is ‘digital sovereignty’. This appeared in Russian official statements anddocuments around 2015 when the Minister of Telecommunications Nikolai Nikiforov made a proposal on ‘sovereignty of the Russian Internet’.732 Nevertheless, as Margarita Jaitner and Jari Rantapelkonen argue the idea had already been around in
2012.733 The tendency of the Russians to project the idea of territorial sovereignty
through virtual borders into cyberspace has been observed also by Julian Nocetti.734
Others have noted the drive of the Russian government to ‘tame’ Internet throughregulation and censorship.735 The idea of sovereignty in cyber or information space isthus something that clearly defines Russia’s approach to the shaping and controllingof cyberspace.
Based on above, the concepts of the interstate struggle, digital sovereignty, strategic
deterrence, asymmetric response, information superiority, information-technological
warfare, automated command and control systems, and unified information spaceseem to represent the most important ideas shaping Russia’s strategy towards cyberspace. I shall now examine more closely each of the strategic cultural ideas with theintent to show that they have roots in the Soviet and Russian historical strategic thinking in the period between the 1950s and 2000.
728 Gerovitch 2002; Peters 2016; Thomas 1998, 163; McDermott 2011, 21.

729 Указ Президента РФ 25 декабря 2014 г., № Пр-2976. Военная доктрина Российской Федерации

[Online]. Available: http://base.garant.ru/70830556/ [Accessed: 21st March 2019].
730 Указ Президента 2016; Указ Президента РФ от 09.05.2017 N 203 ”О Стратегии развития информационного общества в Российской Федерации на 2017 - 2030 годы” [Online]. Available: https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/71570570/ [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
731 Cf. Grau, Lester W. and Bartles, Charles K. The Russian Reconnaissance Fire Complex Comes of Age.
Changing Character of War Centre, Pembroke College, Oxford [Online]. Available: http://www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/
blog/2018/5/30/the-russian-reconnaissance-fire-complex-comes-of-age [Accessed: 30th October 2018];
Grau, Lester W. and Bartles, Charles K. Factors Influencing Russian Force Moderation. Changing Characterof War Centre, Pembroke College, Oxford [Online]. Available: http://www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/blog/2018/9/19/
factors-influencing-russian-force-modernization-by-dr-lester-grau-and-charles-k-bartles [Accessed: 30th October 2018]; McDermott 2011; Locksley, Christopher C. Concept, algorithm, indecision: Why military reform has
failed in Russia since 1992. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.14, No.1 (March 2001), 1-26; Bouldin,
Matthew. The Ivanov Doctrine and Military Reform: Reasserting Stability in Russia, Journal of Slavic Military
Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4 (2004), 619-641; McDermott 2017; Honkova, Jana. The Russian Federation’s Approachto Military Space and Its Military Space Capabilities. Arlington, VA: George Marshall Institute, 2013.
732 Голицына, Анастасия and Серьгина, Елизавета. Министр связи предложит правительству взять рунетпод контроль. Ведомости. 26 Марта 2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/ articles/2015/03/26/ministr-svyazi-predlozhit-gosudarstvu-vzyat-runet-pod-kontrol [Accessed: 4th December
2018].
733 Jaitner & Rantapelkonen 2013, 83.
734 Nocetti 2015, 114–115, 112.
735 Soldatov & Borogan 2015; Soldatov 2017.

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4.2 The strategic cultural ideas in the period of 1950–2000
This chapter examines how the chosen strategic cultural ideas manifested during thetime of the Soviet Union and the first decade of the independence of Russia. The
primary objective is to show that the strategic cultural ideas discussed above wereactive and present when Russia began to emerge from the ‘Time of Troubles’ of the
1990s and Vladimir Putin’s regime started to search for ideas to fit the changing environment and Russia’s interests.
4.2.1 Interstate struggle
The idea of a continuous interstate struggle is somewhat difficult to locate from secondary sources because the English translation of ‘protivoborstvo’ is variously either
warfare, confrontation, countermeasure, or struggle.736 The fact that Soviet civilian or
military dictionaries do not directly recognize the term makes tracing the idea evenmore difficult.737 Based on articles published in Voennaia Mysl’ in the 1980s the term
was used in connection to potential war between the United States and the Soviet
Union, so the translation of warfare or confrontation might be suitable.738 The term
was also used in the Soviet times in connection to the continuous psychological warfare (psikhologicheskaia voina) between two competing systems even during peacetime.739 On the political level the idea of a constant struggle against internal and external enemies was promoted by the Bolsheviks from the 1920s onward.740 The ideaof an international class struggle (klassovaia bor’ba)741, which would eventually lead tothe triumph of communism, informed Soviet military strategy and foreign policy—
although it did leave room for ‘realism’, ‘realpolitik’ and détente.742 Inherent in theseideas is a worldview of continuous competition, conflict, and possibly war with a peer
or a counterpart, a system or a great power—a certain dialectic of power and eschatological view of war. In this context, politics is the continuation of war in another

736 Cf. Ristolainen 2017a.
737 Cf. Советская военная энциклопедия в восьми томах (СВЭ). / Гл. ред. комиссии А. А. Гречко (т. 1, 8),

Н. В. Огарков (т. 2—7). М.: Военное издательство Министерства обороны СССР, 1976—1980; Большая
советская энциклопедия: в 30 т. 3-е изд. (БСЭ) / Гл. ред. А. М. Прохоров. М.: Советская Энциклопедия.,1969 – 1978. The term is mentioned first time in connection to ‘informatsionnoe protivobostvo,’ in the Military
Encyclopaedic Dictionary of 2001 (Военный энциклопедический словарь в 2 томах (ВЭС). / Редкол.: А.
П. Горкин, В. А. Золотарев, В. М. Карев и др. М: Большая Российская энциклопедия; Рипол классик,2001).
738 Козлов, М. М. Вопросы стратегии в Советской Военной Энциклопедии. Военная мысль 1980 No. 10,
13-23; Кузнецов, Н. Н. О категориях и принципах советской военной стратегии. Военная мысль 1984
No. 1, 29-40.
739 Волкогонов, Д. «Психологическая война» империализма. Военная мысль 1975 No. 1, 67-76, 67.
740 Yablokov, Ilya. Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in Post-Soviet Russia. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018.
741 КПСС. Программа коммунистической партии советского союза. Принята XXII съездом КПСС, 1961
[Online] Available: http://leftinmsu.narod.ru/polit_files/books/III_program_KPSS_files/056.htm [Accessed: 4th December 2018].
742 McCauley, Martin. The Soviet Union Since 1917. London and New York: Longman, 1981, 62, 100; Gorodetsky, Gabriel. The Formulation of Soviet Foreign Policy – Ideology and Realpolitik. In Gorodetsky 1994,
30-44; Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: Penguin Books, 2005, 181-184.

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guise.743 This struggle went on by other means if military confrontation was not possible and did not exclude expedient alliances with third parties.744 The degree of influence that this ideology had on Soviet military and foreign policy thinking is still unclear, but in theory the military strategy745 should have reflected military policy thatwas based on the party’s interpretation of Marxism-Leninism.746 On the military technological side, Mary Fitzgerald has argued that Marxism-Leninism imposed the ideaof “the dialectical law of unity and struggle of opposites” on Soviet thinking, whichmeant, “every means of attack generates a new means of defence, and every meansof defence in turn generates a new means of attack.”747
Petteri Lalu points out that military confrontation with capitalism was officially replaced with ‘peaceful coexistence’ in the 1957 XXI Party Congress of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), which allowed victory through other forms ofcompetition.748 Others have suggested that the international class struggle was abandoned by the disillusioned elites during Leonid Brezhnev’s era (1964–1982) and was
replaced by Russian nationalism and chauvinism but the official ideology still restrained great power realpolitik.749 Raymond Garthoff has argued that from 1954–
1956 the Soviets concentrated on the prevention of war.750 Moreover, Oscar Jonsson
has argued that by the 1980s the idea that war might be something other than strict
violence had gained support amongst military scholars.751 Be that as it may, David
Glantz has argued that the basis of the Soviet military strategy during the Cold War
developed from defending the achievements of the Second World War from theWestern containment with massive conventional forces (1940–1950s), to a reliance
743 Petteri Lalu has argued: “According to the Russian definition, war is a social and political phenomenon

relating to radical changes in the relationships between states and peoples. War entails a transition towards
armed and other violent methods in order to achieve desired objectives. The current Russian definition of war
is Clausewitzian, however, it has a Marxist-Leninist amendment: war, by nature, is the continuation of the state’sor its ruling elite’s policy by violent means.” Moreover, “The heritage of dialectic philosophy is still a part of
the Russian view on wars and military security. The Clausewitzian definition of war has been refocused by Marxand especially Engels and Lenin and is still dominant. Dialectic philosophy argues that the struggle between
two opposing forces goes on eternally as a zero-sum game, and each concession just increases your own risk.”(Lalu, Petteri. On war and perception of war in Russian thinking. Finnish Defence Research Agency Research
Bulletin 3 – 2016). Cf. also Scott, Harriet Fast and Scott, William F. Soviet Military Doctrine. Continuity, Formulation, and Dissemination. New York: Routledge, 2019 (org. 1988).
744 Odom 1998., 1-15; Kokoshin 1998.
745 “An integral part of and the highest realm of military art encompassing the theory and practice of preparing
a country and its armed forces for war and of planning for and conducting war and strategic operations.”(‘Стратегия военная’ СВЭ 1976-1980, 7:555-556).
746 Glantz 1992, 1-4, 27-28; Lalu 2014. According to Kokoshin, armed forces were subject to party (i.e. military)politicians and war to politics. But the core of Bolshevik politics was the war and class struggle and possible
total war with capitalist states (Kokoshin 1998, 49-55). “The views expressed in the Soviet military doctrine,from the very beginning of its origin were formed on the basis of laws, regulations and conclusions of historicaland dialectical materialism and Soviet military science. Historical materialism, and in particular Marxist-Leninist
doctrine.” On the relationship of military doctrine, science and Marxism-Leninism cf. Завьялов, И.
Диалектика войны и военная доктрина. Военная мысль 1975 №. 6, 23-34, 24.
747 Fitzgerald 1987a, 3-4. The position of Marxism-Leninism was officially recognized by the Soviet military cf.
Sushko, N. and Puzik, V. The Marxist-Leninist Theory of Knowledge and Its Significance in the Soviet Military
Science and Practice. Military Thought – Secret version 1966, No. 1. Translated and published by the Central
Intelligence Agency, Selected Translations, 23nd August 1966 [Online]. Available: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1966-08-23e.pdf [Accessed: 5th December 2018].
748 Lalu 2014, 280 ft. 1163.
749 Zubok, Vladislav M. Soviet foreign policy from détente to Gorbachev, 1975-1985. In Leffler & Westad
2010b, 89-111, 93-94.
750 Garthoff 1990, 33-34.
751 Jonsson 2019, 33-34.

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on strategic nuclear weapons and belief in the improbability of conventional war(1960s) and ultimately this led to the view that a major conventional war might still
be possible without the use of nuclear weapons (1970s–1980s).752
By the 27th Party Congress in 1986 the rhetoric about class struggle had been toned
down and, in fact, the struggle (bor’ba) was now conducted against poverty, corruption, alcoholism etc.753 Interestingly, the General Secretary of the Central Committeeof the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev stated that “Thus, the objective […] conditions
have taken shape in which confrontation [protivoborstvo] between capitalism andsocialism can proceed only and exclusively in forms of peaceful competition andpeaceful contest”. 754 However, “The psychological warfare unleashed by imperialism
cannot be understood as anything else than as a specific form of aggression, of information imperialism which infringes on the sovereignty, history, and culture of peoples. Moreover, it is a direct political and psychological preparation for war…”755 At
least on the political level, it seems that the struggle had become more of a metaphorical war against any ill or evil, and confrontation was upgraded to manage great power
relations characterized by, among other things, psychological warfare or ‘information
imperialism’ which was a threat to Soviet sovereignty.
This political shift was reflected in the Soviet military strategy and doctrine whichchanged from emphasising all-out war, an offensive military-technical doctrine, andthe initial period of war756 to one that was more or less defensive.757 The reality was
not quite so linear as the Soviet Union in the 1980s waged war in Afghanistan, wasengaged in proxy wars in the ‘Third World’, pursued nuclear parity with the UnitedStates, deployed SS-20 missiles in Eastern Europe, developed new SSBNs and carriers, and continued, arguably offensive, chemical and biological weapons programs.758

752 Glantz 1992, 169-171. For similar views cf. Garthoff 1990; Kokoshin 1998; Kipp 2014; Lalu 2014.
753 Gorbachev, Mikhail. Political Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 27th Party Congress, 1986

[Online]. Available: https://archive.org/details/PoliticalReportOfTheCPSUCentralCommitteeToThe27thPartyCongress/page/n41 [Accessed: 9th November 2018].
754 Gorbachev, 1986, 83-84.
755 Gorbachev, 1986, 110.
756 “The initial period of war [nachal’nyi period voiny], the time during which the warring states fought witharmed groups deployed before the start of the war to achieve the first strategic objectives at the beginning of
the war or to create favourable conditions for the main forces to enter the war and conduct subsequent operations. At the same time, different measures of mobilization, strategic deployment of the armed forces, themobilization of all the resources of the country for war, and foreign policy actions against enemies, and towards
allies and neutral countries to strengthen international position of the state were conducted.” (‘Начальный
период войны’ СВЭ, 1976-1980, 5:554-555). The concept of initial period of war interested Soviet strategists
already in the late 1920s and until the fall of the Soviet Union (Kokoshin 1998, 86-89, 122-123).
757 Glantz 1992, 176-178, 189-190; Odom 1998, 120-123; Kokoshin 1998, 172-174; Garthoff 1990; Scott &Scott 1988.
758 Glantz 1992, 190-191; Odom 1998, 82-83 & 80-81; Njølstad, Olav. The Collapse of superpower détente,
1975-1980. Leffler & Westad 2010b, 135-155; Fast Scott, Harriet. Soviet Military Doctrine in the Nuclear Age,
1945-1985. In Frank & Gillette 1992, 175-192; Hoffman, David E. The Dead Hand. The Untold Story of theCold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. New York: Anchor Books, 2009; Kagan, Frederick W. andHigham, Robin (eds.) The Military History of the Soviet Union. New York: Palgrave, 2002.

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Additionally, the military doctrine759 did not fully follow the fast political developments of the 1980s.760 The Soviet military saw the correlation of forces (sootnoshenie
sil i sredstv) based on military means in exclusion of non-military means.761 Arguably,
these means were based on material and spiritual strengths but the Soviet militaryleadership was quite clear that what mattered were strategic weapons.762 Still, up until
adopting a Warsaw Pact doctrine based on strategic defence in 1986/1988 the military
strategy relied on pre-empting a NATO deployment through non-military means (deception and propaganda) and failing that on strategic and operational surprise.763 It
should be noted that whatever notions the Soviet military might have had about its
mandate to contemplate the use of non-military means and despite the militarized
nature of Soviet society, the Soviet armed forces were tightly subordinated to theParty during peacetime.764 On its part, the Soviet military planned to fight a massive
conventional war at least in the initial period of a war against NATO, but it neverdropped the assessment that tactical and strategic nuclear weapons would eventually
be used—presumably first by NATO as the Soviet Union officially denounced thefirst use of nuclear weapons in 1977.765 These views are confirmed by post-Cold War
era testimonies.766 It is also important to note that unlike the United States, the Soviet
Union’s civil defence was an earnest attempt to maintain hope that the Soviet state
could survive a nuclear attack in some form. It was not, however, a tool of coercion
or deterrence.767

759 The Soviet Union did not have an official publicized military doctrine but it was discussed from the 1920s

onwards and was defined as: “A system of views adopted by the government at a certain moment of time on
the objectives and nature of possible war, on the preparation of the country and armed forces to it, as well ason the methods of its conduct.” (‘Доктрина военная’ СВЭ, 1976-1980, 3:225) Military doctrine had a politicaland technical dimension. The first was based on the political, social and economic character of society and war,
the second on the changes in military technology, warfare, and ways to organize forces and fight Cf. Kokoshin
1998, 36; Odom 1998, 26; Glantz 1992, 34-36; Scott & Scott 1988, 29
760 Rodionov, I. N. On Certain Provisions of Soviet Military Doctrine. Military Thought 1991, No. 3; Kokoshin
1998, 188-189.
761 Correlation of forces: “An objective indicator of the combat power of the opposing forces, which makes it
possible to determine the degree of superiority of one force over the other. The correlation of forces is determined by comparing quantitative and qualitative characteristics of […] friendly and enemy troops (forces).
Correct calculations and estimates of relative strengths help make substantiated decisions during the preparation and conduct of combat operations…” (‘Соотношение сил и средств’ СВЭ, 1976-1980, 7:445).
762 Куликов, В. Г. О военно-стратегическом паритете и достаточности для обороны. Военная мысль №
5 1988, 3-11.
763 Glantz 1992, 206-210; Odom 1998, 75, 144; Kokoshin 1998, 126-128; Garthoff 1990, 103, Scott & Scott
1988, 112-113.
764 Tsypkin, Mikhail Military Influence in Russian Politics. AD-A256 718. Montrey, CA: Naval Postgraduate
School [Online] Available: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a256718.pdf [Accessed: 2nd October
2018]; Westad 2017, 190; Service, Robert. The End of the Cold War 1985-1991. New York: Public Affairs,
2015, 27-28, 59-61; Kokoshin 1998; Gaddis, 2005, 213-214; Odom 1998, 36-37.
765 Odom, 70-71. It is possible that as the strategic nuclear weapons were divided between the Soviet services,
they developed their own nuclear doctrines and strategies. (Cf. Huchthausen, Peter A. and Sheldon-Duplaix,
Alexandre. Hide and Seek: The Untold Story of Cold War Naval Espionage. New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 2009, 235 & 260).
766 Hoffenaar, Jan and Findlay, Christopher (eds.) Military Planning For European Theatre Conflict During
The Cold War. An Oral History Roundtable Stockholm, 24–25 April 2006. ETH Zurich: Center for Security
Studies, 2007; Hines, John G., Mishulovich, Ellis M. and Shull, John F. Soviet Intentions 1965-1985. Volume
I: An Analytical Comparison of U.S.-Soviet Assessments During the Cold War. McLean, VA: The BDM Corporation, 1995, 12; Hines, John G., Mishulovich, Ellis M. and Shull, John F. Soviet Intentions 1965-1985.
Volume II: Soviet Post-Cold War Testimonial Evidence. McLean, VA: The BDM Corporation, 1995.
767 Geist, Edward M. Armageddon Insurance. Civil Defense in the United States and Soviet Union, 1945-1991.
Chapel Hill: University of Northern Carolina Press, 2019.

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The change to the defensive military posturing in addition to economic weakness
necessitated prioritizing the prevention of war rather than preparing for it.768 This led
to a heated discussion about the feasibility of the defensive doctrine and posture
which continued into the 1990s.769 Additionally, the perceived impossibility of a nuclear war in the late 1980s increased the interest in strategic balance and other formsof struggle and confrontation.770 This aversion to the use of nuclear weapons did notevidently stop the Soviet Union pursuing factual nuclear superiority over the UnitedStates up until the late 1980s.771 However, thanks to the policy of glasnost and theimportance of strategic arms control negotiations in restraining the United States,from the mid-1980s “civilian strategists” could take part in the discussions of military
matters. Although they had limited influence, they introduced Western military strategic terms into the Soviet discourse.772 Conversely, military strategists became interested in, among other things, information technologies and electromagnetic warfare.773 These ideas were already discussed by the military at least since the late 1970sin the context of ‘Military Technical Revolution’ (nauchno-tekhnicheskaia revoliutsiia) and ‘informatization’ (informatizatsiia).774
During the 1980s the Soviets translated the U.S. ‘countervailing strategy’ (Presidential
Directive 59 July 1980), as ‘a strategy of direct confrontation’ (strategiia priamogo
protivoborstvo).775 Despite the use of the term confrontation or struggle to denote a
strategic relationship, the Soviet military theorists seem to have used the word antagonistic/counterpart (protivoborstvuiuchshii) mainly in tactical and operational contexts to describe active or potential violent warfare or the use of force.776 Thus, in anarticle discussing the military aspects of the 27th Party Congress of the CPSU General
Lieutenant D. A. Volkogonov implies that the political and strategic level ‘protivoborstvo’ between systems is something which occurred mainly outside the open state

768 This was the view of Colonel General I. N. Rodionov in 1991 (Rodionov 1991). Not all in the Soviet military

saw this ‘necessity’ so clearly. Cf. Odom 1998; Hoffman 2009; Service 2015, 349.
769 Воробьев, И. Н. Принципы формирования военной доктрины. Военная мысль № 11,12/1991. For a
Western view cf. Hines, John G. and Mahoney, Donald. Defense and Counteroffensive Under the New Soviet
Military Doctrine. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1991.
770 Fitzgerald 1987b, 23; Kokoshin 1998, 59-61, 133; Garthoff 1990, 151; Bellamy, Christopher. “Budushchaya
Voyna; The Russian and Soviet View of the Military-Technical Character of Future War, Part Two” [Online].
Available: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/6892/2/504501_VOL2.pdf [Accessed: 11th November 2018].
771 Hines, Mishulovich & Shull 1995a, 12; Hines, Mishulovich & Shull 1995b.
772 Ibid. 134. Cf. Also Odom 1998,151-153.
773 Kokoshin 1998, 138.
774 Fitzgerald 1987a, 27; Kipp 2014; Kipp, Jacob W. Operational Art and the Curious Narrative on the RussianContribution: Presence and Absence over the Last 2 Decades. In Blank & Weitz 2010, 193-263; Adamsky 2010,26-31.
775 Scott & Scott 1988, 108-109; Service 2015, 21-22; Westad 2017; Mitchell, Nancy. The Cold War and Jimmy
Carter. In Leffler & Westad 2010b, 66-88; McGwire, Michael. Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy.
Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987, 287-294; Корочанский, И. Ф. Нарушение военностратегического равновесия — цель милитаристских приготовлений США. Военная мысль 1982 № 3,
15-22. The strategy of direct confrontation: “…was focused on active opposition to the USSR on the global
and the regional scale, on achievement of the military superiority and on the restoration of the leadership roleof U.S. in the world.” It enabled the flexible use of nuclear strategic weapons and, conversely, the exclusive useof only conventional means to win a war. (‘Прямого противоборства, стратегия’ ВЭС 2001, 2: 412-413)
776 Cf. Кузнецов 1984; Воробьев, И. Н. Новое оружие— новая тактика. Военная мысль 1984 № 2, 34-45.

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of war and did not necessitate (nuclear) war.777 Eventually, in 1988 General Lieutenant V. V. Serebriannikov argued that to prevent military aggression against socialism
both military and non-military means were required. Military means preserved theparity while political means stopped the threats from materializing. For Serebriannikov, non-military means would replace military means in the future.778
The idea of an information confrontation began to gain traction in the early 1990s.
After Operation Desert Storm Colonel A. I. Pozdniakov could claim that: “The content of military operations has increased the importance of information-technologicalconfrontation [protivoborstvo]. Superiority [prevoskhodstvo] in information awareness is an indispensable condition of victory in air, sea and even land warfare.”779 In
1995 Colonel A. N. Lukashkin and Captain A. I. Efimov claimed that ‘infosphera’(i.e. the aggregate of general and special software means for creating, processing andstoring computerized data and the data itself) would become one the most probableobjects of military confrontation (protivoborstvo).780 Finally, in a conference paper in1995 Professor V. I. Tsymbal presented the wider and narrower types of IW.781 He
argued that, “In the broad sense, information warfare is one of the varieties of the‘cold war’ - countermeasures [sbosobov protivoborstva] between two states implemented mainly in peacetime with respect not only and not so much to the armed
forces as much as to the civilian population and the people’s public/social awareness,to state administrative systems, production control systems, scientific control, culturalcontrol, etc.”782 Tsymbal’s definition is clearly connected to the Cold War era systemversus-system confrontation/struggle idea. He also offers a narrower definition whichrefers to military actions aimed at achieving an overwhelming information advantage(podavliaiuchshee preimuchshestvo). The nature of IW changes from the wider tonarrower type when peace changes to war.783 According to Tsymbal and some others,
IW means and their effects could be compared to nuclear weapons, i.e. they had strategic effects and they could require a response in kind.784
Around the mid-1990s both Russian officers and civilian scholars were claiming that
the United States had used information war (informatsionnaia voina) to disintegrate
the Soviet Union and continued to use activities in the information sphere to weaken
Russia. The U.S. used its technological advantages and the control of the Internet
against Russia’s interests in a geopolitical struggle. New information weapons would
be developed and if Russia did not catch up it would be destroyed.785 The ideas of the777 Волкогонов, Д. А. Военные вопросы в Программе КПСС. Военная мысль 1986 № 5, 3-15, 4.
778 Серебрянников, В. В. Диалектика политических и военных средств в защите социализма. Военная

мысль 1988, № 10, 3-11.
779 Поздняков, А. И. Информационная безопасность личности, общества, государства. Военная мысль
1993 No. 10, 13-18.
780 Лукашкин, А.Н., Ефимов, А.И. Проблема безопасности компьютерной инфосферы стратегических
оборонных систем. Военная мысль 1995 № 5, 48-52.
781 Thomas 2001, 785-786.
782 Quoted in Thomas 1998, 45. Original: Цымбал, В.И. О концепции информационной войны. Информационный сборник Безопасность, № 9 (1995), 35.
783 Thomas 1998, 53-54.
784 Thomas 1996, 26; Цымбал 1995; Смолян, Г., Цыгичко, В., Черешкин, Д. Оружие, которое может бытьопаснее ядерного. Независимая газета от 18.11.95 г. no. 3 (18 November 1995), 1–2.
785 Коротченко, Е.Г. Информационно-психологическое противоборство в современных условиях. Военная мысль № 1/1996, 22-28; Смолян, Георгий Львович, Цыгичко, Виталий Николаевич and Черешкин. Дмитрий Семенович. Куда ведет информационная супермагистраль. Независимая газета 1996, No.
33; Смолян et al. 1995; Цыгичко & Черешкин 1995; Черешкин, Д.С., Смолян, Г.Л., Цыгичко, В.Н. Реалии

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scholars were echoed in 1996 by the First Deputy Minister of Defence A. A. Kokoshin, who argued that Russia needed “to develop theoretical and practical foundations of information confrontation [protivoborstvo], since it is becoming an integral
part of the armed warfare [bor’ba].” He called for the creation of forces and meansof information warfare which included EW, intelligence, communications, commandand control, and means to protect C2 assets from the enemy. Kokoshin clearly had
in mind information-technological warfare as part of armed warfare, not just the geopolitical struggle.786 The views of officers and academicians were shared also by thevice-secretary of the Security Council Leonid Maiorov when he argued in 1997 that
Russia’s interests in the information sphere were the spiritual development of thenation and the rights and freedoms of its citizens, the development of Russian information industry and the functioning of information-telecommunications systems.787
The character of future war became a hot topic among Russian military scientists inthe latter half of the 1990s.788 General Major I. N. Vorob’ev for example argued that
it was characterized by the use of military-technological means based on information
sciences (informatika), informatization (informatizatsiia) and an information-psychological confrontation or struggle (informatsionno-psikhlogicheskoe protivoborstvo).789 For General Vorob’ev this latter psychological aspect was understood as
deception, demoralizing the army and population of the enemy, controlling its actions,and achieving surprise in the initial period of war. It was covert strategic level warfare
conducted during peacetime and enhanced by modern technology. Rear Admiral V.
S. Pirumov and Colonel M. A. Rodionov offered a more nuanced analysis of information warfare [informatsionnaia bor’ba] and divided it into two aspects: geopolitical
rivalry (protivoborstvo v informatsionnoi sfere) which was a legitimate, objective process aimed at achieving state policy objectives in interstate relations, and information
warfare which was aimed at gaining information superiority to win an armed conflict.
They further divided information warfare into actions conducted during peacetime,
the period of threat, and open hostilities.790 In a later article Rodionov argues that
information warfare (informatsionnaia bor’ba) should be understood as subordinate
to strategic actions (strategicheskoe deistvie), as operations, actions and strikes of theArmed Forces, not as an independent strategic action.791 Rodionov’s article is an example of ‘fitting’ the novel phenomena of IW to the old ideas of military theory—it
might also be an attempt to create a role for the military in the IW framework. The
third example of this ‘future through old glasses’ approach is Colonel A. A. Komov
who in 1998 proposed a Marxist-Leninist cybernetic philosophical basis for Russia’sинформационной войны. Конфидент, 1996. № 4; Цыгичко В.И., Вотрин Д.С., Крутских А.В., Смолян
Г.Л., Черешкин Д.С. Информационное оружие - новый вызов международной безопасности. Москва:Институт Системного Анализа Ран, 2000. It should be noted that the ideas and articles of Tsymbal,
Korotchenko and Tsygischko et al. might have been connected to the creation of the workgroup on the development of the principles of Russia’ s entry into the global Internet under the Security Council in 1995. (Шеремет 2014).
786 Кокошин, А.А. Военно-политические и экономические аспекты реформы Вооруженных Сил России. Военная мысль № 6 (11-12) (1996), 2-11.
787 Майоров 1997.
788 Гулин, В.П. О новой концепции войны. Военная мысль № 2 (3-4) 1997, 13-17.
789 Воробьев, И.Н. Какие войны грозят нам в будущем веке. Военная мысль № 2 (3-4) 1997, 18-24.
790 Пирумов В. С., Родионов М. А. Некоторые аспекты информационной борьбы в военных конфликтах. Военная мысль, № 5 1997, 44-47.
791 Родионов, М.А. К вопросу о формах ведения информационной борьбы. Военная мысль № 2 1998,
67-70.

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upcoming information security doctrine.792
The most important of these ‘modern cybernetists’ was professor S. P. Rastorguev
who in 1998 published a book (reprinted in 1999) named Information War (Informatsionnaia voina). In it he defined an information warfare as the open and hidden,
purposeful and information-based influence of two systems (or more) on each otherin order to obtain a certain advantage in the material sphere.793 He categorized systems
as A type systems, which were mechanical, and B type systems which consisted of
two cybernetic and one social hierarchical subsystem—respectively, information
communication systems, systems of automated management, and people and social
structures. Rastorguev admitted that the means used against B type systems’ cybernetic aspects (technical systems and data) should be called cyber weapons but took awider approach in his book and adopted the term information warfare and weapons
when discussing system B. The point of an information war was to manipulate theopposing system’s algorithms by using information weapons.794 Rastorguev’s thinking
summarized the idea of a confrontation or struggle between systems, cybernetic theory, and modern ideas about IW and cyber warfare.795 Rastorguev continued his theoretical work in the 2000s—to which I shall return in Chapter 5.
General M. A. Gareev, the president of the Academy of Military Sciences from 1993,
also took part in the discussion. In 1998 he disavowed arguments that claimed thatwar could be fought with non-military means because otherwise human history would
have been a continuous war. War’s essence was unrestricted military violence. Gareev
distinguished war from political confrontation (protivoborstvo) which exploited political, diplomatic, and information actions. Information confrontation was part of all
kinds of struggle (bor’ba) up to and including armed warfare and at the same time hada relatively independent character and aimed to demoralize and paralyze the will of
the other side to dominate peoples and impose development models. To counter thisnew threat, Gareev argued, the efforts of all security ministries and agencies wereneeded under the coordination of the Security Council, combined with a strong economy, firm political system, and united society.796
The discussion on the interstate struggle and the character of future war was partiallyconnected to the discussion about the character and content of the future Information
Security Doctrine and Military Doctrine, the drafting of which started in 1995/1997.797
Timothy Thomas has analysed this discussion and according to him there were at least
four different views present: The Security Council was interested in the social stability
792 Комов, С.А. О доктрине информационной безопасности Российской Федерации. Военная мысль,№ 3 1998, 72-76.
793 Расторгуев С.П. Информационная война. 2-е изд. Moscow: Радио и связь, 1999, 60.
794 Ibid., 61. Also Расторгуев, С.П. Информационная война как целенаправленное информационное
воздействие информационных систем. Информационное общество, № 1 (1997), 64-66.
795 This analysis is partly based on Ristolainen, Mari and Kukkola, Juha. Western world order in the crosshairs?
A theoretical review and application of the Russian ‘information weapon’. Presented in 18th European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ECCWS) University of Coimbra, Portugal, July 4.-5., 2019.
796 Гареев, Махмут Ахметович. Война и современное международное противоборство. Независимое
военное обозрение, № 1 1998.
797 Kipp, Jacob W. Russian Military Doctrine: Past, Present, and Future. In Blank 2011, 63-151, 92-95 [Online].
Available: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/PUB1050.pdf [Accessed: 27th October 2018]; Thomas
1998a & 1998b. According to Komov, the drafting of the Information security concept started already in 1995(Комов 1998).

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of the Russian state and concentrated on information-psychological aspects; theFAPSI was interested in technological threats and security and defined IW as war(voina) using information technology;798 the FSB was interested in regulating the Internet for internal security reasons; and the military was interestingly more interested
in psychological (moral spiritual) issues than technological. However, the military saw
the technological aspects of IW as belonging to wartime counter-C2 warfare andEW.799The idea of struggle was present in the national security documents of the new Russian Federation. In the Foreign Policy Concept of 1993 Russia first dissociated itself
from “obsolete ideas about the confrontation [protivoborstvo] of the “two systems”
as a guideline of our foreign policy“800 but recognized the continuing contradictions/conflicts (protivorechie) between governments and opposing (protivopolozhnoe) interests, and reserved for itself the ability to resist and counter (protivodeistvovat’) other governments.801 The Basic Provisions of the Military Doctrineof the Russian Federation from 1993 did not mention confrontation or struggle nor
information except implicitly when discussing the military-technological needs of military.802 A more assertive approach was affirmed in the National Security Concept(NSC) of 1997, which also claimed that ‘other governments’ tried to counter (protivodeitsvovat’) Russia’s strengthening through various non-military means. It also
recognized Russian interests in the ‘information sphere’ (informatsionnaia sfera). Respectively, information threats were compared to military threats but were considered
to mainly have a spiritual or psychological effect. Additionally, the NSC warned abouta threatening technological backwardness which might lead to economic and military
weakness.803
The national security documents published in 2000 echoed earlier views. The NSC of2000 further elaborated the means used against Russia by introducing the concept of

798 According to the First Deputy of the General Director of FAPSI Vladimir Markomenko, information war

had become a priority issue for national security because 1) the destruction and disorganization of the information infrastructure of the country on the scale of weapons of mass destruction was possible, 2) the interstate
struggle had shifted to the information sphere, and 3) information weapons had become available to criminals
and terrorists in addition to nation states. Маркоменко, Владимир. Невидимая затяжная война. Независимое военное обозрение, № 30 1997.
799 Thomas 1998a & 1998b.
800 The national security documents of the Russian Federation from 1991 to 2000 have been published in amonograph by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This monograph is used as a primary source in this Chapter as
the national security documents of the 1990s are poorly available from other sources and the monograph is
published by an authoritative source. The monograph in question is Шаклеина, Т.А. (Сост.) Внешняя политика и безопасность современной России. 1991-2002: Хрестоматия в 4-х т. Т.IV: Документы. М.:
Моск.гос.ин-т междунар.отношений (ун-т) МИД России, Российская ассоциация международных исследований, АНО “ИНО-Центр” (Информация. Наука. Образование), 2002. Основные положения концепции внешней политики Российской Федерации утверждены Распоряжением Президента Российской Федерации Б.Н. Ельцина от 23 апреля 1993 г. (Шаклеина 2002, 20).
801 Ibid.
802 Известия. Основные поло жения военной доктрины Российской Федерации». ноября 1993 года Совет безопасности Российской Федерации одобрил доработанный документ. Указом Президента Российской Федерации от 2 ноября 1993 года № 1833 «Основные положения военной доктрины Российской Федерации» приняты. 18th November 1993. Izveztiia 1993 No. 221 [Online]. Available: https://yeltsin.ru/uploads/upload/newspaper/1993/izv11_18_93/FLASH/index.html [Accessed: 14th November 2018].
803 Концепция национальной безопасности РФ 1997 г. (Шаклеина 2002, 59, 60).

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a struggle or confrontation in the information sphere (protivoborstvo v informatsionnoi sfere).804 The idea of an information struggle or confrontation was reiterated also
in the Military Doctrine and in the Information Security Doctrine of 2000.805 It should
be noted that the idea was not defined in any of the documents and the Russian term
‘protivoborstvo’ was only used in the context of information. The term counter action
or measure (protivodeistvie) was used to describe concrete actions related to the information space and other threats and environments. The Military Doctrine claimed
that the military-political situation was characterized by aggravation of information
confrontation and that hostile information-technological and information-psychological (informatsionno-tekhnicheskii, informatsionno-psikhologicheskii) actions were athreat to Russia.806 Interestingly it defined information warfare (informatsionnaia
bor’ba) as a wartime activity which was aimed at gaining information superiority inthe initial period of war.807 The foreign policy concept of 2000 was very different in
its tone emphasizing shared global information space and promoting Russian views,
although, it did connect information security to strategic stability.808
The most interesting case is of course the Information Security Doctrine of 2000. It
follows the NSC and declares that a confrontation or struggle in the information
sphere (protivoborstvo v informatsionnoi sfere) in currently ongoing.809 It defines theinformation sphere as “an aggregate of information, information infrastructure, entities engaged in the collection, formation, dissemination and use of information, as
well as a system for regulating the resulting social relations.”810 Information security
is seen as elemental to the national security. It consists of the protection of the balanced interests of individuals, society, and the state. The state interests include territorial integrity, sovereignty, political, social, and economic stability, and cooperation
based on equality.811 Threats against information and telecommunications systems include the destruction, damage, or electronic suppression of information processing
equipment and systems, telecommunications and communications, compromised encryption systems, etc.812 Threats to Russian interests arise mainly from the actions ofother states whose policies harm the development of the Russian ICT industry andwho have developed the ‘dangerous concept’ of an information war (informatsionnaia
voina). Threats originate also from the poor state of industry, criminality, insufficient
domestic regulation and government institutions.813 The Doctrine recognizes that theuse of foreign information technology has led to a growing threat of ‘information
weapons’ being used against ‘information infrastructure’ of Russia.814 In fact, the Doctrine has both a civilian and military character as the security and protection of information systems is defined to include both civilian and military systems from peacetime to wartime.815 Among the methods of securing information security, the Doctrine proposes the creation of a system of information security including monitoring,
804 Концепция национальной безопасности РФ 2000 г. (Шаклеина 2002, 88).
805 Военная доктрина Российской Федерации 2000 г. (Шаклеина 2002, 125).

806 Военная доктрина Российской Федерации 2000. (Шаклеина 2002, 93, 101-102).
807 Ibid., 96.

808 Концепция внешней политики Российской Федерации 2000 г. (Шаклеина 2002).
809 Доктрина информационной безопасности РФ 2000. (Шаклеина 2002, 125).
810 Ibid., 122.

811 Ibid., 124-125.
812 Ibid., 127.
813 Ibid., 129

814 Ibid., 130.
815 Ibid., 131.

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protection, prevention, and certification functions.816 The Doctrine names the prohibition of the development, dissemination and use of ‘information weapons’ as its
main international agenda.817 Arguably, the Information Security Doctrine of 2000
painted a picture of a Russian that was losing the control of its information sphere.818
Previous studies on Russian strategic and political culture have observed that there isa persistent tendency to perceive international relations as a continuous great power
struggle. The reasons given for this struggle differ and include, among others, messianism, imperialism, status competition, nationalism, geopolitics, balance-of-power realism, nature of domestic system (i.e. the sistema), bureaucratic interests, the mentalityof ‘the siloviki’819 and the personality of leaders.820 Consequently, it is argued, there isan inherent feeling of insecurity built into the Russian strategic thinking which has
ebbed and flowed throughout its history. Therefore, the strategic cultural idea of aninterstate struggle with its latest incarnation of ‘information struggle’ fits quite wellinto the wider Russian strategic cultural thinking.821 It has functioned as a causal or
perhaps even a principled belief by proving a framework for understanding international relations during and after the Soviet era. It connects and collects under it agroup of more causal beliefs which provide ends, ways and means to manage thoserelations—these are basically the rest of the strategic cultural ideas analysed in thisthesis. The language used in the national security documents of the 1990s differedfrom the more radical ideas presented by the military and civilian academics but there
was clearly some resonance. The policy documents were, of course, the end-result of

816 Ibid., 133.
817 Ibid., 145.

818 The authors of the 2000 Information Security Doctrine Vladislav Sherstiuk and Anatoly Streltsov argued

that the doctrine was not aimed at restricting independent media but that the state must, nevertheless, be able
to supervise all media. (Thomas 2010, 274). General Colonel Vladislav Sherstiuk is an ex-KGB officer, exFAPSI director and the current Adviser of the Security Council of Russian Federation, Director of Lomonosov
Moscow State University Institute of Information Security Issues. Colonel Anatoly Streltsov is ex-officer, exhead of Information Security Department of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and current Deputy
Director of the Institute of Information Security Issues at Lomonosov Moscow State University.
819 The term siloviki has no clear definition. Meakins has defined it as “referring to an active-duty officer orotherwise important individual in Russia’s key security agencies: the FSB, FSO, MVD, SKR, SVR, GRU, Procuracy, and the new National Guard.” (Meakins, Joss I. Squabbling Siloviki: Factionalism Within Russia’s Security Services, International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2018), 235-270,
238).
820 Godzimirski, Jakub M. Russian national security concepts 1997 and 2000: A comparative analysis, European
Security, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Winter 2000), 73-91; Donaldson, Nogee, & Nadkari 2014; Soldatov & Borogan 2010;
Blank 2011; Monaghan, Andrew. Defibrillating the Vertikal? Putin and the Russian Grand Strategy, Chatham
House Research Paper, October 2014; Galeotti, Mark. Heavy Metal Diplomacy: Russia’s Political Use of Its
Military in Europe Since 2014, ECFR, December 2016; Bateman 2014; Engström, Maria. Contemporary Russian Messianism and New Russian Foreign Policy, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 35, No. 3 (2014), 356379; Gustafson, K. C. Echo of Empires: Russia’s Inheritance of Byzantine Security Culture. The Journal of
Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2010), 574-596; Jackson 2002; Bratersky, Maxim. The Evolution of
National Security Thinking in Post-Soviet Russia. Strategic Analysis, Vol. 40, No. 6 (2016), 513-523; Lukin,
Vladimir. The Foreign Policy of Post-Soviet Russia: A Quest for Identity, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 40, No. 6(2016), 486-497; Baev, Pavel K. Defying That Sinking Feeling: Russia Seeks to Uphold Its Role in the Multistructural International System in Flux. In Blank 2012, 1-24; Vendil Pallin, Carolina. The Russian Power Ministries: Tool and Insurance of Power, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.20, No.1 (2007), 1-25; Eitelhuber
2009; Sondhaus 2006; Ledeneva, Alena V. Can Russia Modernise? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013.
821 Kier Giles, for example, claims that Russian information policy flows from a feeling of vulnerability (Giles
2011). As do Martti Kari and Katri Pynnöniemi (Kari, Martti J. and Pynnöniemi, Katri. Theory of strategic
culture: An analytical framework for Russian cyber threat perception, Journal of Strategic Studies, 2019 DOI:
10.1080/01402390.2019.1663411)

119bureaucratic processes and compromises during a time when Russian domestic politics were highly volatile.822
Moreover, it can be argued that the translation of ‘informatsionnoe protivoborstvo’as information warfare has distorted the Western understanding of Russian thinking
on the use of information for political and military goals. The information confrontation or struggle is a political-strategic level concept with its roots in Marxist-Leninist
thought.823 It is not war or warfare but a constant struggle to influence the opponent
with technological and psychological means. The technological and more destructivemeans gain primacy when interstate relations move into the initial period of war andwar proper. This latter phase is clearly reminiscent of the Western views of counter
C2, IW and cyber warfare concepts. During the 1990s Russian theorists, civilian andmilitary, began to ‘fit’ modern ideas of IW to previous Soviet ideas about information,technology, politics, and warfare. Nevertheless, during the 1990s there was no single
accepted definition of IW or information confrontation in the Russian discourse. Additionally, by the end of the 1990s civilian (or semi-civilian as many had a KGB-background) theorists had started to take part in the discussion and to formulate Russian
theories of IW. The struggle for the meaning of IW was arguably a struggle for institutional interests and resources.824 The ideas were eventually taken up by the security
and defence elites and were reflected in the national security documents of 2000.
4.2.2 Strategic deterrence
Mary Fitzgerald wrote in 1986 that “[to] enter the world of Western Sovietology is toenter a debate as endless as Lenin’s Collected Works.”825 She was stating this in acontext of trying to understand the Soviet nuclear strategy but the same might be said
about the current discussion on the Russian nuclear strategy.826 Fitzgerald and later
William E. Odom have claimed that during the Cold War the Western analysts weredivided into those who thought that the Soviets shared the Western understanding ofdeterrence theory and mutually assured destruction (MAD) and to those who believedthat the Soviets were preparing to fight a nuclear war.827 Be that as it may, the problem
for the Soviet political leadership was that nuclear weapons threatened to freeze the‘struggle’ against capitalism which was the underpinning of their ideology.828
The political calculus changed after the 27th Party Congress of CPSU in 1986 after
which the officials under Gorbatchev adopted the concept of ‘defensive’ or ‘reasonable sufficiency’.829 It was an implicit denouncement of the Western version of mutual
822 On the politics of the Yeltsin era cf. Sakwa 2008.

823 This claim is supported, among others, by Lalu (Lalu, 2014).
824 On the Russian political system cf. Brannon, 2009, 165-166; Sakwa 1998; Soldatov & Borogan 2010; Ericson

et al. 1998; Breslauer et al. 2000.
825 Fitzgerald, Mary. Changing Soviet Doctrine on Nuclear War. Research memorandum AD-A187 722. Alexandria, Virginia: Center for Naval Analyses, 1986.
826 Adamsky, Dmitry (Dima). Russian Nuclear Incoherence. Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1. (2014),
91–134; Oliker, Olga. Russian Nuclear Doctrine. Washington, DC: CSIS, 2016; Adamsky 2018; Tertrais, Bruno.
Russia’s Nuclear Policy: Worrying for the Wrong Reasons, Survival, Vol.60, No.2 (2018), 33-44.
827 Fitzgerald 1986; Odom 1998, 66, 86. The dispute was also related to the argument between those who
supported the idea that there was a Soviet strategic culture which influenced decision-making and those who
approached the Soviets through rational actor-based game-theories (Gray 1992).
828 Odom 1998, 67.
829 Odom 1998, 106-107.

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deterrence (i.e. MAD).830 Testimonial evidence gathered after the end of the Cold War
indicates that “Unlike their U.S. counterparts, the Soviets did not develop an elaborate
doctrine of deterrence enhanced by various strategies of nuclear use, selective targeting, planned and deliberate escalation, etc.”831 The Soviets relied on massive retaliation, accepted the possibility of nuclear war and prepared for it, and aimed for superiority in nuclear arms up until the latter half of the 1980s. Nuclear deterrence wasnever seen as stable. Parity and balance were only theoretical concepts as power relations were constantly changing because of technological advances.832
The challenge of understanding the Soviet military thinking on deterrence was that
the Soviets did not use the concept in the same way as Western theorists.833 The term
most similar was ‘sderzhivanie putem ustrashenie’ which refers to deterrence (restraining or holding back) through intimidation by nuclear weapons.834 ‘Sderzhivanie’
was defined as a deterrence by containment, when referring to Americans, or dissuading an enemy from a decision to attack as a result of one’s acquisition of a capability
to retaliate with devastating effect, when referring to the Soviets.835 ‘Ustrashenie’ isdefined as deterrence through intimidation. It is used to frighten someone via fear.
Moreover, ‘prinuzhdenie’ refers to forcing or coercing but does not have the same
meaning as Western coercion.836 Deterrence was to be achieved through “parity”
which enabled nuclear retaliation.837 However, the Soviet military was open to thepre-emptive, launch on warning, and retaliatory use of nuclear weapons as the situation demanded.838 On the conventional side, the Soviet Union relied on quantitative
superiority in military material and personnel and an offensive doctrine which would
deter any aggression and enable counterattack in the event that the Soviet Union
would be surprised by the West or the Chinese.839 The organization and doctrine ofconventional forces were modified to respond to the changes in technology and doctrine of the probable adversary.840
In the 1980s Soviet military theorists concentrated on analysing the initial period of
war which gained new importance as the defensive doctrine was being adopted. The
problem was, how to deter a surprise attack with forces in a defensive posture andthen to mobilize for counterattack and assure mutual destruction if needed.841 Surprise
was connected to deception and disinformation, i.e. maskirovka.842 Based on what
830 Allison, Roy. Reasonable Sufficiency and Changes in Soviet Security Thinking. In Frank & Gillette 1992,

237-267; Odom 1998, 106.
831 Hines, Mishulovich & Shull 1995a, 12.
832 Ibid., 17.
833 Hines et al. 1995b, 108.
834 Hines 1995b, 6; Ven Bruusgaard 2016.
835 Garthoff 1990, 22
836 Thomas 2015a, 112; Ven Bruusgaard2016, 8; Adamsky 2018, 3.
837 Podvig, Pavel. The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn’t: Soviet Military Build-up in the 1970s—A Research
Note. International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Summer 2008), 118-138.
838 Battilega, John A. Soviet Views Of Nuclear Warfare: The Post-Cold War Interviews. In Sokolski 2004, 151174.
839 Glantz 1992, 203-207; Odom 1998, 70-71; Kokoshin 1998, 177-180; Adamsky 2010.
840 First to the nuclear weapons of the United States and then to the high-tech war envisioned in the Western
Air Land Battle and Follow-on Forces Attack doctrines. Odom 1998, 72-80; Adamsky 2010, 33-34; Lalu 2014.
841 Kokoshin 1998, 189-190.
842 On the concept of maskirovka cf. Beaumont, Roger. Maskirovka: Soviet Camouflage, Concealment and
Deception. Texas: Center for Strategic Technology, The Texas Engineering Experiment Station of the Texas
ASM University System, 1982; Chotikul, Diane. The Soviet Theory of Reflexive Control in Historical and Psychological Perspective: A Preliminary Study. Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 1986.

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military officers wrote in the Voennaia mysl’ journal in the 1970s and 1980s the fearof being surprised was indeed discussed among the high rank officers. Additionally, afuture war was considered total and nuclear weapons were thought to be used eventually. This emphasised the need for either a strategic or operational surprise.843 The
role of strategic nuclear weapons was to ‘prevent’ inherently ‘aggressive’ capitalist
countries from attacking. The economy had to be geared towards the future war andfor the needs of the armed forces because otherwise ‘a gap’ in capabilities would open
and enemies would use it to attack.844 In this context, the Western deterrence (ustrashenie) was a form of ‘nuclear blackmail’ directed against socialist countries and wasseen as a cover-up for building offensive forces.845
On the political level, the Soviet leadership tried from the 1970s onwards to avoid anuclear war and to constrain their enemy and from 1980s onward to limit the economically disastrous arms race through international arms control treaties, conventional and nuclear force reductions and other military-political activities.846 In addition
to the military and political elements, there was a definite informational element indeterrence that, on the one hand, promoted a view of the Soviet Union as a nonaggressive super power and, on the other hand, produced enough ambivalence tokeep the Western decision-makers guessing about the Soviet strategy.847 This informational element had also an internal component based on protecting Soviet citizens
from Western propaganda through censorship, counterpropaganda, restrictions on
movement and communication, and the pursuit of dissidents by the KGB.848 It included the jamming of Western radio and TV transmissions, and the physical control
of a handful of fixed international phone lines and switches.849 Moreover, the Soviet
Union managed and maintained a global network of ideologically aligned allies, forpolitical and military reasons, and a commitment to protect those allies—or more

843 Gudz, P. The Modern Theory of Tactics and Some of its Problems. Military Thought – Secret version 1970,

No. 2 (90). Translated and published by the Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Special Report, 14th January 1974 [Online]. Available https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIARDP85T00875R000300010016-7.pdf [Accessed: 5th December 2018]; Gayvoronskii, F. New Questions of Operational Art at Its Present Stage of Development. Military Thought – Secret version 1970, No. 1 (89). Translated and published by the Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Special Report, 7th March
1974 [Online]. Available https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001199073.pdf [Accessed:
5th December 2018].
844 Povaliy, M. Military Strategy and Economics. Military Thought – Secret version 1971, No. 4. Translated andpublished by the Central Intelligence Agency, Foreign Press Digest, 25th March 1974 [Online]. Available:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1974-01-14.pdf [Accessed: 5th December 2018].
845 Средин, Г. В. Проблема войны и мира в современной идеологической борьбе. Военная мысль № 7
1986, 3-13.
846 Menning 1992, 53; Garthoff 1992, 199-201; MccGwire 1987, 266-267; Garthoff 2002, 151.
847 Gelman, Harry. Reconstructing the Soviet Perspective on U.S. Global Policy. In Nerlich, Uwe (ed.) Soviet
Power and Western Negotiating Policies. Volume I: The Soviet Asset: Military Power in the Competition Over
Europe. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1983, 277-305; Service 2015, 93-101; Gaddis 2005, 184-188; The United States Department of State. Soviet “Active Measure”. Forgery, Disinformation,
Political Operations. October 1981 [Online]. Available: https://www.cia.gov/library/ readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00049R001303150031-0.pdf [Accessed: 15th November 2018]; Schoen, Fletcher andLamb, Christopher, J. Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency
Group Made a Major Difference. INSS Strategic Perspectives 11. Washington, DC: National Defense University.
848 Service 2015, 77-83; Gaddis 2005, 184-188; Sakwa 1998; Haslam 2015, 15-26 & 268; Knight, Amy. The
KGB, Perestroika, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, (Winter2003), 67–93.
849 Soldatov & Borogan 2015.

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precisely their socialist/communist regimes.850
Some Western scholars have argued that the current Russian security and defence
policy is based on the so-called Soviet era ‘besieged fortress’ syndrome.851 According
to Andrei Kokoshin, the concept was developed by Mikhail Frunze, a Bolshevik military leader and theorist, who wrote that “our country continues to be like a besieged
fortress, and it will remain in this position as long as capital prevails in the world.”852
Conversely, Bobo Lo claims that the term ‘besieged fortress’ was first used by Leninin a Pravda article from August 22, 1918.853 In any case, the concept became to meanthat the Soviet security and defence policy was highly sensitive to both external andinternal threats, both real and imagined, and that it had a decidedly geopolitical viewof security.854 A part of this worldview emanated from the belief that in its history
Russia/the Soviet Union had been a victim of repeated aggression, the other part was
based on Marxism-Leninism and the inevitability of war.855 As Eliot Borenstein argues, this kind of thinking fits quite naturally with the long tradition of Russian conspiracy theories which the regime has, at least tacitly, encouraged.856 Such a conspiratorial worldview would have produced its own type of deterrence thinking—presumably something that would have tried to keep threats as far away from the Soviet
borders as possible and tried very actively to prevent any internal or external threats
from materializing. It is also quite easy to understand how through this kind of perspective the fall of the Soviet Union can be interpreted as a tragedy which external
and internal enemies could be blamed for.857
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russians began to copy Western ideas about
deterrence but did not produce any coherent domestic theory during the 1990s.
Dmitry Adamsky claims that the Russian professional discourse began to use theterms coercion, deterrence and compellence interchangeably, and that there was no
established term for coercion which would serve as an umbrella term for both deterrence and compellence.858 By the end of the 1990s, deterrence referred to preserving
the status quo mainly reactively, whereas compellence, or ‘prinuzhdenie’, referred tothe efforts to change the status quo. Thomas and Kristen Ven Bruusgard argue that‘ustrashenie’ is defined as deterrence through intimidation. It is used to frighten someone via fear and resonates with the Cold War era understanding.859 According to Ven
Bruusgard and Dmitry Adamsky the Russian deterrence ‘theory’ has gone through850 McCauley 1981; MccGwire 1987; Gaddis 2005; Westad 2017, 487, 489.
851 Trenin 2001; Blank 2008; Jackson 2002; Kari & Pynnöniemi 2019; Jonsson 2019, 41.

852 Kokoshin 1998, 66-67. Harriett Fast Scott and Williams F. Scott provide a direct quotation from Frunze:“our country is in the situation of a besieged stronghold and will remain there as long as capital reigns in theworld…” Scott & Scott 2019, 8.
853 Lo 2015, 245.
854 Trenin 2001; Yablokov 2018; Blank 2008; Blank, Stephen. Can Russia Sustain Its Military Capability? Jamestown Foundation, 13th September 2016 [Online]. Available: https://jamestown.org/program/stephen-blankcan-russia-sustain-its-military-capability/ [Accessed: 15th November 2018]; Sondhaus 2006.
855 Glantz 1992; Jonsson 2019.
856 Borenstein, Eliot. Plots against Russia. Conspiracy and Fantasy after Socialism. Ithica and London: Cornell
University Press, 2019, 239-240.
857 Myers 2015, 278-290; Lo 2015, 20; Hill, Fiona. How Vladimir Putin’s World View Shapes Russian Foreign
Policy. In Cadier & Margot 2015, 42-61, 48-49.
858 Adamsky 2014.
859 Thomas 2015a; Ven Bruusgaard 2016; Adamsky, Dmitry (Dima). Cross-Domain Coercion: The Current
Russian Art of Strategy. Proliferation Papers, No. 54, November 2015.

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three stages.860 The first from 1991 to 2000 was a response to the Western technological superiority and Russia’s own conventional weakness which led to the emphasisof nuclear weapons as guarantees of security and great power status. By 1999, militaryscholars were figuring out how nuclear weapons could be used to deter a conventionally superior adversary. The second stage from 2000 to 2010 consisted of combining
nuclear and conventional capabilities to deter nuclear and conventional threats including actual exercises. The third stage from ca. 2010 onward introduced ‘strategic
deterrence’ which included non-nuclear and non-military components.861
The Russian unofficial military debate on deterrence at the beginning of the 1990s
associated the term ‘strategic’ primarily with nuclear weapons but also used the termin the context of strategic stability (strategicheskaia stabil’nost’) the meaning of which
was debated. It had meant nuclear parity between the United States and the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, but the security environment and Russia’s posture andcomposition of forces did not anymore reflect or support that interpretation.862 Especially the United States’ performance in the Gulf War and the use of high technology
weapons forced the Russian military to think again about the role of the non-nuclear
high-tech forces in deterrence.863 In 1998 Major General Lyzianin defined the previous understanding of the strategic stability as: “a state of military power of the parties
in which none of them can achieve their military-political goals by aggression without
unacceptable consequences for themselves as a result of the response of the other.”864
According to Lyzianin, this concept should have been modified to support Gorbachev’s idea of ‘sufficient defence’. It meant a minimum defence strength that would
not provoke adversaries but ensured the deterrence of aggression, and in the casedeterrence failed, the repulsion of aggression.865
In 1996 Andrei Kokoshin, then the vice defence minister, wrote that the ‘nuclear
shield’ was more important than other means to prevent aggression. The main function of the armed forces was the deterrence (sderzhivanie) of aggression against Russia. This deterrence was based on the demonstration of Russia’s material capacity andthe readiness of the government to use it.866 The problem was of course that nuclear
weapons might not be usable in the current and future regional or local wars as
Makhmut Gareev argued.867 As the importance of information warfare grew towards
the end of the 1990s, Rear-Admiral Pirumov and Colonel M. A. Rodionov implicitly
supported the view that deterrence was connected to lethal weapons, although infor-

860 Ven Bruusgaard 2016; Adamsky 2018.
861 Ven Bruusgaard 2016; Adamsky 2018.

862 Погожин, В. П. Система управления стратегическими силами и стабильность. Военная мысль № 8-9, 1992; Шаравин, А. А. Стратегическая стабильность в Европе системный аспект. Военная мысль № 2
1992; Кириленко, Г. В., Тренин, Д. В. Формула безопасности от паритета к стратегической стабильности. Военная мысль № 8-9 1992.
863 Fitzgerald, Mary C. The Soviet Image of Future War: The Impact of Desert Storm. In Frank & Gillette 1992,
363-386, 382.
864 Лузянин, В. П. Стратегическая стабильность и многополярная модель сдерживания. Военная мысль
№ 8-9 1998.
865 Ibid. Cf. also Pirumov, V. S. Two Aspects of Parity and Defensive Sufficiency. Military Thought No. 2 1992;
Fitzgerald, Mary C. The Dilemma in Moscow’s Defensive Force Posture. In Frank & Gillette 1992, 347-362;
Odom 1998, 171; For Soviet discussion on this subject in late-1980s Cf. Hines & Mahoney 1991.
866 Кокошин 1996.
867 Гареев 1998.

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mation in its wider, confrontation/struggle aspect was seen as a way to influence opponents.868 In 1998 General Major Iu. A. Nikolaev, Colonel V. P. Pchelianoi and Professor V. I. Tsymbal claimed that the weapon systems of the armed forces should
consist of the means of nuclear deterrence to deter nuclear and non-nuclear opponents and means of non-nuclear deterrence to deter aggressors of local and small
intensity conflicts—including information warfare.869 Moreover, they argued thatmeans of information warfare could perhaps be used to deter the enemy or demoralize it ‘without a single shot’.870 This utility of information in preventing (predotvrashenie) wars, among other non-direct means, was shared by M. A. Gareev.871 The widening of the substance of deterrence was also reflected in the ‘escalate to de-escalate
discussion’, i.e. the use of (mainly) tactical nuclear weapons to control regional or
wider conflicts.872
In 1999 two academics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgenii Fedosov andIgor’ Spaskii claimed that the meaning of ‘strategic deterrence’ (strategicheskoesderzhivanie) now included deterring a nuclear attack and serious non-nuclear attack.
For Fedosov and Spaskii, deterrence included the effectiveness of the threat of retaliation, the credibility of the threat, and the adversary’s awareness of the consequencesof a retaliatory strike. This definition shows how much Western concepts of deterrence had affected the Russians by the end of the 1990s.873 The emphasis on nuclear
deterrence in the Military Doctrine of 2000 also generated discussion on the survivability of nuclear weapons which led to the argument that deterrence was based on,among other things, resilient command and control systems.874 By the end of the
1990s, military professionals and academicians doubted the sufficiency of pure nuclear deterrence as the guarantor of Russian military security and saw deterrence asconsisting of something more than pure nuclear means.
The Basic Provisions of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation from 1993
uses the term ‘deterrence’ (sderzhivanie) in relation to preventing both nuclear andconventional aggression against Russia. This is achieved through civilian and military
intelligence, the ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons, and the ability to repulse anaggressor with conventional forces.875 The NSC of 1997 connects ‘deterrence’ moreclearly to nuclear weapons which are the basis of Russia’s security—their existence
868 Pirumov, V. S. and Rodionov, M. A. Information Warfare in Armed Conflicts. Military Thought [English]

No. 5 1997.
869 Никола в, Ю.А. Пчеляной, В.П., Цымбал, В.И. Реформирование Вооруженных Сил и система вооружения. Военная мысль 1998 № 2, 27-32, 29.
870 Никола в, Пчеляной & Цымбал 1998, 32.
871 Гареев 1998.
872 Левшин, В. И., Неделин, А. В., Сосновский, М. Е. О применении ядерного оружия для деэскалации
военных действий. Военная мысль № 3(5-6) 1999, 34-37; Крейдин, С.В. Глобальное и региональное
ядерное сдерживание: к системе принципов и критериев. Военная мысль 1999 No. 4; Сиволоб, Владимир Федорович, Сосновский, Михаил Евгеньевич. Реальность сдерживания. Независимое военное обозрение № 41 1999.
873 Федосов, Евгений Александрович, Спасский, Игорь Дмитриевич. Высокоточное оружие заняло место бога войны. Независимое военное обозрение № 28 1999.
874 Крейдин, С.В. Дискуссионная трибуна. Проблемы ядерного сдерживания: боевая устойчивость ядерного потенциала. Военная мысль No. 4 1999; Рукшин, А.С. Геополитика и безопасность. Ядерное сдерживание: совершенствование системы управления ядерными силами. Военная мысль № 6 2000; Сиволоб & Сосновский 1999; Воронин, Станислав Николаевич, Брезкун, Сергей Тарасович. Стратегически
выгодная асимметрия. Независимое военное обозрение № 36 1999.
875 Izveztiia 1993.

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prevents war. The concept also states that Russia does not strive for parity with leading states and accepts the principle of ‘realistic deterrence’.876 The NSC of 2000 statesthat the most important mission of the armed forces is to implement deterrence toprevent aggression of any scale against Russia or its allies.877 The Military Doctrine of2000 further states that the Russian nuclear deterrence is a positive force for security
and that Russia “will maintain its status as nuclear great power to deter (prevent [predotvrazhenie]) aggression against itself or its allies.” The main priority of developing
the military organization are “the forces providing strategic deterrence [strategicheskoe sderzhivanie] (including nuclear).” Russia maintains conventional and nuclear forces in constant readiness to deter and repulse (otrazhenie) aggression.878 No
official definition of strategic deterrence was offered, although, in 2000 Putin related
it to the wider concept of preventing war. According to Putin, almost all state agencies
took part in preventing war.879 The term compellence (prinuzhdenie) appears in theForeign Policy Concepts of 1992 and 2000 and the Military Doctrine of 2000 in aconnection to internationally sanctioned peace enforcement (prinuzhdenie k miru)
and seems to be a direct translation from the English term.880 It is not so much aboutchanging status quo than making the opponent to change his behaviour by incurringcosts.881 The primary security documents of the Russian Federation from 1993-2000
do not use the term intimidation (ustrashenie).
The concept of deterrence was adopted into the Russian unofficial and official discourse during the 1990s and experienced a definite expansion of substance at the
informal level. The concept of ‘strategic deterrence’ was introduced but its official
elaboration would be left to the 2000s. Deterrence has a clear connection to the concept of interstate struggle and its sub-concept of information struggle: from the 1980s
onward to 2000 nuclear parity and later ‘defensive sufficiency’ were increasingly accompanied first by conventional and then by other means of deterrence, prevention,and repulsion of armed aggression (or other threats to state interests). Although Russian military thinkers strived to separate war and political competition and confrontation from each other they were more and more inclined to argue that Russia had to‘deter’ a wide range of hostile measures with more active countermeasures even during peacetime. This ‘deterrence’ was influenced by the debate over the advantages
between an offensive and defensive doctrine as the borders between offence and defence became increasingly hazy in the context of the future war.
4.2.3 Asymmetric response
The term asymmetry was first used in the context of conventional arms reductions in
Europe in the 1980s before it became to define the Soviet ‘asymmetric response’ toRonald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) in 1986 and long before it becamea kind of ‘deux-ex machina’ concept of solving the Russian military backwardness in
876 Концепция национальной безопасности РФ 1997. (Шаклеина, 2002).
877 Концепция национальной безопасности РФ 2000 г. (Шаклеина, 2002).
878 Военная доктрина Российской Федерации 2000 г. (Шаклеина, 2002).

879 Президент Российской Федерации. Выступление на совещании руководящего состава ВооруженныхСил Российской Федерации, 20 ноября 2000 года [Online]. Available: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/
transcripts/21119 [Accessed: 19th November 2018].
880 Концепция внешней политики РФ 1992 г. (Шаклеина 2002); Концепция внешней политики Российской Федерации 2000 г. (Шаклеина 2002).
881 Военная доктрина Российской Федерации 2000 г. (Шаклеина 2002, 102).

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relation to the United States during the 1990s and 2000s.882 However, the somewhat
anachronistic interpretations of the claimed Soviet ‘asymmetric response’ to theUnited States’ SDI must be put into a historical context and understood as a conceptthat has been purposefully revived in the 2000s in the context of a dispute between
the Russian Federation and the United States about the latter’s ballistic missile defence
programme.883
In the Russian language ‘asymmetry’ means the ‘absence, disruption of symmetry’(otsutstvie, narushenie simmetrii)884 which, as Timothy Thomas remarked, implies amore active aspect in the change of symmetry’s parameters than the American or
British definitions, even the creation of asymmetry.885 Thomas claims that the Russian
dialectic thought process of thesis and antithesis encourages an analysis of a situationfrom a different, more confrontational perspective.886 According to Thomas, asymmetry seems to be about off-setting an opponent’s superiority, taking advantage ofthe opponent’s unequal combat potential, avoiding direct confrontation, and deploying new and innovative forms and methods of conflict.887 Dmitry Adamsky has studied Soviet/Russian strategic culture and argues that asymmetry has long historicalroots in Russian strategic thought in the guise of ‘military cunningness’ (khitrost’) or
stratagems. It is an ability or attribute which multiplies or substitutes the direct use offorce with deceit, surprise and indirect approach.888 Adamsky also claims that the Russian theory of victory is asymmetrical because it is based on a strategy which plays
one’s strengths against the opponent’s weaknesses. Nevertheless, the Russian strategy
is also symmetrical because the nature of a threat shapes the response.889 Currently,
asymmetry is seen by Western scholars as an inherent part of Russian strategic
thought and the making of strategy.890 For example, Pynnöniemi and Forsström bothargue that asymmetric measures are part of Russian deterrence and strategy to prevent
war.891882 Cf. also Snyder, Jack. Limiting Offensive Conventional Forces: Soviet Proposals and Western Options.

International Security. Vol. 12, No. 4 (Spring, 1988), 48-77; Becker, Michael E., Matthew S. Cohen, Sidita Kushi
and Ian P. McManus. Reviving the Russian empire: the Crimean intervention through a neoclassical realist lens,European Security, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2016), 112-133; Grigas, Agnia. Beyond Crimea. The New Russian Empire.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016; Porfiriev & Simons 2016; Trenin, Dmitri. Russia’s Breakout from the
Post-Cold War System: The Drivers of Putin’s Course. Carnegie Moscow Center, 22 December 2014; McDermott 2015.
883 Cf. Chapter 5. On missile defence debate cf. Arbatov, Alexei and Dvorkin, Vladimir (Eds.) Missile Defense:
Confrontation and Cooperation. Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2013.
884 ‘Асимметрия’ Ожегов, С.И., Шведова, Н.Ю. Толковый словарь русского языка. 4-е изд., доп. М.: ООО«А ТЕМП», 2006 [Online]. Available: https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ogegova/7566 [Accessed: 22nd March2019]. A Soviet era encyclopaedia defines asymmetry as “an absence of symmetry” (‘Асимметрия’ Большой
советской энциклопедии. М.:”Советская энциклопедия”, 1969 – 1978 г. [Online]. Available: https://dic.
academic.ru/dic.nsf/bse/65510/Асимметрия [Accessed: 22nd March 2019].
885 Thomas 2005, 294-295. However, Thomas mistakenly translates ‘narushenie’ as destroy.
886 Ibid., 294.
887 Thomas 2015c, 445-461.
888 Adamsky 2018.
889 Adamsky 2015, 26.
890 Cf. Covington, Stephen R. The Culture of Strategic Thought Behind Russia’s Modern Approaches to Warfare. Cambridge: Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center, 2016; Defence Intelligence Agency. Russia Military
Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power Aspirations [Online]. Available: http://www.dia. mil/Military-Power-Publications/ [Accessed: 20th November 2018]; Jonsson & Seely 2015; Norberg, Johan and Westerlund, Fredrik. Military Means for non-Military Measures: The Russian Approach to the Use of Armed Forcesas Seen in Ukraine, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2016 Vol. 29, No. 4, 576-601; Bukkvoll 2011, 690;
Cooper 2016, 52.
891 Pynnöniemi 2019a & Forsström 2019.

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The Soviet military was aware of the technological ever-widening gap between itself
and NATO’s conventional forces in the early 1980s. Marshal Ogarkov and others had
seen the coming of MTR and understood that doctrinal and organizational changes
were not enough to counterbalance the Western advantage.892 However, Ogarkov’s
call for comprehensive reform was rejected because of political, economic, strategic
cultural, and bureaucratic reasons.893 When the United States’ president Ronald
Reagan declared his Strategic Defence Initiative (a space-based ballistic missile defence system) the Soviet Union had to accept the technological challenge or lose thestrategic parity it had strived to achieve the last two decades.894
In this context the Soviet civilian scientists declared that the SDI was practically impossible. In fact, Soviet scientists had studied a similar defensive system already in the
1960s and 1970s but their proposals were discarded.895 Moreover, military theorists
and politicians saw SDI as threatening the offence-defence balance, which would leadto further arms race and insecurity.896 The Soviet leadership could not be sure if the
SDI was in fact a cover for the offensive militarization of space.897 Scientific ‘proof’for these views was provided by the so-called ‘institutchiki’ or people from science
institutions foremost among them Evgenii Velikhov, Aleksei Arbatov, and Andrei
Kokoshin.898 As president Ronald Reagan refused to let go of his project, General
Secretary Gorbachev stated that the Soviet Union would give an ‘asymmetric response’.899
This response was based partly on ballistic missile defences and hardened silos for
ICBMs, space deployed defences, and exotic weapons such as lasers directed against
American satellites, and partly on updating the strategic nuclear missiles (mainly SS18) to be able to penetrate any defences the United States might be able to deploy,and partly on diplomatic measures.900 The idea was to make SDI obsolete and preserve
the retaliatory capabilities of Soviet strategic nuclear weapons.901 Therefore, the ‘asymmetric response’ was at least partly based on the Marxist-Leninist oriented strategic
dialectical thinking on historical arms development through cycles of measures and892 Kipp 2010; Adamsky 2008 & 2010; Fitzgerald 1987a.

893 Blank, Stephen J. Preparing for the Next War: Reflections on the Revolution in Military Affairs. In Arquilla& Ronfeldt, 1997, 61-77; Adamsky 2008 & 2010; Menning, 1992, 53.
894 Podvig 2008; Hoffman 2009; Green, Brendan R. and Long, Austin. The MAD Who Wasn’t There: Soviet
Reactions to the Late Cold War Nuclear Balance, Security Studies, Vol.26, No.4 (October-December 2017),
606-641.
895 Kokoshin 1998, 182; Service 2015, 194.
896 Kokoshin 1998, 181-182; Service 2015, 194-195. For analysis of this discussion cf. Fitzgerald 1987a.
897 Service 2015, 194-195.
898 Fitzgerald, Mary C. Soviet views on SDI. The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies No.
601. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1987, 6.
899 Hoffman 2009, 262. Gorbachev stated in a press-conference in Reykjavik on October 1986, “There will bean answer to the SDI. It will be asymmetrical, but nevertheless it will be an answer. And we don’t have tosacrifice much.” (Выступление генерального секретаря ЦК КПСС М. С. Горбач ва на пресс-конференции в Рейкьявике [Online]. Available: http://perestrojka.su/documents/1986/Reykjavik.htm [Accessed:
22nd March 2019].)900 Hoffman 2009, 215-216, 220; Service 2015, 195-196.
901 Kokoshin 1998, 183. On Kokoshin cf. Fitzgerald 1987c. Kokoshin claims that the ‘asymmetric response’
was a ‘military-political plan’ including diplomatic, political and propaganda activities and programs for thedevelopment of weapon systems and for the needed scientific base. He argues that, although the concept was
officially adopted, a ‘symmetric response’ i.e. conventional and nuclear arms race still continued until the fallof the Soviet Union. (Кокошин 2007).

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countermeasures.902 It was also compatible with the calculations about the correlationof forces by introducing extra ‘asymmetric’ variables. The military part of the ‘response’ was driven by the military and military-industrial complex. The diplomaticand political part was driven by Gorbachev and his circle of reformers. It consistedof the elimination of the threat through arms control measures, defensive doctrine,
diplomacy, and propaganda—measures which would change the thinking of the opponent. It resulted into the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), theStrategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and the Treaty on Conventional Armed
Forces in Europe (CFE). The two versions did not fully support each other, and bothcontributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.903 Consequently, the ‘asymmetric response’ was dropped from the political vocabulary andpractical policy when the military standoff between the Soviet Union and NATO
ended in 1988-1989 and the new U.S. president George W. Bush pushed SDI to theside lines of his political agenda. Nevertheless, the Soviet military and military-industrial complex sought asymmetric responses up until the end of Soviet Union.904
Against the above presented background, it can be argued that the roots of ‘asymmetry’ are historically contextual. Andrei Kokoshin has claimed that the ‘ideology ofasymmetry’ was born in the 1980s when he and some others rehabilitated Soviet military theorist A. A. Svechin’s ideas of strategic defence and combined them with theideas of ancient Chinese strategist Tzun Tsu.905 The asymmetric response was an idea
created by Soviet civilian scientists in a reinterpretation of Soviet military history
which incorporated technological evidence—perhaps to package it to a more attractive form for the military.906 This technique was also used when Kokoshin and Colonel
General V. Larionov published an article based on historical analogies to argue for a
defensive strategy in the 1988.907
Asymmetry was discussed implicitly by the Soviet military in the 1980s mainly due tothe perceived destabilization of the military balance. For example, General Colonel
Cherpov used the term when referring to force reductions in Europe.908 In an article
by a nameless writer in 1985 Voennaia Mysl’ journal the U.S. SDI project was attacked
as an effort to gain military-strategic superiority over the Soviet Union by militarizing
space. If the United States continued with its plans the Soviet Union must “respondto restore the strategic balance” which might require either defensive or offensive
measures which “will not be those that the United States tries to make the Soviet
Union to take”.909 In 1986 General Major M. M. Kozlov, declared that the militarystrategic parity between the Soviet Union and the United States guaranteed world
peace. He defined this parity as the approximate equality of the military potentials of
902 Fitzgerald 1987c, 19-20.
903 Hoffman 2009, 215-216, 220; Service 2015, 195-196.
904 Hoffman 2009.

905 Ознобищев, Потапов & Скоков 2008. On the rehabilitation of Svechin cf. Glantz 1998.

906 Kokoshin promoted the idea of the unfeasibility of SDI and the ‘unexpected’ answer of the Soviet Union if

the United States continued to pursue SDI in military forums cf. Кокошин, А. А., Герас в, М. И.
Американские планы милитаризации космоса. Военная мысль № 4 1987, 69-80.
907 Кокошин А. А., Ларионов В. В. Противостояние сил общего назначения в контексте обеспечения
стратегической стабильности. Мировая экономика и международные отношения № 6 1988. The ideas
presented by Kokoshin and Larianov were widely discussed at the time. Cf. Frank & Gillent 1992; Glantz 1998.
908 Червов, Н. Ф. Разоружение: кто против? Военная мысль № 12 1983, 3-15.
909 The article basically summarizes a propaganda leaflet from 1985 “Star wars”: Illusions and dangers. (Военная
мысль. «Звездные войны»: иллюзии и опасности. Военная мысль № 9 1985, 15-18.)

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the opposing sides based on socio-economic, political and scientific-technical factors
and expressed in the quantity and quality of weapons and military material and thestrategic posture and organization of forces. Kozlov claimed that the Soviet Union
with other ‘fraternal peace-loving countries of socialism’ would always respond toactions taken by the United States and NATO aimed at acquiring military superiority.910 Apparently, this was something that some Soviet writers recognized the Westclaimed the Soviet Union was aiming for; which was ‘of course’ not based on any
facts.911 Military scientific and technological development were offered as tools to respond to the West’s destabilizing efforts—Mikhail Gorbachev’s words about asymmetric response were repeated, including the response’s cost-effectiveness.912 In 1987
Andrei Kokoshin wrote that the purpose of the SDI was to make nuclear war winnable and so to provide military superiority through space and to economically wear out
the Soviet Union in an arms race.913
In the late 1980s these ideas and calculations about parity were disturbed by the adoption of a defensive Warsaw Pact doctrine followed by force reductions.914 The militaryleadership had to convert the political idea of a ‘sufficient defence’ to fit with the idea
of parity and to produce a doctrine and force structure that would still prevent surprise attack by the capitalists.915 In this process asymmetry was related to the dissimilarity of the structure of military potential of the different sides. Possible force reductions could be replaced by enhancing the ‘human factor’, i.e. through skills instead of
spending money on new weapons—thus the idea of low-cost solutions persisted.916
The declared principle was that the Soviet Union would not strive for more security
but would not settle for less.917 In the end of the 1980s the term ‘asymmetry’ wasalmost exclusively connected to the calculations concerning strategic force-rations between peer competitors and to finding low-cost ways to undo the great power adversary’s moves.918
During the 1990s the Russian military theorists used the term ‘asymmetry’ or ‘asymmetric response’ infrequently. Asymmetry appeared, for example, in the calculationsof the correlation of forces between NATO and Russia and mathematical models of
symmetric and asymmetric strategies.919 General Gareev wrote implicitly about asymmetry when he claimed in 1995 that indirect actions expressed as political efforts to
910 Козлов 1986. Marshal of the Soviet Union V. G. Kulikov defined parity in a military context as: “an ap-

proximate equality in the military power of the parties, above all in nuclear and other strategic means of warfare
that are critical to the conduct of war, the main indicator of the ratio of the military forces of the parties, which
we are forced to take into account when making decisions on political and military issues.” (Куликов 1988).
911 Дмитриев, А. П. Политика КПСС в области обороны и безопасности страны на современном этапе.
Военная мысль № 4 1987, 58-68.
912 Ibid.; Андреев, В. Ф. Военно-стратегический паритет — объективный фактор сдерживания агрессивных сил. Военная мысль № 2 1989, 45-53.
913 Кокошин & Герас в 1987.
914 Odom 1998.
915 Куликов 1988.
916 Куликов 1988; Тюшкевич, С. А. Разумная достаточность для обороны: параметры и критерии. Военная мысль № 5 1989, 53-61.
917 Ibid.
918 For more Western views cf. Коротченко, Е. Г. Об эволюции принципов военного искусства. Военная
мысль № 9 1988, 22-30
919 Klokotov, N. P., Kasenkov, M. M. For the Question on Military Danger. Military Thought No. 8 1991;
Bachkalo, B.I. and Ivanov, P.I. On the Question of Validating the Optimum Structure of a Ground ForceGrouping. Military Thought No. 12 1993.

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prevent war, surprise and misdirection in the event of war, and massing fire andmanoeuvring to bypass the enemy, and using psychological and special operations
during battles would be very much part of the future wars.920 General Major Vladimir
Dvorkin used asymmetry in 1997 when referring to the new intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) that the Soviet Union began to develop in response to the SDI but
noted that this project was very expensive and progressed slowly.921 In 1999 two academics from the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN) Evgenii Fedosov and Igor’
Spasskii argued that the development of long-range precision strike weapons had created an asymmetry in conventional forces which could lead to the lowering of thethreshold of nuclear weapons use.922 This ignited a debate about whether strategic
nuclear weapons could provide an asymmetric response to mitigate the degraded stateof the Russian military and the U.S. BMD programme.923
The First Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Mikhailov argued in 1998/1999 that although Russia was economically weaker than the United States it had time andknowhow and should pursue ‘the principle of asymmetry’ in developing its militarytechnology, i.e. not to strive to develop all capabilities towards parity but to asymmetrically concentrate on those in which the opponent was weak. This strategy would
eventually lead the opponent to produce expensive countermeasures and further
weaken him.924 Ironically, this was exactly what Mikhail Gorbachev claimed Reagan
had tried to achieve through his SDI project.925 Mikhailov’s ideas were echoed by the
Minister of Defence Marshal I. D. Sergeev in 1998 when he argued “that in the coming years Russia will not be able to maintain military-strategic and military-technicalparity with the leading military powers of the West on a ‘symmetric basis’ and that
this required effective ‘asymmetric development paths’ (asimmetrichnoe napravlenie)of new military technology. This should be achieved through the optimal use of limited resources to produce new information technology-based weapons and ASUs. Ultimately, Russia should avoid “direct military-technological rivalry with the most developed countries by creating ‘asymmetric’ means of warfare. These would allow it tostrike the most vulnerable functional elements of the main systems and key infrastructure of the enemy and thereby significantly devalue their military-technical advantages.”926
Based on database searches (EastView) and the analysis presented above it would
seem that the term ‘asymmetry’ was not widely used in military journals until the endof the 1990s.927 Although the term ‘asymmetry’ could be used in connection to correlation of conventional forces, the ‘asymmetric response’ was usually connected to the920 Gareev, Makhmut. If War Comes Tomorrow? The Contours of Future Armed Conflict. London & New

York: Routledge 1998 (org. 1995), 100-101.
921 Дворкин, Владимир Зиновьевич. Ядерное сдерживание и договор СНВ-2. Независимое военное обозрение № 3 1997.
922 Федосов & Спасский 1999.
923 Воронин & Брезкун 1999; Басистов, Владимир Анатольевич. Развитие должно быть гармоничным.
Независимое военное обозрение № 40 1999.
924 Михайлов, Николай. Россия может сохранить статус великой державы. Независимое военное обозрение № 36 1998; Михайлов, Николай. Весомые ответы на военные вызовы. Независимое военное
обозрение № 16 1999.
925 Hoffman 2009, 243.
926 Сергеев, И. Д. Основы военно-технической политики России в начале XXI Века. На Боевом Посту
№ 99 1998.
927 Kipp 2010; Adamsky 2015.

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strategic level and often explicitly to the 1980s policy against the SDI. There was no
single accepted use of the term in the professional discourse. Nevertheless, during
1998-1999 ‘asymmetric responses’ were repeatedly connected to technology-based
cost-effective solution to Western military superiority in the context of strained Russia-West relations.928 The term was not used in any of the national security documentsof the 1990s. It is safe to argue that for Soviet and Russian military scholars of the
1990s asymmetry was associated with the strategic balance of power, capabilities that
could be measured, and cost-effective measure-countermeasure dialectics. It was not,however, an exclusively military response as by the end of the 1990s it also had acquired elements related to the economy and technological-scientific development of
the county. The Russians did not widely adopt the Western version of the term whichreferred to non-state actors and terrorism.
4.2.4 Kibernetika
The discussion about the ideas of information superiority, information-technological
warfare, automatic command and control systems, and the unified information spacemust start with cybernetics or kibernetika. The above-listed strategic cultural ideas are
inherently connected to the late Soviet cybernetic thinking and cannot be understood
without it.
According to Slava Gerovitch, kibernetika was a social movement in search of a universal method to solve all problems through modelling and new objective language.929
The roots of Soviet cybernetic thinking and theory go back the 1930s to men like
Nikolai Bukharin and Aleksandr Bogdanov who applied international trends in systems theory to social and political thinking. Their legacy was purged by Stalin in the
1930s, and systems theory and later Western cybernetic theory remained condemned
as “idealist, anti-proletarian and imperialist” during Stalin’s reign.930 Nevertheless, formal sciences were freed from the ideological supervision which enabled the Soviets
to develop computers or EVMs (electronic calculating machines or elektronnaia
vychislite’naia mashina) for nuclear weapon, ballistic missile, and radar development
programmes.931 This independent and secretive development and the ideological requirement to eschew Western terms led to a particularly Soviet language in the computer sciences.932 Cybernetics was rehabilitated from a “a reactionary pseudo-science”
in the late 1950s and 1960s to a “science in the service of communism.”933 By the1970s cybernetics had gone through a fashionable phase and subsequently lost its
intellectual content and appeal and was displaced by informatics.934 Later, in the 1990s
cybernetics was blamed for many of the shortcomings of the Soviet sciences.935 The
popularity of cybernetics was partly based on its use in the de-Stalinization of Soviet
928 Sakwa 2008, 371; Trenin, 2001.
929 Gerovitch 2002, 1.
930 Susiluoto 2006.
931 Ibid., 390-391.

932 Ibid., 114-118; Gerovich 2002, 8.
933 Kolbanovski, E. Kol'man, Eds., The Socio-Economic Literature Publishing House (Sotsekgiz), Moscow,

1961. Quoted and translated in Willis, H. Ware and Holland, Wade B. Soviet Cybernetics Technology: I. Soviet
Cybernetics 1959-1962. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1963, 4.
934 Gerovich 2002, 4; Peters 2016, 47-48.
935 Gerovich 2002, 4. Susiluoto and Peters share this view of the development of Soviet cybernetics (Susiluoto
2006 & Peters 2016).

132science and in the way it resonated with the ideal of scientifically controlled Soviet
society and system.936 Nevertheless, it was later embraced by political power andturned into a vehicle of the status quo.937 Despite its failure, the United States saw theSoviet adoption of cybernetics as a possible threat worthy of surveillance.938 This isunderstandable as the Americans were themselves trying to win the Vietnam war
based on systems analysis and operational research.939
The Soviet cybernetics were already being deployed by the military in the 1950s andits ideas were eventually transferred to the civilian side through experimental economic policy proposals.940 Cybernetics was attractive because on the economic side it
promised to reform the Soviet economic system and on the military side it provided
automated command and control systems for military purposes.941 Pioneers of cybernetics argued in 1955-1963 for its ability to manage the Soviet economy through networked computers which would greatly increase the economy’s efficiency and reduce
red tape.942 This project ultimately failed because of the unofficial features of the Soviet economic system and because of the political and armed forces’ opposition. The
idea surfaced again in the 1970s and 1980s, however, without any marked successexcept perhaps pushing the Soviets towards developing and producing personal computers.943 Personal computers were copied from the Western models with poor success, and they were not allowed to connect through networks.944 During the 1970s1980s there was a real interest in the development of networks, as the Soviets were
aware of the development of the ARPANET and the technological lead that the West
had begun to gain in the 1970s, but no real progress was made.945 Ilmari Susiluoto hassummarized this evolving Soviet ‘information society’ as closed, centralized, vertical,
and controlled by the security services.946 According to Gerovitch, Soviet scientists
and politicians never accepted the idea of a network gradually growing from below,
because it would have been inefficient and politically dangerous. They tried to build
networks from the top down but ended up duplicating exciting hierarchies of power
936 For example, cf. Афанасьев, В.Г. Общество: системность, познание и управление. М: Издательство

политической литературы, 1981.
937 Gerovich 2002, 8-10; Peters 2016, 53.
938 Cf. Levien, Roger and Maron, M. E. Cybernetics and Its Development in the Soviet Union. Santa Monica:
RAND Corporation, 1964.
939 Bousquet, Antoine. Cyberneticizing the American war machine: science and computers in the Cold War.
Cold War History Vol. 8, No. 1 (February 2008), 77-102.
940 Gerovitch 2008, 338-339.
941 Peters 2016, 78; Gerovitch 2002, 265.
942 These were men like Anatoli Ivanovich Kitov (1920-2005), Sergei Sobolev (1908-1989), Aleksei Lyapunov(1911-1973), Alexander Kharkevich (1904-1965), Aksel Berg (1893-1979) and Viktor Glushkov (1923-1982),
among many others. (Берг, А. И., Китов, А. И., Ляпунов, А. А. “О возможностях автоматизации управления народным хозяйством” Москва. Ноябрь 1959 [Online]. Available: http://www.kitov-anatoly.ru/naucnye-trudy/izbrannye-naucnye-trudy-anatolia-ivanovica-v-pdf/o-vozmoznostah-avtomatizacii-upravlenia-narodnym-hozajstvom [Accessed: 23rd November 2018]).
943 Gerovitch 2002 & 2008.
944 Susiluoto claims that from the end of 1960s Western computers developed towards general and universal
functionality, whereas Soviet computers were tailored towards specific functions which reduced their combability. Susiluoto argues that the inherent secrecy of the Soviet system and the relations between informationand power led to the backwardness of the Soviet computer science. However, the Soviet Union produced its
own family of Elbrus micro- and super-computers which were advertised as comparable or superior to Western
ones. Most personal computers were poor copies of Western models. In 1989 50% of Soviet computers were
20-25 years behind Western ones and 49% were 10-15 behind. (Susiluoto 2006).
945 Peters 2016, 166-169; Gerovitch 2008, 364-365.
946 Susiluoto 2006, 174-175.

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which nullified the expected benefits of networks.947
The cybernetics dreams culminated in the variously named state-wide Economic Automatic Management System (EASU), All-state Automated System (OGAS) or AllState Automated System of Management (OGAS(U)). They were based on the ideaof a system that would have connected Soviet decision-makers and factories etc. forsharing information and to rationalize planning and production on a national scale.
This would have been the nervous-system and the brain of Soviet command economy. Officially the system of networks and computers connected to it would havebeen hierarchical, pyramidical and centrally controlled, but the Soviet scientists hadvisions that corresponded to the Western ideas of freely networking systems and evensurpassed them.948 The main concepts related to OGAS(U) were automated management systems or ASUs (avtomatizirovannaia sistema upravleniia) which referred to“...a kind of local area network that allowed mainframe computers to control andcommunicate with factory machinery through a series of automated feedback loops
and programmable control processes”949 and “the unified information network” (edinaia sistema svyazi) or “unified territorial network” which would enable centralizedcommand of computation centres.950 The ASU was not only a computer but also asystem that enabled planning and management of processes based on the collection
and processing of information.951 The unified information network would connect
computer centres through phone lines and would provide computation power to industry and agencies that did not have their own computers.952
Although ideas about automated command and control systems (ASU)953 and networks migrated from the military to the civilian side, the infrastructure of the military
remained separated and closed. It resisted civilian ideas of dual use of its networks
947 Gerovitch 2008, 347. Also cf. Кутейников, Алексей Викторович. Проект общегосударственной авто-матизированной системы управления советской экономикой (ОГАС) и проблемы его реализации в
1960-1980-х гг. Диссертации на соискание ученой степени кандидата исторических наук. Кафедра Исторической информатики Московского государственного университета имени М.В. Ломоносова.
Москва, 2011 [Online]. Available: http://www.hist.msu.ru/Science/Disser/Kuteinikov.pdf [Accessed: 23rd
March 2019]; Виртуальный компьютерный музей [Online]. Available: http://www.computer-museum.ru/[Accessed: 23rd March 2019].
948 Peters 2016, 108, 120; Gerovitch 2008, 335.
949 Peters 2016, 86.
950 Peters 2016, 221; Gerovitch 2002, 265.
951 Берг, Китов & Ляпунов 1959.
952 Берг А. И., Китов А. И., Ляпунов А. А. Радиоэлектронику – на службу управления народным хозяйством. Коммунист № 9 1960, 21-28. [Online]. Available: http://odasib.ru/openarchive/Document Image.cshtml?id=Xu1_pavl_635766969644249164_16578&eid=L5_0003_0866 [Accessed: 23rd March 2019].
On Soviet cybernetic thought cf. Анатолий Иванович Китов [Online]. Available: http://www.kitov-anatoly.ru/home [Accessed: 23rd March 2019].
953 As Eglé Rindzeviciuté argues the Soviets translated the word ‘control’ used by Norbert Wiener as upravlenie
which means regulation aimed at correction or management by supervision. Christopher Donnelly claims that‘upravlenie’ in the context of running the military should be translated as management or administration
whereas ‘upravlenie voiskami’ translates to command and control. However, ‘upravlenie voiskami’ also includes
maintaining readiness and training. ‘Kontrol’ means monitoring and checking, not commanding which is‘rukovodstvo voiskami’. I shall use ‘command and control’ when discussing military systems because that is anestablished term in military English, and I shall use management in the civilian context. (Rindzeviciuté, Eglé.
Constructing Soviet Cultural Policy: Cybernetics and Governance in Lithuania after World War II. Linköping,
Linköping University, 2008; Donnelly, Christopher. Red Banner. The Soviet Military System in Peace and War.
Coulsdon: Jane’s Information Group, 1988, 136). A Soviet engineer Colonel P. Tkachenko defined upravleniein the context of military cybernetics as “the process of functioning of command and control organs aimed at
obtaining specified results under known initial conditions.” These included both technological and social systems. (Ткаченко, П. Кибернетика в управлении войсками. Военная мысль № 1, 1962, 35-48, 38.)

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and produced its own computers which were advanced but tailor-made for militarysystems and did not support civilian industry.954 The Soviet military built networks foran air defence system, a missile defence system, and a space surveillance system—
each with its own centralized computer network during the 1950-1960s.955 The military knew about the United States’ SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment)
air defence network and later ARPANET.956 It approached networks through the lensof an arms race and possible nuclear war. The dual-use of military technology andnetworks would have been a risk, which the military did not want to take.957
Based on the articles in the Voennaia Mysl’ journal the Soviet military was aware ofcybernetic ideas from the late 1950s onward.958 In 1961, A. Berg, A. Kitov and A.
Liapunov published an article named “Cybernetics in military affairs” in which they
defined the science of kibernetika and its role in military affairs as: “The use of cybernetics in the military is aimed at increasing the effectiveness [speed and accuracy] of
the command and control [upravlenie] of weapons and troops through the use ofscientific methods and modern technical means for collecting and processing information and developing control commands.”959 The tasks of kibernetika would be thedevelopment of the autonomous guidance systems, automated command and control
systems, in addition to automated planning and management processes for headquarters. These systems and processes were supposed to handle processes that were becoming too complex and fast, and involved too much information for humans tohandle. They would also offer optimal solutions for human decision-makers, even on
military operational issues.960
The ideas of Berg, Kitov and Liapunov were repeated in later articles although notwithout criticism and discussion.961 During the 1980s kibernetika as a term was replaced on the pages of Voennaia Mysl’ by informatics962, mathematics etc. but its influence was arguably felt through the 1990s.963 Based on the USSR General Staff Lectures from 1969 which were translated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in
954 Susiluoto 2006, 174; Gerovitch 2008, 344.
955 Gerovitch 2008, 338.

956 Gerovitch 2008, 344. ARPANET’s military connections might have been a surprise for the Soviets (Peters

2016, 91-92).
957 Gerovich 2008; Hoffman 2009.
958 Kipp, Jacob W. Confronting the RMA in Russia. Military Review Vol. LXXVII - May-June 1997, No. 3,49-55; Kipp, Jacob W. The Methodology of Foresight and Forecasting in Soviet Military Affairs. Fort Leavenworth, KS: SASO, 1987; Womack, James K. Soviet Correlation of Forces and Means: Quantifying Modern
Operations. Master’s thesis. Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1990.
959 Берг, А., Китов, А. and Ляпунов, А. Кибернетика в военном деле. Военная мысль № 2, 1961, 19-31,
19.
960 Ibid., 22.
961 For example, Colonel P. Tkachenko pointed out that ‘automated command and control’ could never betruly automated because the commanding of troops included creative elements which cannot be automatized.
He proposed as a replacement the term “automated data processing system for command and control”(Ткаченко 1962). Tkachenko was criticised in turn by others. (Варе, В. Кибернетика в управлении войсками.
Военная мысль № 7 1962, 17-30; Дмитриев, А. Кибернетика и военное дело. Военная мысль № 1 1970,
89-96; Анuреев, II. И. Расширение сфер применения кибернетики в военном деле. Военная мысль № 4
1978, 71-77.
962 The late Soviet era definition of informatics stated that cybernetics was its subcomponent which dealt withthe applied methods of studying automation etc. (‘Информатика’ Большой советской энциклопедии. М.:“Советская энциклопедия”, 1969 – 1978 г. [Online]. Available: https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/bse/90897[Accessed: 22nd March 2019].)963 Kipp 1997.

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1976, automated command and control systems and cybernetics featured strongly in
the Soviet command and communications theory and practice.964 Cybernetics thenwas not only written about in journals, it was taught in the highest military academiesof the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the so-called “third” Soviet military-technologicalrevolution was related to cybernetics.965
In the 1970s Soviet military scholars started to perceive a forthcoming military-technological revolution (MTR) in the military applications of future technologies—partly
based on the American conduct of the Vietnam war.966 The Soviets developed theconcepts of the reconnaissance strike (RUK) and fire (ROK) complexes, i.e. ‘systemof systems’ that combined reconnaissance, fire, and command and control. According
to Adamsky, the Soviet and Western discussion about RUK/ROK shows how theSoviets deliberately used ‘Western concepts’ to discuss their own ideas through Western concepts and thus masked their own theoretical development. Ironically, theWesterners referred to RUK/ROK as genuinely Soviet concepts.967 Ultimately, at theend of the 1980s Andrew W. Marshall and others in the Office of Net Assessment(ONA) argued that the Soviets had identified a kind of revolution in military affairsbrought about by technological development.968 In practice the Soviet MTR was interrupted by the fall of the Soviet Union which seriously affected the Armed Forcesbudget, while the U.S. Armed Forces began their RMA.969 During the 1990s there
were no economic resources or enough political will to push through modernizationof the military forces in the way envisioned by the MTR/RMA advocates.970 Thishistory explains why the Russians feel a certain affinity with the American NCW and
its principles.
Cybernetics thus had its civilian and military aspects, and it manifested as theoreticaldreams and practical solutions. Moreover, it is quite likely that it also affected the way
in which the Soviets planned and prepared to mobilise for war. Furthermore, it islikely that cybernetics affected the way in which the Russians began to see information
security as a system.971
4.2.5 Information superiority
During the 1960s and early 1970s the benefits gained from automated information
management systems were discusses by the Soviet military in connection with theCIA. “General Staff Academy Lectures: Principles of the Automation and Mechanization of Troop Control.” Document VII-211. Prepared 6 September 1968, published October 1969; CIA/DO Intelligence Information Special Report, 11 November 1976 [Online]. Available: https://www.cia.gov/library/ readingroom/docs/1976-11-11.pdf [Accessed: 6th November 2019].
965 Cf. Adamsky 2008 & 2010.
966 Adamsky 2008, 263.
967 Adamsky 2008 & 2010.
968 Ibid. “In 1993, the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) contracted an alumnus, Jeff McKitterick, and his teamat the Strategic Analysis Center (SAC) within SAIC organized a series of workshops and war-games related to
exploring the Soviet concepts of a military-technical revolution. McKitterick went on to change the name MTR
to RMA and organized a series of war-games around key concepts: dominant manoeuvre and precision engagement.” (Jensen 2018, 302-317). Cf. Also Palmer, Diego A. Ruiz. The NATO-Warsaw Pact competition in the
1970s and 1980s: a revolution in military affairs in the making or the end of a strategic age? Cold War History,
Vol. 14, No.4 (2014), 533–573.
969 Locksley 2001.
970 Renz, Bettina. Russia’s Military Revival. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018, 54-55.
971 Cf. Расторгуев 1999.
964

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efficiency of command and control and helping the commander to handle large
amounts of information.972 The idea of information superiority appeared implicitly in
the Soviet military thinking during the 1970s as the importance of automated information systems increased. They were seen to provide faster planning and decisionmaking relative to the enemy.973 This development was related to the establishmentof military command and control as an independent subject in the Soviet militarysciences in 1979 and to the development of the first ASUs by the Soviet military.974
Interestingly the idea of ‘spiritual’ and ‘ideological’ superiority, in addition to technological, was also already present in the 1970s.975 The idea of faster command and control cycles (tsikla upravleniia) was expressed in 1978 by professor General-Major I. I.
Anureev who stated that: “If the time of command and control cycle is long enoughand the conditions of efficiency [operativnost’] are not met, then the losses will besignificant and the effectiveness of the troops may be low, despite their potentiallyhigh combat capabilities.”976 As the tempo of current and future war was increasing,a faster process of command and control was required to avoid destruction.977 During
the first half of 1980s, the importance of ensuring the functioning of command andcontrol led logically to the importance of denying the opponent his capabilities—orto counter C2 warfare (narushenie upravleniia voiskami).978 This increased the role of
EW in warfare and gave birth to the term radio electronic superiority (radioelektronnoe prevoskhodstvo).979 General Major I. I. Vorob’ev summarized these developments in 1984 by stating that: “The confrontation [protivoborstvo] in the sphere ofcommand and control, along with the struggle [bor’ba] for fire superiority, for air
supremacy, and with the anti-tank combat [bor’ba] becomes the most important component of the content of modern battle [boi] (operation).”980
In 1990 this set of ideas was mature enough that Colonel A. Ia. Vainer could call it “astruggle in the sphere of control and command” (protivoborstvo v sfere upravleniia).
972 Берг, Китов & Ляпунов 1961; Ткаченко 1961; Дружинин, В., Конторов, Д. Методика решения опера-тивных задач с применением средств автоматизации. Военная мысль № 1, 1970, 40-52; Дружинин, В.,Конторов, Д. Руководство и автоматизация. Военная мысль № 6 1973, 24-34; Лифшиц, А., Розенберг,В. О комплексе математического обеспечения автоматизированных систем управления войсками. Военная мысль № 6 1974, 41-48; Дружинин, В. В. and Конторов, Д. С. О некоторых новых аспектах проблемы автоматизации управления войсками. Военная мысль № 12 1975, 28-40.
973 Помбрик, И. Д. Обеспечение непрерывности управления войсками в современных операциях. Военная мысль № 3 1976, 50-57; Жованик, А. А. О роли связи в автоматизированных системах управления
войсками. Военная мысль № 11 1976, 28-39; Стишковский, В. М. Задачи и возможности военной связи.
Военная мысль № 3 1977, 40-50; Евстигнеев, Е. А., Вичугов, Е. С. О повышении эффективности использования ЭВМ в штабах и учреждениях. Военная мысль № 9 1977, 60-69.
974 Савченко, В.Ф. Теория военного управления история и современность. Военная мысль № 11 2007,
50-58.
975 3айнуплин, Р. X. Средства массовой информации и идеологическая борьба в современных войнах.
Военная мысль, № 5 1978, 16-30.
976 Анuреев 1978, 74.
977 Лосик, О. А. Развитие оружия, боевой техники и способов боевых действий. Военная мысль № 2
1979, 12-21; Сенюков, А. В. О некоторых аспектах применения кибернетики в управлении войсками.
Военная мысль № 4 1979, 76-80; Шурупов, Г. Управление войсками—на уровень современных требований. Военная мысль № 5 1979, 33-44.
978 Назаренко, В. А. Нарушение управления войсками — важная боевая задача. Военная мысль № 7 1983,
46-51; Евстигнеев, Е. А., Сухоруков, Ю. С. Об основных направлениях обеспечения устойчивости автоматизированного управления войсками в операции (бою). Военная мысль № 9 1989, 42-50.
979 Воробьев 1984a; Воробьев, И. Н. Новое оружие— новая тактика. Военная мысль 1984 № 6, 47-59;
Салманов, Г, И. Советская военная доктрина и некоторые взгляды на характер войны в защиту социализма. Военная мысль № 12 1988, 3-13.
980 Воробьев 1984b, 49-50.

137Vainer distinguished three elements of this struggle. The first according to Vainer was
the struggle for information superiority. Information is circulated in and between
command and control systems and the side that can secure faster and better information while denying the opponent the same ability gains the superiority. The second
was a creative- and knowledge-based intellectual struggle which is conducted throughreason and ideas related to the optimization of one’s own decisions and deceiving theenemy through stratagems. The third element was a technological struggle which was
based on computer software, its algorithms and optimization, including artificial intelligence, and software/information security.981 Vainer’s article was followed by others emphasising the different aspects of ‘command and control warfare’ etc. They
were probably inspired by the Gulf War.982
By 1993 the terms ‘information weapon’ (informatsionnoe oruzhie) and ‘information
support’ or ‘security’ (informatsionnoe obespechenie or bezopasnost’) were introduced into the Russian military thinking in the context of information superiority.
Both concepts had technological and psychological aspects from the start.983 Consequently, in 1996 Colonel S. A. Komov could argue that information warfare had been
conducted in all wars, but during the previous ten years, IW had begun to predetermine the course and outcome of all hostilities.984 Komov also considered information
superiority as an important element of IW and offered an operational definition of
IW divining it into information support, information counter-measures and information defence measures.985 According to General Major I. N. Vorob’ev, the information-psychological struggle could already be conducted during peacetime and,
therefore, could be understood as ‘a strategy of indirect action’ (strategiia nepriamykh
deistvii) which promised the achievement of objectives without the use of direct, open
military force.986 For Vorob’ev this meant that the actual future wars would be shortand fought with information-technological means and long-range precision weapons,
which meant that information superiority (including its technological and psychological aspects) was the key to victory.987 Similarly, Pirumov and Rodionov claimed in
1997 that information superiority was required to win wars and it necessitated morecomprehensive, accurate, authentic, and timely situation information than that possessed by the enemy’s command and control agencies.988
The idea of information superiority was quite-well established in the Russian military
thinking by the end of 1990s, although some commentators argued that its theoretical

981 Вайнер, А. Я. О противоборстве в сфере управления. Военная мысль № 9 1990, 12-16.
982 Португальский, Р. М. О борьбе в сфере управления войсками. Военная мысль № 3 1991; Палий, А.

И. Борьба с системами боевого управления в операциях вооруженных сил НАТО. Военная мысль № 4
1991; Захаров, А. Н. Тенденции развития вооруженной борьбы. Военная мысль № 11 1991, 9-15; Владимиров А.В. Информационное оружие: миф или реальность? Красная звезда № 5 (октября) 1991.
983 Фефелов, Б.В. Информационное обеспечение системы управления войсками. Военная мысль № 1
1993, 36-39; Поздняков 1993; Комов, С.А О концепции информационной безопасности страны. Военная мысль № 4 1994, 12-17; Лукашкин & Ефимов 1995; Коротченко 1996.
984 Комов, С. А. Информационная борьба в современной войне: вопросы теории. Военная мысль № 3
1996, 76-80; Комов, С. А. О способах и формах ведения информационной борьбы. Военная мысль №
4 1997, 18-22.
985 Thomas 2001, 787.
986 Воробьев 1997. Here Vorob’ev echoes the ideas presented earlier by Gareev (Gareev 1998).
987 Ibid. Also Гулин 1997.
988 Pirumov & Rodionov 1997.

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aspects needed further development.989 It is interesting to note, that although the Soviets saw the pursuit of conventional and nuclear military superiority as hopeless, they,and later the Russians, did not have the same view on information warfare.990 It could
be argued that information was seen as something novel, and as such, providing adecisive advantage. It is also more than possible that the Russians copied the concept
of information superiority from Western sources, although who influenced who ismore difficult to ascertain. Both shared the same core principle: information superiority was based on ‘better’ information than the opponent, protection of that information, and denying information from the opponent.991 An important point must be
made here that when some Soviet and Russian military writers argued that information superiority was becoming ever more important for future warfare many ofthem meant advanced digitalized command and control systems and counter-C2 warfare in the context of military operations. The psychological aspect was present in the
texts, but information-technological warfare was clearly a distinct phenomenon.
4.2.6 Information-technological warfare
As was argued above, according to the Western research, the Russian view on information warfare has two aspects: information-technical/technological and information-psychological. Moreover, these aspects are connected by a view which emphasises the target or objective of an ‘information struggle’ instead of means of information warfare. In the context of modern Russian military thought (ca. 2015)
Adamsky has argued that the Russian approach to information-technological warfare
is based on historical continuity. The first source is the Soviet MTR/RMA thinking
which emphasised disrupting the enemy’s decision-making process by targeting its
C4ISR capabilities. The second source is the tradition of maskirovka and active
measures which aim to deny, deceit, disinform, and conceal, i.e. to manipulate enemy’s
consciousness and produce favourable behaviour. The third source is the Soviet science of cybernetics.992
What has been meant by information-technological war or warfare has changed overtime.993 However, during the 1970s and 1980s the technological aspect of warfare wasemphasised by Marshal Ogarkov and others who were writing about the MTR.994 Integration of reconnaissance and weapons through command and control channels
gave birth to the ideas of ROK/RUK. Moreover, autonomous operational manoeuvring groups (OMGs) fighting deep inside NATO lines required advanced automated989 Костин 1997, 44; Родионо 1998; Круглов, В. В. О вооруженной борьбе будущего. Военная мысль №

5 1998, 54-58; Завадский, И.И. Информационная война — что это такое? Защита информации. Конфидент № 4 1996. Quoted in: Расторгуев 1999, 55.
990 Fitzgerald 1987a, 4.
991 Печуров, С.Л. Революция в военном деле взгляд с Запада. Военная мысль № 4 (7-8) 1997, 73-80;Суровцева, Елена. Запад переходит в информационное наступление. Красная звезда № 109 1997. Cf.
Also Palmer 2014; Adamsky 2008 & 2010; Jensen 2018. On the American views in the 1990s: “[IW] consistsof the actions taken to preserve the integrity of one’s own information systems from exploitation, corruption,
or destruction, while at the same time exploiting, corrupting, or destroying an adversary’s information systems
and, in the process, achieving an information advantage in the application of force.” Fredrichs, Brian E. Information Warfare at the Crossroads. Joint Forces Quarterly, Summer 1997, 97-103 [Online]. Available:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a529170.pdf [Accessed: 14th November 2018].
992 Adamsky 2015 & 2018.
993 Kline 2015, 191-192; Gerovich 2002 & 2008; Gerovich 2002, 140-141.
994 Fitzgerald, 1992, 347-362; Fitzgerald 1987b, 31-32.

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command and control systems (ASUV) (avtomatizirovannaia sistema upravleniia
voiskami).995 By the 1980s, Soviet military writers understood that the availability of
automated command and control systems and communications had become a decisive factor on the modern battlefield—the ability to manoeuvre and fire upon theenemy was dependent on them.996 This view elevated radio electronic warfare to a new
status, and placed higher requirements of efficiency, high quality, stability, reliability,
secrecy (operativnost’, vysokoe kachestvo, ustoichvost’, nadezhnost’, skrytnost’) on
command and control.997 The approach resonated with the Western ideas of Command, Control and Communications Countermeasures (C3CM), which later evolved
into Command and Control Warfare (C2W) at the same time in the West.998 Soviet
military writers followed the developments in the West, and predicted the introduction of autonomous weapon systems, and digitalized C3I capabilities.999
By the late 1980s the term ‘software’ (programmnoe obespechenie) entered the Soviet
lexicon from the West which indicated that the Soviet writers were aware of the qualitative changes in computer technology and the ways it could change warfare.1000 Additionally, many Soviet theorists thought that the new conventional weapons basedon novel physical principles would be as global in reach and as effective as weaponsof mass destruction.1001 Consequently, the Soviet military was highly aware of the vulnerability of its strategic communication and early warning systems and feared a surprise attack against them followed by a decapitation strike with nuclear weapons.1002
Counter command and control warfare and radio electronic warfare began to coalesce
at the beginning of the 1990s into information warfare or struggle. The distinct technological aspect was the continuation of the MTR thinking, although the psychological aspect was also present from the early on, as was clear from A. Ia. Vainer’s categorization of the information, intellectual, and technological struggle.1003 Vainer highlighted the dual short-term and long-term nature of the technological struggle. The
short term indicated that EW and software manipulation were connected to the bat-

995 Ibid., 33-35.
996 Стишковский 1977; Лосик 1979; Воробьев 1984a.

997 Kokoshin 1998, 138; Шурупов 1979; Воробьев, И. Н. Новое оружие и развитие принципов общевой-скового боя. Военная мысль No. 11 1983, 35-45.
998 Kaplan 2016, 14-16; Layman, Gene A. C3CM – A Warfare Strategy. Naval War College Review, Vol. 38,
No. 2 (March-April 1985), 31-42; Larson, Doyle E. Exploiting Electronic Warfare. Air Force Magazine, July
1981. The C2W concept was official defined as late as 1996 as “the integrated use of psychological operations(PSYOPS), military deception, operations security (OPSEC), electronic warfare (EW), and physical destruction,
mutually supported by intelligence, to deny information to, influence, degrade, or destroy adversary C2 capabilities while protecting friendly C2 capabilities against such actions.” United States Department of Defence,
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Doctrine for Command and Control Warfare (C2W) Joint Pub 3-13.1, 7th February
1996, v. [Online]. Available: https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a357635.pdf [Accessed: 27th November
2018].
999 Пощипов, И. Н. Американская концепция «управление, связь и разведка». Военная мысль № 7 1986,
63-72.
1000 Ниесов, В. А. Состояние программного обеспечения автоматизированных систем управления вооруженными силами США. Военная мысль № 6 1988, 64-72.
1001 Fitzgerald 1987b, 35.
1002 Hoffman 2009, 147-150; Hines et al. 1995a, 16-19; Podvig, Pavel. The Operational Status of the Russian
Space-Based Early Warning System. Science & Global Security, Vol.4 (1994), 363-384; Blair, Bruce. The Logicof Accidental Nuclear War. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1993; Yarynich, Valery E. C3: Nuclear
Command, Control Cooperation. Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information, 2003.
1003 Вайhep 1990.

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tlefield and the long term indicated the level and potential gap of technological development between adversaries.1004 The information-technological component was soimportant that Rear-Admiral V. S. Pirumov argued that ‘information support’ (informatsionnoe obespechenie), i.e. electronic systems and computers, were an integral
part of the combat potential and needed to be added to the correlation of forces
calculations.1005 At the same time Tsymbal and others were arguing that information
weapons might be as destructive as the weapons of mass destruction.1006 In 1996 S. V.
Markov offered one of the first definitions of information weapons as pieces of information affecting the information processes of information systems.1007 Later Vitalii
Tsygichko and others classified information weapons into the means to locate anddestroy equipment emitting signals in the electromagnetic spectrum, means to affectthe components of electronic equipment and software and data traffic, as well as themeans to spread propaganda and disinformation, and also psychotronic weapons.1008
These ideas were echoed by A. N. Lukashkin and A.I. Efimov who argued in 1995
that the computerization of critical systems would make the infosphere the futureobject of military confrontation.1009 Although Lukashkin and Efimov did not refer toWestern sources, it is quite clear that they were aware of the debate on the protectionof critical infrastructure going on in the United States at the time.1010 The way in which
the duo attacked the so-called ‘pessimists’ (sceptics) informs us that by 1995 the possibilities of ‘dangerous algorithms and software’ was not taken seriously by all in Russia. Others, like General Major E. G. Korotchenko, saw information as a tool of information-psychological struggle and an ongoing geopolitical confrontation to control the Russian people, weaken the moral of its armed forces, and to gain scientifictechnological superiority over Russia. For Korotchenko computer viruses, various
means of EW, microwave generators and means of software-mathematical influence
could be used to destabilize whole nations by striking at military and civilian targets
during peacetime or war.1011 This transitory and dual nature of IW was present in the
1995 edition of the Russian Military Encyclopaedia which equated information weapons with psychological warfare but ‘military informatics’ with theory about automatedinformation processing.1012 In the mid-1990s many Russian scholars followed theWestern discourse on IW theory and not only the conduct of American military operations. However, they still employed Marxist-Leninist ideas and cybernetic models
to conceptualize information-technical warfare.1013

1004 Ibid.

1005 Pirumov 1992.
1006 Thomas 1998b, 45. Цымбал 1995; Владимиров 1991; Смолян, Цыгичко & Черешкин 1995.
1007 Thomas 2005, 170.
1008 Thomas 2005, 168.

1009 Лукашкин & Ефимов 1995, 49.
1010 Boys, James D. The Clinton administration’s development and implementation of cybersecurity strategy(1993–2001), Intelligence and National Security, Vol.33, No.5 (2018), 755-770.
1011 Коротченко 1996.
1012 ‘Военная информатика’ Военная энциклопедиа, Том. III. М.: Военное издательство, 1995, 362-363.
1013 Костин 1996 & 1997; Глазов & Ловцов 1997. A source of inspiration was John Wardens ‘Five-ring model’(Warden, John. The enemy as a system. Airpower Journal, Vol. IX, No. 1, 1999 (Spring), 40-55.) On Warden’s
influence on the Western operational art cf. Vego, Milan. Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practise, Vol.
1. Newport: US Naval War College, 2007, XII-53-63.

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For example, Rastorguev, who was commissioned to write a book called Information
War for the Russian Security Council, defined IW as “a battle between states involving
the use of exclusively information weapons in the sphere of information models.” He
was especially interested in modelling how information weapons could affect information systems and defined information weapons “as means directed at activating (orblocking) information system processes in which the subject using the weapons has
an interest. An information weapon can be any technical, biological, or social meansor system that is used for the purposeful production, processing, transmitting, presenting or blocking of data and or processes that work with the data.”1014 According
to Rastorguev, information does not in itself destroy anything but it affects the enemy’s system which might destroy itself.1015
In one way or another, many Russian scholars approached information-technological/technical warfare/struggle/confrontation in the context of a more expansive orcomprehensive information-psychological confrontation/struggle. They also distinguished the information warfare means of wartime from those of peacetime. They
highlighted the importance of technological means, although they perhaps saw theobjective to reside at the strategic or political level.1016 Information-technological warfare/confrontation was an integral part of the visions of the future character of war.1017
Additionally, at the turn of the millennium, with nuclear deterrence as the backboneof Russia’s defence, the vulnerabilities of the command and control systems of strategic nuclear forces were an important topic.1018 Therefore, it can be argued that information-technological means were seen by the Russian military thinkers in the
1990s as an intrinsic part of the modern warfare and strategic stability, but there is noclear evidence that they had solved the question of how these concepts were supposed
to be realized in organizations, or as concepts, and used by forces or implemented asmeans—let alone come up with a ‘holistic’ strategy. At the beginning of 2000s theseideas were still underdeveloped, but the basic elements had been formulated. When
the Chief of the General Staff Valeri Gerasimov produced his presentation about
future warfare in 2013 his views were based on ideas articulated already in the
1990s.1019
4.2.7 Automated command and control systems
Automated command and control systems were already explicitly and implicitly mentioned in the article by Berg, Kitov and Liapunov in 1961.1020 Subsequently, they became the central concept around which the Soviet kibernetik ideas revolved. The terminology of ASUs is diverse and for clarity’s sake I will use the term ‘automated command and control systems’ (abbreviated as ASU) to refer to a group of different terms
1014 Quoted in Thomas 2005, 78. Original Расторгуев, Сергей Павлович.

Введение в формальную теорию
информационной войны. Москва: Вузовская книга, 2002.
1015 Thomas 2005.
1016 Комов 1996; Комов 1997; Pirumov 1992; Pirumov & Rodionov 1997; Расторгуев 1999; Смолян, Цыгичко & Черешкин 1995; Цыгичко, Вотрин, Крутских, Смолян & Черешкин 2000; Черешкин, Смолян
& Цыгичко 1996.
1017 Круглов 1998; Слипченко, Владимир. Война будущего (прогностический анализ). 1999 [Online].
Available: https://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/112810/Slipchenko_-_Voiina_budushchego_%28
prognosticheskiii_analiz%29.html [Accessed: 14th November 2018]; Воробьев 1997; Gareev 1998.
1018 Рукшин 2000.
1019 Герасимов, Валерий. Ценность науки в предвидении. ВПК № 8 (476) 2013, 1-3.
1020 Берг, Китов & Ляпунов 1961, 19.

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that were used during the Soviet and Russian times.1021 I will concentrate here on theideas about military ASUs as civilian ideas have been examined by Gerovich, Petersand Susiluoto and presented above in the context of ‘kibernetik’.
The Soviet military was interested in ASUs from the 1960s.1022 Colonel P. Tkachenko
described them in 1961 as the “automation of information processing using electronic
machines.” He however argued that the creative processes inherent in command andcontrol could not be automated.1023 This statement expressed an argument which theSoviets had difficulties solving on the level of military theory: Could and should machines be more than support tools for commanders’ subjective creativity and what
were the ‘scientific principles’ of command and control?1024 There was also the problem of how to fit ASUs into the Marxist-Leninist theory and ‘partiinost’’ or partymindedness. A further problem was how the political principle of centralized control
was to be combined with shared computation capabilities or decentralized commandin general.1025 Nevertheless, as one commentator stated: “typical representatives ofcybernetic systems are automated command and control systems.”1026 And if cybernetics was politically acceptable after the 1950s, so were the ASUs.
According to the USSR General Staff Academy lecture materials from 1969, automated systems would increase the efficiency of control by reducing the time expended
on the control cycle, i.e. obtaining information, processing it, making decisions andtransmitting orders, and thus leaving more time for carrying out the orders by theforces.1027 The main processes to be automated were the collection of primary information; processing, formulation, reproduction, and the visual display of information;
performance of certain calculations; and transmission of information.1028 ASUs would
be used to connect the headquarters and forces of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact
to an integrated automated system of control.1029 Consequently, a Ministry of Defence
directive from the 2nd of December 1967 commanded “the combining of computer
centres of districts into a unified system connected to the ground forces computer

1021 Military sources use the term ‘avtomatizirovannaia sistema upravleniia voiskami’ (ASUV) which translates

to command and control systems of troops whereas civilian sources use ‘avtomatizirovannaia sistema upravleniia’ which translates to more general automated management systems. Berg, Kitov and Liapunov basicallymade this distinction in their article from 1961 (Берг, Китов & Ляпунов 1961).
1022 Computers were, for example, used to calculate optimal use of tactical nuclear weapons and air defence
systems. Chernov, L., Moiseyev, V. and Kiselev, A. Some Problems in the Use of Electronic Computers. Military thought – Secret version 1962, No. 6 (67). Translated and published by the Central Intelligence Agency,
Intelligence Information Special Report, 2nd June 1978 [Online]. Available: https://www.cia.gov/library/ readingroom/docs/1978-06-02b.pdf [Accessed: 29th November 2018].
1023 Ткаченко 1962.
1024 Варе 1962; Дружинин & Конторов 1970 & 1973; Дружинин, В. В., Конторов, Д. С. Принципы создания и применения автоматизированных систем управления войсками. Военная мысль № 8 1976, 43-54;
Андреев 1978; Горлов, А. И., Смирнов, С. С. О влиянии автоматизации на работу органов управления.
Военная мысль № 12 1984, 49-55.
1025 Алтухов, П. К. Предмет и содержание теории управления войсками. Военная мысль № 7 1975, 1525; Евстигнеев & Вичугов 1977; Соловьев, С. Л., Терехов, И. П. К вопросу о совершенствовании управления войсками. Военная мысль № 11 1980, 48-51.
1026 Жованик 1976, 28.
1027 CIA 1976.
1028 Ibid., 12. The distinctions between automated and automatic systems was already clear. Automatic systems
were only monitored by humans whereas automated systems required human thinking, will and decisions tooperate. (Ibid., 19)1029 Ibid., 13-14.

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centre […]”1030
The 1970s and early 1980s were an intensive period of ASU development in the Soviet
military. The command and control system of the strategic nuclear forces was upgraded multiple times from 1967 to 1985 and its automated functions increased inevery iteration.1031 The fear of a surprise nuclear attack and the establishment of thelaunch-on-warning doctrine made it necessary to build an early-warning (EW) system
based on networks, radars and satellites.1032 In the 1970s the military began to develop
operational, tactical and technical level ASUs to enable the control of military actions
from strategic operations on TVDs (theatre of military operations ‘teatr voennykh
deistvyi’) down to individual weapon systems. It also built a naval reconnaissance system which included space, air, and naval assets to track U.S. carried battlegroups andan integrated territorial air defence network. These systems suffered from the deficiencies of Soviet computer technology and were introduced to troops only haltingly
and partially.1033
The interest in automated systems was visible in the pages of the Soviet military encyclopaedia which in its 1976 edition gave a description only of automatic control
systems but the 1986 edition of the military encyclopaedic dictionary dedicated almosta page to automated command and control systems (ASU/ASUV).1034 They were defined as: “an interrelated set of information processing, data transmission and communication tools that automate the collection, analysis and assessment of the situation
data, decision making, planning, giving orders, and delivering tasks to the troops(forces) and the controlling their implementation.” The main task of the automatedcommand and control systems was to increase the efficiency, stability, flexibility, secrecy and quality of the processes of command and control of troops [operativnost’,ustoichivost’, gibkost’, skrytnost’, kachestva protsessov]. ASUVs were ‘unified systems’ that provided effective information-technological interaction between command posts.1035 Based on this definition, ASUs were not just computers but cybernetic
1030 Ibid., 27.
1031 Hoffman 2009, 147-148.

1032 Podvig, Pavel. History and the Current Status of the Russian Early-Warning System. Science and Global

Security, Vol. 10 (2002), 21–60; Podvig 2008.
1033 Nauta, Frank. Logistics Implications of Maneuver Warfare. Volume 3: Soviet Offensive Concepts and Capabilities. Bethesda, Maryland: Logistics Management Institute, 1988; Vego, Milan. Recce-Strike Complexes inSoviet Theory and Practice. Fort Leavenworth, KS: SASO, 1990; Тимошенко, Михаил. «Маневр» и маневры.
Арсенал. Военно-промышленное обозрение» №6, 2010 г.; Мосиенко, Юрий Иванович. «Маневр» –Первая советская АСУВ поля боя. «Арсенал» № 3 2011 г.; Андреев 2011; Безель, Я. В. Этапы развития
автоматизированных систем управления авиацией и ПВО. Вестник Концерна ПВО «Алмаз – Антей»,№2, 2015 [Online]. Available: http://www.almaz-antey.ru/upload/iblock/e95/e95a21ddf357267fc0137dbd3cace605.pdf [Accessed: 11th December 2018]; Алехин, Ю., Прохоров, А., Проценко, А. «Пирамида»начиналась с «воздуха». Воздушно-космическая оборона №1, 2011 г; Huchthausen & Sheldon-Duplaix,
2009, 233-234.
1034 ‘Автоматическая система’. Советская военная энциклопедия в восьми томах (СВЭ), Том I. M.: Военное издательство Министерства обороны, 1976, 82.
1035 ‘Автоматизированная система управления войсками (силами)’ Военный Энциклопедический Словарь, Том. I. M.: Военное издательство, 1986, 17. The term appeared with shorter definition already in 1983
Military encyclopaedic dictionary (‘Автоматизированная система управления войсками (силами)’. Военный
Энциклопедический Словарь, Том. I. M.: Военное издательство, 1983, 17). The ‘quality’ of communications was defined in a secret version of the Military Thought journal in 1970 as consisting of survivability,
reliability, security and speed. (Stishkovskiy, V. The Principal Ways of improving the quality of Military Communications. Military thought – Secret version 1970, No. 1 (89). Translated and published by the Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Special Report, 1st February 1974 [Online]. Available:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1974-02-01.pdf [Accessed: 29th November 2018].)144

systems which were used to control and manage the process of command. Additionally, already in 1983, one of their benefits was seen to be decentralization and themobility of command.1036 Interestingly, the technical requirements for ASUs were being discussed under the term ‘ustoichivost’’ which consisted of reliability, survivability, and noise immunity and which would later in the 2000s be understood as ‘resilience’. This ‘ustoichivost’’ could be affected by internal and external factors, the latterof which included kinetic force, EW, and software attacks.1037
In 1987 General Colonel V. N. Konchits argued that the contemporary aspects ofcommand and control were related to the increased tempo and volume of information, the possibly to provide optimal solutions and forecasting, and the vulnerability of complex systems. These were the same kind of issues that the Western armed
forces were starting to consider at the time.1038 Nevertheless, at least Konchits did notargue for decentralization and networking or for adopting other future RMA concepts
but, instead, for enhancing the role of staff and the commander who had to know
everything with the help of information support, i.e. ASUs.1039 The importance of
ASUs was reflected in strategic assessments. According to testimonial evidence, theSoviet military in the 1970s and 1980s considered command and communications thesecond most important target of possible the Western attack after nuclear weapons.1040
In more futuristic visions, command and control warfare was imagined as a kind of
struggle between ASUs supported by EW conducted on an operational level understrict control of divisional staff etc.1041 This view was different from the Western, perhaps more individualistic, ‘cyber warrior’ imaginary1042 and it might have led to different operational and strategic conclusions.
In the 1990s ASUs remained an important topic and in the 1997 edition of the Military
Encyclopaedia ‘automatization of command and control’ with subtopics covered multiple pages.1043 The definition of ASU had practically remained the same but future
perspectives now included further unification of systems, the use of personal computers and local networks, the use of common software and programming languages
etc. Obviously tailor-made, customized, independent systems were out of vogue.
Whatever the dictionaries claimed, the problems of inefficient and insufficient technology and theory seemed to be the reality.1044 Kibernetika was replaced by informatika, informatization and information theory, and the rapid ‘informatizatsiia’ produced
calls for standards and unification of ASU solutions. Military districts were offered as
the basis of the information structure of the armed forces as they were peacetime and1036 ‘Автоматизация управления войсками (силами)’ Военный Энциклопедический Словарь, Том. I. M.:

Военное издательство, 1983, 17-18; ‘Автоматизация управления войсками (силами)’. Военный Энциклопедический Словарь, Том. I. M.: Военное издательство, 1986, 66-70.
1037 Евстигнеев & Сухоруков 1989, 43.
1038 Adamsky 2010; Krepinevich 2002.
1039 Кончиц, R. Н. Совершенствование управления войсками в современном бою. Военная мысль No. 9
1987, 43-50.
1040 Huchthausen & Sheldon-Duplaix, 2009, 260-261.
1041 Евстигнеев & Сухоруков 1989.
1042 At least according to Thomas Rid, the 1970s and 1980s in the West were the age of counter-cultures,
cyberpunk and cyber cowboys (Rid 2016).
1043 ‘Автоматизация управления войсками (силами)’ Военная Энциклопедия в восьми томах, Том. I. M.:
Военное издательство, 1997, 67.
1044 Фефелов 1993.

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wartime formations and were responsible for operations in strategic directions.1045 Arguments were made for dispensing with the term of ASU and replacing it with more
modern ‘information systems’ and ’information networks’ as automation had lost its
distinctive meaning.1046 By the end of the 1990s a few scholars offered artificial intelligence either as a replacement for ASUs or as a new core component of ASUs1047
On the eve of the new millennium General Lieutenant V. V. Barvinenko argued, after
stating that previous efforts to create domestic ASUs had failed or were insufficient,
that: “The unified (combined-arms) ASU for the Armed Forces should be centralized,
hierarchical and territorial, have sophisticated horizontal links, and have verticaltrunks.” The modular, flexible and networked structure of automated systems of command and control, and the availability of functioning algorithms would make such asystem adaptive, able to adequately respond to changes in “the means and methodsof conducting military operations.”1048 Barvinenko’s statement was born out of frustration with the fragmented field of multiple types of ASUs used by the services andbranches of the Armed Forces. He also wished to create a global military information
network similar to the United States’ network which would facilitate the joint capabilities of the Armed Forces.1049 Others saw informatization as a way to finally build
an automated mobilization system.1050 By the end of 1990s, the Russian military scholars were actively thinking about ways to adopt modern ASUs to the Russian approachto conducting war. However, at that time, a lack of resources hindered the ‘fitting ofideas’ to reality.
Although ASUs are not explicitly mentioned in other strategic documents, the Information Security Doctrine of 2000 recognizes the concept of ASU and connects it toalmost all spheres of information security. In the context of the Doctrine ASUs might
be understood as a shorthand for ‘hardware and software’, but they are more thanthat. They secure the functioning of the economy and society, public and secret telecommunications, the command and control of the military, the functioning of the
judicial system etc. ASUs are systems, not pieces of hardware or pieces of code.1051
Thus, the strategic cultural idea of ASUs was quite alive when Russia entered the 21st
century. On the civilian side it offered ways to understand the information revolution
gripping Russia. On the military side it provided visions of how to arrange commandand control in future wars.

1045 Безуглый, А. С., Глвриленко, С. П. Об информационном моделировании в АСУВ. Военная мысль

№ 5 1994, 29-33; Кежаев, В.А. Совершенствование управления войсками: аспект информатизации. Военная мысль № 4 1996, 42-45; Ловцов, Д. А. Информационная безопасность АСУ войсками и оружием:теоретические аспекты. Военная мысль № 6 1996, 32-38.
1046 Калинин, Ю. П. Озеранскии, Л.И. Информационные сети — перспектива автоматизации процессов управления войсками. Военная мысль № 2 1997, 54-58.
1047 Ibid; Sayfetdinov, Kh., Kulyanitsa, A. L. Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence. MilitaryThought No. 5 1997.
1048 Барвиненко, В. В. Об автоматизации управления группировками Вооруженных Сил. Военная мысль
№ 2, 1999, 26-29.
1049 Ibid.
1050 Бобошко, А.А., Муравьев, Н. Л., Пономарев, С.Ю. Основные проблемы автоматизации организационно-мобилизационных органов ВС РФ. Военная мысль № 6, 1999, 50-53.
1051 Доктрина информационной безопасности РФ. (Шаклеина 2002).

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4.2.8 Unified information space
The idea of a unified information space (EIP) was already expressed by the pioneersof the Soviet kibernetika as “the unified territorial state network of information-computing centres with a centralized command.” For Berg, Kitov and Liapunov this arrangement was necessary not only because of the their cybernetic ideas but becauseof the lack of computers and the size of the Soviet Union.1052 However, this idea did
not materialize in the way the pioneers had hoped and the civilian Soviet ‘information
space’ remained fragmented.1053 Nevertheless, the military needed redundant and resilient communications networks which would connect geographically distinct assets
in conditions of conventional or thermonuclear war.1054 It also had to create communications to the Soviet Union’s allies in the Warsaw Pact, to its troops in Eastern andCentral Europe and, from the 1960s onward and particularly in the 1970s, to its troops
in Third World countries and to its blue water navy on the world’s oceans—including
ballistic missile nuclear submarines (SSBNs). The military had to prepare for a war in
multiple theatres of military action or TVDs with the recognition that governmental
central command might be wiped out by nuclear strikes.1055
One of the principles of command and control in the Soviet and later Russian military
art has been continuity or uninterruptedness (nepreryvnost’).1056 This was a hierarchical relationship between the commander and the subordinates requiring a directchannel of communication.1057 This, according to Colonel I. D. Pombrik, who waswriting in 1976, meant that the commander and staff had to be able to influence theevents of battle even under the effects of EW and nuclear weapons.1058 By the late1970s the Soviet signals officers agreed that communication systems had become thekey to winning and, therefore, a target of enemy action. Because of this, continuity
required that more depth, redundancy, and reserves were demanded of the systems.1059
This required the unification and centralization of control of the communication systems.1060 Moreover, another principle of ‘edinonachalie’ or unity of command emphasised the undivided responsibility of the commander to command and control.1061
1052 Берг, Китов & Ляпунов 1960.
1053 Gerovich 2008; Susiluoto 2006.

1054 Elterman, Iu. Communications in an Automated Troop Control System at the Operational Level. Military

thought – Secret version 1963, No. 1 (68). Translated and published by the Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Special Report, 2nd June 1978 [Online]. Available: https://www.cia.gov/ library/readingroom/docs/1978-04-20a.pdf [Accessed: 29th November 2018]; Abramov, Iu., Savelyev, V. and Cheremykh,
V. A System for the Collection, Processing, and Transmission of Information in a Military District. Military
thought – Secret version 1964, No. 2 (72). Translated and published by the Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Information Special Report, 20th June 1978 [Online]. Available: https://www.cia.gov/library/ readingroom/docs/1978-06-20a.pdf [Accessed: 29th November 2018]; Stishkovskiy, 1970.
1055 MccGwire 1987; Glantz 1992; Westad 2017; Hoffman 2009; Petersen, Phillip A. The Northwestern TVD
in Soviet Operational-Strategic Planning. OSD Office of Net Assessment, 2014 [Online]. Available:
https://bit.ly/2ZRP24b [Accessed: 29th November 2018]; Sadykiewicz, Michael. The Warsaw Pact Command
Structure in Peace and War. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1988; Polmar, Norman, Brooks, Thomas A.
and Fedoroff, George E. Admiral Gorshkov. The Man Who Challenged the U.S. Navy. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2019, 170-171.
1056 Lalu 2014, 378-379; Donnelly
1057 Алтухов 1975.
1058 Помбрик 1976.
1059 Ibid.; Стишковский 1977; Stishkovskiy 1970.
1060 Стишковский 1977, 42.
1061 ‘Единоначалие’. Советская военная энциклопедия в восьми томах (СВЭ), Том III. M.: Военное издательство Министерства обороны, 1979, 301.

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Nevertheless, the principles were not fully consistent or historically constant and attimes they emphasised the relative, initiative and independence of subordinates.1062
Since the late 1970s the Soviet military was aware of computer networks created in
the United States on the basis of public telecommunications networks.1063 It was understood that these kinds of digitalized networks which were connected to satellite
communications required technological standardization and common interfaces—
something that the Soviets lacked.1064 However, in the context of continuity, uninterruptedness and unity of command, the control these new networks offered a solution
to territorial defence. They provided centralized command during peacetime butwere, nevertheless, able to function in a fragmented form after an initial period of war
had destroyed their state-level unity.1065 Many in the 1970s considered the main benefits of automation and networks to be the enhanced centralization of decision-making
and commander-centric operations rather than the freedom and proactivity of subordinates.1066
During the 1980s the Soviet military continued to follow the Western efforts to unify
tactical and operational networks and clearly admired what they were seeing.1067 This
did not stop Colonel E. G. Korotchenko claiming in 1988 that under massive aerospace attack using precision-guided weapons a strictly centralized command was required to prepare for and repulse aggression.1068 Although Korotchenkos presented
his views as universal principles of the military art, they were based on an analysis ofNATO doctrine. Moreover, his views must be put in the context of the 1980s offencedefence debate in the Soviet military circles where the emphasis was put on surpriseand the initial period of war. It is reasonable to argue that the Soviet military viewed
the benefits of networks from the viewpoint of territorial defence and total war.
The civilian version of the idea of an EIP found new life after the fall of Soviet Union
in the Russian Internet, commonly known as RuNet. It was born from the networks
of universities and research academies in Moscow and St. Petersburg from 1989 onwards.1069 RuNet started from ‘zero’ as there were no proper telecommunications infrastructure, cross-border connections or even demand for it—markets were splintered and the development of networks was highly regionalized.1070 The scholars ofSoviet era cybernetic institutions were instrumental in the development of the Internet, although many scientists left Russia during the economic hardships of the 1990’s
or had to change profession.1071 State funding decreased and projects on super-computers etc. declined. Ilmari Susiluoto argues that the state IT sector basically ceased
1062 Lalu 2014, 114.

1063 Горлов & Смирнов 1984; Лощилов, И. П. О новом принципе построения автоматизированных си-стем управления войсками. Военная мысль № 7 1977, 46-57; Евстигнеев & Вичугов 1977.
1064 Лощилов, 1977, 50.
1065 Ткаченко, В. И., Фадеев, Ю. А. О соотношении централизованного и децентрализованного управления в Войсках ПВО страны. Военная мысль № 11 1978, 32-40.
1066 Дружинин & Конторов 1976; Лощилов 1977; Лосик 1979.
1067 Горлов & Смирнов 1984; Жованик, А. А. Космические системы связи и их использование для управления вооруженными силами. Военная мысль № 4 1983, 34-42; Ниесов 1988.
1068 Коротчеiiко 1988.
1069 Susiluoto 2006.
1070 Перфильев, Ю. Ю. Российское интернет-пространство: развитие и структура. М.: Гардарики, 2003.
1071 Susiluoto 2006. According to Roger Roffrey the state funding of R&D from 1990s to 2009 fell by 75% and10,000-25,000 highly qualified professionals left the country since 1991. (Roffey, Roger. Russian Science and148

to exist.1072 Consequently, the Russian information society was built from the bottom
up by Soviet engineers who had been discarded by the system, destitute academics,
and adventurous entrepreneurs. The groundwork for the Russian information society
was laid in the 1990s, but the Russian information revolution did not begin until 20002002.1073 Cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg were at the forefront of the development, but major energy- and mining companies provided funds for developing networks in parts of the periphery. Despite the relative success of the civilian IT sector,
the lag in technology and resources afflicted the military, which in 1999 was mainly
equipped with C3 systems from the 1970-1980s, and only about 10-15% of the equipment was modern. The armed forces lacked satellite and fibre optic communications,
proper encryption and jamming resistance, digitalised networks, and end-user equipment. Because of the cost of developing purely military systems, civilian technology
and cooperation was considered as a serious option. The military required the supportof the civilian information infrastructure to cope with the changes.1074
In 2005 Russia was still 10 years behind the leading countries in information technology, and its telecommunications infrastructure was in the hands of state companies.1075
For much of the 1990s the Russian telecommunications network was outdated if not
obsolete from the point of view of modern data traffic. Regional telecommunications
networks were owned by local companies, which reduced competition and therefore
investment and the building of intraregional and state-wide connections. Civilian networks capable of supporting data traffic were splintered, fragmented, and partly nonexistent. Satellite communications were used in many places instead of fixed connections.1076 It is thus not surprising that kibernetik ideas returned in a new guise as the‘unified information network’.
In 1995 President Yeltsin approved the Concept of the Formation and Developmentof a Unified Information Space of Russia and Relevant State Information Resources.1077 The concept stated that the Russian information systems were fragmented,
disconnected, and used mainly by government institutions which restricted access totheir systems and did not cooperate with each other. It defined an EIP as “a set of
databases and data banks, technologies of their management and use, and information-telecommunications systems and networks operating on the basis of common
principles and according to general rules that ensure information interaction between
organizations and citizens.” This space consisted of information resources, organizational structures, and means to use and exchange information, the latter two of which

Technology is Still Having Problems—Implications for Defense Research. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.26, No.2 (2013), 162-188, 163-164).
1072 Susiluoto 2006.
1073 Susiluoto 2006. Perfil’ev argues that the intensive growth of the Internet in Russia or Runet began after the
economic slump of 1998 (Перфильев 2003). Cf. also Росич, Ю. Ю География развития интернета в России. Dissertation. Московский государственный университет им. М. В. Ломоносова Географический факультет. Москва, 2005.
1074 Saarelainen et al. 1999, 191-192. Wellman, David A. A Chip in the Curtain. Computer Technology in theSoviet Union. Washington, DC: NDU Press, 1989.
1075 Susiluoto 2006, 154.
1076 Перфильев 2003; Росич 2005.
1077 Указ Президента РФ от 23.11.1995 N Пр-1694. “Концепция формирования и развития единого информационного пространства России и соответствующих государственных информационных ресурсов” [Online]. Available: http://lawru.info/dok/1995/11/23/n453820.htm [Accessed: 23rd March 2019].

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formed an information infrastructure. The Concept promoted the discarding of monopolization of information, bureaucratic stove-piping, and the tradition of secrecy.
It encouraged the connection of the Russian information space to the European andglobal information spaces. The Concept contained many of the kibernetik ideas of
the 1960s and 1970s, but instead of centralized control, it emphasised the benefits
gained from the freedom of information. Nevertheless, the development of the EIP
would be guided by vertical and horizontal cooperation in which the state customer
would drive the development, and ‘discipline’ would be maintained through a stateregister, standardization, and licensing. The development of the policy of EIP wasgiven to the FAPSI, i.e. the division of the KGB which had been responsible foreavesdropping and cryptography.1078
The planned unified information space would connect the state leadership and power
ministries and could be used to coordinate ‘operational’ actions in peacetime and during special time1079. It would include information and communications necessary forthe peacetime management of the military, strategic reconnaissance and warning, mobilization, command and control necessary for strategic deployment through a system
named ‘Shirota’. The concept does not indicated which parts of the Shirota system
would be connected to the larger ‘information space of public authorities’ if any.1080
When the discussion about the draft Information Security Doctrine began in 19951997, the ideas that the FAPSI and the military had were in fact based on an intranet,
which would be protected against outside interference, and not on the Internet.1081
The Concept of the Formation and Development of a Unified Information Space
was eventually buried, although it gave rise to some plans to create unified communication networks between the Russian security institutions and between the countries
belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States.1082 Moreover, the Concept
had included a mention of the ‘Automated information exchange system between
member states of the CIS’ (ASIO CIS).1083
Consequently, in 1996 the CIS adopted the Concept of the Formation of Information
Space of the CIS.1084 This Concept aimed at synchronizing the regulation and potentially integrating the national information spaces of the CIS countries. It defined theinformation space of the CIS as a collection of national information spaces that interacted based on intergovernmental agreements. Although the ‘national information
1078 Ibid. On the FAPSI cf. Soldatov & Borogan 2010, 13.

1079 Special time is a Russian semi-legal concept and it refers to time of civilian crisis or a time before war(Федеральный конституционный закон от 30.01.2002 N 1-ФКЗ (ред. от 01.07.2017) “О военном
положении”, VII, 14-15 [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_35227/[Accessed 10 June 2018]; Федеральный конституционный закон от 30.05.2001 N 3-ФКЗ (ред. от
03.07.2016) “О чрезвычайном положении”, XII, v [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_31866/ [Accessed 10 June 2018]; Федеральный закон от 07.07.2003 N 126-ФЗ (ред. от
05.12.2017) “О связи”, X [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc&base=LAW&n=284294&fld=134&dst =417,0&rnd=0.1557327116187115#0 [Accessed 11 January 2018].)1080 Указ Президента РФ 1995.
1081 Thomas 1998.
1082 Красная звезда. Создается единое информационное пространство. Красная звезда. № 10 1995;Пельц, Александр. Единое информационное поле для силовых структур. Красная звезда № 282 1996;
Krasnaia Zvezda. Будет ли в СНГ единое информпространство? Krasnaia Zvezda № 289 1996.
1083 Указ Президента РФ 1995.
1084 СНГ. Концепция формирования информационного пространства Содружества Независимых Государств от 18 октября 1996 года [Online]. Available: http://www.cis.minsk.by/page.php?id=7548 [Accessed:
7th March 2019].

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space’ was not defined, the information infrastructure was, and it basically referred tocommunications technology or ‘information resources’. The information security aspect of the Concept was obvious as it emphasised the regulation of information, notso much infrastructure or economic aspects.1085 Thus, despite the ‘liberal’ intentionsof both Concepts, they were, at least partly, intended to impose state control over the
emerging information space.
The military adopted the term ‘information’ in the 1990s and began to use it whenwriting about spaces, infrastructure, and systems of command and control, although
without any clear agreement on what those concepts meant.1086 For B. I. Glazov andD. A. Lovtsov the ‘unified information environment’ (edinaia informatsionnaia sreda)
meant the Internet and other data networks that enabled command and control systems to interact.1087 The principles of continuity, efficiency, resilience and stealth(nepreryvnost’, operativnost’, ustoichivost’, skrytnost’)1088, and the unity of command
were clearly present when Barvinenko in 1999 made his demand for the integrationof all government bodies in a unified global information command and control network.1089 This call was repeated by Contra-Admiral V. V. Biriukov who, moreover,defined the unified information space as the common and unified collection of information systems, resources, technologies, communications, languages, and infrastructure.1090
The concept of a unified information space eventually appeared in the 2000 Information Security Doctrine, but was not clearly defined.1091 Consequently, the Military
Doctrine of 2000 mentioned the creation of a unified command and control systemof military organizations of the government, the centralization of command and control of all means and forces of air defence, and the creation of a unified defence spaceof the CIS countries.1092 Considering the 1995 and 1996 Concepts it is safe to argue
that the idea of the EIP had reached the elites already in 1990s. This was to be expected because Berg, Kitov and others had promoted the idea from the 1950s, andbecause the Internet and ‘informatization’ by the early 1990s was recognized globally
as something important and promising in this regard.1093
The unified information space got its current name during the 1990s, but the idea wasalready present in the 1950s. Although it would exaggeration to claim that the 1990s
concept of unified information space was like the kibernetik ideas of a computer controlled socialist command-economy, it had the same idea of controlling information
flows to enable a more efficient management of the state. The military seems to have1085 Ibid.
1086 Захаров 1991; Безуглый & Гавриленко 1994; Комов 1994; Фефелов 1993; Кежаев 1996; Калинин &Озеранскии 1997, 55.
1087 Глазов & Ловцов 1997.
1088 Игнатов, В.А., Сосюра, О.В., Гусев, В.Ф. О терминологии теории военного управления. Военная
мысль № 6 (11-12) 1996, 38-41.
1089 Барвиненко 1999.
1090 Бирюков, В.В. Проблемы управления информатизацией ВС РФ. Военная мысль № 4. 1994
1091 Доктрина информационной безопасности РФ. (Шаклеина 2002).
1092 Военная доктрина Российской Федерации 2000 г. (Шаклеина 2002).
1093 European Commission. Conclusion of the G7 Summit “Information Society Conference” DOC/95/2 of
1995-02-26 [Online]. Available: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_DOC-95-2_en.htm [Accessed: 24th
March 2019].

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enthusiastically adopted the information era language in the 1990s. This was unsurprising as it had pursued the unification of its own, but never all, networks alreadyfrom the 1960s. The concept of EIP was very probably related to the Western terms
and concepts associated with the Internet in the 1990s, such as: infospace, hyperspace,cyberspace, the global information society, the World Wide Web etc. Thus, the translation of the term ‘edinnoe’ in the ‘edinnoe informatsionnoe prostranstvo’ to ‘single’might be more accurate in some cases. Instead of a vertically and horizontally integrated and regulated national network, the sources might have used the EIP to refer
to open information sharing networks in the context of the developing (global) information society. However, in the sources used here, this was not usually the case.
4.2.9 Digital sovereignty‘Digital sovereignty’, or its parallel concept ‘information sovereignty’, as a term, has
not been used by military scholars writing for Voennaia Mysl’ or, for that matter, by
any Russian military or civilian theorists that I have been able to find until the 2000s.
Nevertheless, ‘information sovereignty’ was used in the 1996 Concept of the Formation of the Information Space of the CIS, although its substance was not defined.1094 It seems to have referred to the state’s right to control the formation of its
information space and especially security in that space. According to a Russian associated professor A. A. Efremov, sovereignty in the ‘information sphere’ was first discussed in Russia by V. B. Naymov in a conference article in 1999.1095 Before that theissue was mainly discussed in Western sources.1096 Be that as it may, territorial integrity
and sovereignty have been guiding principles of Russian foreign and security policy
from its rebirth after the collapse of the Soviet Union.1097 Additionally, according toprevious studies, a geopolitical approach which emphasises territoriality and sovereignty has been present in the Soviet/Russian security thinking at least from the
1930s.1098
The strategic cultural ideas of digital sovereignty and the EIP are related. It is quite
clear that the Soviet cybernetists of the 1960s and 1970s were not thinking about aglobal information network but about a network which would control a territorially
distinct economic system.1099 Although, in the event that socialism had conquered theworld, their system might have had acquired global dimensions. In the 1990s the concept of a unified information space of Russia was also clearly state oriented—it defined a distinct Russian information space which would be under state control.1100 Thisconnection to sovereignty and the EIP would produce the concept of the national
segment of the Internet as the basis of digital and information sovereignty in the 2000s
and 2010s.1101 Furthermore, sovereignty in the information space was also strongly
1094 Содружества Независимых Государств1996.
1095 Ефремов, А.А. Формирование концепции информационного суверенитета государства. Право -Журнал Высшей школы экономики, № 1. 2017, 201–215; Наумов, В.Б. Интернет и государственный
суверенитет. I Всероссийская конференция «Право и интернет: теория и практика». 1999 [Online]: URL:// http://www.ifap.ru/pi/01/r16.htm [Accessed: 10th December 2018].
1096 Ефремов 2017.
1097 Концепция внешней политики РФ 1992 г. (Шаклеина 2002, 23).
1098 Cf. Chapter 4.1
1099 Gerovitch 2002 & 2008.
1100 Указ Президента РФ 1995.
1101 Cf. Chapter 5 and 6.

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related to the idea of interstate struggle which, during the 1990s, incorporated the new
information-psychological and technological threats to state interests and concomitant modes of confrontation.
In the context of the drafting of the 2000 Information Security Doctrine, S. A. Komov, for example, stated that the Russian information security system is based on
constitutional principles including the hierarchical division of power.1102 Furthermore,
the discussion concerning the draft was about protecting Russia from outside influences and was an indication of how important the idea of sovereignty was for the
security services and the military.1103 When the Information Security Doctrine of 2000
was released it connected information security to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.1104 It is safe to argue that whatever ideas the pioneersof the Russian Internet might have had, the state approached the information space,sphere and environment from the viewpoint of state sovereignty.1105 This was apparent already before 1999 when Russia’s draft resolutions on information security was
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1998. It stated that “Expressing
concern that these [information] technologies and means can potentially be used for
purposes that are inconsistent with the objectives of maintaining international stability
and security and may adversely affect the security of States.”1106 This expressed concern was about state interests, not about human rights or other global challenges.
Digital sovereignty was something that had been brewing for some time. Its proto
version was already present in the thinking of the Soviet and Russian scholars and the
security and defence elites in the 1990s in the form of information sovereignty. Moreover, many theorists saw the information struggle as a state- or system-based confrontation and thus related to sovereignty. It resonated quite well with other traditional ideas about the Russian state and its interests in the Russian strategic culture.
Previous studies have shown that as the 1990s progressed, a nationalist, statist andcivilizationist circle of academicians, politicians, and security and military officers
gained influence in Russia.1107 These people were more ready to see the cyber andinformation space as an extension of state sovereignty. Consequently, during the
2000s and 2010s information/digital sovereignty was to become a defining term andconcept for how the Russian Federation strove to shape cyberspace.
4.3

Summary of historical ideas

From the analysis presented above a few conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, the Marxist-Leninist idea of a struggle between competing social and economic systems wastransformed into an information struggle between great powers in which informationtechnological means are one of the primary tools—or conversely the idea of the struggle was updated to include modern notions of information. Nevertheless, the Russian
military viewed these technological tools in a different framework than their civilian
1102 Комов 1998.

1103 Thomas 1998.
1104 Доктрина информационной безопасности РФ. (Шаклеина 2002, 123).
1105 On these pioneers cf. Soldatov & Borogan 2015.

1106 United Nations General Assembly. Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in

the context of international security A/RES/53/70 4 January 1999 [Online]. Available: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/265311/files/A_RES_53_70-EN.pdf [Accessed: 24th March 2019].
1107 Tsygankov 2016; Sakwa 2008, 381; Mankoff 2012; Donaldson, Nogee & Nadkari 2014.

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counterparts. It was interested in the character of a future war.
The different views on a future war—oscillating between massive aerospace surprise
attack, regional conflicts, and internal insurgency—seem to have produced a concept
of deterrence that expanded from deterrence to prevention and consequently included all forms and means of state power. This was not a new idea. Informationtechnological means were effortlessly incorporated in the idea of constant struggle
between great powers. It can be argued that a defensive strategy and an offensive
doctrine were transformed through a dominantly defensive phase into an offensive
grand strategy—in the Western parlance. In this context, the security of the state isguaranteed by constantly challenging the competing powers on multiple levels andfronts, to act otherwise is to risk being encircled and suffocated. Russia’s foreign policy in the late-1990s reflected this concept, but there were no resources to truly act on
it.1108 Furthermore, during the 1990s Russian military thinkers searched for an alternative deterrence mechanism for the Soviet era’s massive conventional and nuclear
forces in a new environment which included new threats. In the turn of the millennium this process was still unfinished.
During the Cold war and in the 1990s the Russians considered asymmetry to relate to
the correlation of forces between peer competitors—mainly between the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union—not, for example, terrorism. Asymmetry was somethingthat affected parity and thus the balance of power, in a way it cost-efficiently exploited
the weaknesses of the systems of the side that had temporarily gained advantage andrestored the balance (and possibly gained an advantage) by employing science, technology and ingenuity. An asymmetric response (and strategy) was a strategic-level solution which negated the advantage of the opponent—it was part of the dialectics of
war where measures and countermeasures were constantly developed. In this context,
information superiority was a critical advantage. Informatization had made it so. The
side that processed information faster and therefore made better and faster decisions
would win a conflict. The Russians recognized the importance of information-technical means in a future war. These were weapons that could be used against the military’s command and control systems and the critical information infrastructure of anation and possibly had strategic effects. The Soviets and Russians recognized ‘cyber
warfare’ even if they did not use similar terms and concepts. However, they approached information and computer technology from a wider perspective emphasizing the nation’s scientific and technological potential as a source of power. Moreover,the psychological element was almost always understood as the primary aspect andtechnological tools subordinated to it.
The kibernetik ideas of ASUs, unified information space, and their ultimate end stateof digital sovereignty went through a long and arduous incubation period. They
brought with them into the next millennium the idea of a centralized, vertically commanded and controlled, horizontally integrated system of systems in the information
sphere, where systems would fight systems. Ideally, the Russian information space
would be free and controlled at the same time and it would provide unforeseen economic benefits through information sharing. Nevertheless, the Internet and the Rus-

1108 Sakwa 2008; Mankoff 2012; Donaldson, Nogee & Nadkari 2014; Tsygankov 2016.

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sian information society were left to develop on their own during the 1990s—admittedly there were more pressing issues that needed attention during that decade. When
the Russian government called upon the power ministries, academia, and industry in
1995 to formulate a strategy for Russia to handle the challenges of the informationera, sovereignty was the principle around which the approach was built. The implementation of this ‘strategy’ produced a persistent Russian policy of promoting information sovereignty in the UN, but domestically its effects would not materialize before the reign of Vladimir Putin.
The analysis of strategic cultural ideas conducted in this chapter points yet to one
additional finding. The epistemic communities have had a definite role in providing
new ideas to the Soviet and Russian elites in the course of history. There have been
definite ‘circles’ of people who have offered their ideas to the elites. The military andcivilian cybernetists of the 1950s and 1960s were such groups, kagebists and gereushniks (the KGB and GRU operatives who acquired party membership and influence)1109 were another, the institutchiki of the 1980s were a third group, and the military and ex-KGB/FSB officers of the mid to late 1990s seem to form a fourth group.
It is noteworthy that the formidable KGB was divided into the FSB, the SVR, theFSO and the FAPSI and that the military intelligence was much reduced in the
1990s.1110 Like the future president Vladimir Putin who went to serve in the city administration of St. Petersburg, people retired from the security services because of
economic problems and/or ideological disillusionment and formed new communitiesand (fragmented) interest groups with a certain worldview.1111 These people had academic credentials and held high positions in scientific institutions sometimes emigrating to the decision-making elite itself.1112 However, a shared worldview did not meanthat these people held homogenous causal beliefs or that their institutional interests
coalesced, quite the contrary.1113
Domestic politics, bureaucratic infighting, and the change of strategic environment
probably affected the way strategic cultural ideas were adopted. According to William
D. Jackson, the views of the Russian civilian leadership and the military were increasingly at odds in the 1990s.1114 Nevertheless, as conservative forces made a comebackin the political arena around 1993, the ideas carried by the armed forces and security
services started to influence political elites, which in many cases were themselves exmilitary or ex-KGB/FSB.1115 The national security documents of 2000 were practically1109 Haslam 2015; Garthoff, Raymond L. Soviet Leaders and Intelligence: Assessing the American Adversary

During the Cold War. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015.
1110 Bennett, Gordon. The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. Conflict Studies Research Centre,
March 2000 [Online]. Available: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/96631/00_Mar_3.pdf [Accessed: 5th December 2018]; Meakins 2018.
1111 Jackson 2002; Myers 2015, 68; Sakwa 2008, 100-102; Herspring, Dale R. The Kremlin and the High Command: Presidential Impact on the Russian Military from Gorbachev to Putin. Lawrence, KS: University Pressof Kansas, 2006; Marten 2017; Soldatov & Borogan 2010.
1112 Cf. Chapter 5 for just such career-paths.
1113 Coopersmith, Jonathan. The Dog That Did Not Bark during the Night: The “Normalcy” of Russian, Soviet,
and Post-Soviet Science and Technology Studies. Technology and Culture, Vol. 47, No. 3 (July 2006), 623-637;
Herspring 2006; Soldatov & Borogan 2010; Sakwa 2008.
1114 The Russian military did not share the political leadership’s optimism and claimed that the potential military
threat of NATO and United States had not subsided. (Jackson 2002).
1115 Bennett, Gordon. Vladimir Putin & Russia’s Special Services. Defence Academy of the United Kingdom,
Conflict Studies Research Centre, August 2002 [Online]. Available: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/96481/
02_Aug_4.pdf [Accessed: 5th December 2018].

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drafted by the siloviki and the future President, the ex-Director of the FSB, Vladimir
Putin took part in writing them.1116 The international environment of Russia hadchanged with the enlargement of NATO, the war in Yugoslavia with its consequencesfor Russia’s status as a great power, with the two wars in Chechnya, and the economiccrisis of 1998. Therefore, the epistemic communities involved in security and defence
policy were able to offer their ideas to reorient Russia and practically moved fromoutside experts to inside policy makers as Putin started to build his regime.1117 This
was not a smooth and all-encompassing transition as the FSB, the Ministry of Defence, the General Staff and others fought with each other for power, money, andinfluence.1118 It should be noted that the empirical use of the concept of epistemic
communities has its challenges in such political systems as the Soviet Union of theRussian Federation. Available sources are not complete enough and political processes are quite opaque. However, it can be claimed that there was a community orcommunities of academics and specialists present and able to influence the elites as
they faced a new and challenging millennium.

1116 Blank 2011; Thomas 1998a; Godzimirski 2000; de Haas, Marcel. An analysis of Soviet, CIS and Russian

military doctrines 1990–2000, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.14, No.4 (2001), 1-34; Sakwa 2008.
1117 Blank 2011; Thomas 1998a; Vendil, Carolina. The Russian Security Council, European Security, Vol.10,
No.2 (Summer 2001), 67-94; Sakwa 2008, 101-102; Soldatov & Borogan 2010.
1118 Blank 2011; Soldatov & Borogan 2010; Locksley 2001.

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5
PUTIN ERA IDEAST

his chapter continues to find answers to the thesis’ research problem’s analytical part, that is, identifying and examining strategic cultural ideas related tocyberspace and cyber power present in the discourses of Russian defence andsecurity policy oriented epistemic communities and elites. This chapter aims to examine what ideas were present when the Russian security policy towards cyberspacechanged in 2011-2015 and the Russian state began to control and shape a part ofcyberspace into a national segment of the Internet. The objective is to demonstratethat the strategic cultural ideas analysed in Chapter 4 were present and available to theelites and to observe how the ideas were reflected in the highest national security
documents. Chapter 6 will concentrate on the policy and implementation level. The
analysis in this chapter concentrates on studying ideas not the persons writing about
them. However, in order to show how the ideas could have transferred from the epistemic communities to the security and defence policy elites I trace and present someacademic and professional histories of the most important writers—I will do somainly in the footnotes.
This chapter starts with an examination of how strategy is made in Russia to understand how strategic ideas might end-up in the highest national security documents
and what these documents are. The structure of this chapter then follows the analysisof strategic cultural ideas in descending order from the more political and strategic to
the more technical. In the sub-chapters, the ideas are analysed in chronological andthematical order. The contextualization of these ideas is included in the analysis
where necessary, but the broader international environment is analysed in Chapter 6.
I end the chapter with a comparison of the relationship between the Russian ideas
and the theoretical concepts presented in Chapter 3. I also discuss the nature and roleof the Russian military and epistemic defence communities which have been the carriers of the ideas analysed in this chapter.
5.1 Strategic planning and the national security documents
The Russian foreign and defence policies belong to the mandate of the president of
the Russian Federation and many Western scholars argue that foreign policy and major national security policies are made, or at least ultimately decided by the president.1119 Although the president’s authority is paramount in foreign policy and security
issues,1120 the Russian political system has characteristics which influence national foreign and security policy decision-making. After Putin consolidated his power in the1119 Sakwa 2009; Mankoff 2012; Bobo 2015; Cadier & Light 2015; Tsygankov 2016 & 2018.
1120 IIFFMCG. Independent international fact-finding mission on the conflict in Georgia, report, volume I-III,2009[Online].
Available:
http://www.mpil.de/en/pub/publications/archive/independent_international_fact.cfm [Accessed: 25th March 2019]; Россия-24. Крым. Путь на Родину, ВГТРК, Россия-24,
15.3.2015 [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t42-71RpRgI [Accessed: 15th March2019]; Замахина, Татьяна. Совфед разрешил использование ВС в Сирии. Российкая Газета 30.09.2015[Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2015/09/30/armia-site.html [Accessed: 25th March 2019].

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early 2000s, this system has been claimed to be either highly patrimonial, monolithic
and vertical1121, ruled by bureaucratic capitalists under Putin1122, autocratic1123, or, lateron, to be based on clans, blocks and networks with tight connections between politicaland economic power and highly unofficial procedures in which the president is the
final arbitrator.1124 Thus, nothing definite about the way certain ideas end up in official
documents, i.e. how and by whom they are chosen, will be offered in this analysis.
The national security documents will be approached as the official and public presentation of the state elite’s worldview, interests and strategies drafted through a bureaucratic process of negotiation under strong presidential guidance.1125
According to Julian Cooper and Andrew Monaghan, strategic planning (or strategy)
and mobilization are particular features of Russian political culture and have be encoded in federal laws.1126 Nation-level planning derives its attraction from the Soviet
era economic planning.1127 Cooper divides Russian strategic planning into socio-economic and national security activity, and places its modern roots in 1995–1997, although, the process was not institutionalized until 2006–2009.1128 In 2006 the Security
Council organized an inter-agency commissions for strategic planning and president
Putin called for a more comprehensive approach to socio-economic development.1129
No official reason for this interest in planning was offered—Cooper believes it was
related to worsening Russia–U.S. relations and Monaghan points to internal problems

1121 Blank, Stephen J. Perspectives on Russian Foreign Policy. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute(SSI), 2012 [Online]. Available: http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1115.pdf [Accessed: 29th October
2018]; Shevtsova, Lilia. Post-communist Russia: a historic opportunity missed. International Affairs Vol. 83(5)(2007), 891–912.
1122 Trenin, Dmitri. Russia Redefines Itself and Its Relations with the West. The Washington Quarterly, Vol.
30 (2), 95–105.
1123 Freedom House 2018.
1124 Ledeneva 2013, 248-250; Gvosdev, Nikolas K. and Marsh, Christopher. Russian Foreign Policy: Interests,
Vectors, and Sectors. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2014, 49-54.
1125 Russian military doctrines and other national security documents have been studied before by Western
scholars, few of the most recent ones are. Cadier & Light 2015; Pynnöniemi, Katri and Mashiri, James. Venäjän
sotilasdoktriinit vertailussa: Nykyinen versio viritettiin kriisiajan taajuudelle. [Russian military doctrines in comparison: Current version tuned to emergency frequency] FIIA-Raportti 42. Helsinki: Ulkopoliittinen instituutti,
2015; Forsström, Pentti. Venäjän sotilasdoktriinien kehittyminen Neuvostoliiton hajoamisen jälkeen. [The development of Russia’s military doctrines after the fall of the Soviet Union] National Defence University, Department of Warfare, Series 3: Working Paper No. 3 [Online] Available: https://www.doria.fi/ bitstream/handle/10024/123521/Ven%C3%A4j%C3%A4n%20sotilasdoktriini%20ja%20sen%20kehittyminen%20Forsstr%C3%B6m%20%28netb5%29.pdf?sequence=2 [Accessed: 25th October 2018]; Tsygankov,
Andrei (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2018.
1126 Monaghan 2014; Monaghan, Andrew. Russian State Mobilization: Moving the Country on to a War Footing,
Chatham House Research Paper, May 2016; Monaghan 2017; Cooper, Julian. Reviewing Russian Strategic Planning: The Emergence of Strategy 2020. NDC Research Review [Online]. Available: http://www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php?icode=338 [Accessed: 26th March 2019]; Cooper 2016; Cooper, Julian. Strategic Planning, Situation Centres and the Management of Defence in Russia: An Update. Changing Character of
War Centre, Pembroke College, Oxford [Online]. Available: http://www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/
blog/2018/11/14/strategic-planning-situation-centres-and-the-management-of-defence-in-russia-an-updateby-julian-cooper [Accessed: 25th March 2019].
1127 Cooper 2012, 1. According to the general secretary of the Security Council and ex-FSB director Nikolai
Patrushev, this planning is based on the experience acquired during the Soviet times. (Патрушев, Николай.
На сильных не нападают Крайне желательно понимать, как, а главное – зачем эволюционирует паркотечественных средств вооруженной борьбы во всей обозримой перспективе. ВПК, № 12 (480) за 27марта 2013 года.)1128 Cooper, 2-3.
1129 Ibid., 3.

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and failed reforms.1130 In 2009 the president gave a classified order ‘On the foundations of strategic planning’ which defined strategic planning as “determining the main
directions, methods and means of achieving strategic goals of stable development of
the Russian Federation and ensuring its national security”1131 and gave guidelines fordrafting the main documents.1132 Additionally, around 2008-2009 an order for draftinga law for strategic planning was given. The law was finally adopted in 2014.1133
The law on strategic planning defines strategic planning as the activity of setting goals,
forecasting, planning, and programming the socio-economic development of thestate. Its objective is to ensure the national security of the Russian Federation and its
sustainable socio-economic development.1134 Strategic planning includes the monitoring and controlling of the implementation of the goals set in the strategic documents.
It encompasses federal, subject and municipal authorities. The socio-economic partof the planning belongs to the government’s responsibility and the national security
part to the Security Council. The main goal-setting documents on the federal level ofstrategic planning include the President’s Annual Address to the Federal Assembly,
the Strategy of Social-Economic Development, the Strategy of National Security andthe Strategy of Scientific-Technological Development of the Russian Federation.
From these are derived the sectoral and regional documents of goal-setting, forecasting, planning and programming.1135 Strategic planning also includes the secret Defence
Plans (issued in 2013 and 2015).1136 These Plans are presented to the President by the
Minister of Defence but drafted in cooperation with 49 ministries and agencies.1137
The Defence Plan “identifies potential risks and threats to the security of the state,determines the direction of development of the Armed Forces, the implementationof weapons programmes, as well as questions of mobilization preparation and territorial defence.”1138 Part of the strategic planning process include the state armament
programmes (GPV-2021 and GPV-2027) which have been drafted for 10-year periods to produce future weapons, military and special equipment. Andrew Monaghan
has argued that behind the idea of strategic planning is Putin’s need for manual control of the power vertical of the Russian state.1139 Monaghan also argues that the socalled May Edicts of 2012 have become part of strategic planning.1140 A new set of
Edicts was adopted in 2018.1141
1130 Ibid., 4; Monaghan 2017, 22.

1131 Указ Президента РФ от 12 мая 2009 года № 536. Об основах стратегического планирования в РФ

[Online]. Available: http://lj.rossia.org/users/anticompromat/587675.html [Accessed: 26th March 2019].
1132 Ibid; Monaghan 2017, 22.
1133 Cooper 2012 & 2014.
1134 Федеральный закон 2014a.
1135 Monaghan 2017.
1136 Ibid., 24-25.
1137 Kremlin.ru. Президенту представлен План обороны Российской Федерации 29 января 2013 года[Online]. Available: http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/17385 [Accessed: 12th February 2019];
Гаврилов, Юрий. Защитят по плану Оборону расписали на пять лет вперед. Российская газета - Федеральный выпуск № 260(6831), 17.11.2015 [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2015/11/17/oborona-site.html[Accessed: 12th February 2019].
1138 РИА Новости. План обороны России на 2016–2020 годы введен в действие 1 января 2016 [Online].
Available: https://ria.ru/20160101/1352552856.html [Accessed: 12th February 2019].
1139 Monaghan 2014, 16-17.
1140 Ibid., 23.
1141 Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 7 мая 2018 г. N 204 “О национальных целях и стратегических задачах развития Российской Федерации на период до 2024 года” [Online]. Available:
https://rg.ru/2018/05/08/president-ukaz204-site-dok.html [Accessed: 26th March 2019].

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Strategic planning is related to the Russian concept of mobilization. Mobilization has
two aspects, military and economic, and it refers to the measures to activate statehuman and material resources for military-political and national grand strategic goals.
It is a peacetime activity, conducted in advance of conflict through preparation (podgatovka) and readiness (gotovnost’).1142 The idea of mobilization has Soviet roots as it
became one of the basic pillars around which Soviet economy and society werebuilt.1143 The system of mobilization degraded from the 1980s but it was reinvigorated
around 2008-2011 and in 2013 Putin approved a new mobilization plan for the economy.1144 According to the Law On Preparation of Mobilization and Mobilization of
the RF, mobilization means a set of measures to transfer the Armed Forces and othermilitary forces and the economy and administration of the state to war time conditions and organization. Its main principles are centralized leadership; timeliness, planning and control; complexity and consistency. Mobilization includes the state management of national telecommunications.1145
In this Chapter I will analyse the National Security Strategies of 2009 and 2015, Military Doctrines of 2010 and 2014, Foreign Policy Concepts 2008, 2013 and 2016 andthe 2016 Information Security Doctrine as the main products of strategic planning.
Other documents will be analysed in Chapter 6. The Security Council of the RussianFederation, led by the president, has an important role in drafting these documents.
The Strategy and Doctrine of 2009 and 2010 were a result of a power struggle between
the MoD and the General Staff and reflected a resurgent Russia and a poorly conducted war with Georgia in 2008, so the documents are more or less as a compromiseof interests.1146 It is safe to argue that the Foreign Policy Concept of 2013 was prematurely published. The Military Doctrine of 2014, and the rest were drafted in thecontext of the war in Ukraine, and in accordance with the new legislation concerning
strategic planning.1147 The public infighting between defence and security elites had at
this point disappeared behind the need to show national unity and tightened security.1148
5.2 Interstate struggle
This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the strategic cultural idea of interstate
struggle or confrontation—the translation depending on the context the concept isused in. As was noted in Chapter 4, the idea of an interstate struggle or confrontation

1142 Monaghan 2017, 10.
1143 Cooper 2016.

1144 Cooper 2016, 19-20.
1145 Федеральный закон от 26.02.1997 N 31-ФЗ (ред. от 18.12.2018) “О мобилизационной подготовке имобилизации в Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_
doc_LAW_13454/ [Accessed: 26th March 2019].
1146 Bouldin 2004; Bartles, Charles K. Defense Reforms of Russian Defense Minister Anatolii Serdyukov, The
Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.24, No.1 (2011), 55-80; Herspring 2006; McDermott 2009, 485-501;
McDermott 2015; Blank, Stephen J. “No Need to Threaten Us, We Are Frightened of Ourselves, ” Russia’s
Blueprint for a Police State, The New Security Strategy. In Blank & Weitz, 2010, 19-149, 94. [Online] Available:
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/PUB997.pdf [Accessed: 22nd October 2018]; Kipp 2011.
1147 Monaghan 2017.
1148 Forsström argues that that while the discussion about the 2010 Doctrine was open, in the case of the 2014
Doctrine it was not. The Doctrines of 1993 and 2000 were declared as documents of a transitional period while
2010 was not. (Forsström 2016).

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frames all the other strategic cultural ideas. My focus will be on the information aspectof this struggle.
In 2001 the PIR Center1149 published a book edited by A. V. Fedorova and V. I.
Tsygichko called ‘Information challenges of national and international security’.1150
Among the contributors for the book were people from the SVR, the FSB, the Ministry of Interior, the Foreign Ministry, the Security Council, the General Staff of theArmed Forces like A. V. Krutskikh, G. L. Smolian, A. A. Strel’tsov, D. S. Chereshkin
and V. N. Tsygichko who all would feature prominently in the Russian information/cyber policy circles in the years to come.1151 The book is also proof of theconcentrated effort of the ‘siloviki’ to form a united view on the rising challenge thatwas the Internet and, consequently, information warfare. The book was written to
support the Russian effort in the UN to push through an international agreement toban ‘information weapons’ and to create transnational regulation of the Internet.
The book defined information security as the countering of adversary influence towards the most important information systems of the state, and also towards democracy, development of society etc.1152 Information space (also infosphere) was defined
as “a sphere of human activity related to the creation, transformation, and usage of
information, including individual and societal consciousness, information-telecommunications infrastructure and intrinsic information.”1153 The writers also claimed that
globalization has led to the creation of a worldwide unified information space(edinnoe informatsionnoe prostranstvo). They also used the term cyberspace ‘kiberprostranstvo.’1154 The authors claimed that the information industry would form thebasis for future economic systems and mass media had gained new powers to influence government policies and societies. The dependence of society, material production, and the armed forces on information technologies and infrastructures has emphasized the importance of resilience (ustoichivost’) of communications systems andnetworks. The authors echoed Marxist-Leninist historical materialism when they argued that the ‘information society’ is a concept based on the forces and means of
production, not the freedom and prevalence of information in societies.1155
The authors of the book claimed that the threats against the information infrastructure and resources, including critical infrastructure, are for a large part related to intergovernmental confrontation (protivoborstvo), the proliferation of information
1149 The PIR Center is an independent organization and was established in 1994. Its main research subject isinternational security and it has a workgroup on international information security and global management of
the Internet. It is connected to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence and to such academics as V. N. Tsygichko. (Иванов, И. С. (ред.) Военно-политические исследования в России. М.: НПРСМД, Весь мир, 2014). Tsygicko himself is a professor and member of RAN. He is a retired Colonel andworked at the Research Institute of the General Staff Headquarters in 1962—1971, took part in Soviet strategicplanning in 1979—1985, and worked at the Institute of System Analysis of RAN from 1985 and as an expert
of information security for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1995 (Hoffenaar & Findlay 2007, 41-42).
1150 Федорова, А.В., Цигичко, В.Н. (общ. ред.) Информационные вызовы национальной и международной безопасности. М.: ПИР-Центр, 2001.
1151 ТАСС. В России создана Национальная ассоциация международной информационной безопасности 10 апреля 2018 [Online]. Available: http://tass.ru/obschestvo/5111643 [Accessed: 28th March 2019].
1152 Федорова & Цигичко 2001, 11.
1153 Ibid., 234.
1154 Ibid., 91. This is defined as a synonym to information space or datasphere. Other words with a ‘kiber’ prefix
have synonyms with the ‘information’ prefix (Ibid., 222).
1155 Федорова & Цигичко 2001.

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weapons (informatsionnoe oruzhie), and efforts to create a concept of an informationwar (informatsionnaia voina). Information weapons could be used through the global
information network as tools of political pressure, deterrence, and warfare to produce
strategic effects. Nevertheless, the kinetic information-technological aspect of theseweapons was not their main function. The authors argued that the ‘developed democratic countries’ would resort to ‘information weapons’ in pursuit of their interests as
the interdependence created by globalization and their technological advantages enabled it, and their political systems discouraged the use of direct force. Accordingly,
they claim that borders are becoming increasingly eroded which leads to the loss ofstate sovereignty. Although the writers emphasised state-related threats they also discussed crime and terrorism-related threats.1156
For Fedorova and Tsygichko et al., in contrast to an information war, an information
struggle or confrontation (protivoborstvo) is either a distinct phase of non-military
relations which might lead to the achievement of political objectives without the useof force, or a type of warfare using special means to affect an opponent’s information
systems. In the military sense, information warfare is divided into counter C2 warfare,
information security, EW, psychological influence, hacker wars, economic wars, andcyberwarfare.1157 The authors claimed that information superiority (informatsionnoe
prevoskhodstvo) will decide future wars and that it is based on the capability to acquire more information, to process it faster and to make decisions more efficiently.
They defined an information war (informatsionnaia voina) as military actions in information space and divided this into offensive and defensive versions, both of whichused information. Weapons were divided into information-psychological and technological weapons. Information weapons could be used independently or parallel to traditional weapons. They were used mainly to gain information superiority, which wasnot, however, an objective in itself. The weapons should be based on precise, covert,
and non-lethal means in distinction from weapons of mass destruction. Militarily, information weapons could be used to gain a strategic surprise. Additionally, the secretor unseen nature of these weapons could lower the threshold for the use of nuclear
weapons.1158
After analysing information weapons and warfare, Fedorova and Tsygichko et al. discussed the Unites States’ and its allies’ military operations from the 1980s and pointed
out information warfare elements in them. This ‘method’ is repeated in most of themonographs and articles analysed in this thesis and it arguably shows who the Russians see as leading the military technological and doctrinal development, and whothey consider as their probable or main enemy.1159 Interestingly, the writers bring up
the concept of netwars1160 (setevaia voina) in the context of terrorism and argue thatstates can use networked terrorist organizations as part of information operations.1161
As will become clear in this chapter, this view evolved during the next two decades
1156 Ibid.
1157 Martin Libick’s categorization is used to discuss about ‘informatsionnoe protivoborstvo’. Libicki 1995.
1158 Федорова & Цигичко 2001.

1159 For the terms ‘main enemy’ and ‘probable enemy’ cf. Haslam 2015, 265. China is also mentioned as apossible competitor but only passingly (Федорова & Цигичко 2001, 139).
1160 The concept was introduced by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt and it refers to low-intensity conflict ona societal level waged by networks using information, among other means. (Arquilla, John and Ronfeldt, David.
The Advent Of Netwar. Santa Monica: RAND, 1996).
1161 Федорова & Цигичко 2001, 137.

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from terrorists and separatist, to colour revolutions, to controlled chaos, and to hybrid
wars, and forms one of the main threat images of the Russian armed forces. Moreover, technological backwardness, and thus dependency on foreign technology, thepossibility of Russia being disconnected from international information networks,
and negative foreign cultural effects are mentioned as the main threats of an information confrontation. Therefore, the writers argued, Russia needs to adopt an activerole in information confrontation instead of passive isolation. It must use information-psychological and information-technological offensive measures in the opponents’ information space and defensive measures in its own space.1162 In summary, thebook by Fedorova and Tsygichko et al. includes many of the themes and concepts
present in the later Russian IW debate and demonstrates that the Russians were keenly
following Western debates.
Igor Panarin is a professor and political scientist who worked for the KGB from 1976
to 1991 and after that for the FAPSI. He is a member of the Academy of Military
Sciences (AVN) and has academic positions in the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and the Moscow State Institute of International
Relations (MGIMO).1163 He has specialized in psychological information warfare andhas written over twenty books mainly on information warfare. Panarin bases his arguments on geopolitics and on ideas about Russia (or ‘Rus’) as a culturally distinct
and special entity. He views these issues in the light of an information revolution
which has turned information into power and information security into a critical security issue. During the latter part of the 20th century the great powers waged information war (informatsionnaia voina) against each other for spiritual, political and economic power, and consequently, the Soviet Union was destroyed by the West.1164 Because Panarin approaches mental activity as an adaptive system, he can be grouped
together with other Russian ‘system theorists’, although he does not favour formal
logic or mathematical models.1165
According to Panarin, a unified global information space (edinnoe mirovoe informatsionnoe prostranstvo) has been created in which leading countries face each otherin a geostrategic struggle (protivoborstvo) to attain information superiority in the
global information space.1166 Panarin argues that the Russian elites must develop a
doctrine which would lead to the unity of humanity and to the prosperity of Russia
1162 Ibid., 141.

1163 According to Jolanta Derczewska Panarin’s writings have influenced the formulation of the 2000 Infor-

mation Security Doctrine and generally Russian views on information warfare. (Darczewska, Jolanta. The Anatomy of Russian Information Warfare: The Crimean Operation, A Case Study. Warsaw: Centre for EasternStudies, 2014, 13-14.) AVN is a non-governmental interregional scientific-research institution which employs
over 1,400 active and retired military personnel as researchers, press-correspondents and lecturers. It is tightly
connected to the Armed Forces of the RF. Its main research subjects are military-political and strategic issues,
the character of war and forecasting future war (Иванов 2014, 19). MGIMO is an academic institution run by
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. It is a teaching university with scientific centres like military-politicalstudies and international information security and scientific-technological politics centres. (МГИМО. [Online].
Available: https://mgimo.ru/about/ [Accessed: 28th March 2019]).
1164 Панарин, И.Н., Панарина, Л.Г. Информационная война и мир. Москва: ОЛМА-ПРЕСС, 2003; Панарин, И.Н. Информационная война и геополитика. М.: Поколение, 2006; Панарин, И.Н. Информационная война и Третий Рим. М.: 2003; Панарин, И.Н. Первая мировая информационная война: развал
СССР. СПБ: Питер, 2010; Панарин, И.Н. СМИ, пропаганда и информационные войны. М.: Поколение,2012.
1165 Панарин & Панарина 2003, 18, 222-225.
1166 Панарин & Панарина, 2003.

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and the whole world.1167 Panarin argues that the U.S., Great Britain and some othercountries are waging an information war against Russia to weaken it because of its
newfound strength, and, therefore, the elite and the people must be protected fromnegative information flows.1168 Panarin distinguishes between information warfare (informatsionnaia bor’ba) and a geopolitical information struggle (geopoliticheskoe informatsionnoe protivoborstvo). The former is a form of warfare, possibly initiatedalready in peacetime, in which special (political, economic, diplomatic, military andother) methods, ways and means are used to influence the information environment,or systems of management and control of the opposing side and to protect one’s own
side to achieve desired goals.1169 The struggle is defined as a modern form of interstate
struggle, as well as a system of measures, to violate the information security (integrity
and resilience of control systems, public opinion, state leadership and decision-making) of another country and to defend against similar actions and to gain information
superiority in the global information space.1170 Panarin, like other Russian writers divides information warfare into information-technological and information-psychological types according to their target, i.e. technological systems or the individual psyche, societal consciousness or decision-making systems.1171 Panarin argues for theestablishment of a centralized ’information-analytical bureau’ and later develops thisto ‘a system of information struggle’ (sistema informatsinnogo protivoborstva).1172
Panarin’s ideas are representative of the ‘holistic’ views that some Russians have hadon information warfare. Moreover, the cybernetic idea of, usually centralized, intragovernmental, or a hierarchical ‘government information management’ system has
been repeated by many Russian civilian and military scholars.1173
Andrei Viktorovich Manoilo is a professor and political scientist who served in the
FSB from 1998 to, at least, 2002 after which he has worked at the Russian Academyof Public Administration (later incorporated to RANEPA)1174, and the MGIMO. He
is currently a member of the Scientific Council at the Security Council of the RussianFederation. He has specialized in and written extensively about psychological information warfare especially in the timeframe of 2003-2008. Manoilo has co-authoredsome of his most known works with Dimitrii Borisovich Frolov, a doctor of politicalscience, and the Director of finCERT at the Bank of Russia, and Anatolii Ivanovich

1167 Ibid., 301; Панарин 2006, 170-171; Панарин 2003.

1168 Панарин & Панарина 2003, 248-249; Панарин, И.Н.

Инструмент внешней политики. ВПК, № 32(248) за 13 августа 2008 года; Панарин, И.Н. Система информационного противоборства. ВПК, № 41(257) за 15 октября 2008 года.
1169 Панарин & Панарина 2003, 20-21; Панарин 2006, 172-173; Панарин И.Н. Информационная войнаи дипломатия. М.: ОАО «Издательский дом «Городец», 2004.
1170 Панарин 2006, 172-173.
1171 Панарин & Панарина 2003, 38-39; Панарин 2006, 173; Панарин 2008b.
1172 Панарин & Панарина 2003, 136-137; Панарин 2008b.
1173 Цыганов, В.В., Бухарин, С.Н., Завьялов, О.Ю., Лукьянова, К.А. Национальная система информационного управления и противоборства. Информационные войны, № 2(10) 2009, 2-8; Сергеев, Н.А. Архитектура перспективной сетецентрической информационно-управляющей системы обеспечения
национальной безопасности России в новых геополитических условиях. Информационные войны, №
2(14) 2010, 69-84.
1174 The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) is a federal
state-funded institution of higher professional education created by combining multiple state education institutions in to one in 2010. It is mainly a teaching institution but conducts also research in areas related to public
administration (РАНХиГС [Online]. Available: https://www.ranepa.ru/ [Accessed: 28th March 2019].)

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Petrenko, who has a Ph.D. in psychology and is an ex-KGB official.1175 Below I shallsummarize some of the ideas presented by Manoilo, Petrenko and Frolov.1176
Manoilo et al. approach their subject from a geopolitical, zero-sum worldview inwhich the competition (sopernichestvo) between states has moved over to the ‘information-psychological space’ (informatsionno-psikhologicheskoe prostranstvo). In
this space the competition is conducted in the form of an information struggle (informatsionnoe protivoborstvo) which for the weaker side might provide the opportunity for ‘an asymmetric response’ (asimmetrichnyi otvet).1177 In this context, globalization is seen as something that strengthens information-psychological aggression as
it unifies the global information space, and this can lead to ‘information neo-colonialism’ (informatsionnyi neokolonializm) where weaker states become sources of strategic resources—information and knowledge.1178 Accordingly, the control of information networks and flows on and through the state territory is a source of power.1179
Manoilo et al. define the information struggle as the rivalry of social systems in theinformation-psychological sphere over the control of limited strategic resources.1180
Its principles are, among others, secrecy, surprise, asymmetry, and the massive use offorce as means. The aim of an information war (informatsionnaia voina) is to acquirea certain gain in the material realm to secure information superiority (prevoskhodstvo)
over the enemy and to inflict material, ideological, or other damage on it.1181 This
superiority is defined as the ability to collect, process and distribute uninterrupted
information flows while at the same time denying the same from the enemy. It could
also mean faster tempo of information operations than the enemy is capable of, whichleads to domination.1182 Mainoilo et al. argue that information is an inherently asymmetric object because it is constantly changing and takes on new, novel forms and isunpredictable. Additionally, it changes the environment it is part of.1183 Therefore,
information weapons are algorithms used to control other information systems forthe someone’s benefit and they transform the environment they are part of.1184 Consequently, for Manoilo et al. the information space (informatsionnoe prostranstvo) isa sphere of action.1185 It is a dynamic and constructed space and thus only temporary
domination is possible. Its information processing functions are nation-dependent,
and its nature defines the weapons and warfare used in relation to it.1186 InformationПетренко, Анатолий Иванович. Межрегиональное бюро судебных экспертиз Им. Сикорского
[Online]. Available: https://www.expertsud.ru/content/view/166/39/ [Accessed: 28th March 2019]; Фролов,Дмитрий Борисович. Высшая школа государственного аудита [Online]. Available: http://itlaw.audit.msu.ru/ [Accessed: 28th March 2019].
1176 Манойло А. В., Петренко А. И., Фролов Д. Б. Государственная информационная политика в условиях информационно-психологической войны. 3-е изд., стереотип. М.: Горячая линия – Телеком, 2012;Вепринцев, В.Б., Манойло, А.В., Петренко, А.И., Фролов, Д.Б. Операции информационно-психологической войны: краткий энциклопедический словарь-справочник. М.: Горячая линия – Телеком, 2011.
1177 Манойло et al. 2012, 11-12.
1178 Ibid., 15-16.
1179 Ibid., 16.
1180 Манойло et al. 2013, 318-319.
1181 Ibid., 68-69, 74.
1182 Ibid., 280.
1183 Ibid., 21-23.
1184 Ibid., 234-236.
1185 Ibid., 310. Cf. also Information-psychological space (Манойло et al. 2012, 32-37).
1186 Манойло et al. 2013, 313.
1175

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security (informatsionnaia bezopasnost’) is the security of the information environment (sreda), and the security of the national interests in the information sphere includes sovereignty.1187 The sovereignty of a state will be in danger if it does not control
the information infrastructure.1188
Based on their theory, Mainoilo et al. propose, for example, the creation of a Eurasian
information space to counter American unipolar politics.1189 Although the threat ofan information war is ever present, Manoilo et al. do not promote isolation but recommend developing national strength (psychological and technological) and an active
policy towards the global information space.1190 A system of state information confrontation or struggle should be created.1191 All in all, Manoilo et al. create a synthesisof Western information warfare theories and geopolitical thought and develop theidea of a continuous interstate information struggle for (always temporary) information superiority.
Sergei Nikolaevich Griniaev is a doctor of technical sciences and has worked in various institutions of the Ministry of Defence from the 1990s—for example as a leading
researcher at the Centre for Military Strategic Studies of the General Staff1192. He iscurrently the General Director of the Centre of Strategic Estimations and Forecasts(CSEF)1193 and is a specialist on information warfare.1194 Griniaev has made Western
IW theory known in Russian perhaps more than created his own. In his writings from2000–2004 Griniaev’s basic claim was that information is the most important productand resource of the information economy, and that the 21st century battles will befought in cyberspace (kiberprostranstvo) where information resides.1195 Griniaev hasargued that information is an instrument of power and that power is connected togeopolitics. Here he referred to Panarin. It should be noted that Panarin and Manoilo
respectively refer to Rastorguev and that the Russian IW theorists know each other’swork.1196 Griniaev translated the Western IW as an information struggle or confrontation (informatsionnoe protivoborstvo) and defined it as a multifaceted impact on
1187 Ibid., 28-29.

1188 Ibid., 261. They refer to Батурин, Ю. М. Телекоммуникации и право (Вопросы стратегии). Москва:Центр “Право и СМИ”, 2000. Baturin uses the term ‘information sovereignty’ multiple times in the context
of law on information.
1189 Манойло et al. 2012, 72-74.
1190 Ibid., 85.
1191 Ibid., 515-517.
1192 The Centre for Military Strategic Studies of the General Staff (Tsentr voenno-strategicheskikh issledovanii
General’nogo shtaba) was established 1985 to study the challenges posed by the U.S. SDI and other strategic
weapons related issues. Currently, the Center prepares scientifically based proposals on the construction, development, and use of the Armed Forces and takes part in the drafting of the strategic planning documents andcoordinates the drafting of basic main field regulations. (Чекинов, С. Г. Центр военно-стратегических исследований Генерального штаба Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации история и современность.
Военная мысль № 1, 2010, 3-5).
1193 The Center of Strategic Estimations and Forecasts (Tsentr strategicheskikh otsenok i prognozov) (CSEF)
is an independent non-commercial organization established in 2012. Its mission is to propagate Russian geopolitical views of the international order and to network domestic and foreign experts. (Иванов 2014, 110).
1194 Гриняев, Сергей Николаевич. Центр стратегических оценок и прогнозов [Online]. Available:
http://csef.ru/ru/team/5 [Accessed: 18th March 2019].
1195 Гриняев, С.Н. Глобализация и информационная безопасность. Красная звезда № 4 2.11.10.2000.
1196 Гриняев, С.Н. Поле битвы - киберпространство: Теория, приемы, средства, методы и системы ведения информационной войны. М.: Харвест, 2004, 13. For example, Griniaev’s ideas almost completely resemble the ideas of the lesser known V. F. Prokof’ev (Прокофьев В.Ф. Тайное оружие информационной
войны: атака на подсознание. М: СИНТЕГ, 2003.)

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the system of state and military management of the opposing side, on its militarypolitical leadership. This impact should already in peacetime lead to the adoption ofdecisions favourable to the initiator of the information measures, and during conflict
to completely paralyze the functioning of the target’s management processes and infrastructure.1197 Griniaev claimed that the Western IW is a struggle for knowledge, i.e.
“who will know the answers to the questions: what, when, where, why faster and more
precisely” and that it aims for information superiority even in peacetime.1198 Griniaev
further argues that ‘noonpolitiks’ is the basis of the American 21st century information strategy and that the Americans aim to use ‘soft power’ to achieve national
objectives.1199 The means include ‘controlled chaos’ (upravliaemoi khaos) which isused to manipulate the networks of a target society.1200 In an interesting twist of military academic sabre-rattling Griniaev was criticized by Iuri Gorbachev, an influential
EW theorist, for misinterpreting Western terms.1201
Griniaev defined a proper information war or warfare as a new form of armed warfare, meaning large-scale warfare using methods of information influence to achieve
the goals of the influencing party.1202 Furthermore, he claimed that information
war/warfare can be divided into information-psychological and information-technological. The main distinction of information warfare from physical warfare is that it is
not aimed at destroying but manipulating the opponent.1203 The aim of information
war/warfare is to gain information superiority, secure the objectives of national military strategy, and foresee and eliminate threats before they emerge, or eliminate themin the initial stage of war—or even before that.1204 Like Manoilo and Panarin, Griniaev
emphasised the economic and financial aspects of information warfare and the graveconsequences if a country were to be excluded from the Internet. Thus, he argued
that the special services of different countries were strengthening the control of national segments of the global network which might eventually lead to ‘virtual stateborders in cyberspace’ (virtual’naia gosudarstvennaia granitsa).1205
The more abstract theories of information confrontation have a definite kibernetik
foundation. This is apparent in the works, for example, of Rastorguev, Tsyganov,

1197 Later, Griniaev translates information warfare and information war both as ‘informatsionnaia voina’.

(Гриняев 2004, 93-94).
1198 Ibid.
1199 Гриняев 2004, 15. ‘Noonpolitik’ is a term used by John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt (Arquilla, John andRonfeldt, David. The Emergence of Noonpolitik: Toward An American Information Strategy. Santa Monica:
RAND, 1999). It should be noted that Griniaev is not the only Russian theorist who interprets Arquilla’s andRonfeldt’s ideas and the concepts of netwars and network-centric warfare quite freely. For example, Vitalii
Grigor’ev builds his theory of IW on the claim that NCW is an American geopolitical strategy to manipulate
global networks through the Internet-based mass media (Григорьев В.Р. Информационные вирусы – Новое
оружие массового поражения. Информационные войны, №3 (7) 2008, 2-29).
1200 Гриняев 2004, 53, 70-71, 196-198.
1201 Горбачев, Юрий. К вопросу о “войне в четвертой сфере”. В США у нее иная терминология, чем вРоссии, а задачи – всеобъемлющие. Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 14 20.4.2001.
1202 Гриняев 2004, 96. An exact translation of war/warfare is difficult because Griniaev has to use the Russianwords available to explain foreign Western theory while at the same time claiming that these terms had universal
value. This problem is, of course, in the heart of this thesis also.
1203 Ibid., 96.
1204 Ibid., 101.
1205 Ibid., 165-167.

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Bukharin and Kruglov.1206 In his book “Mathematical models of information confrontation” (2014) Sergei Pavlovich Rastorguev argues that human societies are self-learning and organizing systems which can be manipulated from the outside through information.1207 Information weapons are like viruses which reprogram self-learning systems (society or the human mind) and change their structures until the system selfdestructs. They are used to activate, destroy, block or create processes in the information system. Rastorguev claims that there is no difference between the concepts of
information confrontation/struggle (protivoborstvo), war (voina) and warfare(bor’ba) because an information war is not defined by particular weapons or a stateof relationship.1208 In an earlier book from 1999 Rastorguev argued that systems could
defend themselves by creating a barrier between themselves and the source of danger;
avoiding danger by moving beyond its reach; through the destruction of the sourceof danger; and through self-modification beyond recognition. Rastorguev claimed
that the last method would be self-destructive if it was done according to the wishesof the aggressor.1209 Later, Rastorguev introduced the concept of the resilience(ustoichivost’) of a system against information weapons, which was based on its ability
to resist the change of its elements as societal structures are based on stable (nonfluctuating) knowledge.1210 According to Rastorguev, the resilience and aggressivenessof systems can be mathematically modelled. This makes it possible to predict how
different ‘world models’ affect each other, and so, in practice, to plan information
warfare.1211 Rastorguev was by far one of the most original Russian thinkers on information warfare. He was not unique in using cybernetic and systems theory but went
further than anybody else in trying to give his theories a mathematical and logicalbasis.
Vladimir Viktorovich Tsyganov and Sergei Nikolaevich Bukharin are also quite influential cybernetists who have written about information security especially in the late
2000s.1212 They have both worked at the Institute of the Control Sciences in the RAS,
which has a strong history of systems theory and cybernetics.1213 Their main interest
has been the management (upravlenie) of information confrontation or warfare (protivoborstvo) as a complex system, and they have tried to formulate a single basic
1206 Расторгуев 1999; Расторгуев С. П. Математические модели в информационном противоборстве. —М.: ЦСОиП, 2014; Бухарин С. Н., Цыганов В.В. Ситуационный анализ в информационных войнах.
информационные войны, №2 (6) 2008, 47-58; Цыганов, В.В., Бочкарева, Ю.Г. Эволюция социальных
систем при информационной конфронтации и партийные механизмы обеспечения общественной безопасности. Информационные войны № 3(31) 2014, 12-22; Круглов, В. В. Новый подход к анализу современного противоборства. Военная Мысль, № 12 2006, 50-61.
1207 The analysis presented here draws on and complements Ristolainen & Kukkola 2019a. Расторгуев 2014,
14.
1208 Ibid.
1209 Расторгуев 1999, 116-117.
1210 Расторгуев 2014, 73-77.
1211 Ibid., 223-224.
1212 Цыганов, В.В., Бухарин, С.Н. Информационные войны в бизнесе и политике. М.: Академический
Проект, 2007; Бухарин, С.Н., Цыганов, В.В. Методы и технологии информационных войн. M.:
Академический проект, 2007.
1213 The institution was first established in 1939 as the Institute of Automation and Remote Control of the
USSR Academy of Sciences. Throughout its history it has produced important theoretical and applied works
on automation. Its current customers include almost all of the power ministries. (Васильева, С.Н. (общ. ред.)Институт проблем управления им. В.А. Трапезникова Российской академии наук. Москва: ИПУ РАН,2014 [Online]. Available: https://www.ipu.ru/sites/default/files/page_file/ 75%20лет%20ИПУ%20РАН.
pdf [Accessed: 28th March 2019].)168

model and templates for waging information war (informatsionnaia voina).1214 Tsyganov and Bukharin have used system-theoretical logic to analyse information confrontations and like Rastorguev have claimed that ‘civilizations’, understood as adaptive complex systems, are the main sources of values which guide the motivations ofpossible targets of information warfare or operations.1215 This means that the modern
world can be understood as a conflict between competing civilizations through information because kinetic warfare has lost much of its usability. Tsyganov and Bukharin
claimed that the objective of an information war is to achieve capital and power, aclaim which gives their theory a definite Marxist twist.1216 Tsyganov and Bukharin haveused the term ‘voina’ and ‘protivoborstvo’ interchangeably to define a phenomenon
that exists in human relations from the corporate level up to the global level. In theirview “information war [voina] is a dynamic process occurring in a complex self-organizing system.”1217 Depending on the context, ‘protivoborstvo’ then means either
confrontation. i.e. state of affairs (condition), or warfare, i.e. active engagement
through information means.1218 In an article published in 2013 Tsyganov claimed thatthe constantly on-going information confrontation is aimed at achieving information
superiority over the enemy in military, political, economic and other fields. Russia waslosing and, thus, needed ‘information troops’.1219 Moreover, Tsyganov and Bukharin
have argued that an information war should be conduct by a centralized and hierarchical ‘intellectual mechanism of information war’ (IMIV).1220
Major General, Professor, Viacheslav Kruglov, who is a member of the Military Academy of Sciences, has used mathematical models based on a theory of the symmetryof chaos and order to theorize about the modern confrontation—and to offer Russia
a role as a ‘Eurasian harmonizer’.1221 He, like many others has argued that globalization
is directed against Russia. Kruglov has claimed that living systems strive for harmony
or equilibrium between their parts and resist forces opposing this process. The parts
are ever moving because of a ‘triad of forces’ and this produces evolution.1222 Thismeans that war is an eternal condition even if its form changes. Information management and intellectual resources are power for Kruglov in this constant, ongoing battle.
Kruglov concluded that Russia should use offensive and defensive actions during
peacetime, and that it should use all available methods in wartime, including nondirect or asymmetric means. Moreover, Russia’s state and military command and control systems should be unified with the military system having primacy over othercontrol systems.1223 The system-theoretical-thinking Rastorguev, Bukharin, Tsyganov
1214 Цыганов & Бухарин 2007, 50-53. The principles of information war are: a systemic approach, self-organ-

ization, adaptability, progressiveness, and intellectuality (Цыганов & Бухарин 2007, 179).
1215 Cf. Rastorguev on civilizations (1999, 99) He defines civilizations as a thing “…conceivable as a reality bya set of living beings with their own material and spiritual culture.” Bukharin and Tsyganov define culture ascorresponding to a certain level of the stage of social evolution, and material and spiritual culture. (Бухарин &Цыганов 2007, 27)
1216 Cf. Цыганов & Бухарин 2007, 42-44, 188.
1217 Цыганов & Бухарин 2007, 40. For an example of the ambiguous use of the terms Бухарин & Цыганов
2007, 166-168, 299.
1218 Cf. Ibid., 304
1219 Цыганок А.Д. Информационные войны в начале XXI века. Информационные войны, №4 (28) 2013,17-29.
1220 Цыганов & Бухарин 2007, 125-26; Бухарин & Цыганов 2007, 296; Цыганов et al. 2009.
1221 Круглов 2006; Круглов, В. В. Фундаментальные законы мироздания - Основа новой теории войны.
Обозреватель, №8 (187) 2005.
1222 Круглов 2006, 56.
1223 Ibid., 58-59.

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and Kruglov carry with them the explicit policy recommendation to protect the Russian national information space (or system) from outside influences. This resonatedwith the widely shared claim that the Soviet Union had been destroyed by Western
information operations and Russia was again under similar attack.1224
Professor Anatoly Strel’tsov is an ex-military, possibly ex-KGB or GRU, information
warfare and policy specialist who has worked in the Security Council of the RussianFederation as an advisor from 1995 and in the Information Security Institute at the
Moscow Lomonosov State University from 2012.1225 Strel’tsov has written extensively
about the information security (informatsionnaia bezopasnost’) of the Russian Federation beginning from the late-1990s when the basic provisions of state information
policy were being formulated.1226 According to Strel’tsov, information security as aconcept entered Russian law in 1992 and politically it was given form in the 2000
Information Security Doctrine, the drafting of which Strel’tsov took part in.1227 He
argued in 2002 that information security (obespechenie informatsionnoi bezopasnosti) is based on the protection of an object from a threat or harm through the actionof securing it.1228 Accordingly, there is such an object as state information security,
meaning the functions of controlling society, the protection of which is paramount.
Strel’tsov pointed out that information itself and information systems can also be an
object of security, which means they must be protected from unauthorised use andmanipulation, but also that access to them must be secured. The information sphereis recognized as a distinct sphere of human action and, accordingly, there are national
interests in the information sphere which are connected to the legal rights and responsibilities of citizens, the development of society, and the control functions of thestate involving information and the information infrastructure—the crosscutting interest being the preservation of national identity. Therefore the information securityof the Russian federation is the responsibility of the state, and information security is
characterised by a technological-spiritual dualism: social norms, morals and laws are
1224 Федорова & Цигичко 2001, 144; Панарин 2003, 34; Расторгуев 1999, 174 & 2014, 240-241; Цыганов &2007, 15; Ковалев В.И., Малков С.Ю. Что делать, чтобы не распасться как ссср? Информационные
войны, № 3(35) 2015, 52-57; Калиновский, О.Н. Дискуссионная трибуна. "Информационная война" это война? Военная мысль, № 1 1.1.2001.
1225 Strel’tsov has been one of the Russian representatives in the international negotiations concerning cybersecurity norms and has written several articles and books on Russian information policy and international information security. He is a vice-chair of the National Association of International Information Security (NAMIB) which was established in 2017 and in which belong all the ‘household names’ of the Russian cyber diplomacy corps, i.e. people participating in the Russian international cyber norm-building project. NAMIB is supported by the Security Council. (Комов, С.А. (под общ. редакцией). Международная информационная
безопасность: дипломатия мира. Сборник статей. М: Военинформ, 2009; Стрельцов, Анатолий Александрович. ПИР-Центр [Online]. Available: http://pircenter.org/experts/918-streltsov-anatoly-a [Accessed:
28th March 2019]; Газета.ru «Мы стоим перед новой угрозой» 12 апреля 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.gazeta.ru/tech/2018/04/11/11714395/namib.shtml [Accessed: 28th March 2019]; НАМИБ.
Устав Национальной Ассоциации международной информационной безопасности Протокол № 1 от
«10» апреля 2018 г [Online]. Available: http://namib.online/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Ustav_ NAMIB.pdf [Accessed: 2nd January 2020].
1226 Емельянов Г.В., Стрельцов А.А. Проблемы обеспечения информационной безопасности субъектов
Российской Федерации. Информационное общество, № 6 (1998), 38 - 41.
1227 Садовничий В. А., Стрельцов А. А. Обеспечение информационной безопасности России: Теоретические и методологические основы. — Моск. центра непрерывного математического образования.
М.: 2002.
1228 Later defined as “activities to prevent harm to the properties of the security object, conditioned by the
information and information infrastructure, as well as the means and subjects of this activity.” Стрельцов А.А.
(и др.) Организационно-правовое обеспечение информационной безопасности. М.: Академия, 2008,
22.

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equally important tools as technological and organizational measures.1229 Strel’tsov’s
definition of information security is state-centric an obviously formulated in such a
way that the state control of information is legitimized.
Later, in 2009 Strel’tsov argued that Russia needed a state information policy to secure
the stability and spiritual development of society, and the socio-economic development of the state to strengthen the Russian state as a great power (derzhava).1230 According to Strel’tsov, the state information policy is about promoting values, strategic
communications, and conducting an information-political (non-forceful) and militarytechnological (forceful) struggle (protivoborstvo).1231 By 2011 Strel’tsov had updated
his views on the information confrontation or struggle (protivoborstvo) to encompass a global information struggle (global’noe informatsionnoe protivoborstvo). Furthermore, he updated the concept of military-technological struggle to mean the creation of coercive (silovoi) means of information-technological influence against enemy governmental and military infrastructure, protection of own information and telecommunications systems related to critical infrastructure, and electronic radio andcomputer intelligence. The new technological means of confrontation enabled theachievement of political goals when other coercive means were unavailable or ineffective.1232 Strel’tsov’s views moved in a more state-interventionist, almost authoritarian direction between 2003–2011. As he worked during that time in the Security
Council of RF, his views can be considered to reflect influential ideas circulating insidethe decision-making apparatus.
Army General Makhmut Akhmetovich Gareev is perhaps the most influential Russian
military scholar alive. He is Doctor of Science in History and Military Science and has
been highly decorated.1233 Gareev’s views are quite traditional, and in 2003 he argued
that Operation Iraqi Freedom was not an example of a kind of new type of war or
warfare. He did however concede, that in that war, a wide variety of political, economic, and informational actions were used to prepare the battlefield.1234 In 2005
Gareev pointed out that although states pursued their interest in various harmful
ways, the competition between states was not a war if it did not involve the violent
use of armed forces. He argued that the initial period of war had gained in importancebecause of the dominance of aerospace, and information domains had become decisive. Indirect actions with political, economic, and moral effects had become more
important and armed combat was penetrated by information warfare (protivoborstvo). Gareev envisioned a war starting with a massive aerospace, information andEW operation followed by a conventional ground assault. To him, a ‘non-contact’(beskontaktnyi) war would always be followed by a ‘contact’ war if the government,
people, and most importantly the army (land forces) held together. Gareev openly
criticized those Russian scholars promoting three-dimensional, network, asymmetric,
1229 Стрельцов 2008, 41, 43-49.

1230 Стрельцов А.А. Государственная информационная политика: основы теории. М.: МЦНМО, 2009.
1231 Ibid., 48 & 51.

1232 Стрельцов, А. А. Основные задачи государственной политики в области информационного проти-воборства. Военная мысль, № 5 2011, 18-25.
1233 Gareev has been the President of the Academy of Military Sciences since its establishment in 1995. His
articles published in various military journals during the 2000-2018 provide an insight into how the Russian
military officers, or at least, those working at the Academy have seen the development of interstate struggle
and warfare.
1234 Гареев, М.А. Уроки и выводы из войны в Ираке. Военная мысль, № 8 2003, 68-76.

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non-contact, information warfare etc.1235 This included Vladimir Slipchenko, a fellow
military scholar of Gareev, who promoted the idea of a future non-nuclear, non-contact precision war which would be aimed at destroying the economic potential of the
opponent. This kind of war would start and end with massive surprise precision strikeattacks—possibly by both sides.1236 A similar view was promoted by the retired General-Lieutenant S. A. Bogdanov, a chief researcher of the Centre for Military Strategic
Studies of the General Staff (TsVSI GSh VS RF), in 2003, although he emphasised
the role of massive information-psychological pressure before the attack and information superiority (prevoskhodstvo) through disinformation, deception and EW during the attack.1237
Despite the official Russian foreign policy, Gareev considered the United States andNATO as potential adversaries.1238 Consequently, in 2012 Gareev claimed that countries of the world were suffering from infringements on their sovereignty. Russia
should work with countries who were prepared for equal partnerships, while at thesame time strive to become an independent great power. As Russian national interests, Gareev listed, among others, the creation of a high-tech industry, the preparedness to wage information, psychological and cybernetic war, strategic deterrence,
moral-psychological factors and patriotism, which he considered a part of military
power. Gareev subscribed to the view that Russia was threatened by a controlledchaos aimed at disturbing the internal stability of the state and overthrowing it.1239
For Gareev an international confrontation or struggle are not the same as war.1240
Before and after the annexation of Crimea, Gareev pushed back on the new conceptsof war although he conceded that new forms of international confrontation (protivoborstvo) carried out on the brink of war by veiled or overt violence, required special
attention.1241 Consequently, the U.S. and its allies would use information means tocreate ‘colour revolutions’ and used military force in local conflicts to weaken Russia.1242 Gareev also argued for more intragovernmental cooperation between power
ministries and even a new state organ to counter new military and non-military
threats.1243 In the middle of the far-ranging military reform Gareev defended an undivided, unified and hierarchical command.1244 Although Gareev clearly dismissed fash-

1235 Гареев, М.А. О характере вооруженной борьбы будущего. Вестник Академии военных наук, №2,

2005, 11-14; Гареев, М.А. Отстаивая национальные интересы. ВПК, № 48 (115) за 21 декабря 2005 года.
1236 Слипченко, В. И. Войны шестого поколения: оружие и военное искусство будущего. М.: ИД Вече,2002.
1237 Богданов, С. А. Вероятный облик вооруженной борьбы будущего. Военная мысль, № 12 2003, 2-7.
1238 Гареев, М.А. Итоги деятельности Академии военных наук за 2009 год и задачи академии на следующий год. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 1 (30) 2010, 8-18.
1239 Гареев, М.А. Итоги деятельности Академии военных наук за 2011 год и задачи академии на 2012 год»Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(39) 2012, 6-17,12.
1240 Гареев, М.А. Система знаний о войне и обороне страны на современном этапе. Вестник Академии
военных наук, 2(43) 2013, 7-14.
1241 Гареев, М.А. Итоги деятельности Академии военных наук за 2012 год и задачи академии на 2013 год.
Вестник Академии военных наук, 1(42) 2013, 8-21, 13.
1242 Гареев, М.А. Опыт Великой Отечественной войны и работа Академии военных наук по дальнейшему развитию военной науки. Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(51) 2015, 16-25, 21-22.
1243 Гареев 2013a; Гареев, М.А. Характер современных военных и невоенных угроз безопасности Россиии организация обороны страны. Вестник Академии военных наук, 4(45) 2013, 4-9.
1244 Гареев, М.А. Итоги деятельности Академии военных наук за 2013 год и задачи академии на 2014 год.
Вестник Академии военных наук, 1(46) 2014, 7-13.

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ionable terms like ‘soft power’ (miagaia sila) and ‘hybrid war’ (gibrinaia voina) he argued that economic, politico-diplomatic, information warfare (bor’ba) and militarymeans of confrontation (protivoborstvo) should be used in tight cooperation toachieve military objectives.1245 In a co-authored article in 2017 with Major General
N.I. Turko, Gareev seems to have finally given up on the distinction between politics
and war as the article claims that modern war can be divided to a lower layer consistingof hard non-military means and soft non-traditional means, and a higher layer consisting of armed warfare.1246 Accordingly, Gareev continued to emphasised the importance of whole-of-government cooperation, territorial defence and mobilization.1247 In 2019 he argued that the new types of warfare, which were constantly changing, required international regulation. The importance of local wars and conflicts was
rising as nuclear weapons prevented wars only between the great powers.1248 All in all,Gareev’s writings in the 2000s and 2010s promoted the Academy’s official version of
the character of war which tried to resist ‘fads’ like cyber or hybrid wars but seems tohave failed in the end.
The discussion on information war and warfare in the military journals carried overfrom the 1990s into the 2000s. Military scholars studied the United States’ armed
forces’ doctrine on information war and/or warfare (translated variously as either
voina or protivoborstvo), compared Russian and American concepts and in somecases tried to merge them.1249 For example, in 2005 a renowned military historian Vladimir Zolotarev described information confrontation (protivoborstvo) as a complex
of measures and operations conducted in peace and wartime and as such distinct fromwar (voina). It included the destruction of the infrastructure of the government andmilitary command, electromagnetic attacks on telecommunications (EW), communication and signal intelligence, data breaches and the destruction of data resources
through ‘hacker wars’, and the spreading of mass disinformation. Zolotarev claimed
that information had become important because the disorganization of national infrastructure had strategic effects, information enabled the struggle (protivoborstvo)
between states in the post-Cold War era in the information sphere, and the means of
information influence had become available to criminals and terrorists.1250
In 2009 Colonel General Vice-Chief of General Staff Anatolii Nogovitsyn defined an
information war (voina) as: “a confrontation [protivoborstvo] between states in theinformation space in order to damage information systems, processes and resources,
critical structures, to undermine the political and social systems, as well as to massively
psychologically influence the military personnel and the population in order to destabilize society and the enemy’s state as a whole.” He claimed that its primary mission
1245 Гареев 2015.
1246 Турко, Н. И., Гареев, М.А. Война: современное толкование теории и реалии практики. Вестник Ака-демии военных наук, 1(58) 2017, 4-10. Gareev seems to walk back on this in his next article (Гареев, М.А.
Итоги деятельности Академии военных наук за 2016 год и задачи Академии на 2017 год. Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(59) 2017, 14-22).
1247 Гареев 2018.
1248 Гареев, М.А. Итоги деятельности Академии военных наук за 2018 год и задачи академии на 2019 год.
Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(67) 2019, 12-18.
1249 Лимно, А. Н., Крысанов, М. Ф. Информационное противоборство и маскировка войск. Военная
мысль, № 5 31.5.2003; Комов, С. А., Коротков, С. В., Дылевский, И. Н. Об эволюции современной американской доктрины “информационных операций”. Военная мысль, № 6 2008.
1250 Крамар, Владислав. Любая война обходится дороже содержания мощной армии. ВПК, № 39 (106)за 19 октября 2005 года.

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was “the destruction of the foundations of the national identity and the way of life of
the opposing state.” Nogovitsyn argued that victory in a modern war was possible
only through information superiority and victory over an enemy was in its essence a
psychological act. According to him, the main characteristics of information war wereits cheapness, perception management, difficulty in prediction and estimating damages, and the transformation of the information infrastructure of a state into a strategic target.1251 Nogovitsyn’s ideas were not far from Western ideas of strategic information warfare.
In 2014 Retired Major General Kh. I. Saifetdinov, an ex-chief of the 27th TsNII of
the MoD1252 defined information warfare (protivoborstvo) as “the purposeful use of
information to achieve political, economic, military and other goals.” According tohim, the objective of IW was to gain and maintain information superiority over thearmed forces of the enemy and to create favourable conditions for the preparation
and use of the Armed Forces. IW should be conducted continuously during peacetime
as part of strategic deterrence, during threatening periods as supporting initiation of
the defence plan, and during wartime to acquire superiority. The main tasks of IWshould be monitoring and forecasting, deception, disorganization of enemy forces,
degrading the psychological resilience of the enemy forces and population, supporting
the moral-psychological state of one’s own forces, and protecting one’s own ASUs
and weapons. Saifetdinov proposed that the Armed Forces should have a system of
information warfare including multiple subsystems of offensive, defensive and supporting measures.1253
After the annexation of the Crimea and Russia’s intervention in Syria, military scholars
became more interested in the psychological than the technological aspect of information confrontation—mainly because of the perceived hostile and critical Westernreaction.1254 The antagonistic approach shared by the Russian civilian and militaryscholars towards the United States and its allies was based on the perceived geopolitical confrontation and the ‘premeditated’ fall of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the arguably selective and highly interpretive study of Western doctrines and theoretical
writings led to the interpretation of the concepts of ‘network or netwars’ (setevaia
voina) and ‘noonpolitics’ as a new type of Western warfare or even as a seventh generation ‘information-network warfare’ fought in the information environment and1251 Ноговицын, Анатолий. Некоторые аспекты обеспечения информационной безопасности Россий-ской Федерации. Военная мусль, № 3 2009, 24-26; Ноговицын, Анатолий. Некоторые аспекты обеспечения информационной безопасности российской федерации. Российское военное обозрение № 3(62) март 2009.
1252 The 27th TsNII or Central Scientific-Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence was established in 1954.
It has been responsible for the development of Soviet and Russian military ASUs and ASUVs under the guidance of the General Staff and it develops systems for all services. (Протасов, А. А. Институт автоматизациии совершенствования управления войсками (силами): история и современность. Военная мысль, № 72014, 3-8; ‘Сайфетдинов’ Академик 2019 [Online]. Available: https://dic.academic.ru/ dic.nsf/enc_biography/ 109590 /Сайфетдинов. [Accessed: 30th January 2019].
1253 Сайфетдинов, Х. И. Информационное противоборство в военной сфере. Военная мысль, № 7,
2014, 38-41.
1254 Микрюков, Василий. Победа в войне должна быть достигнута еще до первого выстрела. Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 1 15.1.2016; Балуевский, Юрий. Агрессия «общечеловеческого» Военными
технологиями нематериального действия у нас никто не занимается. ВПК, № 18 (584) за 20 мая 2015
года; Сивков, Константин. Захват будущего в теории и на практике. на форуме "АРМИЯ-2018" обсуждены проблемы психологической обороны. ВПК, № 35 за 11 сентябрь 2018.

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naturally directed against Russia.1255 After Western scholars and media began to use
the terms ‘hybrid war’ and ‘hybrid warfare’ to describe Russian actions in Ukraine,
Russian writers quite effortlessly began to use these same terms to describe the Western use of ‘controlled chaos’ and ‘colour revolutions’, that is anti-government, possibly violent activities supported by foreign powers, which partially merged with hybrid
warfare.1256
There were some critical views. I. M. Popov and M. M. Khamzatov pointed out in2016 that many Russians had misunderstood the American concept of network-centric warfare to mean a new kind of war, whereas it was just a doctrine or concept ofcommand and control.1257 This observation did not prevent Popov and Khamzatov
to claim that a new kind of ‘system-network war’ had been born. It was described as‘a technology to wage war’ and it had different forms depending on the level at which
it was engaged (political, strategic, operational and tactical). At the highest level, it wasa struggle between systems (governments) to weaken their opponents’ ‘critical nodes’
to win with as least bloodshed as possible by using state and non-state resources /actors. Conversely, the tactical level was reminiscent of the NCW.1258 Arguably, Popovand Khamzatov thus tried to combine all the Russian theories on warfare examined
above under one concept.
The character of future war has greatly interested Russian military scholars from theearly 2000s. Retired Lieutenant General and Chief researcher of the Institute of Socialand Political Studies of RAN, V. V. Serebriannikov continued (cf. Chapter 4) his theorizing about the changing character of war. He claimed that violent military means
should be divided into direct (warfare) and indirect (intimidation and pressure) means.
This produced a matrix of violent/non-violent, military/non-military, and direct/indirect means. Serebriannikov also noted that non-military means were being militarized, e.g. the use of economic means against the military-industrial complex or information-propaganda against the will of the people and armed forces.1259 The theme ofindirect actions or strategy heavily influenced the way Russian scholars have handled
information warfare. I will return to this issue when discussing asymmetric responses

1255 Дугин А.Г. Теоретические основы сетевых войн. Информационные войны, № 1(5) 2008, 2-9; Бовду-нов А. Л. Неправительственные организации: сетевая война. Информационные войны, № 3(7) 2008,30-39; Савин Л. В. Украина в сетевой войне. Информационные войны, № 3(7) 2008, 42-51; Никитенко
Е.Г., Сергеев Н.А. «Мягкая сила» в контексте национальной безопасности России. Информационные
войны, № 3(27) 2013, 36-52; Карякин В.В. Мир вступил в эпоху войн седьмого поколения – информационно–сетевых войн. Информационные войны, № 3(19) 2011, 2-7; Золотарев, Владимир. Когда нация
становится жертвой: Концептуальные основы информационно-сетевых войн. ВПК, № 17 (485) за 1 мая2013 года.
1256 Basically, ‘controlled chaos’ is the clandestine inciting of terrorism, separatism and insurgency by an adversary power to enable regime change in its opponent. Лепский В.Е. Технологии управляемого хаоса – оружие разрушения субъектности развития. Информационные войны, № 4(16) 2010, 69-78; Воробьев, И.
Н., Киселев, В. А. Стратегии сокрушения и измора в новом облике. Военная мысль, № 3 2014, 45-57;
Киселев, В. А., Воробьев, И. Н. Гибридные операции как новый вид военного противоборства. Военная
мысль, № 5 2015, 41-48; Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. Эволюция сущности и содержания понятия
“война” в XXI столетии. Военная мысль, № 1 2017, 30-43; Бартош, А. А. Стратегия и контрстратегия
гибридной войны. Военная мысль, № 10 2018, 5-20.
1257 Попов И.М., Хамзатов М.М. Война будущего: концептуальные основы и практические выводы.
Очерки стратегической мысли. – М.: Кучково поле, 2016, 428.
1258 Ibid., 498-450.
1259 Серебрянников, В. В. О понятии “война”. Военная мысль, 2004 № 10, 61-65.

175because many military scholars have considered information warfare to be essentiallyindirect and asymmetric.
By 2008 the General Staff had embraced the idea of information war and its technological and psychological component, the latter of which was perhaps seen as more
important.1260 Following this view, Major General E. A. Derbin, the Head of the Department of Information Security of the Military Academy of the General Staff1261,
argued that information was the means of strategic confrontation (protivoborstvo)
and strategic deterrence (sderzhivanie).1262 Derbin’s solution to information threats
was a system of information security which consisted of multiple subsystems.1263 To
this system could be incorporated systems protecting state secrets, securing communications, and protecting ASUs, which would increase the resilience (ustoichivost’) of
the information infrastructure against threats. This system would protect Russia (andits allies) from direct and indirect actions of the enemy.1264 Derbin’s views must be
taken as authoritative as he was the General responsible for training information security for high ranking officers. As the threats multiplied and became non-militarized,
Derbin updated his views in 2019 and argued for the creation of the State Defence
Committee, including STAVKA of the Supreme Command. This should have integrated the security efforts of all ministries.1265
A series of articles written in 2011-2012 by a senior researcher of the Military Academy of the General Staff, E. G. Shalamberidze, provided a complex model of international and largely indirect confrontation (mezhdunarodnaia protivoborstvo)1266
which closely resembles the model of intergovernmental conflicts provided by the
Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov in 2013.1267 They also echoed the ideas presented by Serebriannikov in the early 2000s. According to Shalamberidze, indirect

1260 Бурутин, А. Войны будущего станут информационными. Новые вызовы и угрозы безопасности Рос-сии. Независимое военное обозрение, № 5 2008, 2-3.
1261 The Department of Information Security of the Military Academy of the General Staff offers educationand training for mid- to high-ranking military officers for information security issues of the state and the Armed
Forces on the strategic and operational level. It also conducts research on these subjects. (Военная академия
Генерального штаба Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации. Кафедра информационной безопасности [Online]. Available: http://vagsh.mil.ru/Struktura-akademii/Kafedra-informacionnoj-bezopasnosti[Accessed: 29th March 2019].)1262 Дербин, Е.А. Информационная безопасность союзного государства как основа его обороноспособности в условиях непрямых действий противника. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 2 (27) 2009, 3138.
1263 The subsystems were: organization structural-functional, evaluation and forecasting of the situation, legal,
educational and cadres, ideological work, linguistical, scientific, coordination and control, measures of information security, and technical security.
1264 Дербин 2009. Cf. also Дербин, Е.Л. О роли смысла в обеспечении информационной безопасности.
Военная Мысль, № 11 2007, 68-77.
1265 Дербин, Е.Л. О Совершенствовании Стратегического Руководства Обороной России. Вестник
Академии военных наук, № 2 (67) 2019, 46-52.
1266 Although the Bulletin of the Academy of Military Sciences offers warfare as the English translation, it isclear that Shalamberidze does not write about warfare understood as fighting or use of force, and so ‘confrontation’ is used here.
1267 Шаламберидзе Е.Г. Непрямое противоборство в сфере военной безопасности в условиях мирного
времени. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 1 (34) 2011, 20-30; Шаламберидзе Е.Г. Теоретические
вопросы развития политики национальной обороны России в условиях мирного времени с использованием системы мер невоенного и военного характера. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 4 (37) 2011,35-43; Шаламберидзе Е.Г. Национальная оборона Российской Федерации: стратегические задачи ивозможные перспективы. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 4 (41) 2012, 30-37; Шаламберидзе Е.Г.

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means would be used to destabilize the opponent’s state system, to weaken its elements, to take out its critical control systems, to introduce failures in subsystems, andfinally to transform it to a system suited to the attacker’s interests. The use of thesemeans would be implemented according to a strategic plan during all phases of state
relations.1268 Thus, Shalamberidze claimed that strategic goals could be achieved inpeacetime without the direct armed use of force.1269 Shalamberidze’s model was basedon a continuum of relations between the belligerents and various combinations of
non-violent/violent (or persuasion/coercion), non-military/military, indirect/direct
and low, middle and high intensity means.1270 Later, Shalamberidze argued that thestrategic role of national defence was the prevention, reduction, and pre-emption of
military threats and the achievement of the correlation of forces (sootnoshenie sil).
To this effect, he introduced a functional structure for the optimization of national
defence which resembles the system of information security proposed by Panarin etal.1271
The ideas of Serebriannikov and Shalamberidze were clearly present in the speech
given by the Chief of General Staff Colonel General Valerii Gerasimov in 2013.1272
Gerasimov presented a model to visualize the relationship between the different
stages of interstate conflict and military and non-military means.1273 Consequently,
Gerasimov’s Chief of the Main Operational Directorate Andrei Kartapolov provided
in 2015 three models of current and future war. The first was ‘a war of a new type’(voina novogo tipa) which included ‘hybrid actions’ and ‘indirect actions’ and wasbased on the use of information, covert action, and non-military force to destabilize
and delegitimize the target state, which was followed by ‘peace-keeping operations’.
The second was a traditional war complemented by new environments and technology. The third was asymmetric warfare, which was from the GS point of view the
weaker side’s strategy (tactics) to level differences in power with minimal costs byacting against the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the opponent in a coordinated
way using all means available.1274 In 2016 Gerasimov stated that wars fell under theoverall concept of interstate confrontation or struggle (mezhgosudarstvennoe protivoborstvo) and could be divided to wars using ‘global integrated operations’ (fromНациональная оборона и информационная борьба государства в современных условиях мирного времени. Информационные войны, № 3(23) 2012, 11-19; Герасимов 2013a & 2013b.
1268 Шаламберидзе 2011a. He later updates threats to measures (mera) and armed aggression to ‘direct violent
reorientation of the policy of the opposing side’. Шаламберидзе 2011a.
1269 Шаламберидзе 2011b.
1270 Ibid.
1271 Шаламберидзе 2012a & 2012b.
1272 Gerasimov gave the original speech in the annual meeting of the Military Academy and the subsequent
article based on it and published in Voenno-Promyshlenyi Kurier gained much attention in the West after the
conflict in Ukraine began. This was mainly because the first interpretations mistook Gerasimov’s analysis of
the character of war as a ‘Russian doctrine of hybrid warfare.’ (Герасимов 2013a & 2013b; Galeotti 2018;
Bartles, Charles K. Getting Gerasimov Right. Military review, January-February 2016, 30-38).
1273 In 2010 the previous Chief of General Staff N.E. Makarov gave a somewhat similar presentation on thecharacter of future war. Makarov perhaps emphasized more than Gerasimov the changed geopolitical situationand the role of technology and was heavily influenced by American NCW concept. (Макаров, Н.Е. «Характер
вооруженной борьбы будущего, актуальные проблемы строительства и боевого применения Вооруженных Сил РФ в современных условиях». Вестник Академии военных наук, № 2 (31) 2010, 18-26.) Iurii
Baluevskii, the Chief of General Staff in 2004-2008 did not provide such public presentations of the characterof future war.
1274 Картаполов, А.В. Уроки военных конфликтов, перспективы развития средств и способов их ведения. Прямые и непрямые действия в современных международных конфликтах. Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(51) 2015, 26-36.

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the U.S. doctrine) and wars using ‘hybrid methods’ (gibridnye metody). The latter was
based on achieving political goals with the minimal use of armed force, which wassubstituted by economic and information-psychological means, and by support given
to paramilitaries etc. to erode the stability of the opponent. Gerasimov stated that the
Defence Plan of 2016-2020 had been drafted by keeping these threats in mind andwas founded on an intragovernmental (mezhvedomstvennyi) approach, territorial defence (territorial’naia oborona) and international cooperation (with allies, i.e. the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization).1275
The official Russian approach to hybrid wars etc. voiced by the General Staff has
oscillated between 2016-2019 between acceptance to rejection. The main problem for
the Russian military seems to have been the relationship between non-military threats
and war. It was related to the larger issue of what was considered as war in the modern
era and, thus, linked to the tasks of the Armed Forces.1276 In 2018 Gerasimov argued
that the current era was characterized by ‘wars of a new generation’ (voina novogo
pokaleniia) where the real opponent hides behind third parties (terrorists, insurgentsetc.)1277 Terminological ambivalence has not stopped civilian or non-military scholars
and commentators from using the term ‘hybrid’ to describe the character of future
war.1278 Moreover, in his 2018 presentation at the conference of the AVN, Gerasimov
argued that the character of war kept on changing to include more non-state actors
and non-military means. Gerasimov listed the evolution of military strategy from the“strategy of annihilation” and the “strategy of attrition” to the strategies of “global
war”, “nuclear deterrence” and “indirect actions”. The last one Gerasimov associatedwith regime change operations which used ‘fifth columns’ and precision weapon
strikes in combination. Russia would, consequently, adopt a strategy of active defence
based on a defensive doctrine. Despite this broadening definition of war, Gerasimov
made the argument that it was the task of the Armed Forces to prepare for a confrontation (protivoborstvo) in the military sphere and non-military spheres were the responsibility of others—although coordination with different actors was important.
Gerasimov further argued that the main principles of strategic action were surprise,decisiveness, and continuity (nepreryvnost’)—he was in effect declaring a pre-emptive

1275 Герасимов, В.В. Организация обороны Российской Федерации в условиях применения противни-ком «традиционных» и «гибридных» методов ведения войны. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 2 (55)2016, 19-23, 20.
1276 Матвиенко, Ю.А. Невоенные угрозы как составная часть современного межгосударственного противоборства. Вестник Академии военных наук, 1(58) 2017, 35-41; Буренок, Василий. За рамками здравого
смысла: Облик грядущих войн и новых систем вооружения определит только наука. ВПК, № 10 (478)за 12 марта 2013 года; Буренок, Василий. О некоторых видах межгосударственного противоборства.
Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(43) 2013, 15-19; Сержантова, А.В. Современное понимание сущности и содержания войны. Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(43) 2013, 20-23; Новиков, Владимир, Голубчиков, Сергей. Олимпиада по безопасности. ВПК, № 14 (678) 12–18 апреля 2017 года.
1277 Герасимов, В.В. Современные войны и актуальные вопросы обороны страны. Вестник Академии
военных наук, 2(59) 2017, 9-13; Герасимов, В.В. Мир на гранях войны: Мало учитывать сегодняшние
вызовы, надо прогнозировать будущие. ВПК, № 10 (674) за 15 марта 2017 года.
1278 Бартош, А. A. Гибридная война: интерпретации и реальность. Независимое военное обозрение, №
35 (918) 16 сентября 2016; Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. Прогнозирование характера и содержания
войн будущего: проблемы и суждения. Военная мысль, № 10 2015, 41-49; Антонов С.Г., Гордеев С.В.,Климов С.М. & Рыжов Б.С. Модели угроз совместных информационно-технических и информационно-психологических воздействий в гибридных войнах. Информационные войны, № 2(46) 2018, 8387.

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(uprezhdat’) strategy.1279 Notwithstanding all these theoretical ideas, the Minister ofDefence Sergei Shoigu claimed in June 2019 that Russia lacked a theory of ‘conflictsof the new generation.’1280
Before moving on to official strategic planning documents it must be noted that inrelation to the interstate struggle there exists a distinct continuum of interstate confrontation in Russian military thinking which is present in the texts analysed above
and in the official documents. In relation to war, they can be categorized into theperiod of no direct military threat, the period of threat, the initial period of war, warproper, and the final stages of war.1281 In an article from 2005, retired Colonel Iu.E.
Donskov and O. G. Nikitin, scholars from the Scientific and Research Test Instituteof the Electronic Warfare of Military Educational and Scientific Centre of the Air
Force, divided the phases of conflict into the beginning, escalation, crisis and war.
Different means of diplomatic, economic, disinformation, EW and computer and finally kinetic means would be used in different phases.1282 Igor’ Popov and M. M.
Khamzatov divided the ‘military-political situation’ into phases of military-politicalstability, tension, crisis, and military conflict (war).1283 Igor’ Popov has divided themilitary conflict itself into the preparation period (from hours to months), the active
phase of military conflict (which has three subphases i.e. massive aerospace strike,land attack, and consequent operation to destroy enemy forces), and the post-conflict
regulation period.1284 Valeri Gerasimov has presented a somewhat similar vision of thedevelopment of modern interstate conflicts which divides interstate conflict into
phases of hidden initiation, aggravation, start of conflict actions, crisis, resolution, andpost-conflict management.1285 He has also used the term ‘period of threat’ to denotea time before open hostilities.1286
According to Evgenii Shalamberidze, confrontation is defined as “the actions of thesubjects of international relations to resolve their disagreements.” This is divided into:
peaceful relations where non-violent means of confrontation are used; foreign policy
conflict involving the use of non-violent direct and indirect non-military means andindirect military means; and military conflict where all means are used, primarily direct1279 Герасимов, Валерий. Векторы развития военной стратегии. Красная звезда 4.3.2019 [Online]. Availa-

ble: http://redstar.ru/vektory-razvitiya-voennoj-strategii/ [Accessed: 4th March 2019].
1280 ТАСС. Шойгу заявил, что Россия должна выработать новую теорию ведения войн. ТАСС, 18 июня2019 [Online]. Available: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/6561643 [Accessed: 2nd July 2019].
1281 Горбунов, В. Н., Богданов, С. А. О характере вооруженной борьбы в XXI веке. Военная Мысль, №
3 2009, 2-15; Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. (2012b) Начальные периоды войн и их влияние на подготовку страны к войне будущего. Военная Мысль, № 12 2012, 14-27; Герасимов 2013; Герасимов 2013;Герасимов 2015; Картаполов 2015.
1282 Донсков, Ю.Е., Никитин, О. Г. Место и роль специальных информационных операций при разрешении военных конфликтов. Военная мысль, № 6 (2005), 30-34.
1283 Попов & Хамзатов 2016, 122.
1284 Попов, Игорь. Военные конфликты: взгляд за горизонт: Технологическая революция в "традиционной" войне. Независимое военное обозрение, № 13 (754) 2013.
1285 Герасимова 2013a.
1286 Герасимов 2015. Time period which is usually followed by the beginning of war. “Characterised by anextreme aggravation of the international situation and the confrontation between the probable opponents, theincrease in military threats and a sharp activation of direct preparations for war, expansion of arms conflicts.”‘Угрожаемый период’. Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007 [Online]. Available:
http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=10643@morfDictionary [Accessed: 30th
March 2019]. Similar concept is ‘a threatening period’ or ‘period of threat’ (ugrozhaemyi period) which is related
to military security and has been used officially since 1993 (Известия 1993).

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military means.1287 In the context of information warfare, Manoilo divided state relations into four stages: ‘peaceful coexistence’ (mirnoe sosushchestvovanie), ‘conflictof interests’ (stolknovenie interesov) or continuous ‘natural rivalry’ (estestvennoe sopernichestvo), ‘armed confrontation’ (vooruzhennaia konfrontatsiia), and ‘war’(voina).1288
The initial period of war is a distinctly Soviet/Russian concept. According to Chekinov and Bogdanov, it was originally defined in the 1920s–930s as the length of time
between the declaration of war and the beginning of fighting between the main forces
deployed in a theatre of operations. During this time fighting may occur between
border guards and other permanently deployed units covering the mobilization anddeployment of the main forces. Later Soviet military theorists concluded that war
would begin without the declaration of war with a surprise attack of previously deployed battle-ready formations to achieve the initial strategic goals. Chekinov andBogdanov claim that the initial period is now preceded by non-military operations
and the initial period itself will be the main and decisive period of war.1289
On the official side, the Russian military doctrine differentiates the national security
situation between peacetime, the time of immediate aggression, and wartime.1290 Additionally, the armed forces have been given operational requirements based on the
categorization of peacetime, times of emergency, times of aggravated military-politicaland military-strategic situations, and times of war.1291 The Russian federal law also
recognizes the concepts of ‘a state of emergency’ and ‘a state of war’ which are bothconnected to security threats against the state. The former gives the state the authority
to restrict the freedom of mass communications, to increase the protection of objects
vital to the population, and to manage the use of public communication networks.
The latter gives the state the authority to control communication systems. The state
has the mandate to mobilize human and material resources, including communications, for war already in peacetime.1292
The official and semi-official national security and strategic planning documents haveincluded some aspects of the idea of the interstate struggle. The so-called Ivanov
Doctrine of 2004 stated that ‘armed struggle’ was undergoing change. In short, it subscribed to a vision of high-tech, long-range aerospace warfare, but retained the importance of conventional land forces. According to the doctrine, military power wasused as an instrument of foreign policy very frequently and the Armed forces were
faced with external, internal, and transborder threats.1293 The Foreign Policy Concept
1287 Шаламберидзе 2011a, 23 & 28; Шаламберидзе 2011b, 38-39.
1288 Манойло et al. 2012, 439.

1289 Чекинов & Богданов 2012b; Чекинов & Богданов 2015. Cf. ft 753; ‘Начальный период войны’. Воен-ного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007 [Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=6941@morfDictionary [Accessed: 30th March 2019].
1290 Указ Президента РФ 2014
1291 Mil.ru. Задачи Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации [Online]. Available: https://structure.mil.ru/
mission/tasks.htm [Accessed: 28th March 2019].
1292 Федеральный конституционный закон 2001; Федеральный конституционный закон 1997; Федеральный конституционный закон 2002; Федеральный закон 2003.
1293 Иванов, Сергей. Вооруженные силы России и ее геополитические приоритеты, 2 февраля 2004
[Online]. Available: https://globalaffairs.ru/number/n_2471 [Accessed: 30th March 2019]; The Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation. The priority tasks of the development of the armed forces of the RussianFederation [Online]. Available: http://red-stars.org/doctrine.pdf [Accessed: 30th March 2019].

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of 2008 argues that unilateral actions of some states are a threat to the balance of theworld. It also states that the Russian foreign policy should support Russia’s influencein the global information space and sphere through public policy.1294 The National
Security Strategy (NSS) of 2009 stated that disagreements between states had intensified. Information confrontation (protivoborstvo) is intensifying which threatens thestability of states. Nevertheless, Russia had survived the crisis of the end of 20th century and was transforming into one of the great world powers.1295 The military doctrine of 2010 defined armed confrontation (vooruzhennoe protivoborstvo) as consisting of larger-scale, regional, and local wars, and armed conflicts. It mentioned thestrengthening of information confrontation and the development of its forces andmeans to achieve political goals without the use of force. In contrast to information
confrontation the document used the term warfare (bor’ba) in relation to armed warfare and terrorism.1296
The 2013 Foreign Policy Concept states that the world was transferring towards polycentrism as the West’s dominance in the world economy and politics was waning.
Global competition was acquiring civilizational dimensions as different political andeconomic models emerged. ‘Soft power’ had become a new and potentially dangerous
instrument used to infringe on the internal affairs and sovereignty of states. Russia
would therefore pursue strategic and regional stability and protect its national andinternational information security. The most important direction of foreign policy
would be to support Russian information influence in the world and the priority direction would be the counties of CIS.1297 The current Military Doctrine of 2014 statesthat the world is characterized by global competition, tension, and rivalry between
value orientations and developmental models. Military conflict consists of interstateand intrastate use of military power consisting of large-scale armed confrontations(vooruzhennoe protivoborstvo), regional and local wars, and armed conflicts. Information confrontation (informatsionnoe protivoborstvo) is strengthening and its
forces and means are developing. Military dangers and threats are shifting into theinformation space (prostranstvo) and into the internal sphere of Russia. Informationand communication technology are being increasingly used against the sovereignty,
political independence, and territorial integrity of states and present a threat to global
stability. An adversary can operate in the whole depth of information space and affectcritical infrastructure and people. Russia will improve the information security systemof the Armed Forces, other troops and agencies, develop information cooperation
between agencies (including the creation of a unified information space), develop

1294 Концепция. Концепция внешней политики Российской Федерации от 12 июля 2008 г. N Пр-1440(утв. 12.07.2008 N Пр-1440) [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_
85021/ [Accessed: 30th March 2019].
1295 Указ Президента РФ от 12 мая 2009 года N 537 (2009b). О Стратегии национальной безопасности
Российской Федерации до 2020 года Указ Президента Российской Федерации [Online]. Available:
http://pravo.gov.ru/proxy/ips/?docbody=&nd=102129631 [Accessed: 21st March 2019].
1296 Указ Президента РФ от 05.02.2010 N 146 “О Военной доктрине Российской Федерации” [Online].
Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_97325/ [Accessed: 30th March 2019].
1297 Концепция. Концепция внешней политики Российской Федерации (утв. Президентом РФ
12.02.2013) [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_142236/ [Accessed:
30th March 2019].

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forces and means for information confrontation, and develop an information management system for the Armed forces which will connect weapons control and automated command and control systems from the strategic to the tactical level.1298
The NSS of 2015 states that Russia faces threats from the direction of the UnitedStates and its allies who deploy multiple types of pressure and challenge Russia’s national interests. Global and regional instability has increased and instruments of power
have diversified. In the areas near Russia, militarization and an arms race are developing. The information confrontation/struggle (informatsionnoe protivoborstvo) is
strengthening as some countries use information and communications technology tomanipulate social consciousness and falsify history. There are threats in the information sphere and so the information infrastructure and spiritual-cultural values need
to be protected. Information means should be part of the strategic deterrence. Information security in the context of national strategic priorities should be paid special
attention in implementing the strategy.1299 The Foreign Policy Doctrine of 2016 statesthat contradictions (protivorechiia) continue to increase in the international system as
does the role of force. It mentions information security and threats, and the information space and sphere but does not define them. Information is seen as a tool of‘soft power’. Information/communication technology can be used for military-political purposes. According to the Doctrine, Russia takes necessary actions to ensure
equitable management of the Internet.1300
It is interesting that the Information Security Doctrine of 2016 uses the term ‘protivoborstvo’ only once and then in the context of military policy and defence whenreferring to the Armed Forces and means of information warfare as a part of themilitary use of force. Nevertheless, the document states that Russia has national interests in the information sphere including the constitutional rights of citizens (inc.
spiritual-cultural values), resilience of critical information infrastructure, developmentof the Russian IT industry, public diplomacy, creation of an international system of
information security including the protection of Russian sovereignty in the information space. These are threatened by transborder information threats that are usedamong other things for military and geopolitical goals. The Doctrine divides thesethreats into information-technological and psychological threats. The Doctrine claims
that some states are attempting to use technological superiority to dominate the information space, and because the Internet is not regulated and managed in an equalmanner, strategic stability is difficult to achieve.1301
To summarize, the interstate struggle or confrontation is a constant theme in Russianstrategic thought. Its characteristics have changed but the core idea has stayed recognizably the same: it is the constant zero-sum struggle between great powers, and civilizations or systems grouped around them for power, status, independence and the1298 Доктрина. Военная доктрина Российской Федерации. 25 декабря 2014 г., № Пр-2976, 14 & 15

[Online]. Available: http://www.scrf.gov.ru/security/military/document129/ [Accessed: 28th March 2019].
1299 Указ Президента РФ от 31.12.2015 N 683 “О Стратегии национальной безопасности Российской
Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_191669/ [Accessed:
30th March 2019].
1300 Указ Президента РФ от 30.11.2016 N 640 “Об утверждении Концепции внешней политики Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_ 207990/ [Accessed: 30th March 2019].
1301 Указ Президента 2016b.

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right to exist by any means necessary. The idea of the interstate struggle in the writingsof the Russian information war theorists naturally transforms into information struggle. It can be argued that the idea is based on a geopolitical promise of control overglobalization, a future eschatological confrontation, and a struggle between systems
with the emphasis on historical continuity. There is a shared understanding of the
distinct technological and psychological aspects of the information space and theirinterconnectedness. However, this has not produced a unified terminology or theory
on the information struggle.1302 During the timeframe under analysis the element of
information has been perhaps the major addition to the interstate confrontation, andit has, at least in the material analysed here, occupied a somewhat central position.
Depending on the writer and the text, information has become either the means, ways
or ends of this struggle. However, it is worth noting that the idea of an information
confrontation remains a subject of intense discussion in Russian strategic thought.
There are at least two separate meanings for the idea of ‘protivoborstvo’ present in
the material analysed here.1303 The first is related to the great power struggle conducted as a continuum in all stages of interstate relations. The second is related to theforces, means, forms and methods of conducting warfare in the context of a conflict.1304 The first is more closely related to strategic cultural thinking, the second isassociated with studying and adopting Western ideas. The challenge in analyticallyseparating these two meanings is that throughout the 2000s and 2010s the meaningof war has been broadened by some, mainly civilians, to include non-military and nonviolent actions, while some military scholars have pushed back on this formulation.
The appearance of the concept of intergovernmental confrontation (mezhgosudarstvennogo protivoborstvo) which highlights intrastate or interagency, i.e. whole-ofstate approaches is a resurrection of comprehensive Russian security thinking based
partly on Soviet era ideas. The interstate struggle requires the mobilization of all state
resources through the vertical of power.1305 This is not comprehensive security in thesense of broadening the sources and objects of threats, but it is comprehensive in thesense of the means and actors of state power. Most notably, it requires vertical centralised organizations or ‘systems.’
By analysing Western theories and military operations, and through the prism of geopolitical and sometimes civilizational confrontation in which globalization is a threatand state sovereignty under attack, the Russian strategic thought has tried to find away to forecast future wars. The sixth-generation high-tech precision strike warfareof Slipchenko was challenge by those who did not agree with the diminishing role ofthe conventional ground and nuclear forces. At the same time foreign and domesticСоловьев, А.В. Информационная война: теоретико-методологические и практические аспекты.
Информационные войны, № 2(18) 2011, 15-22.
1303 Information struggle and confrontation are different from information warfare. The translation of Russian
terms into English is difficult as the Russians seem to use certain terms intentionally to convey certain valueladen messages, i.e. that it is the West that is ‘waging war’ against Russia. Moreover, the original Western useof the terms around information warfare, starting by calling it warfare, has not lessened this confusion.
1304 Forces and means refer to troops, weapons and equipment. Forms are formal descriptions of military actions that combine tasks, organization and methods such as strikes, engagement, military action, battle, operations and strategic operations. Methods refer, on the one hand, to ways of using forces, and on the other, tomeans which differ from service to service and depending on the situation and the commander’s intent.
(Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007).
1305 Julian Cooper and Andrew Monaghan have made similar points considering the development of Russian
military mobilization (Cooper 2016; Monaghan 2016).
1302

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ideas of netwars, soft power, controlled chaos and ‘mutiny wars’1306 offered a third
view. Thus, long before the Western military theorists began to write about Russian
hybrid warfare the Russians themselves had analysed the Western way of conducting
war in similar terms. This new threat blurred the lines between war and peace, as wellas political competition and military confrontation and led to some ‘course corrections’ by the General Staff and criticism from independent writers. The NCW wasembraced and then criticized for being too Western. Hybrid wars were officiallyadopted and then abandoned, then adopted again. Defensive strategy was first enshrined as morally superior and then abandoned for ‘active defence.’ There was alsoa clear tension between emphasising the promises of technology versus spiritual andmoral issues—which was a traditional conflict in Russian military thinking.1307 The
core of the problem was the relationship of ‘protivoborstvo’ and ‘voina’, and how andby whom the security issues related to them should be handled. Ultimately, information means were widely accepted to have strategic effects either as a destructive
power or related to the political objectives of a confrontation. Moreover, the dual
military operational-tactical and strategic-geopolitical nature of information confrontation seems to have stabilized.
In the context of the use of information, the distinction between information-technological and information-psychological aspects is conceptually quite clear.1308 As one
comes down from the great political power struggle level to the military strategic,
operational and tactical level the importance of the first increases. At this point, it
should be noted that those whom previous studies have named as ‘holists’ define
information warfare through its political and political-strategic level objective whichis achieved by making the opponent do what you want by whatever means possible
primarily by affecting the will of the opponent even during peacetime. However, atleast for some Russian theorists, ‘systemist’ would be a better name for this. They
perceive the information struggle as a struggle between systems, perhaps inside aneven larger system, and are interested in how the technological and psychological systems affect (control) each other. ‘Systemists’ emphasise the importance of knowing
the opponent and tailoring your own responses accordingly.
Based on the definitions given by different authors, information-technological warfare has been used as a synonym for cyber warfare and its substance and form have
similarities to Western ideas. There are differences however, and no single accepted
definition exists. Still, military scholars have associated it with counter command andcontrol warfare and the idea of achieving information superiority. Thus, information
has become part of military power. Moreover, the idea that information and telecommunications systems are critical for state power and sovereignty was formulated byboth Russian civilian and military theorists already in the 2000s.

1306 This a concept coined by Russian emigrant Evgeni Messner (1891-1975) (Месснера, Е.Э. Хочешь мира,победи мятежевойну! Москва: Военный университет русский путь, 2005).
1307 Cf. Bukkvoll 2011.
1308 The Russian emphasis on information-psychological warfare might be a result of the narrative that theSoviet Union fell because of Western information operations or because there was a tradition of psychological
warfare in the KGB, ex-members of which have had a major impact on Russian thinking about information
warfare. It might also be the result of emphasising morale as an important part of warfare, and it might beconnected to the views of geopolitical and civilizational minded theorists who highlight the need to protect‘Russianness’ in the face of Western decadence.

184Based on the texts discussed here, there has been a distinct and persistent tendency
to promote centralized and systematic solutions to the information struggle, warfare
and security. There is a shared understanding between civilian and military scholarsthat the new threat emanating from the Internet and global mass media can and must
be controlled through the means of state power. Additionally, this threat must be
prevented from materializing and deterred even in peacetime because (technologicaland psychological) information superiority is a necessary requirement to win futurewars. There are differences of opinion as to how this ‘system of information security’should be built and what its tasks should be. As time has passed a more versatile,
adaptive, distinctly cybernetic, and whole-of-government approach has gathered
more support instead of a defensive system controlled by one ministry or agency.
Writers with a military background have argued for an offensive role for this system.
This is reflected in the recent change in the Russian doctrine characterised by a moreaggressive, offensive, and active use of non-violent and violent military power.1309
The idea of ‘protivoborstvo’ was already present in the official documents at the beginning of 2000s. Still the strategic planning process revitalized in 2013-2014 seems
to have given the idea more emphasis—it produced multiple documents referring to
the geopolitical information confrontation and arguably prioritized its psychologicalaspect as a national threat. This continuous struggle even during peacetime is aimed
at ‘information superiority’ which would affect the strategic balance. Thus, the new
threats born from informatization and globalization were incorporated into the Soviet
era balance of power and zero-sum security thinking. The official documents did not
directly refer to information power or potential, but science, technology, and the control of information were perceived as something measurable which affected great
power relations.
5.3 Strategic deterrence
The Russian idea of strategic deterrence in the Putin era has generated some interest
among Western scholars. The term ‘deterrence’, as it features in the Russian discourse
according to previous studies, implies compellence, prevention of the threat or war
from materialising, deterrence in peacetime and the use of force during wartime toshape the battlefield, not just threatening the opponent with retaliation or by denying
it of its objectives through intolerable risks and costs.1310 Some previous studies, although recognizing the information struggle or warfare as part of strategic deterrence,
have approached the Russian policies and strategy in the information space as inherently offensive.1311 Pentti Forsström has argued that the current Russian deterrence
1309 Герасимов 2019.
1310 Kristin Ven Bruusgard has defined it as “a clustered term used to describe all of the following: activities

aimed at containing any threat from materialising against Russia; activities aimed at deterring any direct aggression against Russia; and, lastly, activities focused on coercing an adversary to cede in a confrontation to terms
dictated by Russia.” (Ven Bruusgaard, Kristin. Russian Strategic Deterrence. Survival, Vol. 58, No.4 (2016), 726, 19.) Dimitry Adamsky has argued that the current military strategy of Russia combines three elements. The
first is the nuclear component, the second is the integration of non-nuclear, informational, and nuclear typesof deterrence and compellence, and third is holistic informational (cyber) operation consisting of cognitivepsychological and digital-technological aspects which merges military and non-military capabilities across nuclear, conventional, and sub-conventional domains. He names this ‘cross-domain coercion’ to distinguish itfrom the term ‘strategic deterrence’. (Adamsky 2015, 12.)1311 The approach has been based on what Russia is doing to others, not on what Russia is doing to informationor cyberspace or to protect itself. This ‘active’ and ‘offensive’ approach obscures the Russian perception of185

‘pidäke’ is a system consisting of a comprehensive set of ways and means meant forcontrolling the security situation gradually, preventively and proactively. The meansof deterrence have no predetermined order in which they should be used which enables flexibility and surprise. Thus, the border between deterrence and the use of military force has been purposefully faded.1312 Strategic deterrence has become a unique
Russian concept, at least in the eyes of Western scholars. Some of this ‘hype’ is however based on forgetting that already the Soviets were highly interested in the prevention of war.1313
As was noted when analysing the 1990s discussion about the strategic deterrence, theidea had already started to move away from purely strategic nuclear deterrence to awider concept which included multiple means and spaces. Nevertheless, strategic nuclear weapons and the theoretical and practical difference between intimidation (ustrashenie) and deterrence (sderzhivanie) continued all through the 2000s and 2010s.
The discussion was primarily related to the U.S.–Russia nuclear arms treaty negotiations and the United States’ ballistic missile defence system. These discussions had ahighly politized nature.1314 The problem for Russians was and would also be in the
future the United States’ strategy which included non-nuclear long-range precision
strike weapons and limited ballistic missile defences. Russia could not reduce its strategic nuclear weapons stockpile if the United States could securely perform a decapitating non-nuclear strike from behind its missile defence which would degrade Russia’s ability to retaliate. Claims were made that Russia strived for a ‘strategic balance’
whereas the United States strived for superiority.1315
The debate about the nuclear deterrence was renewed in the context of 2010 with thesigning of the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) between the UnitedStates and Russia. As, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Political and Military
Analysis Alexander Khramchikhin 1316 wrote in a (only) slightly ironic manner: “nuclear weapons are ‘our everything’. A means of deterrence, a factor of prestige, andthe only real attribute today, which allows us to be considered a great power.”1317 As
long as the Russian armed forces were in a state of decay, strategic nuclear weapons
were the only means of deterrence but their usability was highly restricted and they‘deterrence’ as a constant struggle and competition – you are never safe because stability is only a theoreticalconcept. On this cf. Renz, Bettina. Russia and ‘hybrid warfare’. Contemporary Politics, Vol.22, No.3 (2016),
283-300; Fink, Anya Loukianova. The Evolving Russian Concept of Strategic Deterrence: Risks and Responses.
Arms Control Today, Vol. 47, No. 6 (Jul/Aug 2017), 14-20.
1312 Forsström 2019.
1313 Donnelly 1988, 62-63; Scott & Scott 1988, 102-103; Gartoff 1990, 16-17.
1314 Брезкун, Сергей. Полемика. Подкоп под стратегическую стабильность. ВПК, № 50 за 29 декабр я
2004 года; Арбатов, Алексей. Ядерное сдерживание: реальности и химеры. Независимое военное обозрение, № 17 (377) за 14 мая я 2004 года; Рогова, Сергей, Есин, Виктор, Золотарева, Павел. Эксперты
предлагают комплекс мер доверия по стратегическим вооружениям. Независимое военное обозрение,№ 24 (384) за 02 июля 2004 года; Arbatov, Alexei, Dvorkin, Vladimir (Eds.) Missile Defense: Confrontation
and Cooperation. Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2013.
1315 Коробушин, Варфоломей. Метаморфозы стратегического сдерживания. Независимое военное обозрение, № 14 (423) за 15 апреля я 2005 года; Бочаров, Игорь. Парадоксы ядерного сдерживания. Независимое военное обозрение, № 15 (424) за 222 июля я 2005 года.
1316 The Institute of Political and Military Analysis was created in 1996. It is a non-governmental think thankspecialised in geopolitical and ideological research and lobbying mainly related to domestic politics (Иванов
2014).
1317 Храмчихин, Александр. Иллюзия ядерного сдерживания. ВПК, № 11/2010.

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were highly vulnerable to U.S. precision strike weapons.1318 Retired Major General
Vladimir Dvorkin, who has taken part in drafting almost all the major nuclear arms
control treaties,1319 argued in 2010 that strategic stability was based on strategic nuclear
equilibrium, which in its turn was based on quantitative and qualitative indicators of
the counterforce potential, the potential for retaliation, and the potential of deterrence. The point was that strategic stability was composed of different factors that all
could destabilize the situation.1320 Although people like Dvorkin, Arbatov and others
offered a more sophisticated approaches to nuclear deterrence, the quantitative missiles-to-megatons analysis continued on the pages of Russian military journals.1321 The
failure of strategic arms control talks after 2012, the perceived militarization of space,worsened Russia – West relations, and the fear of a massive long-range precision
strike seems to have highlighted the importance of the strategic nuclear componentof the strategic deterrence between 2015 and 2018.1322
Although strategic nuclear weapons were originally seen as the backbone of Russianstrategic deterrence, the substance of the idea changed. Makhmut Gareev is one of
the main developers of a more comprehensive idea of deterrence. In 2005 he stated
that: “In modern conditions, the concept of ‘strategic deterrence’ implies coordinatedand purposeful implementation of all measures (intelligence, counterintelligence, increased combat readiness of strategic and conventional forces if necessary, development of armaments, preparation of TVDs, and training the population and manyother measures) so that on the one hand, they reliably deter the threats with the minimum necessary defence sufficiency, and on the other, they do not provoke them.”1323
Basically Gareev claimed that the defence security (oboronnaia bezopasnost’) had tobe secured through diplomatic, economic, information and other non-military means.
The deterrence had to be tailored to all possible military threats which for Gareev
were still quite conventional.1324 Gareev was, of course, not the only one writing about
strategic deterrence. For example, researchers from TsVSI GSh VS RF retired Colonels A. L. Khriapin and V. A. Afanas’ev wrote in 2005 that “strategic deterrence is acomplex of measures in the political, economic, military and other areas undertakenby the state unilaterally or on a coalition basis, and aimed at signalling to the opposing

1318 Ibid.

Дворкин Владимир Зиновьевич. Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат 2007.
[Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details_rvsn.htm?id=12996@morfDictionary [Accessed: 1st April 2019].
1320 Дворкин, Владимир. СНВ на весах стратегической стабильности. Независимое военное обозрение,№ 14 за 16 апреля 2010 года1321 Бойцов, Маркелл. Калькулятор стратегического сдерживания. Независимое военное обозрение, №
30 за 31 августа 2012 года.
1322 Arbatov & Dvorkin, 2013; Тадтаев, Георгий. Трамп подписал указ о создании космического командования США, РБК, 18.12.2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/politics/18/12/2018/
5c191a289a79473887d59637 [Accessed: 11th February 2019]; Рыбаченков, Владимир. Стабильность подприцелом. ВПК, № 38 (702) за 4 октября 2017 года; Валеев, Марат, Беломытцев, Александр. Сдерживание неопределенностью. ВПК, № 26 (690) за 12 июля 2017 года; Послание Президента РФ Федеральному Собранию от 01.03.2018 [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/consdoc_ LAW_
291976/ [Accessed: 27th March 2019].
1323 Гареев 2005a.
1324 Ibid.
1319

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side the impossibility of achieving military-political goals by force because of the unacceptable consequences of retaliatory action.”1325 They argued that strategic deterrence was based on intimidation (ustrashenie), restraining or limiting (ogranichenie),
and coercion (prinuzhdenie). Like Gareev, they too argued for tailored, multivariant
and flexible responses but were primarily concerned about military threats.1326
For Gareev the greatest threat for Russia was the losing of its great power status which
could occur through covert and overt politico-diplomatic, economic, information etc.
actions meant to interfere in its internal affairs.1327 Consequently, in 2008 Gareev proposed a new concept of strategic deterrence, which he saw as an inherently asymmetric response to the challenges Russia was facing.1328 It was “a complex of interrelated
political, diplomatic, information, economic, military and other measures aimed atdeterring, reducing, and preventing threats and aggressive actions by any state (orcoalition of states) by means of responses that reduce the concerns of the opposite
side or threaten it with unacceptable consequences for its actions.” It was based upon
the defence power of the state derived from the economy and high-technology industry, active politico-diplomatic and information policy, demonstration of military
power, intelligence and counterintelligence, military cooperation, protection of airspace and coastal areas with military force, preparation of infrastructure and TVDs,
organization of territorial defence, cooperation between security agencies, and peacekeeping and antiterrorist activities.1329 Gareev’s definition was a clear departure fromthe traditional nuclear weapons-based definitions.
Around the same time as Gareev proposed his idea, V. V. Serebriannikov analysed
the difference between the Russian terms of prevention of war (predotvrachshenie
voiny) and military-political deterrence (voenno-politicheskoe sderzhivanie). He
claimed that deterrence was part of the inhibition of war distinguished by its counterthreat to use military force against a potential threat, whereas prevention aimed atneutralizing the threat before it even become potential or real mainly through nonmilitary means. Serebriannikov claimed that “the prevention of war is a policy of constructing such a common and especially military-political situation (internal and external) which reduces and eliminates military threats, makes the collapse of military
aggression unavoidable, establishes the personal legal and moral responsibility of theinspirers and organizers of aggression, and sets up the rejection of war.”1330 In 2009
Colonel V. N. Gorbunov from TsVSI GS and S.A. Bogdanov from TsVSI GSh VS
RF offered a more operational and traditional view on strategic deterrence, whichstated that a combination of all possible military means including strategic deployment(strategicheskoe razvertyvanoe) must be initiated already during the period of threatso as to deny aerospace and information superiority of the enemy in the initial period
1325 Хряпин, А. Л., Афанасьев, В. А. Слово юбилярам. Концептуальные основы стратегического сдер-живания. Военная мысль, № 1 2005, 8-12.
1326 Ibid.
1327 Гареев, М.А. Структура и основное содержание новой военной доктрины. ВПК, № 3 (169) за 24января 2007 года; Гареев, М.А. Национальные интересы и национальная безопасность россии на современном этапе. Вестник Академии военных наук, №1 (22) 2008, 8-22.
1328 Гареев, М.А. Стратегическое сдерживание: проблемы и решения. Красная звезда, № 183, 8.10.2008;Гареев, М. А. Проблемы стратегического сдерживания в современных условиях. Военная мысль, № 42009, 2-9.
1329 Ibid.
1330 Серебрянников 2008.

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of war and deter its attack. However, deterrence should be as minimal as possible so
as not provoke potential opponents.1331 It should have deterred the war of ‘a newgeneration’ (novoe pokolenie) which consisted of kinetic, electronic, technologicaland psychological means which would be used at a high tempo and in coordination
to destroy the opponent’s capability to command its forces, to demoralize its people,
and to disrupt its military-industrial complex.1332
Although Gareev’s formulation seems to have gained wide support, some wanted toreserve the concept of strategic deterrence for the strategic nuclear forces. Accordingly, in 2010, V. V. Matvichuk and A. L. Khriapin from TsVSI argued that strategic
deterrence was based on the state’s ability to mobilize its conventional and nuclear
forces to inflict incommensurable damages to the threating state.1333 They changed
their views in 2015 to conform to Gareev’s and divided forces of strategic deterrence
into offensive and defensive, nuclear and non-nuclear, global and regional forces andmeasures into military and non-military measures. However, the primacy of the strategic nuclear deterrence was still paramount.1334 Others wanted to make the conceptof strategic deterrence even wider by including even more spheres of threats andcounteraction.1335
Unsurprisingly the concept of an information confrontation affected the concept ofstrategic deterrence. If information weapons had strategic effects, as was argued bymany Russian (and Western) information theorists, then they had to be consideredwhen discussing strategic deterrence. The team of Russian military cyber diplomats I.
N. Dylevskii, S. A. Komov, S. A. Korotkov, S. V. Rodionov and A. A. Fedorov argued
in a 2006 article that ‘the leading countries’ of the world had decided that the information space was a sphere of military action and, accordingly, it had become the object of a contest over superiority. The writers claimed that the ‘weapons of mass effect’ defined in the U.S. National Military Strategy of 20041336 were aimed at influencing populations across the globe through the ‘unified global electronic information
space’. They also argued that ‘a group of states’ impeded the creation of norms restricting the use of these weapons to support their hegemonic aspirations. This led tothe conclusion that one of the main tasks of the military policy of Russia in the fieldof ensuring international information security was the deterrence (sderzhivanie) of

1331 Горбунов & Богданов 2009.
1332 Горбунов & Богданов 2009; Горбунов, В. Н., Богданов, С. А. Военно-стратегическое противобор-ство: формы и способы воздействия на экономический потенциал противника. Военная Мысль, № 12
2007, 50-59.
1333 Матвичук, В. В., Хряпин, А. Л. Система стратегического сдерживания в новых условиях. Военная
мысль, № 1/2010, 11-16.
1334 Хряпин, А. Л., Калинкин, Д. А., Матвичук, В. В. Стратегическое сдерживание в условиях созданияСША глобальной системы ПРО и средств глобального удара. Военная мысль, № 1 2015, 18-22.
1335 Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. Стратегическое сдерживание и национальная безопасность Россиина современном этапе. Военная мысль, № 3 2012, 11-20.
1336 The definition was based on “chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and enhanced high explosive weapons as well as other, more asymmetrical weapons.” It can be argued that the Russian writers either misunderstood this definition or purposefully added their own interpretation. (The National Military Strategy of theUnited States of America. A Strategy for Today; A Vision for Tomorrow, 2004 [Online]. Available:
https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/docs/NMS2004.pdf [Accessed: 27th February 2019]).

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foreign countries from the possible use of means and methods of waging an “information war” against Russia.1337
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s the somewhat same group of authors argued for asimilar international cooperation and regulation concerning information weapons as
had been developed around weapons of mass destruction.1338 In 2017 cyber diplomats
argued that information weapons affected the strategic stability, and that the General
Staff viewed cybersecurity (kiberbezopasnost’) as a part of information security.
Moreover, the ‘cyber deterrence’ doctrine adopted by the United States was a threat
to Russia. In this context strategic deterrence would include ensuring the resilience(ustoichivost’) of strategic nuclear forces and the decision-making related to themfrom information effects, deterring aggressive information measures, and denying theuse of the Internet and mass media to affect the internal affairs of states.1339 It should
be noted that at least Andrei Kokoshin shared the Western view on deterrence whichemphasised the ‘politico-psychological’ impact on the opponent, that is convincing
through demonstration or signalling.1340
Two interconnected issues are related to the development of the idea of the strategic
deterrence: strategic planning and territorial defence. The basics of strategic planninghave been discussed above. The idea of strategic deterrence, in the form Gareev has
formulated it, is central to the development of strategic planning. According toGareev, in 1991 the Soviet Union (or Russia) did not have a plan for the time preceding war that would link the activities of various government organs to defend thecountry.1341 In 2012 the deficiency was noticed by the leaders of the country and aplan was ordered to be drafted. Gareev argued that this plan would ensure the coordination of the strategic actions of the Armed forces with other law enforcement
agencies, the mobilization plan, and a plan for converting the national economy to astate of war. It would include political-diplomatic, economic, information, technological, and psychological measures.1342 Gareev repeated these arguments up until
2019.1343 Strategic planning is, thus, partly a tool of strategic deterrence.

1337 Дылевский И. Н., Комов С. А., Коротков С. В., Родионов С. Н. и Федоров А. В. Военная политика

Российской Федерации в области обеспечения международной информационной безопасности. Военная мысль, № 4 2006, 2-7. On diplomats cf. Комов 2009.
1338 Комов, С. А., Коротков, С. В., Родионов, С. Н. О военных аспектах проблемы международной информационной безопасности. Военная мысль, № 9 2003, 2-5; Дылевский, И. Н., Запивахин, В. О., Комов, С. А., Коротков, С. В., Петрунин, А. Н. Международный режим нераспространения информационного оружия: утопия или реальность? Военная мысль, № 10 2014, 3-12; Базылев, С. И., Дылевский, И.
И., Комов, С. А., Петрунин, А. Н. Деятельность Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации в информационном пространстве: принципы, правила, меры доверия. Военная мысль, № 6 2012, 24-28; Дылевский, И. Н., Запивахин, В. О., Комов, С. А., Коротков, С. В., Кривченко, А. А. О диалектике сдерживанияи предотвращения военных конфликтов в информационную эру. Военная мысль, № 7 2016, 3-11.
1339 Пядышева, Е.Б. (ред.) Приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»: XI Международный форум
«Партнерство государства, бизнеса и гражданского общества при обеспечении международной информационной безопасности». Гармиш-Партенкирхен, Германия 24–27 апреля 2017 года. Москва: «Международная жизнь», 2017, 98-99.
1340 Кокошин, А.А. Перспективы развития военной техносферы и будущее войн и небоевого применения военной силы. Вестник академии военных наук, № 2 (67) 2019, 26-29.
1341 Гареев 2013a, 16.
1342 Ibid.
1343 Гареев, М.А. Мобилизация умов Наши руководители должны коренным образом изменить отношение к науке. ВПК, № 12 (676) за 29 марта 2017 года; Гареев 2018; Гареев 2019.

190

Territorial defence has had an important role in the whole-of-government approach
manifested in strategic planning. In the Law on Defence, territorial defence is defined
as system of measures for the protection of critical infrastructure, civil society, andthe operations of armed forces.1344 The concept is well established in Russian official
documents and law, although it went through a process of clarification in 2017.1345 It
is basically a process or a function which is implemented when a state of war is declared on a territory of the Russian federation. A headquarters of territorial defence isformed as an intergovernmental organ of cooperation. This ensures the upholding ofmilitary laws, and the coordination of mobilization, civil defence, and antiterrorism
activities. It commands the forces specifically designated for territorial defence andrepresents federal power on the territory.1346 It creates ‘the platform’ upon which thestrategic commands operate their forces on Russian territory. The idea of territorial
defence is based on the threat of large-scale conventional war and also on the ‘colour
revolutions’ discussed above—it enables a defence in total depth of the nation andsociety.1347 Territorial defence is connected to the reorganization of the Armed Forcesin 2010 into combined military districts and joint (operational) strategic commands(JSCs) and the creation of the National Guard in 2016.1348 Although territorial defence
might not be a strategic cultural idea in itself, it highlights the importance of geography and defensive depth in the Russian military thinking.
The concept of strategic deterrence appeared in the 2004 Ivanov Doctrine as one of
the tasks of the Russian armed forces to guarantee the protection of sovereignty, territorial integrity and other vital national interests of Russia and its allies. It referred to
strategic deterrence forces and capabilities which were defined as the ability of strategic nuclear forces to inflict retaliatory damage. It also introduces the concept of deescalation as “forcing the enemy to halt military action by a threat to deliver or byactual delivery of strikes of varying intensity with reliance on conventional and (or)nuclear weapons.”1349 The Foreign Policy Concept of 2008 did not mention deterrence
in relation to Russian activities.1350 The NSS of 2009 defined strategic deterrence undernational defence as “the development and systemic implementation of a complex ofinterrelated political, diplomatic, military, economic, information and other measures
aimed at anticipation or reduction of the threat of destructive actions.”1351 The Military
Doctrine of 2010 did not define strategic deterrence but mentioned it in relation to
the use of nuclear weapons to deter threats.1352 The Foreign Policy Concept of 2013
1344 Федеральный закон от 31.05.1996 N 61-ФЗ (ред. от 3.8.2018) “Об обороне” [Online]. Available:

http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10591/[Accessed:
29th
March
2019];‘Территориальная оборона’. Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007. http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=10959@morfDictionary.
1345 Кардаш, И. Л. О совершенствовании системы территориальной обороны. Военная мысль, № 2 2014,
3-10; Кардаш, И. Л. Новый подход к организации территориальной обороны на региональном уровне.
Военная мысль, № 9 2018, 34-40.
1346 Федеральный закон 1996, Статья 22. Территориальная оборона.
1347 Фаличев, Олег. Асимметричная война. Борьба с социальным неравенством – главное направление
обеспечения безопасности страны. ВПК, № 9 (575) за 11 марта 2015 года; Герасимов 2016; Кардаш 2014
& 2018; Владимиров, Александр. Ты записался ополченцем? Незнание законов партизанской войны неосвобождает от ответственности. ВПК, № 34 (649) за 7 сентября 2016 года.
1348 Cooper 2016, 19-20; Bartles 2011; Grau & Bartles 2018b; Цыганок, Анатолий. Меняется время - меняется и военная доктрина. ВПК, № 43 (209) за 7 ноября 2007 года; Кардаш 2018.
1349 The Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation 2004.
1350 Концепция 2008.
1351 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2009b.
1352 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2010.

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mentioned only nuclear deterrence and even that only once.1353 The 2014 Military
Doctrine is a bit confused with its use of terms and mentions nuclear and non-nuclear
strategic deterrence. The system of non-nuclear deterrence is defined as “a complex
of foreign policy, military and military-technical measures aimed at preventing aggression against the Russian Federation by non-nuclear means.”1354 The NSS of 2015
states that strategic deterrence is part of military policy of the state. It juxtaposes strategic deterrence and prevention of conflicts which seems to indicate they are twodifferent things. Nevertheless, the strategy relates strategic deterrence to interrelated
political, military, military-technical, diplomatic, economic, informational and othermeasures. The military means are based on strategic nuclear deterrence and on conventional military forces which are held in sufficient readiness.1355 The Foreign Policy
Concept of 2016 does not use deterrence in the context of Russian actions.1356 The
2016 Information Security Doctrine states that to ensure information security in thefield of defence the military policy of the Russian federation consists of strategic deterrence and the prevention of conflicts arising from the use of information technologies.1357
To summarize. The modern Russian deterrence theory is characterized by the acceptance of the Western theories as the basis of Russian theorizing. There is, however,a tension between the ‘American’ and ‘Russian/Soviet’ types of deterrence, where
Western deterrence is seen as intimidation and containment and Russian as preventing and deterring. Gareev has been the main proponent of a strategic deterrence understood as a continuum of creating defensive power, preventing threats from materializing, and deterrence through denial and retaliation. This version of strategic deterrence involves all state actors as it is based on the participation of strategic intelligence assets, the military-industrial complex, civilian administration of territorial defence, mobilization organization and other semi-civilian organizations. The inclusive
concept of deterrence spanning all environments requires a systemic approach, andperhaps, as some have argued, a new organization to control the multiple security
systems. It is also directed against a full-spectrum of threats, including information
threats. There is some divergence on the role of information. Some consider it as athreat, some as a sphere or means of strategic deterrence, and some as both.
The current Russian idea of strategic deterrence has two sides which have been inslight competition with one another. The first and traditional version is connected tothe strategic nuclear weapons while the newer one is based on a much wider understanding of the tools and domains of deterrence. The understanding that strategic
deterrence is a continuum of strategy from peacetime to wartime to neutralize threats,
prevent wars and deny objectives using all possible means of statecraft seems to bequite established. Nevertheless, quite often the term of strategic deterrence is reserved
for the strategic nuclear forces, and the prevention of conflict is disconnected fromdeterrence. Arguably, the broadening of the concept might have led to some doctrinal,organizational and resourcing choices which might have caused contention between
government organs and the armed forces.
1353 Концепция 2013.
1354 Доктрина 2014.

1355 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2015.
1356 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2016a.

1357 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2016b.

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Strategic deterrence is inherently connected to strategic stability and the great power
struggle. It cannot be understood outside the ideas about the correlation of forces
and the constant analysing and forecasting of the balance of power between Russia
and the United States (and perhaps also China). Strategic deterrence as a concept has
evolved in the 2000s and 2010s to one of the central pillars of Russian military policy.
Although its official definition has remained a bit vague, it has materialized in the law
and process of strategic planning in 2013-2014. This process incorporates Gareev’s
and others’ ideas of the broader understanding of deterrence—most importantly theidea that wars can be prevented by shaping the Russian security environment throughmultiple, non-violent means. Most recent definitions include information and cyberspace and their critical systems in the sphere of strategic deterrence. The importanceof the ideas of strategic deterrence, strategic planning, and territorial defence stems
from the way they arrange current and future military threats, the territorially boundview on security, and the whole-of-state responses on a continuum of interstate struggle. This forms a framework for understanding the thinking of the Russian elites on
military security.
5.4 Asymmetric response
The Russian idea of asymmetric actions and responses has lately been an object ofinterest for Western analysts.1358 Admittedly, the occupation of Crimea in 2014 by
Russia and recent Syrian operations have made Western analysts interested in the
Russian military thought about indirect action and asymmetry, and, consequently,
something that has been part of traditional Russian thought has been ‘rediscovered.’1359 Some have disputed this interpretations and offered their own views.1360
More critical assessments have noted that the Russians have sometimes got themselves caught in their own ‘asymmetric dreams’.1361 Many have forgotten that just 15
years ago the whole concept of asymmetry was under heavy criticism by the Western
analysts themselves.1362
The discussion on asymmetric responses has continued under President Putin from
where it had been left under Yeltsin’s reign. In 2000, the Director of the Centre forInternational and Strategic Studies of the Russian-Armenian University Professor Valerii Belous defined asymmetric responses, when discussing the Soviet Union’s 1980s
policy against American BMD, as creating better offensive strategic nuclear weapons
against defensive systems.1363 When speaking in a military-scientific conference of the1358 Kipp 2014; Thomas, Timothy. Russia’s Military Strategy and Ukraine: Indirect, Asymmetric—and Putin-

Led. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2015), 445-461; Adamsky 2015; Pynnöniemi 2019a& 2019b.
1359 On this subject Bettina Renz’s summary of the debate (Renz 2018).
1360 Kofman, Michael. Raiding and international brigandry: Russia’s strategy for great power competition. War
on the Rocks, June 14 2018 [Online]. Available: https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/raiding-and-international-brigandry-russias-strategy-for-great-power-competition/ [Accessed: 3rd January 2019].
1361 Cooper, Julian. Russia’s Invincible Weapons: Today, Tomorrow, Sometime, Never? Changing Character of
War Centre, Pembroke College, Oxford [Online]. Available: http://www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/blog/2018/4/30/ russias-invincible-weapons-today-tomorrow-sometime-never [Accessed: 30th October 2018].
1362 Cf. Blank, Stephen. Rethinking the Concept of Asymmetric Threats in U.S. Strategy, Comparative Strategy,Vol. 23, No. 4-5 (2004), 343-367.
1363 Алексин, Валерий. Так считает директор Центра международных и стратегических исследований
Владимир Белоус. Ответы на американские вызовы имеются. Независимое военное обозрение № 25
(198) 14.07.2000.

193

Academy of Military Sciences in 2003, General-Lieutenant V. A. Sapozhinskii argued
that Russian Armed forces were lagging behind the developed West and they mustfind forces, means, forms and methods to counter the asymmetric actions of the enemy.1364 Other speakers in the conference mentioned asymmetry only as a new but
useless name for old wars and types of warfare.1365 By 2006 the Russian military analysts had noticed the Western interest in asymmetric wars and associated these wars
with the tsarist era Colonel Evgenii Messner’s concept of insurrection or mutiny wars
(miatezhvoina). Messner’s concept was a collection of different tactics: terror, gangsterism, rebellions, riots and even demonstrations and manifestations aiming at revolution.1366 Nevertheless, for Russian commentators the war in Chechnya was not interpreted as ‘an asymmetric war’ or even related to the concept.1367
Asymmetry was debated in the context of military reform during the first two termsof Vladimir Putin. The Chief of the General Staff Army General Iurii Baluevskii in2006 declared that Russia will “reject the principle of symmetry” or numerical parityand build its armed forces based on ‘asymmetry’. Because the General did not offer
any facts or substance to support his argument the reception of his declaration was
somewhat critical.1368 One commentator ironically pointed out that the whole concept
rested on the idea that Russia could create miracle weapons based on identifying thevulnerabilities of the weapons of potential adversaries, creating asymmetric and symmetric weapons through advanced technology, and successfully forecasting the future
development of weapons. At the same time, it should avoid direct force-on-force
confrontation.1369 G. Ter-Arutiuniants claimed in 2007 that a new Cold War, which
was fought between powers rising from under the weakening Unites States, was byits nature asymmetric. It was a war between civilizations fought with using soft power,
terrorism, energy, and nuclear blackmail by weaker states.1370
Although the idea of asymmetric responses had not been forgotten in the early 2000s,
it was reawakened around 2006–2008 as Vladimir Putin used the concept in his 2006
Annual Statement to the Federal Assembly.1371 He was perhaps influenced by Andrei
Kokoshin, who was an influential academician and politician at that time. In the context of the negotiations on the reductions of strategic nuclear weapons and missile
defence, Kokoshin claimed that the strategy of asymmetric response of the Soviet
1364 Сапожинский, В.А. Взгляды на характер операций (боевых действий) в войнах будущего. Вестник

Академии военных наук, №2(3) 2003, 53-57.
1365 Гареев, М.А. Доклад президента Академии военных наук генерала армии М.А.Гареева. Вестник Академии военных наук, №2(3) 2003, 9-17.
1366 Маначинский, Александр. Когда слабый побеждает сильного. Независимое военное обозрение N
47 22.12.2006.
1367 Нечитайло, Дмитрий. “Асимметричная война” исламистов. Независимое военное обозрение № 28
14.8.2006; Сиротинин, Евгений, Криницкий, Юрий. Партизанско-террористические войны в эпоху
ядерного сдерживания. Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 20 4.6.2010; Зеленый, В. В. Основные тенденции противодействия терроризму. Военная мысль, № 10 2015, 3-14.
1368 Колыванов, Георгий. Непонятная асимметрия. Генштаб попытался сказать новое слово в военной
науке. Независимое военное обозрение N 4 3.2.2006; Балуевский, Юрий. Генерал армии Юрий Балуевский: Генеральный штаб и задачи военного строительства. Красная звезда, 25.01.2006.
1369 Растопшин, Михаил. В лабиринте асимметричных ответов. Независимое Военное Обозрение, №
17 1.6.2007.
1370 Тер-Арутюнянц, Г. Многополярная и асимметричная холодная война. Вестник Академии военных
наук, №4(41) 2007.
1371 Послание Президента РФ Федеральному Собранию от 10.05.2006 [Online]. Available: http://www.
consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_60109/#dst0 [Accessed: 27th March 2019]; Иванов 2014.

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Union had worked as the United States eventually froze the development of the SDI.
According to Kokoshin, the strategy of asymmetric response was based on the ideathat the SDI, however complete and efficient, could be bypassed with new weapons
and by disrupting the SDI itself, and that the Soviet strategic weapons could be mademore secure from a surprise first-strike. Furthermore, Kokoshin argued that parallel
to technological solutions, a psychological campaign was launched to turn the American elite against the SDI. Kokoshin has compared the strategy of asymmetric response to Sun Tzu’s principle of not doing what the enemy wants or what the enemy
does but acting in a way that increases one’s own strengths and minimizes the possibilities of the enemy. This principle, he claims, is also found in the works of A. A.
Svechin.1372 Kokoshin’s proposals and views on asymmetry were criticized for being
simplistic and being based on a model that had already failed once.1373 Furthermore,
his writings were meant to influence current events which apparently worked. For
instance, in 2007 when President Vladimir Putin stated that “our response will beasymmetrical, although highly effective” when discussing the United States’ missile
defence he was explicitly quoting Mikhail Gorbachev from 1986.1374
The idea of asymmetric responses eventually reached the Academy of Military Sciences. Gareev had written about an indirect strategy already in 1995 but in 2009 heargued that “With the relative weakness of our economic potential, the main emphasisshould be placed on creating asymmetric means and methods of response.”1375 Later,
Gareev, for example, promoted the exploitation of weaknesses in C3 systems.1376 He
also connected asymmetric actions to international confrontations and to the so called
colour revolutions.1377 These thoughts led Gareev to conclude that “The Soviet Union
had nuclear weapons, these weapons remained, but the Soviet Union did not. Therefore, due attention must be paid to the development of general-purpose forces, including the land forces, air force and navy, and to place the main emphasis on asymmetric means and ways to neutralize the technological superiority of the enemy.”1378
Gareev’s views were echoed by Gerasimov who argued that Russia should not justcopy and catch up but to work “ahead of the curve” and be in a leading position
itself.1379 In 2015 Gareev argued that to counter the aggression of opponents with

1372 Кокошин, Андрей. “Асимметричный ответ” vs. “Стратегической оборонной инициативы”. Между-народная жизнь, № 7 - 8, 2007; Кокошин, Андрей. “Звездные войны”: ответить асимметрично. Кразная
звезда, № 164, 12.9.2007; Кокошин, Андрей. “Звездные войны”: как СССР ответил Рейгану. Кразная
звезда, № 169, 17.9.2008; Кокошин, Андрей. Асимметричный ответ номер один. Независимое военное
обозрение № 24 27.7.2007; Ознобищев, С. К., Потапов, В. Я., Скоков, В. В. Как готовился «асимметричный ответ» на «стратегическую оборонную инициативу» Р. Рейгана. Велихов, Кокошин и другие. М.:Институт стратегических оценок, изд. ЛЕНАНД, 2008
1373 Кулаков, Александр. Асимметричный ответ не спасет. Независимое военное обозрение N 25
25.7.2008.
1374 Kremlin.ru. Transcript of press conference with the Russian and foreign media, President of Russia’s official
web portal, February 1, 2007 [English] [Online]. Available: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/ transcripts/24026 [Accessed: 14th February 2019].
1375 Гареев, М. А. Проблемы стратегического сдерживания в современных условиях. Военная мысль, №
4 2009, 2-9, 6. Also Гареев 2009a.
1376 Гареев 2013; Гареев 2017b.
1377 Гареева 2012.
1378 Гареева 2013c, 4-9, 6.
1379 Герасимов 2013a, 29.

195overwhelming technological superiority and non-contact weapons, Russia had to either develop new weapons or to develop ‘operational strategic actions’ that would
neutralize the advantage of the enemy.1380
The idea of an asymmetric response also reached information warfare theorists. Rastorguev, for example, argued that against the efforts to restrict Russia’s geopoliticalstatus, Russia’s response should be asymmetric which meant the dismantling of themechanism of self-destruction.1381 This statement must be understood in the contextof Rastorguev’s theory of self-destructive systems. An asymmetric response is thenan act to remove possible weaknesses in the algorithms of the systems.1382 Others like
Manoilo et al. argued that information was inherently an asymmetric object as it wasalways changing, and its change reshaped the environment.1383
Historical studies produced somewhat anachronistic historical interpretations which
included the cruise missiles developed during the Soviet times and the Soviet Navy’s
blue water fleet programme in the 1970s as asymmetric responses.1384 On a more diplomatic level, Russia’s moratorium of CFE was offered as an asymmetric response.1385
Russia’s permanent representative to NATO Aleksandr Grushko stated in 2016 that
Russia would “prepare an asymmetric response” to the increased NATO forces nearits borders which would be maximally effective but not extremely costly.1386 In thiscontext, S. A. Syachev had already proposed in 2009 that in the case an enemy managed to disable Russian strategic forces with a surprise attack, the rapid mobilizationof Russian irregular forces against the attacker’s land forces could be considered an
asymmetric action.1387 Conversely, strategic nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defences have been a constant source of different interpretations of an asymmetric response.1388 For example, Alexei Arbatov has associated asymmetry with the idea thatthe defence against strategic nuclear weapons must be perfect, while offence must
succeed to inflict intolerable damage only once .1389 Asymmetry was also implied when
Major General S. V. Kuralenko from the Military Academy of the General Staff
pointed out that as warfare had expanded include the air and space, the information
systems of air defence, missile defence, and electronic warfare had become decisive.
1380 Гaреев, М.А. В интересах обороноспособности страны. Вестник Академии военных наук 1(50) 2015,

4-9.

1381 Cited in Ковалев В.И., Коссе Ю.В. “Гудвилл” сша в контексте инициатив по сокращению сяс ипроблемы Россиии. Информационные войны, №4 (12) 2009, 10-19, 16.
1382 Ibid.
1383 Манойло, Петренко & Фролов 2012.
1384 Ефремов, Г., Царев, В., Асатуров, С. Владимир Челомей в истории Советского ВМФ. ВПК, № 25(291) за 1 июля 2009 года; Богданов, Константин. Момент истины для «убийц авианосцев». ВПК, № 46(362) за 24 ноября 2010 года.
1385 Фаличев, Олег. Недалеко и до новой ”Берлинской стены”. ВПК, № 18 (184) за 16 мая 2007 года.
1386 Мухин, Владимир. Россия и НАТО вышли на дистанцию танковой атаки. Независимая газета, № 65
(6679) 2016.
1387 Сыч в, С.А. Применение иррегулярных формирований в решении боевых задач. Вестник Академии
военных наук, № 4 (29) 2009, 46-48.
1388 Артамонов, Игор, Рябцев, Роман. Асимметричный ответ России Таковым может стать развитие тактического ядерного оружия малой и сверхмалой мощности. ВПК, № 15 (483) за 17 апреля 2013 года;Сивков, Константин. Глобальный контрудар Способы нейтрализации национальной ПРО США могут
быть асимметричными и весьма неординарными. ВПК, № 21 (587) за 10 июня 2015 года; Сивков, Константин. Асимметричный «Сармат» Ракеты средней дальности – оружие малой ценности. ВПК, № 45(709) за 22 ноября 2017 года.
1389 Арбатов, Алексей. Стратегические асимметрии и системы ПРО. Независимое Военное Обозрение,№ 1 20.1.2012.

196

He indirectly offered these systems as asymmetric responses of Russia to a technologically superior opponent.1390
The idea that electronic warfare could be considered an asymmetric response surfaced
from time to time in the Russian debate during the 2000s and 2010s. The importanceof EW was at least partly emphasised because of the influence of the American hightech doctrine and military campaigns—although the Soviet tradition of EW also had
an influence.1391 For example, General-Major L. N. Il’in, and retired Colonels P. A.
Dul’nev and V. T. Kobalev have proposed anti-NCW warfare as an asymmetric response to the American technological superiority. It would consist of weapons thatcan disrupt the command, control and communication systems behind NCW.1392 In asimilar manner I. I. Korolev, V. N. Pavlov and A. V. Ganin, who are representativesof the EW troops, have proposed an ‘electromagnetic blockade’ as an asymmetricresponse to NCW.1393 Electronic warfare combined with aerospace defences has also
been proposed as an asymmetric response to the so-called sixth generation of Western
warfare.1394 In contrast to the view that EW is an asymmetric response to NCW, I.N.
Vorob’ev and V. A. Kiselev have argued that one of the principles of NCW (in thiscase understood as a doctrine of command and control) is asymmetry. This sets NCW
apart from conventional modern tactics where the guiding principle is ‘combat activity’ or retaining the initiative.1395
The discussion on indirect actions, which had already began in the 1990s, had a direct
relationship with the military’s understanding of asymmetry. Retired Major General I.
N. Vorob’ev and Colonel V. A. Kisilev, both academicians of the Military EducationTraining and Research Centre of the Ground Forces (VUNTs SV “OVA VS RF”)1396,
wrote in 2006 that because of technological changes, an indirect (nepriamyi) strategy
has surpassed the direct strategy of destruction based on material superiority. Modern
indirect strategy is based on a large variety of forms and methods and it has manifested
as the use of deception (obman), stratagems (khitrost’), and intimidation (ustrashenie)
to destroy the enemy without the use of weapons through information superiority.
Thus, information-psychological weapons have strategic effects and EW has become
an inherent part of all operations.1397

1390 Кураленко, С. В. Тенденции изменения характера вооруженной борьбы в военных конфликтах пер-вой половины XXI века. Военная Мысль, № 11 2012, 40-46.
1391 Горбачев, Юрий. РЭБ в операциях XX и XXI века. ВПК, № 44 (61) за 17 ноября 2004 года.
1392 Дульнев, П. А., Ковалев, В. Т., Ильин, Л. Н. Асимметричное противодействие в сетецентрической
войне. Военная Мысль, № 10 2011, 3-8.
1393 Королев, И. И., Павлов, В. Н., Ганин, А. В. Радиоэлектронно-информационная блокада - перспективный способ применения разнородных сил и средств РЭБ. Военная Мысль, № 4 2013, 16-23.
1394 Лузан, Александр. Воздушно-космическое нападение. В войнах нового поколения резко возрастает
роль высокоточного оружия и средств борьбы с ним. Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 10 (846)20.3.2015.
1395 Воробьев, И. Н., Киселев, В. А. От современной тактики к тактике сетецентрических действий.
Военная Мысль, № 8 2011, 19-27.
1396 Part of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation after 2009 (Obchshevoiskovaia akademiia Vooruzhennykh Sil Rossiiskoi). The Academy trains officers for the Ground Forces
and conducts defence research on various subjects. (ВУНЦ СВ «ОВА ВС РФ» [Online]. Available:
http://ova.mil.ru/ [Accessed: 29th March 2019].
1397 Воробьев, И. Н., Киселев, В. А. Стратегия непрямых действий в новом облике. Военная мысль, № 92006, 2-10; Воробьев, И. Н., Киселев, В. А. Военная наука на современном этапе. Военная мысль, № 72008, 26-31.

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Indirect methods also fascinated the Chief of the Centre for Military Strategic Studiesof the General Staff (TsVSI GS) Colonel S. G. Chekinov, and S. A, Bogdanov who
wrote in the 2010s that military science had to include indirect and non-military
measures in its corpus as interstate confrontation (mezhgosudarstvennoe protivoborstvo) now included them.1398 Chekinov and Bogdanov seemed to discard the necessary requirement of ‘weak against strong.’ An asymmetric strategic approach tothem was based on non-identical capabilities that enabled the avoidance of direct confrontation and enabled the potential opponent’s vulnerabilities to be threatened.1399
For them indirect measures were inherently associated with asymmetry, military cunning and surprise. The concept also included maskirovka and stratagems.1400 Furthermore, in 2017 Chekinov and Bogdanov elaborated their views on the role and substance of modern military strategies and claimed that all strategy was asymmetric—aclaim that has been made by the Western theorists also, although, as a criticism toward
the whole concept of asymmetry.1401 The scholars argued that Russia must therefore
develop its own asymmetric response which should consist of demonstrations, readiness, deterrence, denial and the ability to inflict unacceptable damage to the militaryand non-military assets of the enemy.1402
Perhaps a bit more critical and social-scientific definition of asymmetry has been offered by E. A. Stepanova from the Primakov National Research Institute of World
Economy and International Relations.1403 She has redefined asymmetric war or actions
as an asymmetric confrontation (asimmetricheskaia konfrontatsiia) where asymmetry
relies on the dialectical relationship of the adversaries instead of one-sided capabilities.1404 A similar dialectical view was shared by retired Colonel and Professor Iu. V.
Krinitskii who has argued that the concepts of asymmetry, superiority in power, andcorrelation of forces are intertwined. He has claimed that although asymmetry could
be achieved through actions on operational-tactical level, on a strategic level it was
based on economy and technology and thus it was never cheap. Additionally, asymmetry was never a stable state because an advantage in technology is only temporary.1405 This temporary nature of asymmetry resonated with Colonel General M. M.

1398 Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. Влияние непрямых действий на характер современной войны. Воен-ная мысль, № 1 2011, 3-13, 13; Чекинов & Богданов 2015b; Чекинов & Богданов 2017.
1399 Чекинов, С.Г., Богданов, С.А. Влияние асимметричных действий на современную военную безопасность России. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 1 (30) 2010, 46-53.
1400 Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. Военное искусство на начальном этапе XXI столетия: проблемы исуждения. Военная мысль, № 1 2015, 32-43.
1401 Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. Военная стратегия: взгляд в будущее. Военная Мысль, № 11 2016, 315, 7; Чекинов & Богданов 2017; Milevski, Lucas. Asymmetry is Strategy, Strategy is Asymmetry. JFQ, Vol.
75, No. 4 (2014), 77-83.
1402 Чекинов, С. Г., Богданов, С. А. Асимметричные действия по обеспечению военной безопасности
России. Военная Мысль, № 3 2010, 13-22.
1403 The Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) is afederal public institution created in 1956 and functions under RAN. It is a research institution which concentrates on international relations and the world economy and has multiple divisions and a staff of over 500
persons. (Иванов 2014).
1404 Степанова, Е. А. Асимметричный конфликт как силовая, статусная, идеологическая и структурная
асимметрия. Военная Мысль, № 5 2010, 47-54.
1405 Криницкий, Ю. В. Асимметричные средства и способы ведения войны. Военная Мысль, № 11 2010,25-30.

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Kucheriavyi, the Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, who defined information asymmetry as a selective, limited response to the aggressive information effects of the enemy with no need to maintain quantitative parity with the opponent.1406
By 2015 the General Staff was ready to offer an official definition of asymmetric actions. General-Lieutenant A. V. Kartapalov argued that ‘asymmetric actions’ would
be used in ‘a new type’ of future wars to level the technological superiority of theenemy. They would be used by weaker adversaries who had limited resources. These
actions could be economic, diplomatic, information as well as non-direct and direct
military actions aimed at the vulnerabilities of the opponent for maximum effect at
the minimum cost to one’s own forces and resources. There were no universal asymmetric actions as conflicts differed and opponents adapted to them. Their effectiveness depended on the completeness and timeliness of their implementation whichshould be achieved through coordination of multi-departmental forces throughout
the state organizations. 1407 What Kartapalov was describing was a whole-of-government, state-based approach to asymmetry as a tactical action in peace and wartime,and as such it diverges from the ‘asymmetric response’ idea of Kokoshin. It is a more
traditional definition of asymmetry than some Russian writers have proposed as it
concentrates on the means of the weaker side.
Kartapalov’s definition did not end the debate. In 2017 A. V. Kiselev claimed that the
principles of asymmetric actions include secrecy, the search and identification of
weaknesses, the concentration of efforts against the most vulnerable points of theadversary, in addition to the imposition of the desired course of the conflict and willon the adversary. The following of these principles should result in low costs compared to the enemy and superiority or, at least, equality in an armed confrontation.1408
In 2017 Aleksandr Bartosh managed to combine strategic deterrence, hybrid war anda Russian asymmetric response in a concept that included all the hyped-up terms but
did not manage to offer anything beyond a show of loyalty for the official rearmament
programme.1409 Perhaps the latest addition to the Russian debate on asymmetry has
been V. V. Selivanov’s and Iu. D. Il’in’s article where they proposed a methodology
to find an asymmetric response to high-technology opponents.1410 The idea was to
avoid a symmetric, costly response which would lead to an arms race and the exhaustion of the economy of the weaker side. Selivanov’s and Il’in’s model was based oncomparing the time-cost-effectiveness values of competing systems.1411 This ‘levelling’(nivelirovanie) of the military-technological superiority of the enemy by locating and

1406 Кучерявый, Михаил Михайлович. Информационное измерение политики национальной безопас-ности России в условиях современного глобального мира. Диссертация на соискание ученой степени
доктора политических наук по специальности. Санкт-Петербург, 2014, 266.
1407 Картаполов 2015.
1408 Киселев, В. А. К каким войнам необходимо готовить Вооруженные Силы России. Военная Мысль,№ 3 2017, 37-46.
1409 Бартош, Александр. Трудно обеспечить безопасность Евразии в условиях "новой холодной войны"Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 30 (961) 18.8.2017.
1410 Селиванов, В. В., Ильин, Ю. Д. Методические основы формирования асимметричных ответов ввоенно-техническом противоборстве с высокотехнологичным противником. Военная Мысль, № 92019, 33-41.
1411 Ibid.

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striking against its critical strategic objects using creative ways and means is also promoted others.1412
The concept of asymmetric response was accepted by many commentators by 2017as an official Russian strategy against the United States and its allies.1413 However,none of the official national security and strategic planning documents use the term
asymmetric. It can always be argued that with an asymmetric response, even if it hada certain cultural resonance with the positive aspects of Russian traditions like stratagems, creativity and cunning, it was not politically wise to admit that Russia was a
weaker side in any geopolitical struggle. After the United States and the European
Union imposed sanctions on Russia due to the annexation of Crimea, the asymmetricresponse became an economic issue. Russian Prime Minister Dmitrii Medvedev, forexample, stated that economic sanctions are always political and thus asymmetric.1414
The economic aspect highlights the issue that there is, as was in the case of strategic
deterrence, a noticeable under-current of institutional fighting over resources behindthe different formulations of an asymmetric response.
To summarize. The Russian texts analysed here contain multiple meanings of asymmetry and asymmetric response which shows that the Russians have been interested
in the idea. Asymmetric response can be described as overcoming an adversary’s offensive and defensive systems while at the same time protecting one’s own systems.
It can be a cost-effective solution and/or an innovative technological breakthroughin the spirit of dialectical weapon–counter-weapon progress. For politicians it might
be an economic solution or a new direction in politics such as emphasising regional
cooperation. For military scholars it has often meant ways to neutralize an adversary’s
superiority through technology or creative, innovative action. The substance of this
response has depended on the affiliation of the writer as different services, forces andtroops have been offered as the asymmetric response. Some of the most vocal proponents have been those claiming that electronic warfare measures and denying theelectromagnetic spectrum from the advanced opponent, i.e. the United States would
counter the advantages of the NCW. By 2017-2018 the Russian Armed Forces seemto have adopted asymmetry, i.e. exploiting the weaknesses of the opponent, as a partof its official doctrine. Information has had a role in almost all of the definitions ofasymmetry proposed in the timeframe of 2000-2018. Clearly, it has been considered
as something new or having a disruptive quality, which has made it a variable that
could affect the correlation of forces and, thus, everything from the battlefield to thestrategic balance. This asymmetric quality of information is applied to both technological and psychological aspects of information.
1412 Фадеев, А. С., Ничипор, В. И. Военные конфликты современности, перспективы развития способових ведения. Прямые и непрямые действия в вооруженных конфликтах XXI века. Военная Мысль, № 2
2019, 5-14, 71413 Иванько, Анатолий. Эшелонированная брешь Мысль всегда будет эффективнее самого высокоточного боеприпаса. ВПК, № 12 (627) за 30 марта 2016 года; Казеннов, Сергей, Кумачев, Владимир. Хочешь
мира - готовься... к чему? Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 19 29.5.2015; Казеннов, Сергей, Кумачев,Владимир. Ах, если б вам служить на суше... Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 28 7.8.2015; Ивашов,Леонид. Удар Валдая. Выступление президента России на собрании дискуссионного клуба в Сочи стало
главной мировой новостью. ВПК, № 41 (705) за 25 октября 2017 года.
1414 Лысова, Татьяна, Стеркин, Филипп, Харатьян, Кирилл. “Есть вещи пострашнее ограничения поставок”. Ведомости, 8.9.2014 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/articles/2014/09/08/
est-veschi-postrashnee-ogranicheniya-postavok-dmitrij#ixzz3Ci26r445 [Accessed: 14th February 2019].

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An asymmetric response is a prime example of a strategic cultural idea which is carriedby epistemic communities and which resurfaces from time to time when the state’s
external environment calls for it. It is also a good example of how these ideas are
made to ‘fit’ the current needs and environment. The asymmetric response is whatever any individual scholar or lobbyist wants it to be. It holds legitimizing power andas such is contested between different groups—the strategic nuclear weapon and EW
professionals serve as an example. It is also offered as a ‘deus-ex machina’ to rebalance
the great power relationship. It is usually a cost-effective but technologically innovative solution offering to replace quantitate with qualitative power. As such, its roots
are in the Cold War era correlation of force calculations and in the never ending strive
towards strategic parity. However, asymmetric response and asymmetric action
should be separated—they are two interconnected but different ideas. The first operates on the political and strategic level while the other is a more tactical and operational concept more tied to the character of war (the borders of which with peace
have faded) than strategic stability. Nevertheless, both versions should be understoodin the context of ‘protivoborstvo’, i.e. the continuous struggle to find advantages inthe zero-sum game which is international politics. Whereas asymmetric response has
been framed as a ‘Russian’ idea, asymmetric actions were first observed as something
Western, but by 2018 were incorporated into the Russian strategic thought.
5.5 Digital sovereignty
As was argued in Chapter 4, the concept of digital sovereignty did not come into being
before the 2000s but had its roots in previous Russian ideas about territorial statesovereignty. Its appearance in the 2010s has been noted in previous studies. It has
been primarily interpreted as an example of the importance the Russian regime placeson sovereignty, state control, and territorial integrity now reflected upon the Internet.1415 For example, Julian Nocetti has argued that Russia approaches cyberspace asa territory with virtual borders corresponding to physical state borders and state sovereign rights and responsibilities.1416 Eneken Tikk and Mika Kerttunen have claimed
that this sovereignty-based vision of cyberspace has led to a collision between Russianand Western views emphasising human rights and existing international laws.1417
Moreover, in a 2017 journal article Mari Ristolainen argued that ‘digital sovereignty’is a central concept to understanding Russian state cyber security thinking.1418 She
claimed that “Consequently, RuNet has evolved from an alternative social universe
to a state-controlled ‘safe and secure’ digital environment that manifests ‘digital sovereignty’.”1419

1415 Soldatov, Andrei and Borogan, Irina. Russia’s Surveillance State. World Policy Journal, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Fall2013), 23-30, 29; Soldatov 2017; Vendil Pallin 2017, 17. Here Vendil-Pallin refers to Alena Ledeneva’s conceptof ‘sistema’ or clusters of informal networks. Ibid., 28-29; Jaitner & Rantapelkonen 2013, 69.
1416 Nocetti 2015, 112.
1417 Eneken & Kerttunen 2017.
1418 Ristolainen, Mari. Should “RuNet 2020” be taken seriously? Contradictory views about cybersecurity between Russia and the West. Journal of Information Warfare, Vol. 16, No. 4 (2017), 113-131. The article is an
updated version of earlier conference paper (Ristolainen 2017a).
1419 Ristolainen 2017b, 118. Ristolainen, Kukkola and Nikkarila have continued to research the subject of Russian theoretical thought on digital sovereignty. This chapter is based on that research and expands it by introducing new material. Kukkola, Ristolainen & Nikkarila 2019; Ristolainen & Kukkola 2019a.

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The Russian understanding of digital sovereignty is intertwined with its cyber norm
building efforts which have been spearheaded by a group of people composed of exmilitary and ex-KGB/FSB officers, MGIMO academicians and other institutes, andretired or serving diplomats.1420 These ‘cyber diplomats’ are essential to understanding
the Russian idea of ‘digital’ or ‘information sovereignty’. The previously mentioned
Anatolii Strel’tsov belongs to this group and has written about international cybersecurity norms mainly in the context of the UN GGE process during 2011-2018. His
texts are not personal theoretical treatises but arguments for the Russian proposals in
the UN and as such represent the official view of the Russian regime.1421 Their main
point is that there is a lack of international rules on the military use of informationcommunication technology (ICT) and no shared concept of ‘information war’ or‘weapons’ which is an inherently dangerous state of affairs. Strel’tsov’s texts highlightthe main issues of Russia’s cyber diplomacy, that is, the primacy of state sovereignty,
the territorial view of cyberspace’s infrastructure, and the understanding of information being both psychological and technological. One of the main points of contention here is that Russia pursues the official banning of the ‘malicious use of ICT’.
It is important to note that ‘malicious use’ does not mean only destructive use but
also denial, manipulation and exploitation. Consequently, in 2014 Andrei Krutskikh
and Anatoli Strel’tsov pointed out that Russia had not signed the Council of Europe’s
Convention on Cybercrime because it presumably allowed unsanctioned access to
networks of other countries which violates the sovereignty of the target state.1422
Strel’tsov has argued that state dominion (verkhovenstvo) in cyberspace is delineatedinto three areas: information and telecommunication networks located in the national
territory, the ICT means to collect, transfer, store, receive or distribute information,and local or distributed ASUs.1423 Strel’tsov considers it problematic that things aredesignated in cyberspace by their address because these addresses do not conform tostate borders or designate a physical infrastructure on a state territory and are moreover administrated by international non-governmental organizations with no internationally recognized legal status (i.e. ICANN).1424 Consequently, Strel’tsov has argued
1420 For example, beginning from 2007, these people have organized the yearly Russian cyber security confer-ence in Garmisch-Partenkirschen. They know each other, write academic or semi-academic papers together
and the most prominent of them belong to the National Association of International Information Security(NAMIB). The group has published multiple books and their bios are included in Комов 2009. Based on the
ISTINA database, these people write and publish together (ИСТИНА webpage [Online]. Available:
https://istina.msu.ru/ [Accessed: 2nd April 2019]). On NAMIB cf. ТАСС 2018; Пядышева 2018.
1421 Крутских, Андрей, Стрельцов, Анатолий. Международное право и проблема обеспечения международной информационной безопасности. Международная жизнь, № 11 (2014); Стрельцов, Анатолий.
Основные направления развития международного права вооруженных конфликтов применительно ккиберпространству. VIII международный форум по международной информационной безопасности.
21-24 апреля 2014 года. Гармиш-Партенкирхен, Германия, место издания Издательство Московского
университета. Москва: 2014, 52-70; Стрельцов, А.А. Адаптация международного права безопасности кинформационному пространству. Девятый международный форум «Партнерство государства, бизнесаи гражданского общества при обеспечении международной информационной безопасности» и Одиннадцатая научная конференция МИКИБ 20–23 апреля 2015 года. Гармиш-Партенкирхен, Германия. М.:2015, 81-86; Стрельцов, А.А. Применение международного гуманитарного права к вооруженным конфликтам в киберпространстве. Российский ежегодник международного права 2015. Санкт-Петербур:“Россия-Нева”, 2015, 152-169; Стрельцов, Анатолий. Суверенитет и юрисдикция государства в среде
информационно-коммуникационных технологий в контексте международной безопасности. Журнал
Международная жизнь, № 2. 2017.
1422 Крутских & Стрельцов 2014.
1423 Крутских & Стрельцов 2014, 155-156.
1424 Ibid., 156.

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that the United States is the only state enjoying sovereignty in cyberspace because it
indirectly controls ICANN. To remedy the situation Strel’tsov argues, among otherthings, for developing an international treaty recognizing state sovereignty in cyberspace, delimiting state borders in cyberspace, and the creation of a map designating anational infrastructure.1425 In line with this thinking, Strel’tsov argued in 2017 that
there is a national ICT segment which is juridically located on Russian territory, andthus under Russian federal state powers. This claim is the basis for the term ‘national
segment of the Internet’ which denotes state sovereignty on the Internet through its
infrastructure. Strel’tsov then logically concludes that the state has the right to control
the national segment to ensure its security, resilience, and development in accordancewith national interests.1426 In another article Strel’tsov and Anatolii Smirnov1427, argued that ‘the ICT environment’ is a widely recognized concept based on a UN GGE
report. They then proceed to define this environment—something that the UN GGE
report clearly tries to circumvent as it would support Russia’s demands for internationally recognized information sovereignty.1428 Strel’tsov’s texts demonstrate an intentional effort to create an intellectual basis for the state claims of authority over theInternet.
Associate professor Elena Zinov’eva from MGIMO1429 is an interesting scholar because she is connected to Andrei Krutskikh who is one of the central figures of theRussian cyber diplomacy team.1430 He has co-authored articles with almost all of theleading Russian ‘cyber diplomats’—including Anatoli Strel’tsov who was discussed
above.1431 In this group Zinov’eva represents the younger generation. Zinov’eva’sbasic argument is based on the inherent inequality of globalization and the reactionsof authoritarian regimes to the free flow of information. This development creates adivide between ‘the info rich’ and ‘the info poor’, or the ‘digital divide’, and is a sourceof new types of conflict.1432 Zino’eva has argued that the multi-stakeholder model ofgoverning the Internet, which Russia has opposed contributes to the ‘digital divide’1433
1425 Ibid., 163.
1426 Стрельцов 2017.

1427 Smirnov is a Russian diplomat and a leading researcher at the Center of International Information Security

and Scientific-Technological politics in the MGIMO.
1428 The United Nations General Assembly Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field ofInformation and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security. A/70/174 22 July 2015
[Online]. Available: https://undocs.org/A/70/174 [Accessed: 29th March 2019].
1429 Zinov’eva has a PhD in Political Science and is an Associate Professor at the Department of World Politics,
and Deputy Director of Centre for International Information Security, Science and Technology Policy MGIMO
University (Зиновьева Елена Сергеевна. МГИМО Online. Available: https://mgimo.ru/people/zinoveva/[Accessed: 2nd April 2019]).
1430 Krutskikh is a Professor at the Department of World Politics, the Director of the Center for International
Information Security and Science and Technology Policy, and the vice-chair of the National association ofinternational information security. Krutskikh is a career diplomat and has worked with arms control issues.
Zinov’eva’s book on Internet governance has been written under the guidance of Krutskikh (Зиновьева, Е. С.
Международное управление Интернетом: конфликт и сотрудничество: учеб. Пособие. М.: МГИМОУниверситет, 2011.)
1431 Крутских Андрей Владимирович МГИМО Online. Available: https://mgimo.ru/people/krutskikh-andrey/ [Accessed: 2nd April 2019].
1432 Зиновьева, E.C. Международно-политические аспекты развития интернета. Вестник МГИМО-Университета № 4 (31) 2013, 135-140, 139. Also Зиновьева, E.C. Международное управление интернетом:проблемы, подходы, перспективы. Вестник МГИМО-Университета № 6 (15) 2010, 167-174.
1433 The ‘digital divide’ is a concept which was used in the Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society in2000 (Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society, 2000 [Online]. Available: https://www.mofa.go.
jp/policy/economy/summit/2000/documents/charter.html [Accessed: 2nd April 2019].)203

as digitally underdeveloped states do not have the resources to protect their interests.1434 The borders of state control, sovereignty, and the balance of power in theinformation sphere are under threat.1435Zino’eva has claimed that the current status
quo serves the interests of the United States, although her arguments are somewhat
contradictory as she claims that the United States does not want to give up its sovereignty in the face of globalization and degrading power position but at the same timeclaims that Russia (and others) are entitled to their sovereignty and control over theInternet.1436 Zinov’eva has argued that Russia’s place in the global information society
is based on its scientific and educational potential, quality of information infrastructure, the level of the development of electronic business and commerce and electronic
government. It is noteworthy that these elements can be measured.1437 Zinov’eva summarized Russian national interests in the information sphere as being based on therespect for state sovereignty, interstate governance of the Internet, and the stability,
security, and uninterrupted functioning of the Internet.1438
In 2014 Zinov’eva wrote that the interstate confrontation (mezgosudarstvennoe protivoborstvo) had transferred into the information sphere. Accordingly, Russia had
expanded its list of information threats from the use of ICT to terrorist, criminal, andmilitary-political ends to include interfering in the internal affairs of states.1439 She
stated that in this context Russia pursued ‘the broad understanding’ of international
information security including technological and politico-ideological aspects, whereas
the West pursued only a narrow understanding which was technological and named‘cyber security’ (kiberbezopasnost’).1440 Russia has pursued the demilitarization of theinformation space and the formation of an international normative regime as the basisof international information security.1441 Zinov’eva also argued in 2016 that information flows draw together culturally similar countries and that the regionalization
and Balkanization of the Internet was a natural and beneficial phenomenon resistedby the status quo powers.1442 She claimed that in this context Russia strives to shape
the information space to correspond to the multipolar world order—one polar ofwhich is Russia—and to the idea of ‘digital sovereignty’.1443 This strategy of increased
state control she claimed was optimal as, “on the one hand, it provides the openness
necessary for the development of Internet business and related industries, and on theother hand, it provides controllability and controllability of the Russian segment of
the Internet.”1444 Although Elena Zinov’eva is far from original, her texts offer a
glimpse of the changing worldview and ideas, or at least political argumentation, ofthe ‘cyber diplomats’.
1434 Зиновьева 2010.
1435 Зиновьева 2013.
1436 Ibid., 171-172.

1437 Зиновьева 2011.

1438 Ibid. Also Зиновьева, E.C. Глобальное управление Интернетом: российский подход и международ-ная практика. Вестник МГИМО-Университета, № 4 (43) 2015, 111-117.
1439 Зиновьева, E.C. Анализ внешнеполитических инициатив РФ в области международной информационной безопасности. Вестник МГИМО-Университета. № 6 (39) 2014, 47-52.
1440 Ibid., 49.
1441 Ibid.
1442 Зиновьева, E.C. Возможности России в глобальном информационном обществе. Вестник МГИМОУниверситета. № 3 (48) 2016, 17-29, 19; Зиновьева, E.C. Перспективные тенденции формирования международного режима по обеспечению информационной безопасности. № 4 (49) 2016, 235–247
1443 Ibid., 23.
1444 Ibid.

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The Russian struggle to define international information security and sovereignty isalso present in the texts of other cyber diplomats. In 2003 ex-KGB Colonel General
Vladislav Sherstiuk1445 wrote that the globalization of information society did not
make the securing of national interests in the information sphere irrelevant. He distinguished the four directions of Russian information security policy as: ensuring citizens’ rights to obtain and use information together with preserving moral values andpatriotism; securing the information policy, i.e. public relations of the state which
requires the regulation and control of mass media; developing domestic information
technology; and protecting information and information systems.1446 In 2009 Sherstiuk defined the Russian position on international information security as based on
information security rather than cyber, security. Sherstiuk claimed that the militarypolitical use of information-communication technology included the pursuit of political goals in the interstate struggle on tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Thiswas something that the Western concept of cyber did not allegedly capture. In thiscontext ICT became both the target and the weapon of war and this was the basis for
the Russian argument for new international law to regulate its use.1447
Beginning from 2003 the Voennaia mysl’ has published a string of articles by the‘military contingent’ of the Russian cyber diplomacy corps. This group includes colonel S. A. Komov, Colonel I. H. Dylevskii, Major General S. V. Korotkov, Major General S. N. Rodionov, A. V. Fedorov, Colonel S. M. Boiko, V. O. Zapivakhin, A. N.
Petrunin, and V. P. El’ias. These articles describe the Russian international normbuilding efforts from 1998 onwards. The basic argument and narrative in the early
2000s was that Russia had alerted the world to the threat arising from the malevolent
use of ICT, i.e. information weapons, which could affect international stability andsecurity. Russia opposed the efforts of ‘some countries’ to prepare for information
war and sought to approach information weapons as an arms control issue.1448 The
author collective argued that in the timeframe of 2007-2010 the most developed countries would achieve the capability to wage a large-scale war in the information sphere.
This would be a civilizational conflict and Russia should protect itself through regional cooperation and by promoting international norms inhibiting the use of information weapons.1449 They proposed, for example, a joint monitoring system and joint
responses to threats in the SCO states’ networks to deter geopolitical competitors.1450
At the heart of the reasoning of the cyber diplomats was the technological superiorityof the United States which threatened Russian sovereignty and the larger balance of

1445 Sherstiuk has made an impressive career in national security. He was the Director of FAPSI from 1998-

1999, the First Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation from 1999-2004, and theUndersecretary of the Security Council from 2004-2010. He is the Director of the Institute of Information
Security Problems at the MGU. (Шерстюк, Владислав Петрович. Wikipedia [Online] Available:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шерстюк,_Владислав_Петрович [Accessed: 2nd April 2019].)
1446 Шерстюк, В.П. Актуальные проблемы обеспечения информационной безопасности Российской
Федерации. Военная мысль, № 6 2003, 28-32.
1447 Комов 2009, 112-114
1448 Комов, Коротков & Родионов 2003.
1449 Дылевский И. Н., Комов С. А., Короткое СВ., Родионов С. Н., Федоров А. В. Военная политика
Российской Федерации в области международной информационной безопасности: региональный аспект. Военная мысль № 2/2007, 32-40, 33.
1450 Бойко et al. 2010.

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power.1451 The way Dylevskii et al. have used strategic weapons arms control as a basis
for their discussion reveals the underlying understanding that international information security is a subject matter for sovereign states and great powers.1452 By 2015
Dylevskii et al. were ready to admit that Russia had failed to obtain the cooperationof the West in regulating information weapons and recognizing state sovereignty inthe information space.1453 The last article by the military collective in the Voennaia
mysl’ was published in 2016 and its subject and tone had become defensive and dealt
with the deterrence of military conflicts in the information era. Military diplomats
argued that the United States’ build-up of information weapons necessitated the Russian build-up of national information power (potentsial’) to deter possible aggression
and conserve the balance of power. 1454
Sergei Boiko, the Head of the Department of the Security Council of the RussianFederation and a leading expert from the Centre of International Information Security
and Science and Technology Policy of the MGIMO, wrote two articles in 2018 whichwere in effect a continuation of the articles of the cyber diplomats. According to him,
Russian cyber diplomacy interests had not changed in 20 years—they still consistedof strategic stability and an equal strategic partnership. However, the conceptual approach had changed somewhat: each state had the sovereign right to independently
decide state policy issues concerning the Internet and the right to protect its national
segment of the global network including critical infrastructure. Additionally, the emphasis was now on ICT instead of ‘information weapons’—the psychological aspects
were toned down but still present. These principles would form the basis for Russia’s
renewed effort to push for a new round of the UN GGE process in 2019.1455 Consequently, in 2018 Vladislav Sherstiuk used the term ‘digital sovereignty’ to denotestates’ sovereign right to manage ICT on their territory and to determine policies in
the field of international information security. This sovereignty could be realised
through the authentication of users, routing of traffic through designated points, andthrough virtual borders.1456 In 2018’’digital sovereignty’ was finally presented as an
official title of a round table discussion at the Russian international cyber security
forum of 2018.1457

1451 Дылевский И. Н., Комов С. А., Коротков, С.В., Родионов С. Н., Полякова, Т. А., Федоров А. В. Квопросу о международно-правовой квалификации информационных операций. Военная мысль № 2
2008, 2-10.
1452 Дылевский et al. 2014.
1453 Дылевский И. Н., Запивахин, В. О., Комов С. А., Петрунин, А. В., Эльяс, В. П. Военно-политические
аспекты государственной политики Российской Федерации в области международной информационной безопасности. Военная мысль № 1 2015, 11-17.
1454 Дылевский et al. 2016.
1455 Бойко, Сергей. Формирование системы международной информационной безопасности: российские подходы и инициативы. Международная жизнь, № 5 (2018); Бойко, Сергей. Формирование системы международной информационной безопасности: российские подходы и инициативы.
Международная жизнь, №11 (2018).
1456 Шерстюк 2018.
1457 Пядышева 2018. The arguments used by cyber diplomats provide one reason for why the Russians officially
use the term information instead of cyber and why Russia has not established cyber force but instead information troops. The Russian international norm-building policies require abstaining from the public endorsement of cyber warfare. This is apparent in an interview of Andrei Krutskikh where he effortlessly uses the terms
cyber potential, cyber structure, cyber war, cyberattack etc. but then transfers to using ‘information’ when describing Russian diplomatic efforts. (Крутских, Андрей. Кто владеет Интернетом, тот владеет миром. Международная жизнь, № 10 (2016).)

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The Russian information warfare theorists have discussed ‘information sovereignty’since the early 2000s. Manoilo referred to ‘national segments of the information space’in the context of sovereignty and Manoilo et al. wrote about the control of information infrastructure as a necessary requirement for sovereignty. Griniaev argued that‘virtual state borders in cyberspace’ were being erected by states and Panarin wrote
about the ‘spiritual sovereignty’ of Russia.1458 Nevertheless, although IT-expert Igor
Ashmanov, Director of the company Ashmanov and Partners, may not have coined
the term ‘digital sovereignty’ he is the first who has publicly provided a theoreticaland systematic analysis of the concept.1459
Ashmanov gave a presentation titled ‘Information sovereignty—The new reality’ at
the iForum conference in Kiev in May 2013.1460 In it Ashmanov listed the ‘traditional’
forms of sovereignty—military, diplomatic, economic, political and cultural—and argued that a new ‘digital sovereignty’ had appeared. The traditional forms of sovereignty were eroding because of globalization and informatization, and the loss of digital sovereignty could lead to further loss of other forms of sovereignty. He defined‘digital sovereignty’ as the right and possibility of the state to: 1) autonomously andindependently determine both domestic and geopolitical national interests in the digital sphere; 2) pursue an independent internal and external information policy; 3) manage own information resources to form the infrastructure of the national information
space; 4) guarantee the electronic and information security of the state. Digital sovereignty had two sides: electronic sovereignty and information sovereignty both definedby their resilience against attacks. This type of sovereignty required both electronic
and information ‘shields’ which basically meant domestic programs, operating systems, network equipment, mobile systems, Internet infrastructure, media, social media services, search engines, and a national system for information warfare, and ‘ideological services.’ Ashmanov argued that a ‘cold’ information war was already ongoing, and that information dominance was analogous to the air dominance in the previous wars. The United States was the only truly ‘digitally sovereign’ state in theworld—although China was catching up—and it used freedom of speech as a weapon
to keep Russia from reaching ‘digital sovereignty’. Ashmanov argued that it was impossible for a regional actor like Russia to attain full information sovereignty. Therefore, Russia had to form alliances with CIS countries and China and to build a shieldconsisting of a system for monitoring the information space, as well as legal regulation, and means of active counterinfluence.1461
If one compares Ashmanov’s ideas to the ones that were present in the framework of
CIS in the timeframe of 2008-2012 it becomes clear that Ashmanov just elaborated
ideas that were already circulating amongst security and foreign policy elites of the
post-Soviet countries.1462 This has been argued also by Vladislav Bukharin, a senior
1458 Манойло 2003, 282; Манойло, Петренко & Фролов 2012; Гриняев 2002; Панарин 2003, 2004 & 2006.

Макутина, Мария. Цифровой суверенитет. Газета.Ru 19 июня 2013 [Online]. Available:
https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2013/06/19_a_5387077.shtml [Accessed: 28th February 2019].
1460 Яровая, Майя. Игорь Ашманов: “Сегодня информационное доминирование – это все равно, чтогосподство в воздухе”. Ain.ua 01 Мая, 2013 [Online]. Available: https://ain.ua/2013/05/01/igor-ashmanovsegodnya-informacionnoe-dominirovanie-eto-vse-ravno-chto-gospodstvo-v-vozduxe/ [Accessed: 28th February 2019]; Ашманов, Игорь. Информационный суверенитет – новая реальность. 24.04.2013. [Online].
Available: http://eurasian-defence.ru/sites/default/files/doc/ashmanov.pdf [Accessed: 28th February 2019].
1461 Ibid.
1462 Cf. Chapter 6.2.
1459

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lecturer at the Faculty of Public Administration, at the Department of International
Organizations and Problems of Global Governance of Moscow State University. He
has claimed that the main analyst of the company Infowatch, N. N. Fedotov, in fact
came up with the term in 2010 and that the concept of ‘digital’ or ‘information sovereignty’ appeared early on in the Ukrainian and Belorussian official documents, aswell as in Chinese documents in the form of ‘Internet sovereignty’. Bukharin claimed
that for Russia ‘digital sovereignty’ was more important than ‘information sovereignty.’ He defined the most important components of technically ensuring national
security would be a domestic search engine, social networks, operating system andsoftware, microelectronics, network equipment, a national segment of the Internet,
payment systems, autonomous means of protection, cryptographic algorithms andprotocols, and a navigation system.1463 Therefore, Bukharin associated digital sovereignty with the domestic ownership of services and infrastructure and the quality ofnational information-technological development.
As Bukharin had claimed, the Russians were not the only ones thinking about information or digital sovereignty. In 2016 Russian and Belorussian civilian academics authored a book on information security in the context of CSTO and CIS and proposed
multiple definitions for the concept of information sovereignty.1464 Based on these it
would seem that as the Russian and post-Soviet countries’ legal experts began to investigate ‘information sovereignty’ four elements were deemed important: states’
rights to determine their interests, to conduct policy, to dispose of resources or toaffect the information infrastructure, and to be the (sole) provider of security in thenational information/cyberspace.
Anatoli Strel’tsov and Pavel Piliugin1465, both members of the Russian cyber diplomatic corps, wrote a series of articles on the Internet and sovereignty in 2016-2017.
Strel’tsov claimed in 2016 that cyberspace lacked national borders because the network addressing of objects and subjects was unregulated and unconnected to national
territories.1466 Later, Pavel Piliugin and Strel’tsov wrote a joint paper “On the issue ofdigital sovereignty” in which they approached digital sovereignty through the conceptof territorial state sovereignty.1467 Based on this approach, the inviolability of stateborders in cyberspace would be ensured through an international regime designating
how borders are crossed. Consequently, Piliugin and Strel’tsov introduced the BGP
protocol and its autonomous system of addresses as a tool to control traffic between
nations. Furthermore, SDN technology is presented as a method to flexibly control
cross-border traffic as the connections of the national ISPs can be shaped from defence lines into borders. Piliugin and Strel’tsov also claimed that anonymity and the1463 Бухарин, В.В. Компоненты цифрового суверенитета российской федерации как техническая основа

информационной безопасности. Вестник МГИМО университета, № 6(51) 2016, 76-91, 88.
1464 Вус, М.А., Макаров, О.С. Стратегический вектор обеспечения международной информационной
безопасности. СПб.: СПИИРАН. Изд-во «Анатолия», 2016, 34, 47, 105.
1465 Piliugin is an ex-KGB/FSB computer and cryptography specialist and a senior researcher at the Instituteof Problems of Information Security of MGU. (МИЭТ. Педагогический состав: Пилюгин Павел Львович
[Online]. Available: https://www.miet.ru/person/50077 [Accessed: 28th February 2019].)1466 Стрельцов, Анатолий. Применение международного гуманитарного права к вооруженным конфликтам в киберпространстве. 25.04.2016 [Online]. Available: https://digital.report/konflikt-v-kiberprostranstve/# [Accessed: 28th February 2019].
1467 Стрельцов А.А., Пилюгин П.Л. К вопросу о цифровом суверенитете. Информатизация и связь, №
2 2016, 25-30.

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problem of attribution could be solved through software solutions, certificates andregisters, although this would require national and international agreements.1468
In a paper published in 2017 Piliugin continued to propose different ways to understand ‘digital borders’ based on BGP and SDN technologies.1469 Piliugin was aware of
the high computational and other requirements generated by filtering traffic on a national scale, and thus he proposed a system where the subsystems of the control system would be placed in different parts of the network with less resource intensive
systems at the borders and more intensive systems in the depths of the national network. Moreover, incoming traffic would be registered at the border and the subsystems would exchange information about established routes. This would enable national firewall control and the monitoring of traffic, and a centralized control of BGP
routing. Strel’tsov wrote in 2017 about ‘the segment of Internet’ which denoted statesovereignty on the Internet. He argued that sovereignty required state control of borders and the information space itself.1470 Together in 2018 Piliugin and Strel’tsov statedthat the “demarcation” of digital borders could be based on a set of points of contact
between digital spaces (autonomous systems) of different states. This would requireinternational agreements which would regulate how and what traffic was routed andwhere.1471 The Russian media began to use the term ‘digital borders’ around 2018,
which is a clear indicator that the ideas about delineating the borders of the Russian
segment of the Internet had started to spread.1472‘Digital sovereignty’ has also been analysed from a legal point of view. The first to
approach the issue seems to have been V. B. Naumov in 1999.1473 He argued that the
information space has changed international relations because it is a new environment
like the sea and air were in their time. As states projected their interests to these newspaces a redefinition of sovereignty was required. Naumov also pointed out that thelack of international norms concerning ‘the Internet’ would lead to sovereign networks inside the global information space. According to Associate Professor A. A.
Efremov, also Senior Researcher of the Centre for Public Administration Technologies at RANEPA, one of the first Russian political scientific definitions of ‘information sovereignty’ was presented by A. V. Rossoshanskii, Doctor of Law and amember of the Faculty of Law at the University of Saratov State University, in 2011
as the ability and intention to produce, distribute, and consume information and touse information resources based on political interests.1474 In his 2012 article Ros-

1468 Ibid.

1469 Пилюгин П.Л.

Проблемы определения границ в информационном пространстве. T-Comm: Телекоммуникации и транспорт. 2017. Том 11. №8, 37-44.
1470 Стрельцов 2017.
1471 Пилюгин П.Л., Стрельцов А.А. Проблемы Делимитации и Демаркации Цифровой Границы. XXIIIнаучно-практическая конференция «Комплексная защита информации», 22-24 мая 2018 [Online]. Available: https://kzi.su/files/files/materials2018/13_Pilugin.pdf [Accessed: 28th February 2019].
1472 Тишина, Юлия. Россия обозначит цифровые границы Власти защитят интернет-пользователей отиностранных силовиков. Коммерсантъ, №181 от 04.10.2018, 1 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3759627 [Accessed: 28th February 2019].
1473 Наумов 1999.
1474 Cited in Ефремов 2017, 209.

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soshanskii, however, argued that ‘information sovereignty’ is a nationally and culturally bound concept so Western liberal notions of the freedom of information might
not be applicable to Russia.1475
Eferemov also pointed to three articles written by V. S. Polikarpov, E. V. Polikarpova
and V. A. Polikarpova in 2014 on ‘information sovereignty’. They use Ashmanov’s
definition of ‘digital sovereignty’ to argue that the development of ICT and cyberspace have created a new virtual world where states struggle with each other to maintain their sovereignty. The context of this struggle is bound to the United States’ failing power position and the rise of challengers.1476 This connection of sovereignty to
the international struggle is also made by others, such as M. M. Kucheriavyi who
divided ‘information sovereignty’ into information-technological, information-psychological, and information-political components.1477 Kycheriavyi proposes that to secure ‘information sovereignty’ Russia’s information security should be based on,among other things, forming secure national information systems and creating Russia’s own information troops, forces and means, and controlling information flows
inside the country and those coming from outside.1478
Efremov has argued that the concept of information sovereignty was gaining popularity in Russia in 2016-2017 but its definitions were mainly based on threats. He hasoffered his own legalistic definition of it as “the ability of a state through national andinternational law to exercise the regulation of a specific information space.”1479
Efremov has also pointed out that ‘information sovereignty’ cannot be defined nationally because its relationships and technological basis are transnational. Moreover,he has argued that sovereignty cannot be defined based on technological and physicalunderstandings of cyberspace—the information space is a sphere of human relations
and activity.1480 In 2017, Efremov narrowed his definition to ‘the state sovereignty incyberspace’ (gosudartsvennyi suverenitet) and distinguished three aspects of sovereignty: state borders, the capability to exercise sovereignty, and the level/quality ofsovereignty.1481 Another legal expert, L. V. Terent’eva, an associate professor at the1475 Россошанский, А. В. Информационный суверенитет и свобода слова в контексте политической

модернизации в современной России. Серия «Политология. Религиоведение» 2012. № 1 (8), 19–26.
1476 Поликарпов В.С., Поликарпова, Е.В., Поликарпова, В.А. Информационный суверенитет России,сенсорная революция, социальные сети, интернет и кибервойна. Информационное противодействие
угрозам терроризма, № 23 (2014), 272-278; Поликарпов В.С., Поликарпова, Е.В. Новейшие информационно-коммуникационные технологии и информационный суверенитет России. Информационное
противодействие угрозам терроризма, № 23 (2014), 279-284; Поликарпов В.С., Поликарпова, Е.В. Проблема информационного суверенитета России. Информационное противодействие угрозам терроризма, № 23 (2014), 285-290.
1477 Кучерявый, M.M. К осознанию информационного суверенитета в тенденциях глобального информационного пространства. Наука, новые технологии и инновации Кыргызстана № 12, 2015, 22-27; Кучерявый 2014.
1478 Кучерявый 2015, 24-25.
1479 Ефремов, А. А. Проблемы реализации государственного суверенитета в информационной сфере.
Вестник УрФО № 2(20) / 2016, 54–60, 56.
1480 Ефремов, А. А. Предложения для включения в проект Рекомендаций Парламентских слушаний «Осовершенствовании федерального законодательства по обеспечению информационной безопасностипри использовании информационно-коммуникационных технологий для оказания государственных
услуг и осуществления межведомственного электронного документооборота» 28.06.2010 [Online]. Available: http://www.ifap.ru/pr/2010/n100622a.pdf [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
1481 Ефремов 2017.

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Moscow State Law University,1482 argued that the idea of ‘information sovereignty’
conforms to the traditional Russian view on sovereignty with different horizontal
spheres (economic, political etc.) and on the supremacy of the state throughout its
territory. She proposed a definition for ‘digital sovereignty’ which is understood as“The right and the possibility of a national government to autonomously and independently determine both internal and geopolitical national interests in the digital
sphere. As well as the state’s right to pursue an independent internal and external
information policy, to dispose of their own information resources to govern the, andto guarantee the electronic and information security of the state.”1483
The idea of digital sovereignty is deeply rooted in the concept of information security.
However, according to A. A. Paroshin (in 2010) only the Information Security Doctrine of 2000 explicitly mentions information security as the state of protection of
Russia’s national interests in the information sphere. Nevertheless, multiple documents have linked state security to information technology or the information
space—mainly because of threats emanating from technology.1484 Furthermore, international agreements and foreign policy documents of Russia include their own definitions (cf. Chapter 6). Russia has also pursued joint standards and common normative bases for information security in the framework of CIS and CSTO.1485 M. A. Vus
and O. S. Makarov claim that the Russian definition of information security insteadof cyber security has been accepted into the CIS and CSTO lexicon.1486 Many of theinformation warfare theorists analysed above have offered their views on or concepts
of information security. They are mostly based on the state of protection of the objectof security—usually state interests or the information systems and information upholding those interests—or on the measures for securing something. Threats are usually derived from the object of security.1487
The authors of the admittedly propagandistic Informatsionnye voiny journal havebeen very interested in the concept of information security.1488 They have pointed out
1482 Терентьева, Л.В. Концепция суверенитета государства в условиях глобализационных и информаци-онно-коммуникационных процессов. Право. Журнал Высшей школы экономики. 2017. № 1, 187–200,
196.
1483 This is similar to Ashmanov’s definition but Terent’eva refers to Поликарпов & Поликарпова 2014.
1484 Парошин, А. А. Информационная безопасность: стандартизированные термины и понятия.
Владивосток: Дальневосточный федеральный университет (ДФУ), 2010.
1485 Вус & Макаров 2016.
1486 Ibid., 23. The concept of security must be distinguished from ‘information support’ (informatsionnoe
obespechenie), which is related to public relations and communication, to reputation and image management
and to the monitoring of the public opinion. (Петрунин, А. Н. Информационное обеспечение как способ
реализации государственной информационной политики в области обороны. Военная мысль, № 8(2008), 36-44.)1487 Стрельцов 2008; Садовничий & Стрельцов 2002; Ноговицын 2009; Тучков Ю.Н. и др. Словарь терминов и определений в области информационной безопасности. 1-е изд Москва: ВАГШ ВС РФ, НИЦинформационной безопасности, 2008; Бачило, И.Л. Информационное право. Учебник 3-е издание.
М.: Издательство Юрайт, 2013. The Russian understanding of the concept of security has been analysed,
among others, by professor A. S. Malin who distinguishes two versions: “in the broad sense, it is the result ofsocial activities to ensure the security of the individuals, society and the state from external threats, while in the
narrow sense it is the state of protection of the vital interests of the individual, society and the state frominternal threats.” Малин, А.С. Содержание понятия безопасность. вестник академии военных наук, №
4(21) 2007.
1488 The journal is published by the Academy of Information Self-Defence, an independent organization established in 2007 and sponsored by the Center of Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and theAcademy of Military Sciences. It is connected to such academics as S. P. Rastorguev and V. V. Tsyganov andpublishes the journal Information Wars (Informatsionnye voiny) (Иванов 2014).

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three important aspects of information security in the Russian understanding. Firstly,that it is an object of a geopolitical and civilizational struggle in the context of globalization. Secondly, that the state must have control over the Internet to win in thisstruggle. And thirdly, that although spirit, moral and cognition are the target of theinformation struggle, an information-technological basis is still required for information security and thus sovereignty.1489
The concept of cyber security did not manage to break through into the Russian official lexicon, although, in 2013 Professor Iurii Borodakii, an academician of the RAS
and a life-long developer of military ASUs in the FGUP Sistemprom, as well as Aleksandr Dobrodeev and Igor’ Butysov stated in an article published in a journal connected to the FSB, MoD and FSTEK that cyberspace had become a new environmentof interstate confrontation.1490 They defined cyberspace as a technological environment and cyber security in a philosophical sense as “a property or state of a system topreserve the reliability and functional stability in the context of a modern information
confrontation [informatsionnoe protivoborstvo].”1491 The article was published andthe journal was established in a moment when Russia seemed to be on the verge ofadopting the concept of cyber security—this moment did not materialise as the draft
Cyber Security Strategy floundered and the Russian regime adopted the more inclusive concept of information security.1492 The tides are, however, turning yet again as‘cyber security’ has from 2018 been increasingly used by academicians and even Putin
himself.1493
The narrative about information threats, security and sovereignty has not been sharedby all Russians. There exists an active and critical opposition to the security and military elite’s ideas in Russian civil society. The arguments of civil society are mainly
based on human rights and the resistance to state control, whereas ICT companies
and liberal economists point out that ‘digital sovereignty’ is bad for the economy.1494
1489 Сергеев 2010; Володенков, С.В. Технологии интернет-коммуникации как фактор обеспечения ин-формационной безопасности современного государства. Информационные войны, № 3(19) 2011, 8995; Мельников, В.П. Информационная война и современные оружейные технологии. Информационные войны, №3 (43) 2017, 28-35; Лепский В.Е., Мельников А.А., Пойкин А.Е. Информационные войныза доминирование в инновационной сфере россии и на евразийском пространстве. Информационные
войны, № 4(36) 2015, 12-20.
1490 In 2013 a company named Echelon began to publish a journal called ‘Voprosy kiberbezopasnosti’ (Cybersecurity Issues). What is significant in this journal is that Echelon is accredited as a testing laboratory for the
MoD of Russia, FSTEC and the FSB and also functions as a certification centre for the MoD and FSTEC (АО«НПО «Эшелон» [Online]. Available: https://npo-echelon.ru/ [Accessed: 2nd April 2019].)1491 Бородакий Ю.В., Добродеев А.Ю., Бутусов И.В. Кибербезопасность как основной фактор национальной и международной безопасности хх! века (часть 1). Вопросы кибербезопасности, № 1 (1) 2013,
2-9, 5-6.
1492 Cf. Chapter 6.
1493 Шеремет, И.А. Обеспечение кибербезопасности в условиях развития цифровой экономики. Вестник Московского университета. Серия 25. Международные отношения и мировая политика. Т. 11. № 1(2019), 3-19; Латухина, Кира. Защита цифры Президент призвал вместе бороться с киберугрозой.
Российская газета, 8.7.2018 [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2018/07/08/putin-nazval-borbu-s-kiberatakami-gosudarstvennoj-zadachej.html [Accessed: 3rd January 2019].
1494 Агора 2018; Кодачигов, Валерий. Закон Яровой пока не работает: Для его выполнения операторамне хватает документации. Ведомости, 01 октября 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2018/10/01/782493-zakon-yarovoi#galleries%2F140737489014365%2Fnormal%2F1[Accessed: 1st March 2019]; Баленко, Евгения, Галимова, Наталья, Посыпкина, Александра, Балашова,Анна.. Атака изнутри: операторы протестируют закон об устойчивости Рунета. РБК, 8 фебраля 2019
[Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/08/02/2019/5c5c51069a7947bef4503927?
from=center_16 [Accessed: 1st March 2019].

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Moreover, the ‘Sinicization’ of the national segment is seen by some as a negative
phenomenon.1495
State sovereignty is a defining and central element of the Russian political culture andit shows in the national security documents. The 2008 Foreign Policy Concept mentions information threats to sovereignty.1496 The NSS of 2009 connects sovereignty tonational security, and ensuring this security to the spiritual resilience and access tomodern information-communication technology.1497 The Military Doctrine of 2010
acknowledges the need to develop information-technological means to protect theindependence and sovereignty of Russia.1498 The Foreign Policy Concept of 2013 recognises the danger that ‘soft power’ and information threats pose to sovereignty.1499
The Military Doctrine of 2014 refers to the use of information and communication
technology for military-political ends and against the sovereignty of the state. It defines as military dangers activities conducted to harm the information infrastructure,
to destabilize the political situation, and to influence the spiritual values of the people,
and emphasises the need to build a system of information security. The Doctrine
suggest that the information space is a sphere of military action.1500 The NSS of 2015
mentions information-technological threats to critical information infrastructure, thethreats emanating from the use of telecommunications technology for propaganda
purposes, as well as the threats of terrorist or criminal use of information technology.
It also points to the vulnerabilities of information infrastructure that could affect economic growth, which is a strategic objective, and the destructive use of informationpsychological means against the cultural sovereignty of Russia.1501 The Foreign Policy
Concept of 2016 repeated the points of the NSS, emphasised the respect for sovereignty and mentioned the equitable access to the Internet.1502 ‘Sovereignty in the information space’ (suverenitet v informatsionnom prostranstve) was officially mentioned in the 2016 Information Security Doctrine where the task to ensure “the protection of the sovereignty of the Russian Federation in the information space wasconsidered as the main direction of information security and a national interest.1503
Furthermore, the term ‘digital sovereignty’ was first used in the 2017 State programme‘The Digital Economy of the Russian Federation’.1504 The state would protect thissovereignty by conducting autonomous and independent politics to realize its national
goals in the information space.1505
To summarize. Digital and information sovereignty are parallel concepts althoughwith distinct substances. The idea of information and later digital sovereignty devel-

1495 Роскомсвобода. «Китаизация» Рунета входит в активную фазу и начн тся с точек обмена трафиком,18-8-2017 [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/31224/ [Accessed: 1st May 2019]; Роскомсвобода. Цифровая оборона интернета [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/45308/ [Accessed: 1st
March 2019].
1496 Концепция 2008.
1497 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2009b.
1498 Указ Президента РФ 2010.
1499 Концепция 2013.
1500 Доктрина 2014.
1501 Указ Президента РФ 2015.
1502 Указ Президента РФ 2016a.
1503 Указ Президента РФ 2016b.
1504 Распоряжение Правительства РФ 2017.
1505 Указ Президента РФ 2016b.

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oped along two different tracks. The first was external and was based on the understanding that information weapons and operations posed a new kind of threat to thesecurity of the state. The threat was especially acute because the Russian defence andsecurity elites considered Russia to be significantly weaker than its great power rivals
in developing and utilizing these weapons. Thus, Russia launched its cyber diplomacy
effort in 1997-1998 to contain and regulate this threat. The idea of non-state control
of any space was alien to Russian security thinking, and therefore cyberspace and its
different elements needed to be controlled. The concept of information sovereignty
developed from the state’s right to an absence of threat and then to a state’s right tocontrol its ICT and thus to the delineation of cyberspace along the lines of state jurisdiction. This version of information sovereignty was probably based on the ideasof those retired and servicing security and military professionals and academicians
who took part in the drafting to the first Information Security Doctrine.
The second track of information security is internal and based on the writings ofRussian information security and warfare scholars at the turn of the millennium. It
naturally draws also from the ideas of territorial state sovereignty, juridical concepts
and geopolitics which had wider support amongst the Russian intelligentsia at thattime. This information sovereignty is based on the idea that the state has the right andresponsibility to control information, creation and use, as well as its flow and substance, inside its borders—like the resources of any other dimension. Additionally, it
seems plausible that the Russians were also influenced by the thinking of their counterparts from ex-Soviet countries. Whatever the case, by 2010-2013 the idea was developed to such an extent that it was adopted by the elites, although haltingly. Thisso-called internal information sovereignty, like the diplomatic version, is based on
threats which have changed as time has passed from devastating attacks against the
information infrastructure, cyber terrorism, information-psychological operations,and data security to military-political, subversive, terrorist, and criminal operations.
These attacks had from the start technological and psychological aspects and, consequently, so did the information sovereignty. Its elements were shaped around the state
protection and control of information, as well as the information infrastructure andservices, the state’s ability to promote domestic information technology research andproduction, and the ability to protect and cultivate the values, culture and civilizationof Russia. As the importance of information technology increased, and societychanged, information sovereignty acquired the sub-concepts of electronic, technological and digital sovereignties. This development connected sovereignty to national
power as the quality of the information infrastructure and technological-scientific development became sources of power or potential.
The different definitions of information sovereignty proposed by the writers analysed
above can be grouped into three categories. The first are the technocratic definitions
that are based on the information infrastructure and systems residing in the territoryof a state. The second are the judicial definitions, which are based on the regulationof human or societal relationships. The third are political definitions which flow froma certain understanding of state interests and security. The last has been perhaps themost common and includes such elements as the right and ability to determine interests, to conduct internal and external policies, to use national information resources,214and to guarantee the security of the national information space. Many of the definitions analysed here follow the supposed Russian legal tradition, which considers sovereignty to be manifested in different spheres but flowing from one source.
Based on the above it can be argued that digital sovereignty developed from sovereignty over the information space to sovereignty in the information space and in theend to information or digital sovereignty, that is, to one of the aspects of state sovereignty. This is based on the interaction of the Russian understanding of territorialstate sovereignty and the emergence of cyberspace. Therefore, the idea of inserting
sovereignty into cyberspace and the delineation of borders has been quite easy tounderstand and adopt. The idea of digital and information sovereignty is very muchconnected to the balance of power thinking. Russia cannot be sovereign if some otherstate has ‘more’ sovereignty. Moreover, it resonates with the traditional security andforeign policy thinking and ideas about sovereignty, strategic stability, and great power(derzhavnost’). From the Russian perspective ‘digital sovereignty’ can then be understood as the extension of the authority and control of a territorial state over and into
the national segment of the Internet, which consists of Internet and other networkrelated ICT systems located on its territory or under its jurisdiction. A wider concept
is thus ‘information sovereignty’ which additionally includes the information residing
or flowing through those ICT systems and the interaction of its users.
These definitions demonstrate why it is imperative to control the space and bordersof national information space and the national segment of the Internet. The culturaland political aspects of sovereignty also legitimize Russian state actions outside theborders of its information space. Although there might be a dose of Soviet nostalgia
mixed into the dream of creating an independent, domestic ICT industry, digital sovereignty has military strategic relevance as it creates a platform for the national information economy which is a national source of power. In the world of ideas, digital
sovereignty gathers all the other strategic cultural ideas under its wings.
5.6 Unified information space
The idea of a unified information space (EIP) carried over from the Soviet times into
the 1990s and ultimately into the 2010s. This continuity has been noted, among others, by Professor Nikolai Il’in, the Deputy Head of the Special Communications Service (Spetssviazi) of the FSO.1506 According to him, the first era of the information
systems of governmental control was the Soviet era with its central planning systems.
During that time some complexes of crisis management situation centres were created. The second era consisted of the years between 1991-2000, which were characterized by the localization of systems. The FAPSI created local centres to collect social-economic data, the construction of national information-telecommunications system began, and federal- and presidential-administration-level situation centres werecreated. The third and current era is characterized by centralized systems. Il’in describes this complex as a ‘state control system’ based on geographically distributed
management systems at the federal and regional levels and on the unique information

1506 Ильин Н.И. Эволюция информационных систем государственного управления. Информационные

войны №1 (41) 2017, 54-57.

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and analytical systems for strategic planning, assessment, and analysis of national security.1507
The idea of EIP was established among the defence and security elites as the Armed
Forces adopted the Concept of Unified Information Space of the Armed Forces in
2004.1508 According to A.V. Pankov and S. V. Shevchenko, the EIP of the Armed
Forces was defined as “a collection of databases and data banks, technologies of their
management and use, information and telecommunication systems, and networks operating on the same principles and general rules to ensure the information based interaction and the exchange of information of the military administration.”1509 Colonel
and Professor G. A. Lavrinov and Major A. A. Chumichkin, both members of the
Academy of Military Sciences, defined EIP as “in a broad sense […] a specially ordered set of all the information available in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and narrowly as an aggregate of information resources of the RF Armed Forces,
organized according to uniform principles and rules of formation, formalization, storage, distribution.”1510 The EIP was, thus, a space with borders, common rules, processes and systems, and standardized information.
Although, the idea of EIP was shared, the discussion of how it should be implemented
was not. In 2003 V. V. Baraniuk, a leading researcher at 27th TsNII and the Chief
Researcher of the Information Technology Department of TsNII EISU1511 wrote thatthe armed forces required a unified information space (edinnoe informatsionnoe
prostranstvo) for effective command and control.1512. Baraniuk claimed that the information space of the Armed Forces was currently not unified, and he argued for integrating different networks and resources. He divided the definition of EIP into broadand narrow versions which corresponded to Lavrinov’s and Chumichkin’s definition.1513 This kind of information space would increase the efficiency (operativnost’),validity, and quality of decisions by providing up-to-date, reliable, timely, and comprehensive information. Baraniuk proposed that the EIP should be constructed basedon a model of the Armed Forces command and control system, which consisted ofsubsystems and information flows, and structural, functional and information components.1514 Later, Baraniuk together with the Head of the Centre of Information Resources of TsNII EISU I. N. Akhmadishin proposed the creation of the ‘Information
Service of the Armed Forces’ to solve the problems the increased amounts of information and new technology were posing for the command and control system of the1507 Ibid., 57.
1508 Копытко, В. К., Шептура, Владимир. Проблемы построения единого информационного простран-ства Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации и возможные пути их решения. Военная мысль, № 10(2011), 16-26.
1509 Панков, А. В., Шевченко, С. В. Обоснование роли и формирование концептуальной модели системы интеллектуальной обработки информации в едином информационном пространстве ВС РФ.
Известия СПбГЭТУ «ЛЭТИ» № 1/2018, 38-43.
1510 Лаврино, Г.А., Чумичкин, А.А. Опыт создания единого информационного пространства для решения задач технического оснащения Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации. Вестник академии военных наук, № 1(26)/2009.
1511 Рамм, Алексей. На острие экономики и автоматизации Уникальному научно-исследовательскому
институту экономики, информатики и систем управления исполняется 45 лет. ВПК, № 19 (537) за 28
мая 2014 года.
1512 Баранюк, В. В. Единое информационное пространство вс рф: проблемы создания. Военная мысль
№ 3 (2003), 36-38.
1513 Ibid., 36.
1514 Ibid.

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Armed Forces.1515 They argued for a centralized and hierarchical system which would
have been extended to the military-industrial complex and all the relevant ministries.1516
In 2004 Colonel General E. A. Karpov, Lieutenant General N. I. Burenin and Colonel
N. A. Ziuzin argued that information superiority in modern warfare, where troops
were spatially distributed and their management was decentralized, required ‘a unified
military information space’ (edinoe voennoe informatsionnoe prostranstvo) to ensure
the accuracy and timeliness of information.1517 According to Karpov, Burenin andZiuzin, the continuity of EIP could be achieved through multiple redundant communication channels, integration of local and regional and services, and branch networks.
Its infrastructure would consist of interconnected computer networks, databases, application programs and subscriber devices, interfaces of weapons and security systems.1518 This system would be based on sharing information to all participants, itwould be ‘transparent’, and it would be flexible and able to change configuration if
the military situation so demanded. What the authors had in mind was similar to the
U.S. Defense Information Systems Network (DISN), and they were ready to admitthat the Russian Armed forces had nothing like it.1519 Similarly, ten years later retired
General-Lieutenant S. I. Skokov and Senior Lieutenant L. V. Grushka argued that theUnited States’ Global Information Grid gave it technological superiority as it enhanced administration and enabled a constant and flexible modification of their defence network.1520
On the civilian side, in 2005 D. Chereskin, G. Smolian and V. Tsygichko argued that
Russia had to build a sovereign information and communications infrastructure toensure the security of the country and its development. To this effect, they presented
a National Strategy for Information Development developed by the Institute for System Analysis of the RAS.1521 According to the strategy, the networks of the ministries
and departments should be integrated into a single vertical network supported by asystem of distributed databases and a system for identifying and analysing threats.
Moreover, Russia needed a single, multi-level, all-Russian information security system.
These efforts, and others, would create a unified information space for the country,
would ensure Russia’s equal participation in the global information society, and guarantee its economic-social development.1522
1515 Ахмадишин, И. Н., Баранюк, В. В. Организационные вопросы создания информационной службыВС РФ. Военная мысль № 4 (2004), 45-49.
1516 Ibid., 46.
1517 Карпов, Е. А., Буренин, Н. И. Зюзин, Н. А. Единое военное информационное пространство: проблемы создания. Военная мысль № 8 (2004), 45.
1518 Ibid., 47.
1519 Ibid., 49.
1520 Скоков, С. И., Грушка, Л. В. Влияние концепции сетецентризма на эволюцию и функционирование
системы управления Вооруженными Силами Российской Федерации. Военная мысль, № 12 (2014), 3341.
1521 The Institute for System Analysis (FITs IU RAN) is a federal theoretical and applied sciences research
institution established in 1976 in the field of informatics, cybernetics, mathematical modelling etc. It is specialized in studying technological, economic and ecological complex systems. In 2014 it was incorporated with twoother institutes into the organization of the Federal Research Centre ‘Informatics and management’ of the RAS.
(Институт системного анализа ФИЦ ИУ РАН [Online]. Available: http://www.isa.ru/ index.php [Accessed:
3rd April 2019].)1522 Черешкин, Д. С., Смолян, Г. Л., Цыгичко, В. Н. Информационное развитие России – путь к информационному обществу. «Информационные ресурсы России» №1, 2005 [Online]. Available:

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The military reform and rearmament programme and the Russian government’s renewed efforts to develop the information society and economy around 2008 coincided with a fresh interest in the idea of the EIP. In military journals the concept wasused to analyse Western networks despite the fact that Western scholars had not used
the term when discussing Western networks.1523 In the context of Russian military
networks, the Chief of the General Staff Iuri Baluevskii argued in 2009 that the Armed
Forces were on the threshold of creating a single information space for the Armed
Forces.1524 This view was contested by the Chief of Communication of the Russian
Armed forces Evgenii Maichik who claimed that the Russian military still had a long
way to go.1525 The drive to create unified information and telecommunications systems
also affected other ministries and forces.1526 The EIP was also connected to Russian
foreign policy as S. M. Boiko et al. proposed that the SCO required a joint monitoringmechanism of communication networks which should include national subsystems
interconnected by a special information and telecommunications network with ashared monitoring centre.1527 The idea of the EIP was also present when M. A. Gareev
argued for a unified system of aerospace defence for the country to defend against
aerospace attacks in 2007.1528 Unified systems were also incorporated into the slowly
developing common air defence system of the CIS which should have connected theair defence and surveillance assets of Russia and its neighbours to a unified system.1529
Lastly, the ESU TZ or ‘the unified system of command and control of the tacticallevel’ had been under development from the year 2000.1530 Quite obviously the military
saw the EIP as an inherent part of the future armed forces and an element of a network-centric warfare capable force.
The scientists at the 27th TsNII were not the only ones to make a pitch for unified
information systems. In 2008 E. A. Perov and A.V. Pereverzev from the 16th

http://www.aselibrary.ru/press_center/journal/irr/2005/number_1/number_1_2/digital_resources515273747787/ [Accessed: 4th March 2019].
1523 Cf. Молитвин, А. О реализации концепции единого информационного пространства НАТО. Зарубежное военное обозрение, № 1 (2008), 23-27; Азов, В. Концепция создания единой информационноуправляющей структуры ВС США. Зарубежное военное обозрение, № 1 (2003), 3-10; 4. The authoritative
texts by Rona, Waltz, Arquilla, Ronfeldt, Libicki, Alberts, Gartzka, Cebrwoski, Smith et al. do not use the term
‘unified information space’. Nevertheless, in 2005 the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff published the Net-Centric Operational Environment Joint Integrating Concept, for which Grishkovets, for example, has translated ‘networkcentric environment’ as единое информационное пространство (edinnoe informatsionnoe prostranstvo).
(The United States Department of Defence Joint Chiefs of Staff. Net-Centric Operational Environment Joint
Integrating Concept, 31 October 2005 [Online]. Available: https://dodcio. defense.gov/Portals/0/Documents/netcentric_jic.pdf [Accessed: 3rd March 2019]; Гришковец, Е. Формирование в США единой информационной инфраструктуры вооруженных сил. Зарубежное военное обозрение, № 3 (2018), 19-2).
1524 Кедров, Илья. АСУ для оружия будущего. ВПК, № 36 (152) за 20 сентября 2006 года.
1525 Мейчик, Евгений. На пути к единому телекоммуникационному пространству. Россииское военное
обозрение, № 9 (2009), 17-18.
1526 Мирошников, Алексей. Войска переходят на “цифру”. Независимое военное обозрение, № 39
(2009).
1527 Бойко et al. 2010.
1528 Гареев 2007.
1529 Plopsky, Guy. Russia’s Big Plans for Air Defense in Eurasia Big plans, indeed, but will they materialize?
The Diplomat, April 07, 2017 [Online]. Available: https://thediplomat.com/2017/04/russias-big-plans-forair-defense-in-eurasia/ [Accessed: 4th March 2019]; Тезиков, Андрей, Моренков, Владислав. АСУ ОС ПВОСНГ: сегодня и завтра. Журнал «Воздушно-космическая оборона» 17 августа, 2014 [Online]. Available:
http://www.vko.ru/oruzhie/asu-os-pvo-sng-segodnya-i-zavtra [Accessed: 27th June 2016].
1530 Старых, Геннадий. ЕСУ ТЗ: время делать следующий шаг. Независимое военное обозрение, 24фебраль 2012.

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TsNIII1531 argued that the communication system of the Russian Armed Forces
should be developed into an Integrated Automated Digital Communication System(ob’’edinennaia avtomatizirovannaia tsifrovaia sistema sviazi) (OATsSS). OATsSS
was defined as “a communication system that is an organizational-technical combination of interconnected, technologically joined, advanced automated communication
systems of different command and control levels (while maintaining their chain ofcommand). It would be established by integrating the digital resources of the primaryand secondary networks of the participants, and by using modern telecommunications
technologies and protocols to format and transfer messages in a digital form.”1532
Perov and Pereverzev claimed that similar system had been attempted during the
1980s with poor results, but now new technology enabled the creation of a system
based on a single digital form of messages and uniform algorithms which could be
integrated in the common telecommunications space of Russia through standardizes
interfaces. OATsSS could be introduced in phases so that the Armed Forces analogical systems could be replaced, and the networks could be connected to the ‘Unified
network of electronic communications of Russia’ in a controlled way.1533 It should be
noted that the concept or at least the acronym OATsSS was, in fact, adopted and isunder construction.1534
Another concept that has been implemented was proposed by retired Major General
V. F. Samokhin, Colonel V. N. Luk’ianchik and Major A. N. Artiushenko from theMilitary Signal Communications Academy in 2011 who argued that Russian should
build ‘a military Internet.’ It was to be built on the basis of inter-service and interdepartmental communication networks, which were to be digitalized and integrated intoa single information space of the RF Armed Forces. This network would be closed,
restricted, and technologically autonomous with native DNS and routing services andmeant for day-to-day administration in the peacetime and for operational use in wartime. Administratively this network should be based on the organization of military
districts. The static backbone network and services were to be complemented by fieldcommunications and air and space assets which would enable warfighting based on
NCW principles. It would also connect the military to other force structures and agencies.1535 The ‘military Internet’ was claimed to be operational in 2016.1536
The drive to integrate and unify networks accelerated in the 2010s. The military continued to see the unified information space and NCW as connected and if the Russian
Armed Forces were to be reformed based on the principles of NCW, then a unified
1531 The 16th TsNIII was established in 1923, combined with the 27th TsNII in 2010 and in 2014 again estab-lished as a separate institution. It is a research and testing institute for the Armed Forces communication systems and equipment and cooperates with the other institutes of the MoD and the military-industrial complex.
(Жужома, Валерий Михайлович. 16 ЦНИИИ МО РФ: история и современность. Связь в Вооруженных
Силах Российской Федерации – 2018. Москва: Информационный мост, 2018, 68-70 [Online]. Available:
https://army.informost.ru/2018/pdf/29.pdf [Accessed: 4th March 2019].)1532 Перов, Е. А., Переверзев, А. В. О перспективной цифровой системе связи Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации. Военная мысль, № 3 (2008), 7-11, 8.
1533 Ibid.
1534 Cf. Chapter 6.
1535 Самохин, В. Ф., Лукьянчик, В. Н., Артюшенко, А. Н. Перспективы создания военного (боевого)интернета в рамках нового облика ВС РФ. Военная мысль, № 8 (2011), 57-64.
1536 Зыков, Владимир, Рамм, Алексей. В России появился военный интернет. Закрытый сегмент передачи данных позволяет подразделениям Минобороны безопасно обмениваться секретной информацией. Известия, 19 октября 2016 [Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/news/639221 [Accessed: 18th April 2019].

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information space was also required.1537 According to General Gerasimov, the main
directions of communication systems development were the wide use of advanced
information telecommunications technologies and the creation of geographically distributed information banks, and the transition from a hierarchical stovepiped control
of troops and weapons to a form of distributed network-centric control.1538 Many
Russian proponents of NCW considered the EIP to be a critical component of theconcept but were cognizant of the difficulty of integrating the multiple, non-compatible, pipelined, legacy networks of the Russian Armed Forces.1539
The basics of the EIP concept were still being discussed in the late 2010s. Major
General E. B. Khachenko, Colonel V. G. Ivanov and Professor V. N. Luk’ianchik
from the Military Signal Communications Academy (St. Petersburg) wrote in 2018that the EIP of the Armed Forces required a multi-level territorially distributed or
zonal communication system covering the entire territory of the Russian Federation
capable to ensure the continuous exchange and processing of information between
command posts of all levels.1540 The networks and systems of Russian abroad-deployed forces should become separate fragments of such a system. The system would
have land-, sea-, air-, and space-based echelons of communications systems withstatic, reserve, field, and mobile components.1541 The interesting point here is that theEIP is extended outside the territorial borders of the Russian federation and that itwas envisioned to be divided into separate zones.
The integrating characteristics of the EIP became more pronounced as the Russian
environment changed. It was proposed in the context of the military reform that an
the EIP could connect all the authorities responsible for the procurement of weapons,
the users of the weapon systems, research institutions, and the OPK.1542 Moreover, avertical and horizontal national security command structure should be created basedon shared information networks and the ASUs of all power ministries and security
agencies to respond to new military and non-military threats.1543 Consequently, themilitary required an all-encompassing, automated command and control system. It
would consist of a decision-making support system, an information-communication
system and a system to acquire and store information.1544 In 2018 Colonel V. A. Skiba
1537 Гареева 2014; Герасимов 2018; Харченко, Е. Б. Проблемы безопасности инфокоммуникационных

систем Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации. Военная мысль, № 11 (2014), 14-19).
1538 Герасимов, Валерий Васильевич. Приоритеты развития системы вооружения Вооруженных СилРоссийской Федерации. Федеральный справочник. Оборонно-промышленный комплекс России, Том№ 10, 2014, 117-120 [Online]. Available: http://federalbook.ru/files/OPK/Soderjanie/OPK-10/III/ Gerasimov.pdf [Accessed: 5th March 2019].
1539 Воробьев & Киселев 2011; Дульнев, Ковалев & Ильин 2011; Чаднов, А. П. Роль военных сетевых
технологий Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации при создании и боевом применении высокотехнологичных систем вооружения, военной и специальной техники нового поколения. Военная мысль,№ 7 (2018), 33-39, 34; Копытко & Шептура 2011; Шептура, Владимир. Единое информационное пространство ВС РФ. Защита и безопасность, № 2 (2016), 32-34; Панков & Шевченко 2018; Лаврино &Чумичкин 2009.
1540 Харченко, Е. Б., Иванов, В. Г., Лукьянчик, В. Н. Научно-теоретические положения по построению
технической основы системы управления Вооруженными Силами Российской Федерации. Военная
мысль, № 8 (2018), 46-53.
1541 Ibid.
1542 Лаврино & Чумичкин 2009.
1543 Чекинов & Богданов 2015a.
1544 Выговский, И. И., Давыдов, А. Е. Направления совершенствования организации автоматизированного управления в военной сфере. Военная мысль, № 9 (2017), 37-42.

220

provided a technological concept for these ideas. It was a national command andcontrol system for all military and non-military forces (a unified, interconnected system of military and state administration (EUSAPU)) which would be based on leased
civilian networks, military networks (OATsSS), cloud services, data centres, SDN
technology, VPNs and virtualized solutions. SDN technology could be used to ensure
the combat resilience of the services provided by the networks and data centres.1545
Similarly to Skiba, a group of Russian scientists from federal ICT corporations offereda clear tribute to Soviet cybernetists in 2017 when they proposed to create a nationwide decision support system of automated management systems of complex organizational and technical objects for cosmonautics, nuclear energy, ecology, logistics,
military applications, etc. These systems offer prognoses and optimal solutions.1546 As
I. V. Professor Solov’ev and Associate Professor C. M. Zlobin of the Military Academy of the General Staff argued in 2018, the rise of new centres of power and theintensified competition between them required better information cooperation between the elements of the military organization of the state.1547 Against this background it is not surprising that a group of scholars from the 4th TsNII1548 of the MoD
proposed that to counter information-psychological and technological actions exploiting the vulnerabilities of information-telecommunications and information systems in the context of ‘hybrid war’, a system to monitor and prevent attacks must be
built to protect Russian sovereignty.1549 The EIP was thus transforming from an information sharing network to the ‘information security system’ envisioned by the
Russian information warfare theorists.
As the military reform initiated in 2009 by the Defence Minister Anatoli Serdiukov
progressed, the new command structure required new command, control, and communications solutions.1550 The forces of different branches and services were subordinated directly under the command of the military districts and joint strategic commands (OSK).1551 Moreover, the reorganization of territorial defence and its ‘wholeof-government’ approach required new ways to share information and to command
forces under different agencies.1552 These needs were recognized by Major General
Major P. N. Kriazhev, a professor at the Military Training and Research Centre of
the Ground Forces, who wrote in 2011 that automated control systems must be interconnected both vertically (at the strategic, operational-strategic, operational, and1545 Скиба, В. А. Синтез информационно-коммуникационного пространства эргатических систем воен-ного назначения. Военная мысль, № 11 (2018), 39-48, 41.
1546 Автамонов П.Н., Немыкин С.А., Охтилев М.Ю., Соколов Б.В., Юсупов Р.М. Методологические иметодические основы разработки и внедрения интегрированных систем поддержки принятия решений
(СППР) в АСУ объектами военно-государственного управления. Информационные войны №1 (41)2017, 39-48.
1547 Соловьев, И. В., Злобин, С. М. Политика межведомственного взаимодействия - важнейшее направление решения задач обороны государства. Военная мысль № 7 (2018), 15-20.
1548 The 4th TsNII is one of the largest scientific institutions of the MoD and conducts research in the area ofstrategic nuclear weapons and missiles. (Mil.ru. 4-й Центральный научно-исследовательский институт Министерства обороны Российской Федерации [Online]. Available: http://ens.mil.ru/science/SRI/ infrmation.htm?id=10807%40morfOrgScience [Accessed: 4th April 2019].)1549 Антонов et al. 2018.
1550 Giles, Keir. A New Phase in Russian Military Transformation, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.
27 No.1 (2014), 147-162.
1551 Кряжев, П. Н. Развитие военно-административной территориальной структуры Вооруженных СилРоссийской Федерации. Военная мысль № 11 (2011), 30-42.
1552 Ibid.; Кардаш 2014; Кардаш 2018.

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tactical level) and horizontally (at the inter-service, and interdepartmental level) andthat they should enable the mutual exchange of information between all military andsecurity authorities. Moreover, they should enable a smooth transition from peacetime management to wartime operational command and control in any conditions.1553
Four years later General Gerasimov demanded that the network described by
Kriazhev should be constructed, and that it should enable centralized and unbroken
command and control as far as the operational-tactical level, and be able to function
under difficult conditions and enemy influence.1554 Some even argued that the electromagnetic sphere should be taken under centralized and vertical control.1555
The uses envisioned for the EIP transcended purely military-operational issues. The
EIP was to be a platform upon which a complex of systems for automated collection,
processing and modification of information would be built to help manage the military-industrial complex by connecting different ministries, agencies and companies.1556
This could, for example, be a ‘unified information space for the military-technologicalpolicies of the MoD’ (EIP VTP RF) which would enable more efficient managementof state weapons procurement programmes.1557 Some argued that special purpose
networks of the military and security services should be physically and logically separated from the common telecommunications networks.1558 The principles of open
communication networks were not acceptable for managing special networks andtherefore a centralized ASU of these networks was required.1559 These ideas havefound purchase as a closed management network of the OPK is being built.1560
The establishment of the National Defence Management Centre (NDMC) in 2014
was a reflection of the above-mentioned ideas. It is meant to be a command centre
for the Security Council, the General Staff and other federal organs in all situations
and phases of conflict. According to A. P. Shabanov, a leading researcher at the Institute of the Problems of Informatics at RAN, the NDMC enables a nation-widesystem of information-analytics ,which in its turn supports the management of many

1553 Кряжев 2011, 40. Cf. also Хомутов, А. В. Опыт и перспективы использования концепции единой

информационно-коммуникационной сети в управлении войсками. Военная мысль № 11 (2015), 17-22;
Раскин, А.В. Некоторые подходы по созданию единого информационно-управляющего пространства
разнородных группировок войск (СИЛ). Информационные войны № 4(40) 2016, 2-5.
1554 Герасимов 2015, 12.
1555 Горбачев, Юрий. Борьба в электронном пространстве усиливается. Независимое военное обозрение, № 3 (2015).
1556 Боков, С.И., Воронков, О.В, Чупринов, А.А. Основные принципы методологии формирования единой информационно-поисковой и аналитической системы управления развитием вооружения, военной и специальной техники. Вооружение и экономика 3 (36) / 2016 г, 54-58.
1557 Боков, С. И., Желтухин, П. С., Пьянков, А. А. Основные подходы к созданию единого информационного пространства военно-технической политики Российской Федерации. Военная мысль, № 4(2018), 5-12.
1558 Харченко, Е.Б., Сазыкин, А.М., Лысенков, Ю.Н. Вопросы кибербезопасности инфокоммуникационных систем специального назначения. Известия Российской Академии Ракетных и Артиллерийских
Наук 97 (2017), 38-47; Независимая газета. Российские системы связи остаются уязвимыми. Независимая
газета, 07 августа 2013 [Online]. Available: http://www.ng.ru/editorial/2013-08-07/2_red.html [Accessed:
6th March 2019].
1559 Макаренко, С. И. Перспективы и проблемные вопросы развития сетей связи специального назначения. Системы управления, связи и безопасности №2. 2017, 18-68.
1560 Зыков, Владимир, Рамм, Алексей. У оборонных предприятий появится свой интернет. По защищенной сети будет передаваться засекреченная техническая документация. Известия, 31 октября 2016
[Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/news/641528 [Accessed: 18th April 2019].

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other spheres of life than just the national defence.1561 The ideas behind the establishment of the NDMC have also guided the construction of centralized and integrated
aerospace defence and early-warning radar and satellite networks.1562 It would seemthat despite the construction of the NDMC, the creation of the EIP for the Armed
Forces has advanced slowly and ineffectually. Moreover, the national EIP is being
independently constructed by different government agencies. Therefore, Lieutenant
General A. Ia Cherysh and Colonel V. V. Popov have proposed the construction of
an EIP based on the NDMC which would integrate all the different networks, standards, and technologies of the power ministries.1563
The EIP is not exclusively a military concept, reserved for the military or offered only
as a solution to military or security problems. The EIP has been extensively deployed
to define information networks, abstract or real, that unify subjects and objects of
information and services and is a virtual reality of social relationships.1564 The EIP
could have been a hierarchical administrative system of databases to collect information for the management of the society.1565 More modestly and concretely, it was
to be a national public electronic system of documentation and services—similar to
the electronic government concepts formulated in other parts of the world in the early
2000s.1566 To summarize, already in 2004 Professors S. V. Konovchenko and A. G.
Kiselev could argue that the concept of a ‘unified information space’ was being usedfrom multiple perspectives: geopolitical, information-noonspherical, social-information, and social relations.1567
Practical solutions for the EIP were proposed also on the civilian side, for example
by the Federal Information and Management Research Centre of the RAS (FITs IU
RAN).1568 In 2015 A. A. Zatsarinnyi and E. V. Kiselev published a series of articles

1561 Шабанов, А.П. Технология информационной поддержки аналитических структур ситуационных

центров государственных организаций. Информационные войны № 1(41) 2017, 33-38; Герасимов, В.В.
Опыт стратегического руководства в Великой Отечественной войне и организация единого управления
обороной страны в современных условиях. Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(51) 2015, 5-15.
1562 Miasnikov, Eugene. The air-space threat to Russia. In Arbatov, Alexei and Dvorkin, Vladimir (Eds.) Missile
Defense: Confrontation and Cooperation. Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2013, 121-146; Чельцов,Борис. Вспомнив тернистый путь, подумаем о будущем. ВПК, № 13 (329) за 7 апреля 2010 года; Соколов, Анатолий. Новый космический щит России. Русская Планета, 18 ноября 2015 [Online]. Available:
http://rusplt.ru/society/novyiy-kosmicheskiy-schit-rossii-19771.html [Accessed: 5th March 2019]; Майбуров,Д. Г., Иконников, О. В. Развитие теоретических положений информационного обеспечения управления отражением ударов средств воздушно-космического нападения противника. Военная мысль № 9(2018), 48-53.
1563 Черныш, А. Я., Попов, В. В. Эволюции теории и практики единого информационного пространства и первоочередных мерах по его развитию в интересах повышения эффективности управления
национальной обороной Российской Федерации. Военная мысль № 9 (2019), 47-54.
1564 Пителинский, К.В. Интернет: Единое информационное пространство, экономический инструмент,виртуальная реальность и учебный процесс. Межотраслевая информационная служба. 2006. № 3, 6371.
1565 Коровкин С.Д. Единое информационное пространство органов государственной власти. Компетентность. 2007. № 2 (43), 26-37.
1566 Ицкович, Б.С. Формируя единое информационное пространствою Железнодорожный транспорт.
2011. № 5., 60-61; Симушков, А.М. Единое информационное пространство в транспортной логистикею
Железнодорожный транспорт. 2009. № 10, 46-47.
1567 Коновченко С.В., Киселев А.Г. Информационная политика в России. Монография. М., РАГС, 2004.
1568 The Federal Information and Management Research Centre of the RAS (FITs IU RAN) was created in2014 by combining five institutes doing theoretical and applied research in the field of informatics. Its research223about the creation of the EIP of the Russian Federation which they called ‘a megasystem’. The mega system consisted of multiple systems of coordination, control andmanagement which would be used to support strategic planning, centralization ofscientific-technological development, and monitoring of national security. Technologically, Zatsarinnyi’s and Kiselev’s system would been based on federal and regional
data centres that would exchange information in a protected environment outside theInternet and would access the Internet through one controlled gateway. Informationexchange would be conducted through the already existing System of Electronic Interagency Cooperation (CMEV)—or federal governmental intranet—and there
would be monitored and protected gateways between open, confidential, and secret(closed) resources.1569 In fact, what Zatsarinnyi and Kiselev were describing in theory
was being already built (cf. Chapter 6).
The ideas connected to the EIP were also carried over to the cyber and informationtechnological security issues. By 2011 the Russians were just as worried about thevulnerabilities of critical infrastructure as the rest of the world.1570 For example, A. V.
Kortokov and E. S. Zinob’eva argued that because critical infrastructure is the key topublic order, economic stability and national security of states, the protection of critical infrastructure falls within the competence of the state.1571 They argued that the
information infrastructure should be included in the Russian definition of critical infrastructure and objects.1572 In 2015 the FSB declared that it would create a National
Coordination Centre for Computer Incidents (NKTsKI) which was described as a
unified, centralized, geographically distributed complex to respond to computer incidents.1573 Russia also adopted laws concerning the CII in 2017 (cf. Chapter 6). Consequently, A. A. Sidak, for example, proposed that a segmented and layered information
security system should be built. The layers consisted of perimeter protection, data
network protection, server protection, protection of automated workstations, protection of application services, and data protection. The segments and layers should forma national system of CII protection.1574
The parallel or applied concept of the EIP, ‘the national segment of the Internet’(natsional’nyi segment Interneta), appeared in academic and journalistic sources longcovers, for example, information-telecommunication networks, big data and artificial intelligence. (Федеральный исследовательский центр «Информатика и управление» Российской Академии Наук (ФИЦ ИУРАН) [Online]. Available: http://www.frccsc.ru/ [Accessed: 3rd April 2019]).
1569 Зацаринный, А. А., Кисилев, Э. В. Некоторые подходы к формированию нормативно-технической
базы единого информационного пространства России в части информационных ресурсов. Информатика и управление, Том 25 № 1 (2015), 155-167; Зацаринный, А. А., Кисилев, Э. В. Некоторые подходык формированию нормативно-технической базы в части требований к архитектурному построению
информационных систем организаций - участников единого информационного пространства России.
Информатика и управление, Том 25 № 3 (2015), 161-178; Зацаринный, А. А., Кисилев, Э. В. Некоторые
подходы к формированию обобщенной архитектуры информационных систем организаций - участников единого информационного пространства России. Информатика и управление, Том 25 № 4(2015), 114-127.
1570 Pynnöniemi 2012.
1571 Коротков А.В., Зиновьева Е.С. Безопасность критических информационных инфраструктур в международном гуманитарном праве. Вестник МГИМО-университета, №4(19) 2011, 154-162.
1572 Ibid., 157.
1573 ВПК. Кибербезопасность страны – дело всенародное. ВПК, № 11 (577) за 25 марта 2015 года.
1574 Сидак, А.А. Вопросы структуризации автоматизированных систем при организации защиты информации. Информационные войны №1 (45) 2018, 88-90; Сидак, А.А. Применение метода анализа иерархии при определении критических процессов для категорирования объектов критической информационной инфраструктуры Российской Федерации. Информационные войны №2 (46) 2018, 79-82.

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before it was introduced officially (cf. below). Even on the official side it appeared
first outside of Russia. For example, the Model Law on the Basics of Internet Regulation adopted by the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS used the concept of anational segment of the Internet in 2011 and defined it based on DNS country code
top-level domains.1575 The concept of the national segment was used in Belorussia in2010 when the President gave an edict (ukaz) titled, ‘On Measures to Improve theUse of the National Segment of the Internet’. It defined this segment as “a set of
information networks, systems and resources connected to the Internet, located on
the territory of the Republic of Belarus and (or) using the hierarchical names of thenational segment of the Internet.”1576 The roots of the Russian use of the concept of
the national segment seem to reside in the idea that the Internet can be divided basedon language, technology (primarily DNS ccTLDs), and governance.1577 In the unofficial Russian use, the concept of the national segment seems to have originally referredto the governance of the country code top-level domains of the DNS system and of
the IP -address blocks.1578 Possibly because of the technological framing of the issue,
the concept of the national segment does not really appear in the Russian militaryjournals. Nevertheless, the military was familiar with the concept of the national segment of the Internet at least from 2009 onwards.1579
The concept of the national segment of the Internet is connected to the emergenceof the RuNet concept, or the Russian Internet. There is no agreed definition of
RuNet.1580 Neither is there a definite point of time when RuNet appeared. For example, in 2003 Iu. Iu. Perfilev proposed to define it either as the collection of telecommunications networks in Russia, the collection of all information resources related tothe domain zones of .ru and .su, or the collection of all Russian language information
resources.1581 Nevertheless, it was given a semi-official status as RuNet and awards
were given in 2004. The ‘RuNet award’, i.e. ‘a national award for the contribution to
the development of the Russian segment of the Internet’ is an annual award for thebest initiatives, applications, and companies issued by the Federal Agency of Press

1575 СНГ. Модельный закон «Об основах регулирования Интернета» Межпарламентская Ассамблея гос-ударств – участников Содружества Независимых Государств, Приложение к постановлению МПА СНГ
от 16.05.2011 г. № 36-9 [Online]. Available: http://www.cikrf.ru/international/docs/mpa_modzakon. html
[Accessed: 3rd April 2019].
1576 Указ Президента РБ № 60 от 01.02.2010 “О мерах по совершенствованию использования национального сегмента сети Интернет” [Online]. Available: https://belzakon.net/Законодательство/Указ_Президента_РБ/2010/3321/скачать [Accessed: 2nd April 2019].
1577 Горошко, Е.И. Современные Интернет-коммуникации: структура и основные характеристики. М.:Наука, Флинта, 2012. [Online]. Available: http://www.textology.ru/article.aspx?aId=232 [Accessed: 7th March2019].
1578 Белов, Сергей. Интернет по-русски. Российская газета, 10.11.2009 [Online]. Available:
https://rg.ru/2009/11/10/rf.html [Accessed: 7th March 2019]; Рузин, Андрей. Интернет: Россия у критической черты, CNews.ru 08.04.2004 [Online]. Available: http://www.cnews.ru/articles/internet_ rossiya_u_kriticheskoj_cherty [Accessed: 7th March 2019]; Lenta.ru. Зона.ru вошла в десятку самых активных
национальных
сегментов
интернета.
Lenta.ru,
31
марта
2004
[Online].
Available:
https://lenta.ru/news/2004/03/31/domen/ [Accessed: 7th March 2019]; Info.nic.ru. Система доменных
имен. Российский сегмент. Технические подробности, 11.4.2005 [Online]. Available:
https://info.nic.ru/st/11/out_954.shtml [Accessed: 3rd April 2019].
1579 Самохин, Лукьянчик & Артюшенко 2011; Голышко А. В., Князев К. Г. NGN: Российский сегмент.
Электросвязь, № 12 2009.
1580 Wikipedia. Рунет (термин) [Online]. Available: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Рунет_(термин) [Accessed:
7th March 2019].
1581 Перфильев 2003.

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and Mass Communication (Rospechat).1582 As Ristolainen and Kukkola have argued,‘RuNet’ represents the ‘sociocultural basis’ for ‘the Russian segment of the Internet’.1583 According Ristolainen, RuNet refers to a relatively closed, online environmentthat is based on the Russian language but includes also a social aspect—a Russian way
of doing things.1584 RuNet has also been defined by Gorny as “a totality of information, communications and activities which occur on the Internet, mostly in the
Russian language, no matter where the resources and users are physically located, andwhich are somehow linked to Russian culture and Russian cultural identity.”1585 RuNet
forms a ‘RuNet community’ that provides a sense of belonging to its members
through the use of common Russian language social media, news and search engine
services, most of which are Russian in origin.1586 According to Andrei Soldatov, since2012 RuNet has become a more political and also securitized space as the Russianstate has sought to control it through legislation and censorship.1587
The ‘unified information space’ did not appear in the 2004 Ivanov Doctrine but it
was implicitly mentioned in the 2009 NSS which stated that information security
threats would be prevented by creating a unified information-telecommunications
support system for the needs of national security.1588 Concomitantly, Associate Professor Nikolai Sergeev of the RARAN claimed that the 2009 NSS ordered the creationof a national, hierarchical, distributed and specialized system or ‘information management system’ (informatsionno-upravliaiuchshaia sistema) which consisted of ‘information-analytical centres’ (informatsionno-analiticheskie tsentry) to counter information threats and especially Western ‘network-centric warfare’. This vertical systemshould be supported by a horizontal one which connects government organizations
to society’s structures.1589 The Military Doctrine of 2010 mentions ‘a unified information field of the Armed Forces and other military forces’ which would be created
and would form a part of the information space of the Russian Federation. It alsomentions ‘information management’ or ’command and control’ systems which would
be integrated with the automated command and control systems, weapon systems,
and military command systems of all levels.1590 The 2014 Military Doctrine was assparse on the EIP as the previous ones had been. It noted that the Armed Forces had
to improve its unified information space as part of the information space of the Russian Federation.1591 The 2015 NSS used the term ‘single’ or ‘unified’ (edinyi) much
more freely. It identified a single or unified transportation space, cultural space, system for emergency situations, and system for preventing crimes. It did not use theterms ‘EIP’ or the ‘national segment of the Internet’.1592 The Information Security
Doctrine of 2016 introduced the concept of ‘the national segment of the Internet’ byРИА Новости. История развития Рунета. Справка, 30 сентября 2009 [Online]. Available:
https://ria.ru/20090930/186873799.html [Accessed: 7th March 2019].
1583 Ristolainen, Mari and Kukkola, Juha. Closed, safe and secure – the Russian sense of information security.
In Benson & McAlaney 2019, 53-71.
1584 Ristolainen 2017a & 2017b.
1585 Gorny, Eugene. A Creative History of the Russian Internet. Studies in Internet Creativity., Berlin: DVM
Verlag Dr. Muller, 2009, 27.
1586 Vendil Pallin 2017; Ristolainen 2017a & 2017b; Ristolainen & Kukkola 2019a.
1587 Soldatov 2017b.
1588 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2009b.
1589 Sergeev 2010.
1590 Указ Президента РФ 2010.
1591 Доктрина 2014.
1592 Указ Президента РФ 2015.
1582

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stating that, “The main directions of ensuring information security in the field of strategic stability and equal strategic partnership are: […] the development of a national
system for managing the Russian segment of the Internet.”1593 The Doctrine did not
use the concept of the EIP. It only referred to the ‘unified network of electronic
communications of the Russian Federation’ the resilience and uninterrupted functioning of which should be ensured in peacetime, in times of threat and during thetimes of war. Although this is a clear reference to a legal concept it is also related tothe concept of the information infrastructure of the Russian Federation, which is defined to reside on the territory and/or under the jurisdiction of Russia.1594 The foreign
policy documents did not really touch upon the subject of the EIP more than has
been already discussed in the context of the interstate struggle and digital sovereignty,
and it was already noted that the concept of the national segment of the Internet wasused in CIS documents.
To summarize. The idea of a unified information space has two aspects: civilian andmilitary. The civilian aspect has been analysed here less extensively than the militaryone, but it can be argued that they both share the same characteristics of verticalcontrol and horizontal integration, centralization, and delimitation of borders. The
EIP is not merely a space but a system of integrated and standardized communication
networks and data resources, a system of security and management, and a system ofoperational, political, social and/or economic control and management. The reference point of the EIP of the Armed Forces was consistently the Western or more
precisely the doctrinal and technological development of the United States. In somecases, the EIP is simply understood as a shared information space or a network in thecontext of NCW. However, it should be noted that the Russian understanding of theEIP differs somewhat from the American one because it is connected to the idea of
territorial and total defence. It encompasses all forces (military and other), national
leadership, economy, and society. It is geographically bound. It is not originally basedon a globally projected military network meant for expeditionary operations—although that was envisioned as an end-state. Thus, it might be understood as a verticallyand horizontally integrated system of systems enabling total situation awareness andcontrol over the Armed Forces and the state. The EIP as a concept is also a tool for
forcing the ‘power vertical’ onto cyberspace as the separated networks of different
ministries and agencies are collected under one management system. Consequently, it
can be argued that the EIP, with its multiple variations between different academic
communities, is based on both the Soviet era idea of EIP and on the analysis andadaptation of Western, mainly American theory and practice of NCW.
Nevertheless, the EIP, in its civilian or military versions, is not some mystic all-encompassing concept. On the most basic level, the EIP is a common information network shared by users. For many of the military journalists it is just a catchword which
points to an information network that provides total situation awareness and control
to commanders or top administrators. Furthermore, many texts use the EIP as a synonym for WAN or corporate networks that are mostly based on international standards and technologies and there is nothing particularly Russian about them. Still, manyin the military have used the EIP to conceptualize an operational, organizational, and1593 Указ Президента РФ 2016b.
1594 Федеральный закон 2003.

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technological system of unified information resources and ASUs which should be
operational from peacetime to wartime and be organized around the Armed Forces
command structure. The OATsSS is a one proof that these ideas have been put into
practise.
Although they are connected concepts in many ways, RuNet and the EIP should not
be confused. The EIP refers to a defined space which becomes delineated and controlled through state power whereas RuNet is a socio-cultural phenomenon which
has arisen from below and through the spontaneous interaction of individuals, communities and commercial interests. The official transformation of ‘the unified information space’ to ‘the national segment of the Internet’ around the time of the draftingof the 2016 Information Security Doctrine is indicative of the how the information
space was brought into more direct contact with state sovereignty and national security interests. There was a clear interaction with the elites and the epistemic communities as the EIP was debated during the 2000s and 2010s and some ideas were eventually put into action. Various institutes and individual scholars offered their views on
the subject, and it can be argued that these views were usually more grandiose thanthe ones presented in the official strategic level documents or what really materialized.
5.7 Information superiority
Information superiority was a central concept in the Russian understanding of theinformation struggle and war already in the early 2000s. The Russians quite intensely
followed the Western doctrinal debates about IW and borrowed concepts from it.1595
Consequently, an information security specialist Sergei Griniaev could argue in theearly 2000s that information superiority is the ability to collect, process and distributea continuous stream of information about the situation, and to prevent an adversary
from doing the same. It can also be defined as the ability to designate and maintain apace of operations that surpasses any opponent’s possible pace, thus allowing theprotagonist to dominate, remain unpredictable, and act ahead of the opponent
throughout the duration of the confrontation. This is based on a real understandingof the situation.1596 Grinaev, among others, was basically introducing Western ideas to
the Russian speaking audience.1597 However, as was already noted above, information
warfare had distinct technological and psychological aspects for Russians and so information superiority also had two aspects. Here I will concentrate on the technological part.1598
1595 Стародубцев, Ю. И., Бухарин, В. В., Семенов, С. С. Техносферная война. Военная мысль, № 7 (2012),

22-31; Шеремет, Игорь. Компьютеризация как путь к победе в вооруженной борьбе. Концепция “сетецентричной войны” и особенности ее практической реализации. Независимое военное обозрение»№43 (2005); Печуров, С.Л. Англо-саксонская модель военной реформы: история и современность. М.:Издательство Московского университета, 2015; Попов, Игорь. Сете-центрическая война Пентагона. Независимое Военное Обозрение, № 9 (2004).
1596 Гриняев, Сергей. Война в четвертой сфере. Превосходство в киберпространстве будет определять
победу в конфликтах XXI века. Независимое военное обозрение N 42 (215) 10.11.2000; Гриняев 2004,
101.
1597 Гриняев 2004; Донсков, Ю. Е., Фомин, В. В. Информационное превосходство: пути реализации воперациях. Военная мысль, № 11 (2003), 57-61.
1598 Some Russian commentators conflated ‘netwars’ to ‘network-centric warfare’ and thus the social and psychological aspects are sometimes difficult to separate from the technological aspects. Джерелиевский, Борис.
Cетевые войны. ВПК, № 45 (112) за 30 ноября 2005 года; Медведко, Леонид. Под эгидой Соединенных
Штатов. ВПК, № 10 (226) за 12 марта 2008 года; Грачева, Татьяна. Наставники плохих парней – На228

In addition to Griniaev, Fedorova and Tsygichko have claimed that information superiority based on the capability to acquire more information, to process it faster, andto make more efficiently decisions, will decide future wars.1599 Panarin has claimed
that states fight in the unified global information space for information superiority.1600
Manoilo et al. defined information superiority as the ability to collect, process anddistribute an uninterrupted information flow of the situation, while at the same timedenying the same from the enemy and doing it faster than the enemy.1601 Vorob’ev
and Kiselev argued that the enemy could be destroyed without weapons through information superiority and Nogovitsyn claimed that victory in modern war without
information superiority was impossible.1602 Moreover, Gorbunov and Bogdanov argued that information superiority had to be acquired already in peacetime.1603 Generals
Karpov, Burenin and Ziuzin understood information superiority as the ability to obtain more truthful and accurate data on the situation than the adversary and to obtainit faster and, moreover, the ability to utilize this advantage in commanding forces.1604
These views hardly differ from their Western versions.
Information superiority was connected to informatization which was defined, for example, as an organised process of “collecting, transmitting, processing, storing, andusing information in order to create and use information resources to increase theeffectiveness of the Armed Forces and meet the information needs of the military
officials.”1605 Informatization was accompanied by the concept of digitalization, whichmeant updating analogue communication systems and ASUs with modern technology.1606 In this context, the feeling that Russia was lagging further and further behind
the United States was prevalent.1607 It was also understood that superiority was not
only about technology but also required doctrinal and organizational changes in thehierarchical and commander-centred traditions of the Russian Armed Forces.1608 Nevertheless, domestic or “Russian” solutions were proposed from the start—as werereinterpreted Western concepts.1609 In 2005, for example, retired Major General Igor
Sheremet, a professor, member of RAN and member of the Military Industrial Com-политическую войну Пентагон рекрутирует отщепенцев и предателей. ВПК, № 46 (612) за 2 декабря
2015 года.
1599 Федорова & Цигичко 2001.
1600 Панарин 2003.
1601 Manoilo 2003.
1602 Воробьев & Киселев 2006; Ноговицын 2009a & 2009b.
1603 Горбунов & Богданов 2009.
1604 Карпов, Буренин & Зюзин 2004.
1605 Иванов, А.А. Информатизация вооруженных сил. Информатизация Вооруженных Сил: проблемыи пути их решения. Военная мысль, № 2 (2000).
1606 Петров, Алексей, Ианин, Алексей, Карпачев, Сергей. Спасение – в цифре! Цифровизация – основной фронт мировой конкуренции. ВПК, № 31 (695) за 16 августа 2017 года; Акулинчев, А. Б. Проблемы
цифровизации военных сетей связи и пути их решения. Военная мысль, № 9 (2006), 76-80; Самохин,Лукьянчик & Артюшенко 2011; Перов, Е. А., Переверзев, А. В. Проблемы цифровизации военных сетей связи и пути их решения. Военная мысль, № 9 (2006), 76-80.
1607 Ibid. Долгополов, А. В., Богданов, С. А. Эволюция форм и способов ведения вооруженной борьбыв сетецентрических условиях. Военная мысль, № 2 (2011), 49-58; Первов, А.В. Сетецентрическая войнав воздушно-космическом пространстве: миф или реальность. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 2(31) 2010, 80-83.
1608 Ibid. Кондратьев, Александр. Новые возможности для нового облика. ВПК, № 45 (311) за 18 ноября
2009 года.
1609 An example of the latter Cf. Казарьян, Б. И. Операции, боевые действия, сетецентричная война. Военная мысль, № 2 (2010), 25-37.

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mission under the Government of the Russian Federation and the Board of the Military Industrial Complex of Russia, proposed that Russia should adopt the concept of
NCW as a system of mean and anti-means and should not concentrate on separate
technologies of networking, sensors etc.1610 The early Russian theorists were also very
aware of the fact that the concept of command and control of the NCW did not
follow traditional hierarchical, vertical models with tight, unbroken control of thecommander over his subordinates.1611 M. M. Khamzatov, for example, argued implicitly that the self-synchronization of units did not mean self-control but the ability toshare capabilities to achieve the objectives ordered from above in tight cooperation
with all the other TVD forces.1612
In the early 2000s electronic warfare specialists argued that EW combined with computer attacks, disinformation, and kinetic strikes would provide information superiority in the initial phase of war. Thus, the role of information systems and networks
built already in peacetime was decisive. Air defence specialists argued for the integration of all air defence assets, sensors, network and weapon platforms, to achieve information superiority through improved speed, more comprehensive information,and secrecy. However, most specialists were at least a little sceptical of such “American ideas.”1613 The debates about the role of various services, branches and troops inrelation to information superiority, NCW and IW in general among the military
should be understood in the context of the military reform and competition for resources. The concept of NCW was officially adopted as a guideline in the so-called
Serdiukov reforms in 2008.1614
One of the foremost Russian military theorists of NCW is Professor Aleksandr Kondratev of the Academy of Military Sciences. Kondratev has extensively studied theWestern concept of the NCW and its implementation and argued that the development of information technology had led from a platform-centric to a network-centric
form of warfare which offered synergistic effects.1615 Kondratev disputed the claimthat the system of NCW had anything to do with the Soviet concepts of RUK and
ROK—they were instruments of non-contact war. Russia had to comprehensively
overhaul its doctrines, organizations and military-industrial complex if it wanted to1610 Шеремет 2005.
1611 Ibid.; Попов 2004; Горбачев, Ю. Е. Сетецентрическая война: миф или реальность? Военная мысль,№ 1 (2006), 66-76; Хамзатов, М. М. Влияние концепции сетецентрической войны на характер современных операций. Военная мысль, № 7 (2006), 13-17; Раскин, А. В., Пеляк, В. С. Сетецентрическая война война информационной цивилизации. Военная мысль, № 4 (2008), 78-80; Буренок, Василий. Базис сетецентрических войн – опережение, интеллект, инновации... Независимое военное обозрение, № 12(2010).
1612 Хамзатов 2006, 15-16.
1613 Донсков & Фомин 2003; Донсков & Никитин 2005; Горбачев 2004; Горбачев 2006; Фролов, Николай.
Главный ТВД будущего. ВПК, № 48 (214) за 12 декабря 2007 года; Чельцов, Б. Ф. Уточнение подходовк созданию системы воздушно-космической обороны государства в условиях сетецентричных войн будущего. Военная мысль, № 9 (2008), 2-10; Чельцов, Б. Ф. Проблемы создания сетецентрической системы
управления войсками, силами и средствами ВКО. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 4 (37) 2011, 5663.
1614 Макаренко, C.И., Бережнов, А.Н. Перспективы использования сетецентрических технологий управления боевыми действиями и проблемы их внедрения в вооруженных силах Российской Федерации.
Вестник Академии военных наук, № 4 (37) 2011, 64-68; Kjellén, Jonas. Russian Electronic Warfare: Russian
Electronic Warfare – The Role of Electronic Warfare in the Russian Armed Forces. FOI, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI-R--4625--SE [Accessed: 9th March 2019]; Esin, Viktor. Russia’s
air-space force and armaments program. In Arbatov & Dvorkin 2013, 147-166.
1615 Кондратьев 2009.

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achieve the benefits of NCW. 1616 Kondratev’s views were challenged by Colonel V.
I. Vypasniak from the 27th TsNII of MoD who saw a direct connection between the
NCW and RUK/ROK and he argued for vertically and centrally controlled systems.1617 Somewhat similarly, retired Major General V. F. Samokhin, Colonel V. N.
Luk’ianchik and Major A. N. Artiushenko claimed in 2011 that the basic militaryadministrative unit of the Russian AF was the military district and NCW should beapplied on this basis. The Russian EIP should connect the territorial nodes of command and control though digitalized systems.1618 Nevertheless, as an article by retired
Lieutenant-Colonels V. A. Knizhitskii and V. E: Zav’ialov and Lieutenant-Colonel S.
M. Savarenkov showed, new ‘universal’ ideas of command and control penetrated
Russian military thought.1619 The authors basically introduced the U.S./NATO Guidelines for Operations as a more flexible and reactive ‘algorithm of command and control’ without referring any Western sources.1620
In 2010 Vasii Burenok argued that information superiority was not about the amountof information but instead about the achievement of a deeper awareness and understanding of the situation, a more accurate understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the enemy. It was also the ability to form a plan based on this awareness,
to immediately communicate decisions to subordinates, and to monitor and control
their implementation.1621 Basically, Burenok transformed the concept of NCW to correspond to the Russian understanding of command and control and updated it withthe results of earlier Western self-criticism. Thus, he criticised those Russian views
that saw automatization and technology as the essence of a network-centric war andover-emphasised the meaning of time. For Burenok the human component, i.e. theprofessionalism of subordinate commanders was a critical factor.1622 This importanceof the human, social and psychological aspects was shared by others.1623
Iurii Borodakii, a lecturer at the Military Academy of the General Staff and a memberof the Scientific Council of the Security Council of RF also attempted to combine
Russian theories of command and control and Western ideas of NCW.1624 According

1616 Ibid., 96.
1617 Выпасняк, В. И. О реализации сетецентрических принципов управления силами и средствами во-оруженной борьбы в операциях (боевых действиях). Военная мысль, № 12 (2009), 23-30, 27.
1618 Самохин, Лукьянчик & Артюшенко 2011.
1619 Кижицкий, В. А., Завьялов, В. Е., Саваренков, С. М. Об уточнении содержания терминов “организация” и “управление” в терминологической системе теории военного управления. Военная мысль, №
10 (2014), 59-64.
1620 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). An Introduction to Operations Planning at the Operational
Level - A summary of the Allied command operations comprehensive operations planning directive, 4 Oct 13[Online]. Available: http://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/events/2016/sfpdpe/copd_v20_summary.pdf[Accessed: 10th March 2019].
1621 Буренок 2010.
1622 Ibid.
1623 Попов, Игорь. Сетецентрическая война. Красная звезда, № 169 (2012); Зиновьев В.Н., Колдунов
А.И., Груздев Н.В. Перспективы применения информационных сетей в военном деле. Информационные войны, №1 (33) 2015, 37-40, 40.
1624 Бородакий, Ю.В. Информатизация вооруженных сил. Развитие методологических основ построения информационно-управляющих систем военного назначения. Военная мысль, № 6 (2009), 33-41;
Бородакий Ю. В., Боговик А. В., Курносов В. И., Лободинский Ю. В., Масановец В. В., Паращук И. Б.
Основы теории управления в системах специального назначения. М.: Управление делами Президента
Российской Федерации, 2008.

231to him and others1625 ‘the Russian version of OODA-loop’ consisted of monitoring,
analysing, forecasting the situation, making decision, commanding forces, making
plans, coordinating actions, preparing forces, organizing support for them, and subsequently controlling the implementation of orders.1626 This ‘loop’ was seen by someto be based on the principles of resilience (ustoichivost’), continuity (nepreryvnost’),efficiency (operativnost’), secrecy and expediency (validity) and undivided and centralised control.1627
In connection to NCW, Chekinov and Bogdanov have argued that military activities
should be carried out with increasing intensity in time and space which will deprive
the enemy of initiative and freedom of manoeuvre. However, as they understand military activities as three-dimensional (ob’’emnyi) and having electronic, economic, psychological, informational and kinetic (force) effects, their definition of technologicaland psychological information superiority emphasizes deception and obfuscation.
Consequently, they argue that information superiority demands the integration of allstate agencies in a unified system.1628 Others have also associated the principles of
NCW to the way the defence of the state had to be organized and argued that thisrequired tight cooperation between all “49 agencies and ministries” which would form
the basis for national system of command and control.1629
By 2011, Russian IW and NCW thinking had achieved a state of self-reflection andadaptation. Professor A. V. Kopylov analysed the Western criticism towards the concept of NCW and argued that knowing the weaknesses of NCW enabled an opponent
to use them to its advantage and also allowed the Russian Armed Forces to avoid
some of the problems the United States had faced when implementing NCW. V. I.
Kovalev, G. G. Magnitskii and Iu. A. Matvinenko repeated this view in 2015 andargued that Russia did not have to prepare for a war dictated by the United States.
They viewed the NCW as based largely on technology and if Russia could not afford
it then NCW would be ‘a mental trap’.1630 Similar ideas had been voiced already in2008 by A. V. Raskin and V. S. Peliak who argued that information parity could beachieved by influencing the global information networks that enabled the United
1625 For other who use the ‘cycle of command’ cf. Грудинин, И.В., Майбуров, Д.Г. Содержание и структура

категории «информационно-управленческий ресурс отражения удара средств воздушно-космического
нападения противника». Вестник академии военных наук, № 1 (62) 2018, 104-111; Выпасняк, В.И., Тиханычев, О.В. Автоматизированные системы управления войсками (силами): тенденции, методы и перспективы развития. Вестник академии военных наук, № 4 (29) 2009, 61-69.
1626 The Soviet and Russian concept of command and control (upravlenie voiskami (silami)) has stayed essentially unchanged and was defined in the Military Encyclopaedia of 2007 as ”the purposeful activity of the command […] to maintain constant combat and mobilization readiness of troops (forces), prepare them for operations (combat actions) and lead them in carrying out assigned tasks.” (Управление войсками (силами). Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007 [Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.
mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=10705@morfDictionary [Accessed: 10th March 2019]; Рипенко, Ю. Б., Волков, А. Б. О терминологии в теории управления войсками (силами) и уставных документах. Военная мысль, № 8 (2014), 10-18, 11.)1627 Анисимов, Е. Г., Анисимов, В. Г., Солохов, И. В. Проблемы научно-методического обеспечения
межведомственного информационного взаимодействия. Военная мысль, № 12 (2017), 45-51; Бытьев,А.В., Смирновa, Л.А. К вопросу о научном понятии «военное управление». Вестник академии военных
наук № 1 (66) 2019, 43-49.
1628 Чекинов & Богданов 2015b.
1629 Скоков & Грушка 2014, 41.
1630 Ковалев, В.И., Малинецкий, Г.Г., Матвиенко, Ю.A. Концепция «сетецентрической» войны для армии России: «множитель силы» или ментальная ловушка? Вестник Академии военных наук, 2(51) 2015,
94-100.

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States and its allies to fight according to NCW principles.1631 Subsequently, Iu. I.
Starodubtsev, V. V. Bukharin and S. S. Semenov from the Military Academy of Signal
Corps proposed an alternative approach on NCW based on Russian cybernetic theories about ASUs which basically characterized the future warfare as warfare between
systems.1632 In 2013 Russian scholars V. I. Kovalev and Iu. A. Matvinenko from theAcademy of Military Sciences argued that NCW was not about new forms and methods of warfare, or a new paradigm of war, but a functional concept based on theprinciples of command and control of forces and means and thus it might not work
against a well-prepared state.1633
The dialectical approach present in the above mentioned arguments was ‘operationalized’ by I. I. Korolev, V. N. Pavlov and A. V. Ganin in 2013 who argued that information superiority could be blocked by a ‘radio electronic information blockade’
which would be a complex, multifunctional and adaptive system of EW.1634 The idea
was further developed in 2017 when researchers from NIII EW VUNTs (re)introduced the concept of command and control warfare. In this context superiority wasdefined as an advantage in the effectiveness and efficiency of command and control
in relation to a certain situation and opponent and the ability to use EW as a tool ofcounter-C2 warfare.1635 Information superiority was thus replaced by command andcontrol superiority.
An additional aspect of information superiority was based on the Russian interpretation of ‘netwars’ and ‘network wars’ as wars conducted by horizontally organized
forces that were geographically dispersed, connected by global information networks
and controlled through them.1636 This approach tended to incorporate the concept of‘network-centric warfare’ into itself by transforming the term to mean a warfare using
and targeting all-kinds of networks, primarily social, with mostly non-military nondirect means.1637 These ideas gave information superiority its distinct information-psychological and perhaps even social aspect.1638 The element of great power competition in informatization meant that information superiority would not only be used ina military-operational context. Therefore, both civilian and military commentators argued that Russia needed an information policy that would enable Russia to counterthe technological-scientific and psychological information superiority of its potential

1631 Раскин & Пеляк 2008.

1632 Стародубцев, Бухарин & Семенов 2012.

Ковал в В.И., Матвиенко Ю.А. «Сетецентрическая» война как новая парадигма вооруж ннойборьбы. Информационные войны №2 (26) 2013, 2-9; Ковалев, Виктор, Малинецкий, Георгий, Матвиенко, Юрий. Концепция «сетецентрической» войны для армии России: «множитель силы» или ментальная ловушка? Экономические стратегии № 5/2013, 40-51.
1634 Королев, Павлов & Ганин 2013; Донсков, Ю. Е., Морареску, А. Л., Беседин, П. Н. Завоевание превосходства в управлении как цель применения войск радиоэлектронной борьбы в операциях объединения Сухопутных войск. Военная мысль, № 1 (2018), 28-32. Also, Донсков, Беседин & Ботнев 2017.
1635 Донсков, Ю. Е., Беседин, П. Н., Ботнев, А. К. Превосходство в управлении - обязательный фактор
реализации основных закономерностей оперативного искусства. Военная мысль, № 11 (2017), 28-31;.
Донсков, Морареску & Беседин 2018.
1636 Раскин, А. В., Пеляк, В. С. К вопросу о сетевой войне. Военная мысль, № 3 (2005), 21-27.
1637 Герасимов, Н. Н., Шакирова, Е. Ю. Социально-сетецентрические войны современности: реальность информационной эпохи. Военная мысль, № 10 (2017), 79-87.
1638 Савин, Л. В. Сетецентричная и сетевая война. Введение в концепцию. Москва: Евразииское движение, 2011; Татаринов, В.В. Элементы сетецентрической защиты. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 1(42) 2013.
1633

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adversaries even in peacetime.1639 Thus the concept became part of the great powercompetition
The connection between kibernetik ideas and the Western NCW doctrine was not
lost to Russian commentators and scholars.1640 By 2012 the leading Russian NCW
theorist Aleksandr Kondrat’ev argued the West had, if not stolen, then at least borrowed the ideas of Marshal Ogarkov.1641 Petr Cherkassin claimed that, firstly, NATO
had stolen the Soviet ‘Maneuvr’ automated command and control system and, secondly, that Western systems were developed for aggressive, offensive actions—contrary to Russian defensive needs.1642 Others claimed that the Russian Evgeni Messner(1891-1975) was the true creator of networked warfare.1643 Furthermore, some argued
that the American concepts contained nothing new, and that people remained at theheart of military action, not machines.1644 Military historian Vasilii Mikriukov evenmanaged to thrice change his views on NCW until he finally argued on a Russian
theory of command and control.1645
The 2004 ‘Ivanov Doctrine’ notices the importance which foreign armed forces place
on information superiority and is clearly designed to guide the Russian Armed Forcesin the same direction.1646 However, in later documents the emphasis of NCW andinformation superiority is more muted. The term of superiority was used in the NSS
of 2009 and the Military Doctrines of 2010 and 2014 in connection to the great powercompetition and strategic weapon systems, and the “politics of some leading countries
directed at the achievement of superiority in the military sphere.”1647 Superiority on
land, at sea and in space, in addition to strategic surprise and the resilience of stateand military command and control, were seen as decisive factors in achieving military
objectives in war.1648 The 2015 NSS omitted the term altogether.1649 Neither was it
used in official foreign policy documents. The Information Security Doctrine of 2016noted information superiority only implicitly arguing that “the state of information
security in the field of strategic stability and equal strategic partnership is characterized

1639 Прудников, Д. П. Государственная информационная политика в области обороны: исходное опре-деление. Военная мысль, № 3 (2008), 43-48; Базылев et al. 2012; Бородакий, Добродеев & Бутусов 2013.
1640 Ковал в & Матвиенко 2013.
1641 Кондратьев, Александр. Мнение: информатизация по-российски. ВПК, 18 января 2012 [Online].
Available: https://vpk-news.ru/news/224 [Accessed: 8th March 2019].
1642 Черкашин, Петр. Сетецентрические веяния. Замыслы советского генштаба реализуются под новым
названием в пентагоне. ВПК, № 45 (758) за 20 ноября 2018 года. It should be noted that a myth was built
around a story that the U.S. and NATO had acquired (stolen) the system after the Warsaw bloc fell and wereshocked to discover that the system would have enabled Soviet Union to destroy NATO forces in three days
without the use of nuclear weapons. (Мясников, Виктор. Путин нацеливает армию на интернет. Независимое военное обозрение, № 22 (2010).)1643 Александров, Михаил. Сетецентрические войны будущего и подготовка государства к их отражению. Взгляды русского военного теоретика Е. Э. Месснера. Обозреватель–observer, Ноябрь 2016 г. №
11 (322) 109-118; Месснер 2005.
1644 Костарев, С. В., Ефремов, О. Ю., Зверев, С. Э. Концепция сетецентрических войн в свете доктрины
“Единый взгляд 2020”. Военная мысль, № 1 (2014), 58-64.
1645 Микрюков, Василий. Нездоровый сетецентризм. Отечественная военная наука находится в плену узападных догматов. ВПК, № 8 (672) за 1 марта 2017 года.
1646 The Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation 2004.
1647 Указ Президента РФ 2015.
1648 Указ Президента РФ 2010; Доктрина 2014.
1649 Указ Президента РФ 2015.

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by the desire of individual states to use technological superiority to dominate the information space.”1650 However, the document made it explicitly clear that differences
in information-technological and psychological capabilities between states were strategic issue of balance of power.
To summarize. Information superiority is a central concept and idea for understanding the importance the Russian military and security scholars and elites have placedon information warfare. In the timeframe of 2000-2018 the interest in information
superiority was based on the need to reform the Russian Armed Forces, and the theory of NCW seemed to offer a successful and proven way to achieve it. The defence
and security elites bought into these ideas, which was apparent in the objectives of
the Serdiukov’s military reform. By the 2010s, Russian scholars were quite familiar
with the NCW and its Western self-criticism and, consequently, began themselves toapproach the NCW more critically. This led to the further study and development of
the idea of information superiority on the one hand and to the study of the vulnerabilities of the NCW solutions on the other hand. The result was, firstly, an emphasisof knowledge, understanding, and efficiency of command and control, instead of thequantity and speed of information. Secondly, the Russians began to develop counterNCW theories around 2008-2012. From 2013-2014 onwards the idea of information
superiority and the principles of NCW appeared in the context of strategic planning,mobilization and state security. Thus, they had ascended from the tactical level to thestrategic and subsequently acquired an increasingly Russian outlook with the emphasisof centralized control and vertical and horizontal synchronization. The ideas of information superiority and the EIP were therefore more and more intertwined.
The chronology presented above is a simplification of a complex process. It has included heated debates about the nature of the NCW and the relevancy of information
superiority in winning a war. The NCW was variously described in terms of means
and methods, or as tactics, a doctrine or theory of command and control, philosophy
or a paradigm. The concept of information superiority is important for Russians because it seems to explain why the West has been militarily so successful, and what theWest did to the Soviet Union and was doing to Russia and other countries, and sooffered an explanation and solutions for future warfare and the broader interstate
struggle. Later, this approach developed into criticism towards adopting Western concepts in Russian military thought. Information superiority as a real phenomenon was
not disputed but the NCW’s applicability to the Russian way of conducting war was.
Moreover, ‘netwars’ and Western concepts altogether were seen by some as an insidious political technology to subvert the Russian society and weaken its military.
There is also a geopolitical version of information superiority and the NCW. Thisversion points to an important Russian idea: Information superiority is not only about
the quality or speed of the flow of information, it is more about the result of the ability
to manipulate the adversary already during the time of peace. Superiority is as muchabout processes as it is about space—superiority over the minds of the people overcertain territory or at least the ability to influence an important segment of that population. Thus, information superiority is not only about information. It has technological and psychological aspects and political, social, economic and military effects.
1650 Указ Президента РФ 2016b.

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It can appear on any level of political and military action from international politics
down to tactical warfighting level. Moreover, this superiority is based on scientific,
technological, economic and spiritual potential, and the ability to control information.
Information superiority is related to the Soviet and Russian theory of command andcontrol. This is apparent in the way the Russian theory of the cycle of command wascompared with Boyd’s theories. Information superiority is also related to other strategic cultural ideas. It is connected to the interstate struggle as it is seen as somethingthat the main competitor or adversary is striving to achieve already in peacetime. From
this follows that information superiority, its denial or conquest, becomes part of strategic deterrence. Moreover, the strategy of denial is connected to the control of the
EIP and the national segment. Ultimately, as Russian scholars admit that Russia is
weaker than the United States in information technology, an asymmetric response isrequired. The last two ideas of information-technological warfare and automatedcommand and control systems give substance to the means and ways information
superiority can be achieved.
5.8 Information-technological warfare
The examination of previous studies and the analysis of other strategic cultural ideas
above and in Chapter 4 has shown that the Russian understanding of information
warfare has two aspects: technological and psychological. It was also established thatthe means and objectives of information warfare change depending on the state ofinterstate relations and the level of analysis from military tactical to geostrategic. Herethe idea of information-technological warfare in all its variants is analysed more exhaustively.
Russian ideas on information-technological warfare were well developed by the endof the millennium. An article in ‘Vobrosy Bezopasnosti’ (Issues of security) in 2000
claimed that the creation of a unified global information space had generated concernsthat ‘information-cybernetic technologies’ would be used to attain foreign policy andmilitary objectives, and that they opened up the prospect of a new arms race.1651 The
article claims that information weapons were first used in the Gulf War and it provides
a list of information-technological weapons such as computer viruses, logic bombs,
means of suppressing telecommunications networks and the falsification of information, and supply-chain attacks. Information weapons were “designed to achieve
information superiority, as well as to damage information, information resources, processes and systems; to improve traditional weapons and to create new types of weapons and military equipment deployed for direct military impact against the enemy; toincapacitate civilian objects and life support systems; to disorganize public administration; to organize economic chaos and sabotage; to damage national financial systems
based on information and computer networks; and to influence the population psychologically in order to socially destabilize society.” According to the article, the properties of information weapons were, among others, universality, radicalism of effects,
and accessibility. These are economical, their use is easily disguised, and the identityof the user is hidden. They are not affected by geographical distances or state borders,
1651 Вопросы Безопасности. Информационное оружие: постановка проблемы и пути решения. Во-просы Безопасности, № 3 (2000).

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and they can be used in secret without a declaration of war and even without thetarget knowing it is under attack. They are also difficult to counter. Information weapons, the article claims, change the character of military conflicts, may destabilize thestrategic stability, and empower criminals and terrorists (non-state actors).1652 The article could very well have been written by the leading Western cyber warfare theoristsof the time.
Professor Vitalii Tsygichko voiced similar alarmism when he argued in 2004 in anarticle named “Weapons akin to nuclear”1653 that the interaction of informatization,
globalization, and geopolitical developments were creating new global threats.
Tsygichko claimed the American experts believed that information-technologicalweapons would provide an advantage over those countries that do not have them.
Moreover, the weapons would enable the termination of a confrontation even before
active kinetic hostilities. Accordingly, Tsygichko claimed that information weapons
could therefore be used as weapons of mass destruction, for pressuring, and for deterrence like nuclear weapons.1654 These arguments were also were akin to the contemporary Western views.
By 2008 the Military Academy of the General Staff had collected and produced atleast one public dictionary of information (cyber) terms. In it information-technological effects/actions/influence (vozdeistvie) was defined as “a complex of computer
programs (software) and radio-electronic means, aimed at manipulating the functioning of information-technological objects and also at suspending (hindering) their activity or putting them out of order for a defined period of time.”1655 Objects included
information-telecommunications systems and communications networks, industrial
systems, and other services. Information-technological weapons could be used against
equipment (tekhnika) and were divided to strategic (state resources – strategic operation), operational (operation at the TVD level) and tactical (combat action level)
weapons.1656 However, the definitions of the General Staff were not publicly used by
the Russian Ministry of Defence.1657
A less ‘kinetic’ view was offered by retired Colonel Professor V. I. Lutovinov fromthe Russian Presidential Academy of Public Administration, later RANEPA, who argued in 2009 that information-technological means belonged to the strategy of indirect actions.1658 In his view the strategy would be applied in the opening of hostilities,
in covert operations, and in the securing of defence secrets. These functions were theresponsibility of the SVR, FSB and GRU. Lutovinov defined the objectives and tasksof IW to include collecting information about the adversary, disrupting enemy plans
and command and control systems, planting disinformation, protecting information
resources, and neutralizing the information resources of the adversary on strategic,
1652 Ibid.

1653 Цыгичко, Виталий. Оружие сродни ядерному. ВПК, № 42 (59) за 3 ноября 2004 года.
1654 Ibid.

1655 Тучков 2008, 50.
1656 Ibid.

1657 Министерство обороны Российской Федерации. Концептуальные взгляды на деятельность Воору-женных Сил Российской Федерации в информационном пространстве, 2011 [Online]. Available:
http://ens.mil.ru/files/morf/Strategy.doc [Accessed: 30th January 2019].
1658 Лутовинов, В. И. Развитие и использование невоенных мер для укрепления военной безопасности
Российской Федерации. Военная мысль, № 5 (2009), 2-12.

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operational and tactical level to gain information superiority.1659 Basically Lutovinov
argued that information-technological operations belonged to the secret services andthe special forces.
The interest in the foreign use of cyber concepts became acute when the United Statescreated its Cyber Command in 2010 and subsequently adopted the Department of
Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace in 2011.1660 Basically, the Russians were
trying to understand the concepts used by their great power competitor. Ultimately,
their understanding of the subject was not so different—they just avoided the word
cyber and wrote about information-technological warfare and information space.1661
This was apparent in a round-table discussion of cyber security experts organized in2013 by Nezavisimaia Gazeta.1662 M. V. Iakushev from the PIR Centre argued thatcyberspace was related to the electronic environment and digital signals, and conflictin cyberspace consisted of state or state-proxy actions in cyberspace which would leadto physical destruction or death. An independent military expert D. N. Kandaurov
defined cybernetic warfare (protivoborstvo) in terms of computer (apparatno-programmyi)1663 attacks on computerized military and civilian systems of ASUs, aimed at
disrupting their normal functioning. M. M. Khazmatov argued that cyber means andoperations could decide the result of a conflict if the target did not have defensive
capabilities. However, no war could be conducted through cyberspace alone. I. M.
Popov argued against understanding cyberspace as a new ‘theatre of military action’as it should be understood only in terms of computers connected by networks used
to accumulate, store and circulate data. Popov argued that actions in networks werecharacterized by their high tempo, possibly non-destructive effects and non-attribution, unrestricted scope of effects, unpredictability of enemy actions, and the threatof catastrophic effects.1664 Cyber terms were clearly familiar to these experts and theirrejection of the concept of a cyber war reflected the thinking of the Western theorists.
Furthermore, at least some Russian scholars by the 2010s were ready to accept that
information-technological actions had primarily enabling and supporting effects
through information superiority, instead of direct strategic effects.1665 This did not,however, mean that Russia and the West would or could officially agree upon information and cyber security terms.1666
1659 Ibid., 4-8.

The U.S. Cyber Command. U.S. Cyber Command History [Online] Available: https://www.cybercom.mil/About/History/ [Accessed: 3rd May 2019]; The United States Department of Defence. Departmentof Defense Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace, July 2011 [Online]. Available:
https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Projects/ISPAB/documents/DOD-Strategy-for-Operating-in-Cyberspace.pdf [Accessed: 13th March 2019].
1661 Паршин, С. А., Гобачев, Ю. Е., Кожанов, Ю. А. Кибервойны – реалная угроза национальной безопасности? М.: КРАСАНД, 2011; Чекинов & Богданов 2012a; Макаренко & Чукляев 2014.
1662 Независимое военное обозрение. Война в киберпространстве: уроки и выводы для России. Круглый
стол в редакции “Независимого военного обозрения”. Независимое военное обозрение. № 46 (787)2013 [Online]. Available: http://nvo.ng.ru/concepts/2013-12-13/1_war.html [Accessed: 4th April 2019].
1663 The Russian term ‘apparatno-programmyi’ is usually translated into English as ‘software and hardware’.
This is not in fact accurate as the term refers to a elements such as BIOS chips, processors, industrial control
systems, and telecommunication equipment. It is more akin to programmed hardware than software as such.
1664 Ibid.
1665 Горбачев, Юрий. Кибервойна уже идет. Независимое военное обозрение, № 13 (754) 2013.
1666 The confusion over terminology is evident in the efforts to find common ground between the Americanand Russian use of different terms and concepts (Godwin et al. 2014). Western efforts to define cyber warfare
issues, i.e. the Tallinn Manual, which was published in 2013, was mostly received by the Russians negatively asa ‘NATO document’. (Кранс, Максим. Кибероружие в арсенале НАТО. Независимое военное обозрение,№ 21 (762) 2013.).
1660

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The above examined debates were taking place in a time when the Russian government had begun to discuss of the necessity of creating cyber troops. The idea was first
voiced by vice-premier Dmitrii Rogozin in the March of 2012. In 2013 Interfax reported that a Russian Cyber Command would be created in 2014 as a new branch of
the Armed Forces “for operations in the virtual space both in peacetime and in wartime.”1667 The issue of cyber or information troops was debated amongst militaryscholars. Major General and Professor Vladimir Zolotarev argued that a new kind oftroops were needed because new ‘information-network war’ aimed at transferring defender’s strategically important resources to the geopolitical aggressor. This type ofwar would be fought in geographic, economic, ideological and network dimensions
and the main task was to hinder access to reliable and truthful information.1668 Zolotarev’s views were supported, among others, by Konstantin Sivkov who argued that
because IW was a complex issue it required a systematic approach—not such a fragmented approach as the U.S. was taking by creating a separate military command. On
the contrary, Russia required a unified, centralized organ of information warfare command, i.e. the General Staff of Information Security of Russian Federation under the
Information Security Ministry.1669
In 2014 Major General Igor’ Sheremet summarized the developments of the ‘global
information infrastructure’ over the last twenty years.1670 He claimed that the evolved
infosphere now exposed ‘the technosphere’ and ‘the anthroposphere’ to new threats
as it connected everything to everything. Sheremet divided information security into
technological and psychological areas, the former of which he also called cybernetic.
Cyber security was defined as “the safety of the material and information objects ofthe technosphere, that is, their protection from threats realized through the use of
special information technologies for destruction or for the illegal use of these objects.” In this context, states were trying to affect each other’s information infrastructure while protecting their own. Sheremet conceded that Russia was lagging otherworld powers in technology, but it could catch up. Russia should protect its own
technosphere’s resilience (ustoichivost’) and security by continuously monitoring thetechnosphere and identifying and neutralizing threats. It should also ensure the manageability (upravliaemost’) of the state institutions and the population in the case of
systemic destruction of critical infrastructure. Sheremet argued that these tasks, in theform of a ‘mega-project’ ensuring the resilience and security of the Russian technosphere should be given to the Ministry of Defence.1671 Later in 2019 Sheremet wrote
about the ‘cyber threats’ threatening Russian ‘socio-technological systems’ which
could cause a catastrophic fall of society, financial collapse, and a change in militarytechnological parity—just like the use of nuclear weapons. Russia would only be saved
1667 Независимое военное обозрение. В бой идет новый род войск. Кибероперации приравняли к нане-сению ядерного удара. Независимое военное обозрение, № 7 (938) 2017.
1668 Золотарев, Владимир. Психологическая война уже в киберпространстве. Войска информационных
операций способны обойтись без применения военной силы. ВПК, № 16 (484) за 24 апреля 2013 года;Золотарев 2013a.
1669 Сивков, Константин. Хуже иприта Информационные средства ведения борьбы уже можно приравнивать к оружию массового поражения. ВПК, № 31 (499) за 14 августа 2013 года; Сивков, Константин.
Четвертое измерение войны. Каким должен быть Генеральный штаб информационной безопасности.
ВПК, № 39 (752) за 9 октября 2018 года.
1670 Шеремет 2014a.
1671 Шеремет, Игорь. Киберугрозы России растут — часть II. Ситуация в этой области изменяется влучшую сторону гораздо медленнее, чем того требует развитие геополитической обстановки. № 6 (524)за 19 февраля 2014 года.

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through fully domestic hardware and software production and by creating a new ‘classof cybertariatom’, that is, a digital age working class.1672
As has been seen in previous chapters, many Russian scholars took a more systematic
approach to the information threats than just creating new troops and weapons toanswer new threats. This became more evident during and after 2014. One of themore ambitious and theoretical models of society’s information security system waspresented by V. V. Tsyganov and Iu. G. Bochkareva in 2014. They defined it as “ahierarchical adaptive self-organizing system with two types of functions: the adaptive
management of public safety objects and the development of public safety subjects
through self-organization.”1673 This system would have multiple levels and subsystems. It would have adaptive subsystems that would enable it to react to changes inthe environment and functional subsystems that would enable it to react to different
threats.1674 In effect Tsyganov’s and Bochkarev’s model would have transformed theRussian state into a cybernetic system for controlling public security.
V. K. Novikov, a professor of the RVSN Academy offered a more philosophical approach.1675 He argued that information permeated everything and thus information
warfare (bor’ba) was a confrontation in peace and war time between two or moresides (systems) that try to attack the opponent’s information resources while protecting their own information resources. Novikov divided the weapons used in this warfare into information technological, psychological, and reconnaissance. The firstgroup included means of radio suppression (EW), functional destruction (EW, EMP,
laser, ‘special program-technical means’), changing the conditions of radio wave propagation, and electromagnetic degradation.1676 Another systematic approach was offered by S. I. Makarenko, an associate professor at the Department of Networks andCommunication Systems of Space Systems and a professor of the Academy of Military Sciences, who in 2017 described his vision of information conflict as a dynamic
model of a bidirectional information conflict. It consisted of two (or more) multilevel
organization-technical systems which tried to affect each other through informationtelecommunications space with hardware-software and radioelectric means. The systems had subsystems of surveillance and observation, control, action (vozdeistvie),
and information, and they used surveillance, capturing of resources, and blocking ofresources to affect each other in constant struggle.1677
The cyber or information-technological issues discussed among the military scholars
were not limited to direct warfare. Supply-chain vulnerabilities were highlighted by
the researchers from the 18th TsNII of the MoD1678 and Internet anonymizers and1672 Шеремет 2019.
1673 Цыганов & Бочкарева 2014, 65.
1674 Ibid.

1675 Новиков, В. К. Информационное оружие – оружие современных и будущих войн. М.: Горячая ли-

ния-Телеком, 2013.
1676 Ibid.
1677 Макаренко, С. И. Динамическая модель двунаправленного информационного конфликта с учетом
возможностей сторон по наблюдению, захвату и блокировке ресурса. Системы управления, связи ибезопасности №1 (2017), 60-97.
1678 The 18th TsNII specialises in the research of protected and secret communications, satellite and long-range
communications and polymaterials. (Петелин, Герман, Баринов, Владимир. Разведка Минобороны требует от ученых неустойку в 30 млн рублей. Главное разведывательное управление отстаивает в суде своиправа. Известия, 15 марта 2013 [Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/news/546680 [Accessed: 5th April 2019];

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crypto currencies were seen by some as a part of the U.S. State department policy of
the Freedom of the Internet1679—which was aimed at keeping other states open andvulnerable to American influences. The new technologies had the power to change
the balance of power.1680 By 2012 the Russians were debating the protection of industrial control systems from cyber-attacks. For example, professor Iu. A. Matvinenkoof the AVN wrote an article on the subjects by using only Russian language sources
on critical infrastructure protection. He defined a ‘cyber strike’ as a weapon for information-psychological operations to destabilize the target state for geopolitical purposes. The strike had psychological components such as disinformation and PR campaigns and technological components to penetrate and affect automated industrial
control systems.1681 Despite the growing shared understanding of the need to protect
the CII, the lack of official terminology and unresponsive Russian government policies were criticized in 2013-2016.1682
The basic concepts of Russian IW thought created in the 1990s survived into the2010s. A. A. Bartosh repeated the views of Tsymbal in 2016 as he categorized information war into broad and narrow variants where the latter was military confrontationin the information sphere targeting information infrastructure.1683 Moreover, Professor I. A. Kryglova, a senior research fellow from RAS, argued in 2016 that a newform of geopolitical information warfare had appeared and it was directed against the
information security of the state. It consisted of information-technological actions
against information-technological systems and, conversely, their protection, and information-psychological actions against the psyche of elites and the population andtheir protection. Information-technological warfare is part of military operations andused against communication networks and centres to disorganize the command andcontrol of the enemy and suppress its will to fight.1684
Kryglova’s article highlights the Russian way of defining information warfare through‘who is doing what to whom’. Thus, the concept of information-technological warfareБалыбин, С.В., Белов, Е.Н., Федорец, В.Н. Информационная безопасность военной техники, использующей интегральные схемы иностранного производства. Военная мысль № 12 (2011), 11-21).
1679 The President of the United States. International strategy for cyberspace: Prosperity, Security, and Openness in a Networked World, 2011 [Online]. Available: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/ rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf [Accessed: 14th March 2019].
1680 Роговский, Евгений. Новое кибероружие. Станут ли электронные деньги средством поражения. Независимое военное обозрение, № 8 (796) 2014.
1681 Матвиенко Ю.А. Комплексная информационная атака типа «киберстачка» на промышленную автоматизированную систему: анатомия явления и подходы к защите. Информационные войны №1 (21)2012, 85-94.
1682 Борисов, Сергей. СОИБ. Безопасность критической информационной инфраструктуры (КСИИ),13 Августа, 2013 [Online]. Available: https://www.securitylab.ru/blog/personal/sborisov/32175.php[Accessed: 14th March 2019]; Калашников, А. О. Управление информационными рисками объектов критической информационной инфраструктуры Российской Федерации. Вопросы кибербезопасности
№3(4) 2014, 35-41; Муравник В.Б., Захаренков А.И., Добродеев А.Ю. Некоторые предложения по подходу и порядку реализации политики и стратегии импортозамещения в интересах национальной безопасности и укрепления обороноспособности Российской Федерации. Вопросы кибербезопасности
№1(14) 2016, 2-8; Массель Л.В., Воропай Н.И., Сендеров С.М., Массель А.Г. Киберопасность как однаиз стратегических угроз энергетической безопасности России. Вопросы кибербезопасности №4(17)2016, 2-10.
1683 Бартош, А.А. Адаптивные стратегии информационной войны (Часть 1). Вестник академии военных
наук, № 2 (55) 2016, 85-93; Thomas 2001.
1684 Крылова, И.А. Информационные войны и безопасность России. Информационные войны №3 (39)2016, 63-70.

241is used when discussing Russian information or cybernetic theory, and cyber warfare
when discussing American strategies, concepts, and actions.1685 Thus in contrast to
Kryglova, Vorob’ev and Kiselev argued that the West could use ‘cyberspace’ for electronic invasion into Russia by using destructive attacks against networks, systems, andinformation. They claimed that warfare in ‘cyberspace’ was a new level of militaryconfrontation, now in the electronic sphere, and the United States had for same timestrengthened its superiority in ‘cyberspace.’1686
Others used the cyber-prefix more objectively. Retired General-Lieutenant B. I. Kuznetsov, Colonel Iu. E. Donskov and Lieutenant-Colonel O. G. Nikitin from the Institute of EW of the Gagarin Air Force Academy claimed, “Cyberspace is an integral
part and the material basis of another, more general, information space.”1687 Cyberspace consisted of infrastructure and information circulating in it and as an element
or dimension of the battlespace (boevoe prostranstvo) it defined new forms andmethods of battle and thus would influence the processes of battle, for example, byaffecting command and control.1688 In 2011 Colonel P.I. Antonovich, an associate
professor of the Faculty of EW of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed
Forces of the Russian Federation, argued that cyberspace was a virtual space because
it described systems which were not altogether material.1689 Cyber-attack was an action
against cybernetic systems, information resources or information infrastructure and aweapon gained its effectiveness through the vulnerability of the target.1690 Although
Antonovich offered a definition of cyber war he argued that it was a theoretical construct and in real life it would be better to talk about military actions is cyberspace or
cybernetic warfare (protivoborstvo).1691
The idea that cyber warfare involved ASUs was expressed by Professor B. I. Vypasniak from the Academy of Military Sciences, and O. V. Tikhanychev and V. R.
Gakhov from the 27th TsNII of the MoD.1692 They listed kinetic (ognevoi), radio electronic, and cyber threats as the means of damaging ASUs. These means could materialize through backdoors, cyber sabotage (intentional actions by personnel), and remote attacks using software, EW, kinetic effects, exotic weapons, and hacking
through networks.1693 V. V. Kabernik from MGIMO also used ASUs in defining different types of cyber weapons. He distinguished four types based on their complexity
and autonomy.1694 Clearly by 2013 Russian scholars were becoming more systematicin their analysis of information-technological means of warfare but also closer to the1685 Cf. Тихонов, М.Н., Богословский, М.М. Кибернетические войны и информационная безопасность.

Атомная стратегия, № 104 (2015), 15-20; Гриняев 2000; Паршин, Гобачев & Кожанов 2011; Иванов, Владимир. Армия США готовится к кибервойне. Независимое военное обозрение, № 6 (984) 2018; Дылевский, И. Н., Комов, С. А., Коротков, С. В., Петрунин, А. Н. Операции в киберпространстве: вопросы
теории, политики и права. Военная мысль, № 8 (2011), 72-78.
1686 Воробьев, И. Н., Киселев, В. А. Киберпространство как сфера непрямого вооруженного противоборства. Военная мысль, № 12 (2014), 21-28, 25.
1687 Кузнецов, В. И., Донсков, Ю. Е., Никитин, О. Г. К вопросу о роли и месте киберпространства всовременных боевых действиях. Военная мысль № 3 (2014), 13-17, 15.
1688 Ibid.
1689 Антонович, П. И. О сущности и содержании кибервойны. Военная мысль, № 7 (2011), 39-46.
1690 Ibid., 42.
1691 Ibid., 45.
1692 Выпасняк, В.И., Тиханычев, О.В., Гахов, В.Р. Кибер-угрозы автоматизированным системам управления. Вестник Академии военных наук, № 1 (42) 2013, 103-109.
1693 Ibid., 108.
1694 Каберник, В.В. Проблемы классификации кибероружия. MGIMO 2 (29) 2013, 72-78.

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way the English-speaking cyber security specialists defined and categorized cyberthreats.
The way the idea of information-technological warfare is formulated is fundamental
to the discussion about who should be responsible for it. As was noted in Chapter 4
EW troops were put forth as a one possible candidate at least in wartime.1695 EW wasconnected to IW in Russian military thinking early on through the potential to affectcommand and control communications as both the weapon and target systems became more complicated.1696 EW was ‘fitted’ to the new theories of IW. For example,
Makarenko defined modern NCW to consist of electronic warfare and information
confrontation where the latter was further divided into psychological and technological aspects.1697 For others, EW was about reconnaissance, warfare, and maskirovka(deception). Therefore, the general argument was that the concept of information
could be attached to the target list of EW troops and thus they could be transformed
to cyber troops able to acquire information superiority.1698
The concept of resilience of (critical) information infrastructure has appeared in manyof the sources analysed in this and the previous chapter and is central to understanding the defensive side of information-technological warfare.1699 In Chapter 4 it wasargued that the Russian term ‘ustoichivost’’ could be translated to mean resilience orresiliency—both are derived from the adjective ‘resilient’.1700 It was also noted that‘ustoichivost’’ was one of the four requirements for command and control, others
being continuity, efficiency, and secrecy. Furthermore, the Information Security Doctrine of 2016 states that one of national interests of Russia is “the ensuring of resilient(ustoichivost’) and uninterrupted (bespereboinoi) functioning of the information infrastructure, primarily the critical information infrastructure of the Russian Federation[…] and the unified telecommunications network of the Russian Federation, in peacetime, during the immediate threat of aggression and in wartime.”1701
1695 The theoretical ruminations about EW, IW and cyber must be understood in the context of the EW troops

trying to strengthen their position in the Armed Forces. Cf. Никитин, О. Г. Направления повышения эффективности организации боевого применения войск радиоэлектронной борьбы в операциях объединений Сухопутных войск. Военная мысль, № 5 (2017), 23-29; Андреев, В. В., Никитин, О. Г., Марасанов,А. В. Особенности методического обеспечения обоснования состава органов управления разнородными силами и средствами радиоэлектронной борьбы объединений Сухопутных войск. Военная мысль,№ 6 (2017), 51-54.
1696 Горбачев 2004.
1697 Макаренко, С.И. Информационное противоборство и радиоэлектронная борьба в сетецентрических войнах начала XXI века. СПб.: Науко-емкие технологии, 2017.
1698 At least according to the “year books” of EW troops they had not been tasked with cyber or informationtechnical tasks by 2018 (Ласточкинб Ю. И. (ред.) Радиоэлектронная борьба в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации – 2018. Москва: Информационный мост, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://reb.informost.ru/2018/sod.php [Accessed: 14th March 2019]). On the arguments cf. Ильин, А. П. Шакин, Д. Н. Квопросу о месте радиоэлектронной разведки, радиоэлектронной борьбы и радиоэлектронной маскировки в информационной борьбе. Военная мысль, № 1 (2008), 25-30; Кузнецов, В. И., Донсков, Ю. Е.,Коробейников, А. С. О соотношении категорий “радиоэлектронная борьба” и “информационная
борьба”. Военная мысль, № 3 (2013), 14-20; Балыбин, В. А., Донсков, Ю. Е., Бойко, А. А. О терминологии в области радиоэлектронной борьбы в условиях современного информационного противоборства. Военная мысль, № 9 (2013), 28-32; Горбачев 2013.
1699 Федорова & Цигичко 2001, 11-13; Дербин 2007 & 2009; Расторгуев 2014, 73-77; Стрельцов 2015, 163.
1700 Resilience. Oxford Dictionary. [Online]. Available: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/resilience[Accessed: 15th March 2019]; Resilience. The Cambridge Dictionary [Online]. Available: https://dictionary.
cambridge.org/dictionary/english/resilience?q=resiliency [Accessed: 15th March 2019]. In this thesis I will use
the form resilience.
1701 Указ Президента РФ 2016b.

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Makhutov et al. have defined ‘ustoichivost’’ in the context of critical infrastructure as
follows: “A system that is resilient (ustoichivyi) to extreme influences must meet thefollowing requirements: survivability, (zhivuchest’), i.e. the ability to function and toa certain extent perform the prescribed functions in the presence of local damage
arising from extreme influences; redundancy, (izbytochnost’), i.e. the availability of
redundant links, alternative load transfer routes and redundant elements that may be
involved in an emergency situation; resource availability, (resursoobespechennost’),i.e. availability of resources in the system that can be used in case of extreme exposure;the ability to quickly recover, (sposobnost’ k bystromu vosstanovleniiu) determinedby the interval of time during which damage can be repaired, that is, to restore thesystem and reach the nominal level.”1702 A more formal definition can be found in the
Russian national standard on risk management which states that the resilience of anorganization is its ability to adapt in a complex and changeable environment.1703
In 2016 representatives from the PIR Centre and the Information Security Instituteof MGU used a trinity of Russian terms—stabilnost’, bezopasnost’ and otkazoustoichivost’—to refer to the Western concepts of stability, security and resilience when writing about Internet governance.1704 The definition of resilience is takenfrom ICANN and is “the capacity of a system to effectively withstand/tolerate/survive malicious attacks and other disruptive events without disruption or cessation ofservice.”1705 The writers do not explain where they derive the term ‘otkazoustoichivost’’ from although it has similarities to concepts of dependability(nadezhnost’), reliability (bezotkaznost’) and durability (zhivuchest’).1706 The Russian
national standard ГОСТ Р 56111-2014 defines ‘otkazoustoichivost’’ in English as“failure-related durability1707 and ГОСТ 28806-90 defines it as “fault tolerance”.1708
Accordingly, it can be argued that neither ‘ustoichivost’’ or ‘otkazoustoichivost’’ truly
capture the Western definitions but they are similar enough to denote the same ideaof preparing for, withstanding and recovering from an outside negative influence ona system. However, Igor Sheremet has used the term ‘ustoichivost’’ to denote theEnglish terms of sustainability and resilience and argued that in the context of ‘sociotechnical systems’ and digital economy resilience means the ability of a system tofulfil its function under a successful cyber-attack. Sheremets’ definition allows for acertain degradation of services until the attack has been neutralized.1709
Both Military Doctrines of 2010 and 2014 recognized the importance of the information infrastructure and information technology in the military sphere but do not
explicitly discuss information-technological warfare. Nevertheless, a comparison of1702 Махутов, Н.А., Резников, Д.О., Петров, В.П. Особенности обеспечения безопасности критических

Инфраструктур. Безопасность в техносфере, №1 (январь–февраль), 2014, 3-14.
1703 ГОСТ Р 51897-2011. Менеджмент риска. Термины и определения. Дата введения 2012-12-01 [Online].
Available: http://docs.cntd.ru/document/gost-r-51897-2011 [Accessed: 15th March 2019].
1704 Медриш, М.А. (ред.) Стабильность, безопасность, отказоустойчивость глобальной инфраструктуры
Интернета: технические и правовые вопросы. Москва - Лос Анджелес: ПИР-Цеитр, 2016, 17-18.
1705 Ibid., 18.
1706 Ibid., 19.
1707 ГОСТ Р 56111-2014. Интегрированная логистическая поддержка экспортируемой продукции военного назначения [Online]. Available: http://cals.ru/sites/default/files/downloads/56111_.pdf [Accessed:
15th March 2019].
1708 ГОСТ 28806-90. Качество программных средств. Термины и определения [Online]. Available:
https://meganorm.ru/Data2/1/4294825/4294825913.pdf [Accessed: 15th March 2019].
1709 Шеремет 2019, 9-10.

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these two documents makes it clear that the more recent one emphasizes the military
aspects of information technology and expresses the need for cooperation with allies.
Both documents associate information technology with deterrence and both express
concern for the vulnerability of systems of management and command and control.
Russia is thus presented as a non-aggressive defender. It is noteworthy that these
documents do not make the explicit difference between technological and psychological information warfare—which the 2004 Ivanov Doctrine did.1710 The 2009 NSS isquite explicit in stating that threats to the national information-telecommunications
infrastructure and critical objects of infrastructure are threats to national interests.1711
The 2015 NSS makes the same points with more emphasis. It also connects information technology to national security and interests which is understandable in thecontext of Western sanctions. The 2015 Strategy is perhaps more ‘psychologically’than ‘technologically’ oriented. The 2013 Foreign Policy Concept states as one of its
priorities the strengthening of international security to counter threats in the information space arising from the hostile use of ICT.1712 The 2016 Foreign Policy Concept
follows the same lines although it emphasises the “equitable internationalization of
the control of the information-telecommunications network Internet.”1713 Perhaps
more important in the international context than the Foreign Policy Concepts are the
Basics of Government Policy in the Area of International Information Security
adopted in 2013 which clearly states that information technology is an issue of strategic parity and, therefore, the hostile use of information and communication technology is a threat to Russia.1714
The Information Security Doctrine of 2016 states that one of the basic negative factors influencing information security, which is a part of national security, is the use of
information-technological actions (vozdeistvie) for military purposes. Information
technology can be used to inflict damage to the sovereignty, territorial integrity, andsocial and political stability of Russia. Other states can use their technological superiority to dominate the information space. One of the strategic goals of the Russianfederation is the protection of the CII which can be affected by information-technological means. For the defence of the country a system of information security will becreated, and it will be built on the principles of vertical and centralized control. Although the Doctrine does not explicitly define information-technological and psychological aspects of IW, it is clearly built upon them and uses both terms.1715
To summarize. The idea of information-technological warfare is very much related tothe idea of interstate (information) confrontation. Therefore, the discussion here
should be approached in the context of the material analysed in Chapter 5.2. It is quitepossible that the categorization of information warfare or struggle into technologicaland psychological aspects comes from the ex-KGB and FSB people who served during the Cold War in various cryptography and signal intelligence positions and taught
1710 Указ Президента РФ 2010; Доктрина 2014; The Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation 2004.
1711 Указ Президента Российской Федерации 2009.
1712 Концепция 2013.

1713 Указ Президента РФ 2016a.

1714 Основы. Основы государственной политики Российской Федерации в области международной ин-формационной безопасности на период до 2020 года (Утверждены Президентом Российской Федерации В.Путиным 24 июля 2013 г., № Пр-1753) [Online]. Available: http://www.scrf.gov.ru/security/ information/document114/ [Accessed: 30th March 2019]..
1715 Указ Президента РФ 2016b.

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at security service and military academies. At least the categorization appears early-on
in their texts and ends up in official documents which have been partly drafted bythem. A direct connection is, of course, difficult to prove.
Information-technological activities and warfare are partly defined by their psychological counterpart which includes mass media, social media, and the Internet as ameans. Psychological warfare often uses technological means, but an inverse relationship is not so common. Arguably, the psychological aspect is almost always present
in the texts of the Russian IW scholars and it is more directly connected to the politicalgoals of modern and future confrontation or war than its technological counterpart—thus the technological aspect is slightly secondary to the psychological. Both arerooted in the rise of the information society but also to the Soviet past—the psychological aspect is related to the theories of reflexive control, deception, and maskirovka,
and the technological aspect to reconnaissance strike and fire complexes(RUK/ROK), command and control warfare, and EW. Computers and computer
networks were incorporated into the technological aspects and social media and theInternet to the psychological aspects when the information revolution really kickedoff in the 1990s.
The Russian debate on information-technological warfare draws heavily on Westernand particularly American concepts and theories. The early views were quite like the‘strategic cyber war’ ideas of, for example, the RAND Corporation and Gregory J.
Rattray.1716 Furthermore, the Russians later discarded the idea of cyber war like their
Western counterparts and concentrated on analysing different information-technological means, forms and effects, which might be used in warfare but also outside ofit. Ideas about defence migrated towards cybernetic systems theories whereas ideas
about offensive concentrated on categories of different attacks. By the end of 2010s
these included kinetic (precision), software, hacking, electromagnetic, EMP, laser andother exotic means of attack. Thus, the idea of information-technological warfare ismuch broader than its Western counterpart of cyber warfare. Moreover, the divide
between offensive and defensive measures is not as black-and-white as perhaps in theWestern thinking (up until late 2010s). Many Russian scholars see information warfare
as an interaction between systems during peace and wartime where offensive and defensive actions are difficult to separate. However, military sources have been quiteconsistent in arguing that information-technological warfare and means have an explicit role in the context of actual warfare. These means are directed against the will,
decision-making capabilities, infrastructure, and armed forces of the opponent toachieve different effects in different phases of confrontation depending on the objectives.
The problem, and perhaps a source of confusion, is that the discussion about information-technological threats and the responses to them has been affected by geopolitical theories and ideologies on the one hand and institutional battles for authority
and resources on the other. Cyber (technological) events have been interpreted
through the lens of great power competition and an anti-globalization ethos. Therefore, the proposed solutions to threats have combined the technological and psychological aspects with political, economic, military and cultural elements and the results
1716 Molander, Riddile & Wilson 1996; Rattray 2001.

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have been things like ‘information troops’ and ‘national information security systems.’
Even if this use of an all-encompassing concept of information is a version of doubletalk and deception on the part of the Russian authorities, it still leaves even Russianscholars and experts confused about the real state of the Russian information-technological capabilities. This confusion is exacerbated by the ‘politically correct’ use of
the term cyber and information depending on whose operations a particular scholar
is writing about. Whereas cyber is the work of ‘the adversary’, information confrontation is an interactive state-to-state relationship in which Russia, as a great power,takes part even if reluctantly. Thus, although many Russian scholars have concededthat the United States had acquired temporary dominion or superiority in cyberspace,
they did not recommend passive defence. The use of weapons should be varied andflexible. Defence should be built upon the resilience, continuity, efficiency and secrecy
which would guarantee the information-technological foundation for information superiority.
5.9 Automated command and control systems
The concept of an automated management or command and control system has retained its relevancy in the Putin era. The Military Encyclopaedia of 2001 offers a definition for the automation of command and control (avtomatizatsiia upravleniia
voiskami/silami) (ASUV(S)) and definitions for its sub-concepts automated systemof command and control of battle systems (weapons) (avtomatizirovannaia sistema
upravleniia boevymi sredstvami) (ASU BS), automated systems of command and control of communication (avtomatizirovannaia sistema upravleniia sviazi) (ASS or
ASUS), and automated systems of command and control of troops (avtomatizirovannaia sistema upravleniia voiskami/silami) (ASUV). Basically, automation means theuse of computers in the process of command and control, i.e. gathering information,
making decisions, giving orders, making plans, and controlling the implementation oftasks.1717
The ASUV is a complex man-machine system based on the collecting, processing andtransmitting information to enable the efficient control of its objects, that is, troops,
forces, weapon systems etc. through the use of calculating machines, i.e. computersand special technologies. This system is supposed to increase the efficiency (operativnost’), reliability (nadezhnost’), flexibility (gibkost’) and secrecy (skrytnost’) of theprocess of command and control. Efficiency is defined by speed, reliability by continuity of control, flexibility by the ability to quickly adapt to changes in the organization and secrecy by confidentiality of information.1718 The ASUS is part of ASUV andan aggregate of interconnected automated networks, nodes, lines of communicationand systems of command and control organized according to single or unified plan
to enable the command and control of troops.1719 The ASU BS is defined as a man1717 Горкин, А. П., Золотарев, В. А., Карев, В. М., Манилов, В.Л., Милованов, В. И.

Военный энциклопедический словарь в двух томах. Москва: Большая Российская энциклопедия, 2001, 27.
1718 Ibid., 29.
1719 This system operates based on the principles of constant readiness (postoiannaia gotovnost’), survivability(zhivuchest’), noise immunity (pomekhoustoichvost’), reliability (nadezhnost’), throughput (propusknaia
sposobnost’), reconnaissance-resistance (razvedzachshichshennost’), mimic resistance (imitostoikost’), mobility(mobil’nost’), timeliness (svoevremennost’), and secrecy (skrytyi) and reliable (dostovernyi) transmission of information. Ibid., 28.

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machine system which is based on computational technology to collected informationfor optimization of primarily fire control resolutions.1720
These definitions have basically been retained in the current 2007 version of the Military Encyclopaedia.1721 ASUV is defined as an organizational-technological complex
of technical means designed to increase the effectiveness of control by automating
the basic processes of command and control. It collects information about the situation (friendly and enemy), offers decision-making support, transmits orders and collects information of their implementation.1722 The definition of ASUS uses the term‘core or backbone network’ instead of single or unified plan and highlights the modern capabilities of the system. The principles of operation have changed to constantreadiness, stability, mobility, high bandwidth, secrecy and security of communication.
The ASS of AF RF is supposed to be based in the future on the Integrated AutomatedDigital Communication System (OATsSS).1723 The definition of ASU BS now includes
a mention of the capability to manage groups of weapon systems on the tactical, operational, operational-strategic and strategic level including long-range precision
weapons. Its principles are efficiency, reliability, noise resistance and survivability.1724
ASUs are much more than computers and networks. They are complex systems with
inherent rules and principles connected to their organizational and hierarchical environment. ASUs have a predetermined, goal-oriented and contextual functionality. 1725
The ASU concept also has civilian definitions. It is defined in the government standards as “a system consisting of personnel and a complex of automation equipment
for personnel’s activities, or implementing information technology for the performance of set functions.”1726 The type of the system depends on its purpose and thesystem consists of multiple subsystems designed for different functions. The Great
Encyclopaedic Dictionary defines an automated system of management as “a set ofmathematical methods, technical means (computers, communication devices, infor-

1720 Ibid., 28.

1721 Автоматизация управления войсками. Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007

[Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=2639@morfDictionary [March 17th 2019].
1722 Автоматизированная система управления войсками (силами). Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007 [Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/ details.htm?id=2643@morfDictionary [March 17th 2019].
1723 Автоматизированная система связи. Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007
[Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=2640@morfDictionary [March 17th 2019].
1724 Автоматизированная система управления боевыми средствами. Военного энциклопедического словаря. М.: Воениздат, 2007 [Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/ details.htm?id=2642@morfDictionary [March 17th 2019].
1725 Автоматизированная система управления войсками и оружием (АСУ В и О). Соловцов, Н. Е., Шлычков, В. Р. (Общ. ред.) Энциклопедия ракетных войск стратегического назначения. М-во обороны РФ.
М.: Белгород, 2009 [Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=12536@morfDictionary [March 17th 2019]; Буренка В.М (Общ. ред.) Толковый словарь в области военного управления, связи и информационных технологий: Военно-теоретический труд. М.: РАРАН, 2017,11-12.
1726 ГОСТ 34.003-90. Информационная технология. Комплекс стандартов на автоматизированные системы. Автоматизированные системы. Термины и определения. 1992-01-01 [Online]. Available:
http://docs.cntd.ru/document/gost-34-003-90 [March 17th 2019].

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mation display devices, etc.) and organizational complexes ensuring rational management of a complex object (process) in accordance with a given goal.”1727 The Law on
the Security of the Critical Information Infrastructure of the Russian Federation defines ASU as “a set of software and hardware designed to control technological and(or) production equipment (control devices) and the processes they produce, as wellas to manage such equipment and processes.”1728 Thus, in the realm of cyber security,
ASUs are a hypernym for all controlling devices, functions and processes with various
amounts of autonomy to achieve a given task. ASUs are still very much rooted in the
cybernetic and systems analytic thinking.
The discussion about ASUs continued in the military journals during the Putin era
and arguably was intensified when Serdiukov’s military reform and rearmament program began to gather steam. Between 2001-2002 Colonel I. A. Grachev, Vice-Director of 27th TsNII, authored or co-authored multiple articles under the title ‘Informatization of the Armed Forces’.1729 He argued that information technology (IT) should
enable the unity of control both vertically and horizontally. Intellectualization of information management should make command and control more efficient in the evermore complex situation—this included analysing, modelling and forecasting situations. Grachev conceptualized special mathematical and programmatic support (system) for troops which should support the whole cycle of command and control including forecasting if required on all levels of command. The system should havebeen tailored according to the organization using it and should be built on a functionally hierarchical modular basis. Grachev’s ideas show how Russian military scholars
were adapting to the information era but still hanging on to the Soviet era dreams ofintegrated systems that would be able to ‘scientifically’ forecast the future. Grachev’articles also reveal how there were many similarities between ASUs and American
automated battle-management systems despite dissimilar and foreign terms.1730
In 2006 Captain of 1st rank V. R Grin’ proposed a conceptual approach to efficiently
develop ASUVs. He argued that the ASUVs consisted of technological, programmatic(software), mathematical, information, linguistic, ergonomic support, and information
protection tools.1731 Grin basically defined ASUVs through subsystems, principles,and goals. His article points to official technical Russian military standards adopted in
2005-2006, which show that the Armed Forces were actively engaged in conceptualizing modern ASUs. Later, in 2012, Grin’ together with Iu. H. Golubev and A. V.
1727 Автоматизированная система управления. Прохоров, А. М.

(Гл. ред.) Большой энциклопедический
словарь, 2000 [Online]. Available: https://dic.academic.ru/contents.nsf/enc3p/ [March 17th 2019].
1728 Федеральный закон 2017.
1729 Грачев, И. А., Каргин, В. Н. Информатизация вооруженных сил. информационные технологии вавтоматизированных системах военного назначения. Военная мысль, № 6 (2001), 19-22; Грачев, И. А.
Информатизация вооруженных сил. к вопросу об информационно-методической согласованности моделей военных действий. Военная мысль, № 2 (2002), 53-57; Грачев, И. А. Принципы построения специального математического и программного обеспечения АСУ войсками (силами). Военная мысль, №
6 (2002), 64-68.
1730 For the American views at the turn of the millennium cf. Ullman, Harlan K. and Wade, James P. (eds.)
Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance. Washington: National Defence University, 1996; Khalilzad,
Zalmay and M., White, John P. (eds.) The Changing Role of Information in Warfare. Santa Monica: RAND,
1999; Alberts, David S., Garstka, John J., Hayes, Richard E. and Signori, David A. Understanding Information
Age Warfare. Washington, D.C.: CCRP, 2001. On the comparison of the Russian ESU TZ and American
FBCB2 cf. Богданов, Попов & Иванов 2014; Выпасняк &Тиханычев 2009.
1731 Гринь, В.Р. Информатизация вооруженных сил. Качество и безопасность автоматизированных систем управления войсками (силами): единство целого и частного. Военная мысль, № 12(2006), 26-31.

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Shrialov, all from the 27th TsNII, argued that the introduction of ‘information’ to thescientific lexicon had muddled previous theoretical and technological terms and concepts. The concept of ASU as a closed system with fixed requirements of automation
was not suited for a network-centric environment. Grin’ et al. wanted to replace theconcept of ASU, with the concept of information infrastructure which signified thereality that all command and control is now dependent on information technology
with horizontal networks and uniform rules.1732 A similar worry about the terms andconcepts was expressed in 2011 by a group of researchers from TsNII EISU1733 whoargued that from the 1960s to the 1980s Russia had already had ASUs and now thesame mistakes were being repeated, i.e. each service and branch was creating its own
incompatible systems.1734
The issue Grachev and others were writing about had already been noted by the Russian MoD as the 2000 Military Doctrine and the Actual Tasks of the Development of
the AF RF in 2003 required the development of automated systems of command andcontrol.1735 The deplorable state of the Russian Armed Forces vis-á-vis the UnitedStates was also noted by the commentators and this was considered to be a criticalvulnerability.1736 As the interest in ASUs and ASSs grew so did the number of articles
about their Soviet and Russian era history.1737 By 2010 then-Prime Minister Putin took
a personal interest in the development of ASUVs as their development had not met
expectations during the last ten years.1738 Consequently, the Director of the Military
Academy of the GS General-Lieutenant Anrdei Tret’iak was ready in 2012 to admitthat the transfer to new ASUs had no scientific basis and was difficult because thesystems of services and branches were not interoperable.1739 Around 2015 the problems of creating interoperable ASUs for the Armed Forces were still openly discussed
but not after that.1740

1732 Ibid., 51.
1733 The Central Research Institute for the Economics of Informatics and Management Systems (TsNII EISU)

was established in 1969 to research and support the management of the OPK. It was transferred in 2010 from
the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation to the Ministry of Defence. Currently its maintask is officially to develop the technical base for the systems of command and control of the Armed Forces(ASU TOSU VS). (ЦНИИ ЭИСУ [Online]. Available: http://cniieisu.ru/ [Accessed: 5th April 2019]).
1734 Толмачев, А.П., Баранюк, В.В., Тютюнников, Н.Н. Информационное обеспечение управления Вооруженными силами Российской Федерации. Вестник академии военных наук, № 3 (36) 2011, 102-105.
1735 Военная доктрина Российской Федерации 2000 г. (Шаклеина 2002); Красная звезда 2003.
1736 Красная звезда. Актуальные задачи развития вооруженных сил Российской Федерации. Красная
звезда, 11 октябя 2003; Растопшин, Михаил. Как управлять войсками и оружием? ВПК, № 22 (39) за 16июня 2004 года; Маслов, Алексей. Чтобы нейтрализовать военные угрозы. ВПК, № 7 (223) за 20 февраля
2008 года; Постников, Александр. Время “автоматизированных” войн. Независимое военное обозрение, № 1 (2010).
1737 Безель, Яков. Этапы развития АСУ авиацией и ПВО. Воздушно-космическая сфера, № 4 (2014), 2327; Моренков, Владислав, Тезиков, Андрей. Исторический аспект развития АСУ ПВО. Воздушно-космическая сфера, № 1 (2015), 59-64.
1738 Мясников 2010.
1739 Фаличев, Олег. Интервью начальника академии Генштаба А. Третьяка. ВПК, 10 декабря 2012
[Online]. Available: https://vpk-news.ru/articles/13536 [Accessed: 18th March 2019].
1740 Иванов, Валерий. Поршневое управление. Чтобы достичь прорыва в разработке межвидовой АСУ,Минобороны должно сделать ставку не на кустарей, а на государственниковвпк. ВПК, № 33 (599) 2-8
сентября 2015 года; Павлов, Вячеслав. «СКАЙНЕТ», которого нет. Создание автоматизированной системы управления Вооруженных сил РФ – залог победы в современной войне. ВПК, № 39 (605) 14 –20
октября 2015 года.

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Practical problems did not stop theoretical work. In 2013 V. V. Kolodiazhnyi, Iu. E.
Kuleshov and H. P. Shekhovtsov, provided a concept of a three-dimensional structure of command and control composed of hierarchy, services and functions. This
structure was combined with the cycles of preparing for military action, conducting
military action, and fighting, from which they derived three circuits of command andcontrol with different interconnected functions. Kolodiazhnyi et al. then argued that
their model gave theoretical grounds for creating at least two distinct ASUs, i.e. adecision-support system and battle command and control system.1741 On a more ‘strategic level’ in 2012 professor V. I. Orlianskii, retired Colonel P. A. Dul’nev and Colonel A. N. Kostenko VUNTs RF argued that the creation of the EIP of the AF RF
was necessary for the further development of command and control and for the adoption of ‘network-centric’ warfare. They argued that the EIP was not a space as such,
but an instrument of real-time command and control created through unified databases, networks, command posts, common C2 software and information—a Universal Automated Command and Control System (UASUV). This system could be used
to command anything from a battle up to a whole conflict. Despite utilizing elementsof NCW, it is clear Orlianskii et al. refuted the ideas of NCW and instead preferred aunified, hierarchical command.1742 Based on the above ideas, it would seem that theideas of the EIP and ASU began to coalesce into a comprehensive cybernetic system
at least in the minds of some military specialists.
In 2014 Iu. Ia. Bobkov and N. N. Tiutiunnikov, both former employees of the 27th
TsNII and currently employed by the private sector, wrote a book called Conceptualbasis of building an ASU for the Ground Forces of the AF RF.1743 Bobkov and Tiutiunnikov argued that Zhukov and Ogarkov had discovered the principles of NCW but
that the American model of NCW was not suitable for Russia: it was considered offensive in nature.1744 Russia had its own theory of command and control based on the
cybernetic theoretical work done in the 1970s which would provide a theoretical basefor Russian NCW.1745 Bobkov and Tiutiunnikov proposed, in addition to an asymmetric response (cf. above), that ASUVs should be developed as integrated systemsof systems operating in automated or automatic modes. This meant that the EIP of
the AF should, in principle, be an integrated ASUV with weapons, forces, and sensors.
This EIP/ASUV should be based on multiple reserve communication channels, command posts and strategic-operational countermeasures, i.e. missiles, UAVs and EW
capabilities.1746 Despite their criticism, Bobkov’s and Tiutiunnikov’s vision was basedon the United States’ Global Information and Control Network not some imaginary‘Skynet.’1747
1741 Колодяжный, В.В., Кулешов, Ю.Е., Шеховцов, Н.П. Методический подход к совершенствованию

автоматизации управления войсками: информационный аспект. Вестник академии военных наук, № 1(42) 2013, 109-115.
1742 Орлянский, В. И., Дульнев, П. А., Костенко, А. Н. Универсальная автоматизированная система
управления войсками - принципиальное условие успешного ведения сетецентрических войн. Военная
мысль, № 12 (2012), 12-20, 18.
1743 Бобков, Ю. Я., Тютюнников, Н. Н. Концептуальные основы постарения АСУ Сухопутными войсками ВС РФ. М.: Палеотип, 2014.
1744 Ibid., 27-28.
1745 Ibid., 31.
1746 Ibid.
1747 The replication of the GICN was supported by the military-industrial complex. Скокова, С.И. Сетецентрическая система управления ВС РФ и необходимые меры по ускорению развития АСУ войсками (силами). Вестник академии военных наук, № 1 (46) 2014, 52-54, 52.

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S. V. Morozov, O. A. Kudrenko and R. S. Dolin took a more operational-strategiclevel approach and analysed the requirements of the ASU and EIP of a military district. They noted, among other things, that it should be able to integrate the information resources of the troops (units) in a changing environment where centralized
data centres were out of reach. Moreover, it should also enable the exchange of information with other military and security forces (agencies). Morozov et al. used thephrase ‘centralized and noncentralized automated command and control’ as an expression for the fact that their EIP did not include NCW-type self-synchronizing
semi-independent units.1748 Others also had grandiose visions of ASUs and the EIP,
for example, for repulsing aerospace attacks on an operational-strategic level.1749 On
a tactical level, the ESU TZ ASU was defined by others as a multifunctional distributed system built on a single information and technical basis, observing the principles
of hierarchy, i.e. compliance with the organizational and staff structures of a tacticalunit, openness and simplicity.1750
In 2015 a group of scholars from the 27th TsNII proposed a concept for building an
information infrastructure for the ASU of the whole Armed Forces which they nameda ‘corporative automated information system’ (KAIS).1751 It would support territoriallyseparated transmission networks and data centres and be able to flexibly change its
functions from peacetime, to times of threat and to wartime. This system of systems
should be built on the modern principles of data management (cloud) and virtualizeduser environments. Its subsystems would consist of computational complexes, data
storage, and systems of information security, physical security and maintenance. The
KAIS would have a central data centre for providing common AF RF services and its
reserve (warm) and secure (cold) nodes and a regional data centre would provide services for regional force groups. The main and reserve data centres should be geographically separated but connected with high-bandwidth connections—making thesystem disaster-proof. Like the OATsSS concept of E. A. Perov and A.V. Pereverzev,
the KAIS concept may have influenced the way the Russian military is now constructing its networks (cf. Chapter 6).
In 2017, M. O. Bets, V. A. Kiselenko and C. C. Orlov claimed that under the Main
Directorate for the Development of Information and Telecommunications Technology of the MoD, there already existed a functional Territorially Distributed DisasterProof Centre of Data Processing for the AF RF (TrKTsOD VS RF), which was basedon cloud-technology and geographically distributed data-centres.1752 Bets et al. calledit ‘our fortress in cyberspace’ which through the EIP enabled the achievement of
information superiority. This ‘military cloud’ could in the future include quantum

1748 Морозов, С. В., Кудренко, О. А., Долин, Р. С. Основные направления развития автоматизированных

систем управления военного округа. Военная мысль № 4 (2018), 29-34.
1749 Грудинин & Майбуров 2018.
1750 Анохин, Д. В., Зинатуллин, И. Р., Царелунга, В. В., Сафонов, В. В. О совершенствовании программного обеспечения Единой системы управления тактического звена. Военная мысль, № 4 (2018), 21-28.
1751 Козичев, В. Н., Каргин, В. Н., Ширманов, А. В., Голошев, С. П. Перспективы создания корпоративных автоматизированных информационных систем военного назначения. Военная мысль, № 20 (2015),
19-32.
1752 Бец, М.О., Киселенко, В.А., Орлов, С.С. Перспективные технологические направления для развитияи совершенствования облачной информационной инфраструктуры Вооруженных сил Российской Федерации. Вестник академии военных наук, № 4 (61) 2017, 74-82.

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computers, more advanced tools for managing big data etc.1753 According to the MoD,
this network of military district-based data centres should be operational by 2020.1754
People from civilian institutions also had ideas about ASUs in the military or national
security contexts. Professor Elena Veduta, Head of the Department of Strategic Planning and Economic Policy for the Faculty of Public Administration of MGU, forexample, argued that Russia must avoid the Soviet mistakes of the OGSU but thatthe ‘kibernetik’ ideas were in themselves still useful and Russia had the chance tocreate a kibernetik economy by harnessing the digital revolution and its massive
amounts of data.1755 The Soviet roots behind the ‘sovereign Internet’ draft law werealso noted by the Russian Internet ombudsman Dmitrii Marinichev.1756 A group ofengineers and scholars proposed in 2017 that an automated system of managementof decision-making support for complex organizational-technological systems (SPPR
ASU SOTO) should be created. It would basically be a national-level military andsecurity monitoring, modelling, forecasting and decision support system. According
to the group, Russia would have to create this system if it wanted to remain an independent state.1757 In a similar nation-level approach, a group of professors and associate professors from the Krasnodar Higher Military Academy presented three different
classifications for protecting national information infrastructure. These included:
moving physically away from the opponent, controlling impact channels, and controlling the information streams. They judged the first to be outdated in the context of
information societies, the second always to lag behind the attacker, and the third tobe the most promising. It would be based on some sort of system-to-systems of communications.1758 Around 2018 intelligent information systems and language processing
had entered the discussions on automated systems.1759 AI could, according to Vasili
Burenok, offer adaptability, self-learning and intuition in comparison to static algorithms of ASUs.1760 Kokoshin has argued that AI could enhance ISR capabilities, situation analysis, filtering of disinformation and even the ability to detect imminent
1753 Ibid., 76.
1754 Круглов, Александр, Рамм, Алексей, Степовой, Богдан. Минобороны создает военное облачное хра-нилище Армия получит распределенную сеть для обработки секретных и служебных данных. Известия,5 июня 2018 [Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/751658/aleksandr-kruglov-aleksei-ramm-bogdan-stepovoi/minoborony-sozdaet-voennoe-oblachnoe-khranilishche [Accessed: 5th April 2019].
1755 Ведута, Елена. Цифровая экономика приведет к экономической киберсистеме. Международная
жизнь, № 10/2017.
1756 Cf. Chapter 6. Нелюбин, Николай. От «суверенного Интернета» нет пользы никому. Это просто
кипячение океана. Фонтанки.ру 8 января 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.fontanka.ru/2019/01/08/014/ [Accessed: 5th April 2019].
1757 Автамонов П.Н., Немыкин С.А., Охтилев М.Ю., Соколов Б.В., Юсупов Р.М. Методологические иметодические основы разработки и внедрения интегрированных систем поддержки принятия решений
(СППР) в асу объектами военно-государственного управления. Информационные войны №1 (41) 2017,39-48.
1758 Maximov R.V., Krupenin A.V., Sharifullin S.R., Sokolovsky S.P. Innovative Development of Tools andTechnologies to Ensure the Russian Information Security and Core Protective Guidelines. Вопросы кибербезопасности №1(29) 2014, 10-17.
1759 Быстров, И. И., Козичев, В.Н., Ширманов, А.В. Концептуальные вопросы создания интеллектуальных информационных систем обработки неструктурированной информации в автоматизированных
системах военного назначения. Вестник академии военных наук, № 3 (64) 2018, 114-121; Быстров, И. И.,Козичев, В. Н., Ширманов, А. В. Автоматизированная обработка неструктурированной информации вперспективных автоматизированных системах военного назначения: концептуальные основы. Военная
мысль № 8 (2018), 54-64.
1760 Буренок, Василий. США создают для военных нужд искусственный разум нового поколения. чемответит Россия? ВПК, № 37 (701) за 27 сентября 2017 года.

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surprise attacks. Thus, the military-political leadership would be guaranteed maximal
situation awareness.1761
Official and public national security documents rarely refer directly to ASUs. The
Military Doctrine of 2009 mentions the increasing efficiency of command and control
as a result of the transition from a strictly vertical command and control system to a
global network of automated control systems. It also notes “the creation of basic information management systems and their integration with weapons control systems
and complexes of automation equipment for command and control of organs of strategic, operational-strategic, operational, operational-tactical and tactical levels.”1762
The 2014 Military Doctrine repeated the need to create automated systems and statedthat one of the characteristics of modern military conflicts was “the increasing centralization and automation of command and control of troops and weapons as a resultof the transition from a strictly vertical control system to global networked automatedsystems of command and control of troops (forces) and weapons.”1763 The Information Security Doctrine of 2016 mentions as one of directions of the national information security the improvement of the automated command and control systems ofthe military.1764 Arguably, ASUs have a distinct presence and role in the national security documents as integral instruments of national power.
To summarize. ASUs, ASSs and ASUVs are inherently Soviet and Russian concepts.
They make concrete the idea of systemic and centralized control of complex systems.
As has been shown in Chapter 4 and here, these systems could be military, economic
or societal. Arguably, the ASUs and cybernetic ideas behind them have influenced theRussian civilian and military thought on information security issues emphasising centralization, systemization and hierarchy. As the theory dictates, there must be a subjectof control to affect the object of control through various sub-systems and feedback
channels to achieve designated goal.
ASUs have been conceptualized as tools but also as infrastructure and later as universal systems combining control mechanisms with the space in which they are used.
Their function is based on the automation of parts of the ‘cycle of command’ but not
on displacing humans from the loop, yet. The concept of AIs and related technologies
is just starting to penetrate the discussions in the military journals and information
security communities in Russia. It is conceivable that this new technology will change
the whole concept of ASUs and perhaps even lead to their rejection. Thus, ASUs havebeen seen in the texts analysed here as a Russian solution to NCW, but their applicability has also been questioned. Perhaps the most contested issue has been the relationship between the EIP and ASUs, as the former has incorporated ever more elements into itself and the latter has perhaps suffered from its legacy definitions which
are hard to combine with modern ICT concepts. The essence of the Russian theory
on ASUs, in contrast to NCW, was expressed in terms of its Soviet roots as a ‘cycleof command and control’ and a systemic and/or cybernetic approach. It can be argued that the whole idea of ASUs is implicitly centralized and vertical. They are meant
as a support for the commander who makes the decisions. ASUs provide forecasts
1761 Кокошин 2019.

1762 Указ Президента РФ 2010.
1763 Доктрина 2014.

1764 Указ Президента РФ 2016b.

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but are at best only semi-automated. Creativity is a trait and property of the humancommander.
ASUs are also inherently connected to the function and tasks of the organization they
are tailored to support and the environment in which they are supposed to operate.
Therefore, ASUs are not purely technological concepts, and because of this they
shape the environment in which they are deployed. Moreover, they are connected tothe historical principles of command: efficiency, readiness, stability, reliability, secrecy
and, flexibility and mobility. Thus the principles of ASUs and the ‘cycle of command’form a self-replicating triangle. ASUs affect the way in which command and control
is organized and have perhaps increased the tendency to emphasise resilience andcontinuity as a factor of information superiority instead of speed and totality of information. The idea of ASUs influences the idea of EIP which thus becomes a systemof-systems, i.e. a space created, maintained and controlled by automated systems. This
entity can be protected by moving away it away from the threat, removing the sourceof the threat, controlling information channels including setting barriers, controllinginformation itself, and through self-modification.
5.10 Cyber power and the life of strategic cultural ideas
Based on the above analysis of strategic cultural ideas it can be argued that although
the Russians do not use the terms of cyberspace, cyber power or cyber warfare they
have an understanding and concepts for these real phenomena. Below I offer one
interpretation of this understanding. I start by first examining the relationship of theRussians concepts of military power, policy, strategy and doctrine, so that I can interpret cyber/information-technological issues through them.
The current version of the Military Dictionary defines military power as “(defence
power, defence might), the power of state (a coalition of states), its ability to influenceother political actors, the system of international relations through indirect (throughdemonstration) or direct use of the means of armed violence, and the successful conduct of armed warfare.”1765 This power is based on the geopolitical situation of thestate, its territory and population, and the ability to mobilize material and immaterial
resources. Potential, according to V. V. Kirillov, consists of the material and spiritualresources that might be mobilized. Potential has different forms such as military, scientific, economic etc. The relationship between potential and power is one between
opportunity and actualization.1766 Military policy is related to potential and power andis defined in the Military Doctrine as “the activity of the state in organizing and implementing defence and ensuring the security of the Russian Federation, and also theinterests of its allies.” It includes deterrence, prevention of military conflicts, development of the armed forces, and increasing the mobilization readiness of the country.1767 Military policy is related to countering both internal and external threats to‘Военная мощь’. Военный энцикаопедический словарь. М.: Воениздат, 2007 [Online]. Available:
http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=4337@morfDictionary [Accessed: 5th
April 2019].
1766 Кириллов, В. В. Военная мощь государства: сущность, структура, проблемы. Военная мысль, № 9(2005), 2-12.
1767 Доктрина 2014.
1765

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independence, integrity, and sovereignty of the state, and to the sustainment and development of the military organization of the state.1768 Strategy has been quite consistently defined as the highest part of the military art and the practice of preparing thecountry and armed forces to war, of planning the conduct of war and strategic operations through and conducting those operations with a later addition of preventing
war. Strategy has interactive relationship with politics and doctrine.1769 Doctrine is a
codified and relatively compulsory guidance based on the laws of military science andthe analysis of current and future politico-social and technological situation.1770
To summarize then, military potential consists of all material and spiritual resourcesthat can be mobilized as military power through a state’s military policy. Strategy utilizes military power by planning, organizing, and conducting the use of force by utilizing forces, means, forms and methods. Military policy builds potential and creates
possibilities for taking action, whereas military strategy plans the actual conversion to
power and enables the use of that power as force if necessary. Doctrine provides
guidance on preparing for war and on conducting it. The substance of policy andstrategy arguably overlap and the adoption of the above discussed concept of strategicplanning might have been an effort to address this issue.
No commonly accepted or widely shared Russian concept of information or cyber
power is available in open sources. Russian scholars have, nevertheless, provided
some definitions. Rastorguev mentions the potential resources of systems to affecteach other.1771 The power of state (state understood as a system) is defined by thequantity of its elements and their functional possibilities and the capability of the system to reproduce itself. Despite his formal logical and mathematical approach, Rastorguev emphasized the importance of creativity.1772 Kruglov argued that only throughthe management of information, intellectual potential, and other resources better thanpotential rivals, could a state prevail.1773 Tsyganov and Bukharin are more interested
in controlling systems of information confrontation than power or potential. Still, inthe context of cybernetic models, control is power.1774 Panarin mentions informationpsychological potential of a nation and defines it as the ability to control information
flows and to create a civilization. He also mentions scientific-technological, intellectual, and creative potential, among others.1775 Makhmut Gareev has emphasized theunity of people and moral forces in addition to the technological and scientific potential of the state.1776
1768 ‘Военная политика’. Рогозин, Д. О. (общ. Ред.) Война и мир в терминах и определениях [Online].

Available: http://www.voina-i-mir.ru/article/64 [Accessed: 5th April 2019].
1769 ‘Стратегия’. Гречкоб А. А., Огарков, Н. В. (Гл. ред.) Советская Военная Энциклопедия, Том. 7(8).
М.: Военное издательство Министерства обороны СССР, 1976—1980, 556; ‘Стратегия’. Военный энциклопедический словарь в 2 томах (ВЭС). / Редкол.: А. П. Горкин, В. А. Золотарев, В. М. Карев и др. М:Большая Российская энциклопедия; Рипол классик, 2001, 607-608; ‘Стратегия’ Военный энцикаопедический словарь. М.: Воениздат, 2007 [Online]. Available: http://encyclopedia.mil.ru/ encyclopedia/dictionary/details.htm?id=10395@morfDictionary [Accessed: 5th April 2019].
1770 Lalu 2014, 331; Forsströn 2019; ‘Военная доктрин’. Рогозин, Д. О. (общ. Ред.) Война и мир в терминахи определениях [Online]. Available: http://www.voina-i-mir.ru/article/74 [Accessed: 5th April 2019].
1771 Расторгуев 1999, 144.
1772 Ibid., 169; Расторгуев 2014, 24.
1773 Круглов 2006 & 2006.
1774 Цыганов & Бухарин; Бухарин & Цыганов.
1775 Панарин 2003 & 2006.
1776 Гареев 2016, 2017a, 2017b & 2018.

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Manoilo et al. mention information-communication potential which enables information imperialism. This potential consists of intellectual, technological, spiritual andscientific potential, but also the ability to manipulate information in relation to others.1777 For Novikov the ability of systems to influence each other was based on resources, i.e. capabilities to manipulate information.1778 Griniaev approaches information potential through a geopolitical lens and argues that it is something that canbe measured and compared and translated into power rivalling nuclear and conventional military power. This potential must be created already during peacetime andmobilized into power very rapidly if a war is to be won because information superiority will be a decisive factor in future wars.1779 Rastorguev and Manoilo refer to V. N.
Ustinov who seems to have been one of the first modern-era Russians to write about
information power. According to secondary sources, Ustinov saw information war as
the use of information and information technology against military and civilian cybernetic systems. Power would thus be based on information and information technology.1780 The cyber diplomats of the MGIMO considered Russia’s place in the global
information society to be based on scientific and educational potential, quality of information infrastructure, the level of the development of electronic business andcommerce, and electronic government. These were all measurable qualities.1781 The
strategic planning documents of the Russian Federation also acknowledge the importance of developing the scientific-technological, economic, human and spiritualresources of the state and thus the potential of information power.
Power is an abstract idea. If one would attempt to form some sort of synthesis of theRussian idea of cyber or information power based on the ideas analysed above it
would include at least the following elements: power is control over systems, flows,
information and the opponent; power is continuity, effectiveness, efficiency, resilience (reliability and stability), flexibility and secrecy; and power is scientific, technological, creative, spiritual, economic, and human potential. It has a function, principles
and resources. This power is state power. It is both an end and means, as the protection of state interests, especially sovereignty, has been the paramount principle of theRussian foreign and security policy from the late 1990s. Power is relative and measurable, with value only in relation to the power of others and it is inherently volatile
as it can be undermined, negated, and changed through creativity and technology.
Power is not directly proportional to material resources or spent wealth because asymmetry can be created through human will, innovation, and the forever changing substance of information itself. Power has both a qualitative and quantitative character.
Thus, power is always in flux and the interstate information struggle is a permanentfeature of great power relations. Absolute parity is a mirage but stability and balance
as a condition can be achieved. Therefore, the Russian understanding of information
power is decidedly material and corresponds to the theoretical definition of power

1777 Манойло, Петренко & Фролов 2012, 80 & 107.
1778 Новиков 2013, 51.
1779 Гриняев 2004, 13.

1780 Сативалдыев Р. Ш. Противодействие информационной войне как предметное содержание инфор-мационной функции государства. Правовая жизнь, Январь – март 2017, № 1 (17) [Online]. Available:
http://www.tnu.tj/Hayoti%20huquqi/PZh_1_2017.pdf [Accessed: 16th March 2019]. Original cf. Устинов В.
Н. Информационная мощь в стратегии национальной безопасности и проблемы информатизации
российского общества. РИСИ. М., 1996.
1781 Зиновьева 2011257

proposed in Chapter 2 and 3. Information-technical (cyber) power is a component of
information power, more material, more connected to technology.
The Russian views on cyberspace are much clearer than on power. Cyberspace isviewed as an information infrastructure composed of information, systems, and resources and sometimes of users—although then it is a sphere of action and not a
space. It is penetrated by power, the relationships of subjects and objects. It is as
material as electromagnetic emissions can be and, thus, has borders. It forms the basisof the information space, which includes the substance of information, human minds
and societies. It is sometimes called information-telecommunications space to highlight its most important function which is the transfer of information. The Russian
understanding of this space and its principles and laws are very similar to those proposed by foreign scholars.
The Russian understanding of information warfare is ambivalent. As previous studies
have shown, and the analysis in this chapter has confirmed that the Russian view of
information-technological warfare is very similar to Western understandings of cyber
warfare. Nevertheless, computer attacks are only one element of information-technological warfare—electronic warfare, exotic weapons, and kinetic force directed against
information systems are also included. Cybernetic ideas and systems theory give theRussian approach to cyber warfare its distinct character as does the distinction between geopolitical information confrontation and operational-tactical warfare. Yet,the intentional use of different terms should not obfuscate the fact that the reality ofcyberspace is the same for all who operate in it.
Neither official nor unofficial Russian sources refer to the concept of a cyber strategy.
The Information Security Doctrine of 2016 is the closest official document to suchan effect. It defines threats, interests, general objectives, and organizational responsibilities but it does not prepare or plan, or ‘do’ anything in that regard. Russian cyberstrategy is part of the strategic planning process, and its implementation is dispersed
into multiple processes and documents as will be demonstrated in the next chapter.
It is inherently connected to the wider information sphere, and the creation of economic, technological and even cultural power—and guided by the Russian understanding of the strategic environment and its threats.
What then can be said about the change and continuity of the strategic cultural ideas?
The interstate and class struggle have changed from there Soviet era ideological forms
to a geopolitical great power issue, and the information struggle has become one ofits main manifestations. Based on official documents and statements it has retained
its place in the minds of the Russian elites quite persistently—perhaps excluding shortperiods in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Western ideas of deterrence were introduced to Russia in the 1990s through civilian academicians and they were accepted
as part of the national security thinking by 2000. Nevertheless, they have also morphed into strategic deterrence—to an almost grand-strategy-like national policy concept. This has been promoted by the military from 2006-2008 onwards and it involves
all spheres of life and the whole state and society and it has contributed to the evolution of the whole-of-state strategic planning. Preserving the balance of power andstability, prevention of war, deterrence, and defence now form a systematic, althoughsometimes, ambivalent group of ideas defining the interests of the state.
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The asymmetric response was discovered in 1986 and then rediscovered multiple
times as a tool to balance Russia’s obvious weaknesses in the peer to peer competition.
Its roots are arguably in the Russian tradition of stratagems and cunningness. Its costeffective, measure to counter measure dialectic has remained the same, but its means
and methods have changed with the character of war. Although scholars have offereddifferent applications of asymmetric responses from the late 1990s, the elites have
employed the idea more sparingly. Asymmetry has acquired two distinct manifestations: tactical and operational actions and strategic and national responses. Both havefound substance in indirectness, creativity, information, and technology. Although,asymmetry has become a semi-official part of military doctrine it has not yet become
an accepted part of the codified language of strategic planning.
Digital or information sovereignty was developed after 1999 from the idea of territorial state sovereignty which has roots in the Soviet era and beyond. It has changed
from sovereignty over the information space to sovereignty in the information space
and in the end to information or digital sovereignty. The concept had become by 2017
an officially recognized, although poorly defined, aspect of state sovereignty. Sovereignty has been tied to the concept of the national segment of the Internet which hasdeveloped into the territorial basis of digital sovereignty. The RuNet has become its
socio-cultural reflection. Digital sovereignty is Russia’s response to the global quest
to define cyberspace.
The unified information space was first introduced in the late 1950s as a Soviet kibernetik dream. During the 1990s it rapidly changed from an idea of open and shared
information flows to technological and organizational concepts of building the national information space. The elites (re)adopted the idea of EIP already in the mid1990s but it has been resurrected and redefined multiple times after that. It has retained its roots in the cybernetic dreams of the Soviet scientists but also incorporated
modern concepts and technologies which have their own rules and principles of information management. Both its military and civilian versions are based on verticalcontrol and horizontal integration, centralization, and delimitation of borders. Its latest incarnations from the early 2000s onwards include visions involving a system ofsystems for controlling the national information space as part of digital sovereignty.
The idea of information superiority was already discussed by the Soviet military theorists in the 1970s and 1980s—although its substance was a bit different than it istoday. Since 1991, information superiority has become a central concept in Russian
security thinking explaining why things are as they are. However, it has also offered
solutions for changing the balance of power at least from 2006–2008 onwards in thecontext of the military reform. It has, perhaps more than any other idea analysed here,changed the way Russians perceive competition, warfare, and power in the international system. Therefore, it also has two interconnected manifestations: one related
to warfare and the other to interstate struggle. Information superiority was acceptedby the military as a defining principle quite early in the 2000s but in national strategic
documents it did not appear until 2016.
The distinction between information-technological and psychological warfare was analmost instinctive definition offered by the Russian academicians in the early 1990s.
After that, these aspects have retained their distinct natures but have also changed259

with the times. Information-technological warfare has interacted with the Westernideas of NCW, CII and cyber warfare. It has perhaps been left in the shadow of psychological ends, ways, and means but has also developed its own distinct Russiancharacter with a definite role in achieving politico-military goals. The distinction between the psychological and technological aspect has been accepted and used by theelites from 2000 onwards although the umbrella term of information warfare or confrontation has been more popular.
Perhaps the most consistent and constant idea has been the ASU. The idea was developed during the Soviet times and different concepts built around it are still in use.
It has required an official status and has been defined in the official state standards.
ASU’s cybernetic heritage has affected other ideas by producing ideas about systems
versus systems warfare and a system of systems in the information space. However,the ASUs themselves are now facing flexible, self-controlling, mutating, deep learning
AIs which might doom the idea into the dust bin of history—or create a basis for new
scientific breakthroughs based on a Russian way of thinking.
The ideas analysed above have been quite widely shared in the texts of officials, officers, academicians, and journalists representing different institutions. Thus, it can beargued that there is a group of people sharing a certain set of common ideas. Nevertheless, these people do not have the same interests or agendas. The Academy of
Military Sciences strives to set guidelines to the military academic discussion about
military theory and has some latitude in proposing new ideas but is nevertheless under
the oversight of the General Staff. The Centre for Military Strategic Studies of theGeneral Staff and the Military Academy of the General Staff and its departments with
their mandates on strategic planning and forecasting represent a more official view
on military security issues. In this context their representatives can and will take contrary views on certain issues proposed by retired officers and academicians. The different TsNII(I)s of the MoD usually pursue more limited agendas and quite often
their researchers promote solutions to problems that would bring resources to their
institutions. Similarly, the military training centres and academies of various services
and branches have their own agendas but also take part in the more general discussions. Although there are many institutions, the group of officers and scholars writing
about strategic issues is rather small.
The non-military authors and scholars publishing in various civilian and military journals form a network, but it is highly suspect as to whether they form any sort ofcommunity with professional ethos, values or agendas. Nevertheless, there are somegroups that can be called communities such as the ex-KGB information and cryptography professionals including Rastorguev, Manoilo, and Strel’tsov. Another group of
Russian military and cyber diplomats is tightly connected to this group. There is someevidence to support the claim that the group of information security specialists which
was formed around 1995-1997 under the Security Council has, in fact, formed a very
influential community, some members of which have become part of the elite. This
group is now established institutionally as the NAMIB. Moreover, many of the socalled civilian academicians working in civilian research institutions have military
backgrounds. Thus, the Russian information security academia is highly penetrated

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by ex-military and ex-special services personnel, which might explain some of commonality of the shared ideas. Another explanation is the prevalence of systems theoretic thinking in Russian academia.
Based on the analysis of journals, monographs and national security documents between 2000–2018 it can be argued that the strategic cultural ideas of the communities
have reached the elites. However, it is possible that the ideas had already been heldby the elites and that the communities might have been echoing the ideas of the regime to gain resources. The early discussion about information warfare before theinitiation of the 1998 UN norm-building initiative and the adoption of the first Putin
era national security documents in 2000 was perhaps the purist example of an epistemic community offering ideas to the elites. However, many of those who took partin the discussions represented security elites themselves or were ex-members in academic guises. After the 2000 Information Security Doctrine had made information
warfare and threats a legitimate subject of national security discussions, Russian civilian and military scholars produced large amounts of literature on the subject. Theirideas were reflected in the 2009-2010 national security documents and more strongly
in 2014-2016 strategic planning documents. However, many of the writers concentrated on providing substance to the basic ideas that had been adopted already in 2000
and not so much on arguing for completely new ideas or radical changes. Every political system has its own characteristics, and the way in which ideas move between
the academia and the decision-making elite points to a certain characteristic of theRussian system. Some of these will be examined in the next chapter.

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6
THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL SEGMENT OF THE
INTERNETT

his chapter examines the Russian policies concerning cyberspace. It continues
to provide answers to the thesis’ research problem’s analytical part by asking:
How have the strategic environment and strategic cultural ideas given reason
to the Russian strategy of shaping and controlling a part of cyberspace into a national
segment of the Internet? I begin with an analysis of the environment in which theRussian security and military policy decision-makers have operated between 2000 and2019. Firstly, I analyse how the Russian segment of Internet has developed, and thenI explore the wider international environment and its cyber security aspects to gain
an understanding of the Russian elite’s strategic environment to demonstrate that
there was a real and significant change in its nature during the time period underanalysis. Secondly, I examine the different actors taking part in the process of making
and implementing strategy to better understand how Russian cyber strategy is made.
I will also examine the international treatises and the early policies and laws of 2000–
2011 to understand how Russian elites tried to manage cyber and information issues
before 2012. Thirdly, I will analyse the strategies, policies and laws that have been
formed by the Russian government to tackle the new security issues brought forth by
the changes in the strategic environment after 2011. Fourthly, I will examine the civilian and military information systems and networks that the Russian regime is building or directing the private sector to build. Fifthly, I will present a model of the Russian national segment of the Internet as a system of systems in a continuum of interstate relations to understand how a closed national network could function.
My main argument throughout this chapter is that in the 2011–2012 period and thenagain in 2014 the Russian elites perceived a clear, new, and threatening change in
Russia’s international environment which required ‘fitting’ new and old strategic cultural ideas to find ways to reasonably answer the new challenges. This has led to areasonable adoption of policies and laws which will form a national segment of theInternet that can be considered as a manifestation of a theoretical closed national
network. This national segment is Russia’s answer, which has distinct Soviet roots, tothe challenges of digitalization and the threats emanating from cyberspace.
6.1

The environment

The development of the Internet in Russia and the birth of RuNet were discussed
briefly in Chapter 5. This chapter will examine the penetration of the Internet and its
services amongst Russian society, the development of the information infrastructureand services, and the importance of digital economy between 2000–2019. Then Russia’s position in the international system is examined in order to understand how theRussian decision-making elites might have perceived the strategic environment between 2000–2019. This analysis is complemented with an analysis of the developments in the cyberspace. The chapter ends with a discussion on whether there is263

enough evidence to argue that a change in Russia’s environment required the fittingof new and old ideas and if the strategic cultural ideas examined in Chapters 4 and 5
helped the elite to make sense of the situations and thus guided it towards reasonable
solutions.
6.1.1 Development of the Russian Internet and the information society
The Russian Internet was born out of a territorially disconnected group of networks
operated by scientific institutions, small IT companies, and regional telecom operators
during the 1990s and began to really develop only after the economic crisis of 1998.1782
The penetration (percentage of users of the Internet in the population) of the Internet
in 2000 was only 2.1% and the Internet had just spread to cover most of the big cities
and mainly the European part of Russia.1783 However, the Russian Internet began todevelop rapidly so that in 2007 the penetration was approximately 20.8%, and then in2008 it was 25%, in 2009 33%, 2010 37%, 2011 44%, 2012 53 %, 2013 57%, 2014
67%, 2015 70%, 2016 71%, 2017 73% and in 2018 it was 75.4%.1784 Thus, the fastest
growth rate was experienced from 2001–2008 but the use of the Internet becamesocially and politically significant only since 2011–2012. In 2000 Russia was behindalmost all the advanced industrial countries in the usage of the Internet and by 2018
it was still behind the Western countries and China, where the penetration is around90%.1785 Russia has followed global trends in the mobile use of the Internet which
covered 59% of the population in 2017 or 73 million people and the number of thoseusing just the mobile Internet surpassed desktop users in 2017. Around 50–60% of
the population depending on the region have a desktop computer or a mobile
phone.1786 Mobile phones began to spread in Russia around 2011–2013.1787 Russians
seem to rely more on mobile data connections than on fixed broad-band connections,the development of which has stalled after 2010–2012.1788
The first and still functioning Russian non-state conference on the Internet—the Russian Internet Forum—was convened in 1997.1789 Although the Rambler.ru search engine was launched in 1996, the first online store (Ozon) had opened in 1998, the email
1782 Перфилев 2003, 44-45.

Internet World Statistics [Online]. Available: https://www.internetworldstats.com/euro/ru.htm [Accessed: 10th April 2019]; Перфилев 2003, 48, 53.
1784 GfK. Исследование GfK: Проникновение Интернета в России, 15 января 2019 [Online]. Available:
https://www.gfk.com/ru/insaity/press-release/issledovanie-gfk-proniknovenie-interneta-v-rossii-1/[Accessed: 10th April 2019]; ФОМ. Интернет в России: динамика проникновения. Зима 2017–2018 гг., 04
Апреля 2018г [Online]. Available: https://fom.ru/SMI-i-internet/13999 [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1785 РАЭК. Интернет в России в 2017 году: Состояние, тенденции и перспективы развития.
М.:Типография «Форвард Принт», 2018 [Online]. Available: http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/activities/ reports/2018/teleradio/main/custom/0/0/file.pdf [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1786 РАЭК. Экономика Рунета 2018. РАЭК, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://raec.ru/upload/files/ruec_booklet.pdf [Accessed: 12th April 2019].
1787 РАЭК. Экономика Рунета 2015–2016 [Online]. Available: http://files.runet-id.com/2016/presentationresearch/presentations/EconomicaRunetaItogy2016.pdf [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1788 Федеральная служба государственной статистики. ониторинг развития информационного обществав Российской Федерации [Online]. Available: http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/
rosstat/ru/statistics/science_and_innovations/it_technology/ [Accessed: 10th April 2019]; Mediascope.
Аудитория интернета, 21.11.2018 [Online]. Available: https://mediascope.net/upload/iblock/ea0/
RIW2018_I-Ishunkina_21.11.2018.pdf [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1789 Wikipedia. Российский интернет-форум. Wikipedia [Online]. Available: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Российский_интернет-форум [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1783

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service Mail.ru started in 1998, and the first Internet magazine Lenta.ru had begun tooperate in 1999, at the beginning of the 2000s Internet news services and the online
economy were still a marginal phenomenon in Russia. They began to develop rapidly
around 2001.1790 The Yeltsin era oligarchs tried to take advantage of this development
but failed as the Putin regime turned against their media empires.1791 Andrei Soldatov
has argued that after Putin met with the leaders of the Internet companies in 1999 akind of unofficial non-intervention policy between the Internet companies and theregime was agreed. Moreover, the Internet companies managed to block or modify
bills directed against Internet freedoms. This arrangement was broken when Putin
took a more critical view of the Internet in 2014.1792
Around 2010 over 90% of Russians got their news from the television. Thus, John
Dunn has argued that the Internet was left outside state control because it served aminority of the population, functioned as a politico-social safety-valve, and promisedsocial and economic benefits for the state.1793According to Levada, in 2018 73% of
Russians declared that they got their news from TV but the share of Internet
webpages and social network was 65% combined (multiple answers were permitted
in the survey) and their importance has continuously risen since 2013.1794 Peterson has
claimed that at least until around 2005 the Internet remained a largely apolitical space,so the government had no significant incentive to control it and the IT industry wasable to defend its independency.1795 There is some proof that Russian state televisionand the Internet currently live in a symbiosis where television sets the agenda and theInternet provides a platform for further discussion and the dissemination of ideas.1796
Although, social media’s challenge to television’s monopoly of the news is intensifying, its main impact has been in connecting people from the early 2010s.1797
Google and Facebook entered Russia in 2006, the same year that the Yandex searchengine was launched.1798 The Russian social media platforms competed successfully
with primarily English-language services and LiveJournal (1999), Ondoklassniki(2006), and VKontankt (2006) had established their pre-eminence by 2012.1799 Thispre-eminence of Russian language social media has been one of the building blocksof the RuNet phenomenon.1800 Nevertheless, in 2017–2018 Russians quite frequently
1790 Sodatov & Borogan 2015; Peterson, D. J. Russia and the Information Revolution. Santa Monica: RAND,

2005; Susiluoto 2006; РИА Новости. История развития российского Интернета. Справка, 19 сентября
2011 [Online]. Available: https://ria.ru/20110919/439857350.html [Accessed: 24th March 2019].
1791 РИА Новости 2011.
1792 Soldatov 2017.
1793 Dunn, John A. Lottizzazione Russian Style: Russia's Two-tier Media System, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.66
No. 9 (2014), 1425-1451.
1794 ЛЕВАДА-ЦЕНТР. Общественное мнение-2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.levada.ru/cp/wpcontent/uploads/2019/03/OM-2018.pdf [Accessed: 26th April 2019].
1795 Peterson 2005.
1796 Cottiero, Christina, Kucharski, Katherine, Olimpieva, Evgenia and Orttung, Robert W. War of words: theimpact of Russian state television on the Russian Internet, Nationalities Papers, Vol.43, No.4 (2015), 533-555.
1797 Remmer, Vladimir. The Role of Internet Based Social Networks in Russian Protest Movement Mobilization, Central European Journal of International and Security Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2017), 104-135; ВЦИОМ.
А если без интернета?! [Online]. Available: https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=116148 [Accessed:
12th April 2019].
1798 РИА Новости 2011.
1799 Roesen, Tine and Zvereva, Vera. Social network sites on the Runet. Exploring social communication. In
Gorham, Michael S., Lunde, Ingunn and Paulsen, Amrtin (eds.) Digital Russia: The Language, Culture andPolitics of New Media Communication. London & New York: Routledge, 2014, 72-86.
1800 Ristolainen 2017b.

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used international services like Google, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Wikipedia.1801 Moreover, the Google Chrome browser (54.5%) and Android OS (49.5%) by far dominate other browsers and OSs.1802 Chinese social media
platforms or browsers are not used in Russia. At least according to LiveInternet, visitsfrom Russian IP -addresses are directed predominantly to Russian language
webpages.1803 Thus, the social media or content sharing aspect of RuNet is technologically not as insular as the idea of RuNet would suggest. Further isolation is favoured
by the Kremlin as Putin has, for example, called for the creation of a Russian alternative to Wikipedia.1804
Despite its promising start, the IT crisis of 2000 negatively affected the developing
Russian Internet industry.1805 The development of information society seemed to need
government support. The Russian government was, however, a bit slow to react tothe development needs.1806 By 2002 the Russian government began to develop strategies on the development of informatization and the electronic government of Russia,
and in 2004 the Premii Runet prizes were first awarded. The first prize was given forthe development of ‘the Russian segment of Internet’.1807 These early state-led efforts
largely failed because of corruption, state-centrism, utopianism, and the lack of leadership.1808 Not until President Dmitri Medvedev embraced the Internet in 2008–2009
did things start to move forward.1809 Based on advertisement data, the commercialization of the Internet began around 2011 but it would take additional seven years before
the Internet would catch up with television.1810 According to RAEK’s estimations,which are perhaps somewhat optimistic, the share of the Internet economy of theRussian GDP was 1% in 2011, 1.3% in 2012, 1.6% in 2013, 2.2% in 2014 and 2.4%
in 2015, and 2.42% in 2017.1811 In 2018 RAEK decided not to calculate the share ofInternet economy but still announced a total of 5.1% of GDP.1812 In 2018 the Internet

1801 Mediascope 2018; Alexa. Top Sites in Russia [Online]. Available:

https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/RU [Accessed: 12th April 2019]; LiveInternet. Statistics – Summary, 5th December 2019 [Online].
https://www.liveinternet.ru/stat/ru/internet/summary.html [Accessed: 5th December 2019]; РАЭК 2019.
1802 LiveInternet. Statistics – OS, 5th December 2019 [Online]. Available https://www.liveinternet.ru/
stat/ru/internet/oses.html [Accessed: 5th December 2019].
1803 Ibid.
1804 Роскомсвобода. Большая российская энциклопедия не станет полноценной заменой Википедии,7.11.2019 [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/51846/ [Accessed: 5th January 2020].
1805 РИА Новости 2011.
1806 Ibid.
1807 Постановление Правительства РФ от 28.01.2002 N 65 (ред. от 09.06.2010) “О федеральной целевой
программе “Электронная Россия (2002 - 2010 годы)” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/ document/cons_doc_LAW_90180/ [Accessed: 10th April 2019]; Федеральное агентство по печати и массовым
коммуникациям приказ от 18 июля 2005 г. № 106 “О проведении открытого конкурса на выполнение
работ по подготовке и проведению Второго Конкурса на присуждение ежегодной Национальной премии за вклад в развитие российского сегмента сети Интернет «ПРЕМИЯ РУНЕТА - 2005»” [Online].
Available: http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/docs/documents/order/2005/07/fap106.html [Accessed: 11th
April 2019].
1808 Peterson 2005; Susiluoto 2006.
1809 РИА Новости 2011; Soldatov 2017; Budnitsky, Stanislav and Jia, Lianrui. Branding Internet sovereignty:
Digital media and the Chinese–Russian cyber alliance. European Journal of Cultural Studies, Special Issue,
2018, 1-20.
1810 Ассоциация Коммуникационных Агентств России. Объ м рекламного рынка России в 2000-2018 гг.
[Online]. Available: http://www.akarussia.ru/node/7849 [Accessed: 11th April 2019].
1811 РАЭК 2016.
1812 РАЭК 2019; РАЭК. Рунет подвел итоги года, 13 Декабря 2018 [Online]. Available: https://raec.ru/live/
raec-news/10766/ [Accessed: 11th April 2019].

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economy was estimated to be worth of 3.9 trillion roubles.1813 For comparison, Russian arms sales in 2018 were worth 19$ billion and energy revenues were expected to
be around 129$ billion from the export of oil and 49$ billion from the export ofnatural gas.1814
The Russian ICT industry has not been able to develop a popular domestic operatingsystem,1815 although in 2012 Yandex launched its own browser which has gained
around 10-12% share of the searches done in the Russian segment of Internet.1816 The
state has actively supported the domestic IT industry against foreign competition.1817
The President’s Internet ombudsman German Klimenko has even hinted that Microsoft would have to ‘leave’ Russia because of the restrictions the U.S. government
has imposed on the cyber security firm Kaspersky.1818 Despite efforts to develop the
Russian digital economy it has been reliant mostly on Western software and hardware.
After 2017 domestic and Chinese software solutions have increased their market shareas the IT sector has become the most rapidly growing sector in the Russian economy.1819 RAEK noted that in 2018 the ‘common legislative vector’ continues to beprohibitive to the Internet economy and referred to the legal regulations which beganaround 2012-2013.1820 The state has tried to support the domestic online economy
against the growing influence of foreign companies and Russian banks and Internetcompanies have allied to finance and establish Russian online market platforms.1821

1813 РАЭК 2019.
1814 Moscow Times. Russia's Arms Exporter Sold $19Bln Worth of Weapons in 2018, Official Says. Moscow

Times 1.11.2018. [Online] Available: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2018/11/01/russias-arms-exportersold-19-billion-worth-weapons-2018-ceo-says-a63380 [Accessed: 12th April 2019]; ПРАЙМ. Доходы РФ отэкспорта нефти в 2018 году выросли на 38%, от газа - на 28,8%. ПРАЙМ, 06 Февраля 2019 [Online].
Available: https://1prime.ru/energy/20190206/829687892.html [Accessed: 12th April 2019].
1815 As Ristolainen has pointed out, the Minister of Telecommunications Nikolai Nikiforov proposed the ideaof creating national OS already in 2012 but the idea did not achieve support. (Ristolainen 2017a & 2017b).
1816 LiveInternet. Statistics – Browsers, 5th December 2019 [Online]. Available https://www.liveinternet.ru/
stat/ru/internet/browsers.html [Accessed: 12th April 2019].
1817 Воейков, Денис. Почему Реестр российского ПО так и не смог запустить в стране импортозамещение. CNews, 24.04.2018 [Online]. Available: http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2018-04-24_pochemu_reestr_rossijskogo_po_tak_i_ne_smog_zapustit [Accessed: 12th April 2019]; РБК. На Форуме «Российский софт»обсудили национальную кибербезопасность. РБК, 30 Апреля 2019 [Online]. Available: http://presscentr.
rbc.ru/page5701909html [Accessed: 17th May 2019]; Жукова, Кристин, Новый, Владислав, Скоробогатько,Денис. Sailfish вносят в бюджет. Государство получило оценки стоимости перехода чиновников на отечественную ОС. Коммерсантъ, №138 от 06.08.2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3706552?from=four_tech [Accessed: 12th April 2019].
1818 Коммерсантъ. Герман Клименко допустил ограничение работы Microsoft в России. Коммерсантъ,29.05.2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3643881 [Accessed: 12th April 2019].
1819 Юзбекова, Ирина. Россия уменьшит зависимость от Америки с помощью серверов из Китая. РБК,18 августа 2014 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/economics/18/08/2014/5424c895cbb20f353dbe0370 [Accessed: 3rd May 2019]; Жукова, Кристина. Российский софт отключают от заграницы.
Требования к отечественному ПО ужесточают в деталях. Газета “Коммерсантъ” №229 от 12.12.2018,стр. 7 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3827670?from=main_11 [Accessed: 3rd May
2019]; Коломыченко, Мария, Посыпкина, Александра. Иностранным производителям телеком-оборудования решили дать послабление. РБК, 22 января 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/22/01/2018/5a608cfd9a79477ebc3b3e7f [Accessed: 3rd May
2019].
1820 РАЭК 2019.
1821 КонсультантПлюс. К 2025 году Минпромторг России планирует довести долю электронной торговли в общем объеме торговли до 20 процентов, 18.10.2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/law/hotdocs/51181.html/ [Accessed: 12th April 2019]; АКИТ. Исследование рынка Интернет-торговли в России. Результаты 1 полугодия 2017 года, 28 синтября 2017 [Online]. Available:
http://www.akit.ru/ исследование-рынка-интернет-торговл/ [Accessed: 12th April 2019].

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The possibilities of a crypto currency have been intensely debated in the Russian media and the government and the Bank of Russia have considered how to regulate themand/or to incorporate them into the official Russian economy.1822
The trend of state-led and state-centric innovation policy has affected the whole ICT
sector. For example, the techno-park Skolkovo was established by the state in 2011
to copy the success of the Silicon Valley.1823 It has, however, been called a failure bypeople involved in the project.1824 Skolkovo has been subsequently divided into regional centres.1825 The concept was repeated in 2017 when the state created the Era
technology park in Anap for innovative military scientific-technological research,where by 2020, 2000 scientists should be working. In principle Era is supposed to
combine civilian and military scientific research with the practical experience and resources of the companies of the military-industrial complex.1826 The Russian regime
has also created the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects in the Defence Industry to mimic the success of the United States DARPA in 2012.1827 Despite
all these state-led efforts, Internet ombudsman Klimenko noted in 2018 that although
Russian software was good, everything from the interface level downwards was‘bad’.1828
Vendil Pallin has examined the state-ownership of Russian Internet companies after
2013 and argues that in 2014 the largest companies providing Internet infrastructureand services were directly state owned or owned by people connected to the regime.1829 She makes the same claim about some of most popular Russian websites andsocial services.1830 In addition to controlling the Internet and wider ICT industry
through ownership, the state uses soft takeovers to transfer companies to trusted ol-

1822 Известия. Путин считает, что криптовалюты несут с собой серьезные риски. Известия, 10 октября

2017 [Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/656864/2017-10-10/putin-schitaet-chto-kriptovaliuty-nesut-s-soboisereznye-riski [Accessed: 12th April 2019]; Аношин, Иван, Петухова, Людмила. Биткоин от дилера: почему россияне не купят криптовалюту без посредника. РВК, 25 января 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.rbc.ru/money/25/01/2018/5a699d3a9a79471460896e07?from=center_5 [Accessed: 12th April2019].
1823 Soldatov & Borogan 2015, 132; Budnitsky & Jia 2018, 12; Susiluoto 2006.
1824 Сухова, Светлана. “Пропагандой выиграть нельзя. Доминированием в технологиях — можно”. Журнал "Огон к" №40 от 10.10.2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3106914 [Accessed:
11th April 20191825 Едовина, Татьяна “Сколково” обретет всероссийский масштаб Компании из регионов получат
льготы и сервисы центра. Газета "Коммерсантъ" №73 от 26.04.2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.
kommersant.ru/doc/3614096 [Accessed: 11th April 2019].
1826 ТАСС. Минобороны РФ увеличит число научных рот в 2018 году. ТАСС, 30 марша 2018 [Online].
Available: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/5080737 [Accessed: 11th April 2019]; ТАСС Путин посетит в Анапе
новый военный технополис и проведет итоговое совещание по “оборонке”. ТАСС, 21 ноября 2018
[Online]. Available: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/5819998 [Accessed: 11th April 2019]; Сидоркова, Инна. Военное «Сколково»: зачем Шойгу строит технополис в Анапе. РВК, 13 марша 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.rbc.ru/politics/13/03/2018/5a9e82869a7947860d0516ca [Accessed: 11th April 2019]; Буренок,Василий. Интеллект по призыву. ВПК, № 46 (710) за 29 ноября 2017 года [Online]. Available:
https://www.vpk-news.ru/articles/40134 [Accessed: 7th July 2019].
1827 Коммерсантъ. Госдума приняла законопроект о Фонде перспективных оборонных исследований.
Коммерсантъ, 28 сентября 2012 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/news/
2012/09/28/gosduma_prinyala_zakonoproekt_o_fonde_perspektivnyh [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
1828 Коммерсантъ 2018.
1829 Vendil Pallin 2017, 22.
1830 Ibid., 24-27; Soldatov 2017.

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igarchs and applies indirect pressure and non-transparent negotiations to affect Internet media companies’ policies.1831 For example, in 2019 a draft law on restricting
foreign ownership of Internet resources was first introduced but then withdrawn after
the governance structure of Yandex was reformed to enable better control by the
Kremlin.1832 Thus, it can be argued that by 2019 the state presence in and influenceon the Internet and IT industry was significant.
The Russian segment of the Internet was unofficially born on April 7, 1994 when the.ru Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Russian Federation was
introduced.1833 Later in 2009 the state supported the creation of the .рф domain in
addition to .ru and in 2010 approximately three million .ru and 700,000 .рф domainnames were registered. By 2019 these figures were five million and 779,500 respectively.1834 Currently, the Coordination Centre of National Domain of Internet functions as the administrator of the national top-level domains of .ru and .рф and accredits the registrars of these domains. Between 2001–2010 the Coordination Centre
created official relations with IANA and ICANN as Russia’s representative and with
the Ministry of Telecommunications and Mass Media (Minkomsviaz’) to establish its
position as the national administrator of ccTLDs. In 2010 it also signed an agreementwith the autonomous company Technical Centre Internet (TTsI) on the technicaloperation of the registration system and domain name registries.1835 TTsI operates two
primary ccTLD name servers for .ru, .рф, .su, .дети, and .tatar in Moscow and SaintPetersburg and has subcontracted a network of secondary DNS servers. This network
is geographically located in 8 federal districts (okrug) and partly outside Russia.1836 In
2015 the Minkomsviaz’ became a participant organization in the Coordination Centre.1837 In January 2018 the Coordination Centre relinquished its mandate to operate
national domain servers for the state-owned telecommunications company Rostelekom which acquired the TTsI.1838 This was done in order to ensure “the reliability,
stability and resilience of the registry.”1839 Rostelekom had already in 2017 acquired
the Safedata group which has the controlling stake in MSK-IX, the first and mostimportant IXP in Russia.1840 MSK-IX operates a network of 11 .ru and .рф domainname servers in Russia, (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-na-Donu, Stavropol’, Samara, Kazan, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok) and 18 in Europe, Asia, and1831 Vendil Pallin., 24-25.
1832 Seddon, Max. Inside the deal between the Kremlin and Russia’s top search engine. Financial Times, De-

cember 5th 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.ft.com/content/dce2e23c-15c5-11ea-8d73-6303645ac406[Accessed; 5th January 2020].
1833 Федеральное агентство по печати и массовым коммуникациям. Российскому национальному домену
«.RU» исполнилось 25 лет. 08 апреля 2019 [Online]. Available: http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/newsandevents/newsagency/2019/04/item4.html [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1834 Технический центр Интернет. [Online]. Available: https://statdom.ru/ [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1835 Координационный центр национального домена сети Интернет [Online]. Available: https://cctld.ru/
ru/about/history.php [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1836 Технический центр Интернет 2019.
1837 Координационный центр национального домена сети Интернет 2019.
1838 Балашова, Анна, Канаев, Петр. «Ростелеком» стал оператором реестра доменов .ru и.рф. 23 января
2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/23/01/2018/5a675ab29a79473a982cd704?from=main [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1839 Ростелеком. Функции Технического центра Интернет передаются компании «РТК – Центр обработки данных» 24.1.2018 [Online]. Available: http://www.rtk-dc.ru/press/rostelekom-v-voronezhe-prinyaluchastie-v-kruglom-stole-po-voprosam-bezopasnosti-detey-v-internete8/ [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1840 Королев, Игорь. «Ростелеком» поглотил «сердце Рунета». CNews, 06.03.2017 [Online]. Available:
http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2017-03-06_rostelekom_poglotil_serdtse_runeta [Accessed: 10th April2019].

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North and South Africa for the TTsI.1841 Russia got its first root name server (F) in
2003 and in 2012 an L -server.1842 Despite the slow start, in spring of 2019 there were
12 root name servers physically located in Russia (Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Moscow, and St. Petersburg) which were operated by ICANN, RIPE NCC, Internet Systems Consortium, Inc., Verisign, Inc., NASA Ames Research Centre, and Netnod.1843
Arguably, Russia has managed to acquire a reasonable amount of root and ccTLD
servers to enable the stability of its networks.1844 The Russian state now directly or
indirectly controls the national segment of the domain name system which is in accordance with the plans laid out by the Minister of Telecommunications Nikolai Nikiforov in 2015.1845
The physical infrastructure of the national segment of the Internet has been foundedon the national telecommunications network of the Soviet Union. This network consisted of spoke-and-wheel-like constellations around the main population centres
along the main railroad lines. The system was complemented by satellite and HF-radio
communications in the northern regions and submarine cables to Sakhalin, Kamchatka and Magadan.1846 Currently, according to publicly available data, the physicalinfrastructure and ownership of the Russian Internet is the following. In 2018 thelength of the backbone network of Rostelekom was 500,000 km and it had crossborder fibre-optic links to Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Poland and Ukraine. Its backbone wasconnected to the domestic MSK-IX and foreign IXPs. The joint stock company (JSC)MTS had 213,000 km of network and it had cross-border connections to Belarus,
Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Its backbone was connected to the domestic MSK-IX and foreign IXPs. Vimpelcom (Beeline/VEON) had 183,370 km of network which had cross-border connections to
Azerbaijan, Germany, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Sweden and Ukraine. Its backbone
is connected to foreign IXPs as it is a multinational telecommunications company.
JSC Megafon had 121,100 km of network which had cross-border connections to
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia and Ukraine.
Its backbone was connected to the domestic MSK-IX and foreign IXPs. TransTeleKom (TTK), which is part of the Russian Railways, had 78,000 km of network which
had cross-border connections to Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, andUkraine. Its backbone was connected to the domestic MSK-IX and foreign IXPs. The

1841 MSK-IX. [Online]. Available: https://www.msk-ix.ru/dns/ [Accessed: 10th April 2019].

CNews. В Москве создан первый корневой сервер имен. CNews, 19.11.2003 [Online]. Available:
http://www.cnews.ru/news/line/v_moskve_sozdan_pervyj_kornevoj_server_imen [Accessed: 10th April2019]; Благовещенский, Антон. В России установлен корневой DNS-сервер. Российская газета,04.04.2012 [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2012/04/04/server-site-anons.html [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1843 Root-servers.org [Online]. Available: https://root-servers.org/ [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
1844 RIPE NCC. Russia Country Report, April 2019 [Online]. Available: https://labs.ripe.net/country-reports/russia-country-report/view [Accessed: 11th April 2019].
1845 Голицына, Анастасия, Серьгина, Елизавета. Министр связи предложит правительству взять рунетпод контроль. Ведомости, 26 марта 2015 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/ articles/2015/03/26/ministr-svyazi-predlozhit-gosudarstvu-vzyat-runet-pod-kontrol [Accessed: 11th April 2019].
1846 Перфилев 2003, 56; Росич 2005; Черная, Н.Д. Сети связи. Конспект лекций для студентов заочного
отделения Специальности 210406 и 210406у “Сети связи и системы коммутации”. Самара, 2008.
1842

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rest of the ISPs operate much smaller networks, have only one or two foreign connections, and are mainly connected to domestic IXP networks.1847 An exception is JSC
RetnNet which is a multinational European company with headquarters in the United
Kingdom. Its network basically forms a physical and logical peninsula inside the Russian Internet.1848 According to the Russian self-declared Tier 1 ISPs, the Russian segment of Internet is highly interconnected.1849
Russian IXPs are also quite well interconnected.1850 Based on the cable connections
which mainly follow railroads and major highways, and the location of the IXPs, themain nexuses West of Volga are St Petersburg, Moscow, Voronezh, Belgorod, Volgograd, Rostov-na-Donu, Krasnodar, Sochi and Saratov, and east of Volga Kazan,
Samara, Perm, Ufa, Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Kurgan, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. Since the 1990s the network has gained resilience
as two parallel backbone lines of have been constructed from east to west. Moreover,on the logical level the Russian networks are highly interconnected inside Russian andinto Europe. On a physical level there are multiple connections to the Caucasus andCentral-Asia although countries in these regions have very limited networks and provide limited global connectivity. On the IXP-level in the east, China and Hong-Kongare the main thoroughfares.1851 Data on IXPs and cable connections does not, however, tell the whole picture as Tier 1 and 2 ISPs do not always publicly share data on
their commercial connections.
There have been plans on the cross-border and international level from 2012 to builda network between the BRICS countries by constructing a submarine cable exclusively
between them, although this project seems to have stalled.1852 Russia is also planning
1847 The main national ones are: MSK-IX (St.Petersburg, Rostov-na-Donu, Stavropol’, Samara, Kazan, Yekate-

rinburg, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Riga), Data-IX (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Samara, Ufa, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Khabarovsk, Astana, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Helsinki, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Frankfurt), Red-IX(Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk), CLOUD-IX (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Voronezh, Ekaterinburg), W-IX
(Moscow, St. Petersburg, Omsk, Perm’, Chelyabinsk , Kiev, Voronezh, Samara, Cheboksary, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Tiumen’, Jekaterinburg, Vladimir, Ufa, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, London, Kiev, Copenhagen), Global-IX (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Stocholm, Helsinki), Piter-IX (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tallinn).
The main local IXPs are: Crimea-IX, EKT-IX (Ekaterinburg), NSK-IX, OMSK-IX (Omsk), TSK-IX (Tomsk),
SIBIR-IX (Krasnoyarsk), SMR-IX, SPB-IX, SFO-IX, YAR-IX (Yaroslava), KZN-IX, NN-IX (Nizhniy Novgorod), RND-IX, STW-IX, RB-IX (Ufa), EURASIA-IX (Moscow), SEA-IX (Krasnodar), ULN-IX(Ulyanovsk), VLV-IX, Dataline-IX (Moscow).. Стандард. “Магистральные сети связи в России”, Стандард
№ 9 (188) September 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.comnews.ru/standart/issue/400 [Accessed: 11th
April 2019]; Internet Exchange Map [Online]. Available: https://www.internetexchangemap. com/ [Accessed:
14th April 2019]; PCH Packet Clearing House [Online]. Available: https://www.pch.net/ ixp/dir#!mtzoom=%5B2.8284271247461907%2C-0.5148480778834943%2C0.06895898910116116%5D [Accessed: 15th
April 2019]; ДВДМ.РУ Internet exchange (точки обмена трафиком) https://www.dwdm.ru/ wiki/19 [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
1848 RETN. Networkmap [Online]. Available: https://retn.net/networkmap/ [Accessed: 11th April 2019]; RIPE
NCC 2019.
1849 ОГО АДЭ. Отчет о фактическом состоянии маршрутизации внутрироссийского трафика через зарубежные сети, 30 ноября 2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.rans.ru/images/news/Traffic_30112017.
pdf [Accessed: 5th January 2019].
1850 ru.map-ix.net [Online]. Available: http://ru.map-ix.net/home [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
1851 Submarine Cable Map 2018; Кибердемократ. Как можно снизить цены на интернет в Кыргызстане «Элкат» 11.03.2013 [Online]. Available: http://kiber.akipress.org/news:189 [Accessed: 15th April 2019];
Ростелеком. Магистральная сеть связи [Online]. Available: https://www.company.rt.ru/about/net/ magistr/# [Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Murmanlink. Магистральная сеть [Online]. Available: https:// murmanlink.ru/magistralnaya-set/ [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
1852 Lee, S. International Reactions to U.S. Cybersecurity Policy: The BRICS undersea cable. Washington: Henry
M. Jackson School of International Studies, 2016; Трифонова, Екатерина. Россия предложила разделить

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to build an Artic sea cable for military use which would connect Severomorsk and
Vladivostok. At the same time Finland and some other countries are planning a similar civilian cable.1853 Additionally, the CIS has adopted a declaration to create ‘a unified
information space’, although this project too has faced difficulties and is very much
uncompleted.1854 There are also ambitious plans for massive LEO Internet satellite
constellations, 5G networks, and Smart Cities.1855 Many of the state-led projects werein a state of negotiation in the autumn of 2019.1856 Some more critical voices haveclaimed that the new infrastructure is being built upon the basis of legacy networks
and the regions outside of the main population centres were not being developed.1857
However, official and semi-official statistics claim that the telecommunications infrastructure is in a relatively good condition across the country.1858
Based on the 2019 RIPE NCC report, approximately 3 percent of Russian internaltraffic was routed outside its borders in 2019 and that traffic went mainly to Western
Europe. Moreover, Russian entities had registered 6,228 ASNs which makes the national segment’s connectivity quite robust with many different paths of traffic—atleast on the logical level. Russia holds 45.5 million IPv4 addresses from RIPE NCC
which are distributed amongst 1927 Local Internet Registries. There were multiple
connections between Russian and foreign ASs which supports the claim that there is
no monopoly on international IP connectivity.1859 Russian ASs are highly connected
but there are a few central ones. According to one site, the BGP IPv4 neighbourhoods
are concentrated in the St. Petersburg and Moscow areas with Rostelekom,
TransTeleCom, MegaFon and MTS with the greatest number of neighbours. Southern Russia (Voronezh, Krasnodar, Rostov, Rostov-na-Donu, Tambov, Vladikavkaz),the Volga region (Saratov, Kazan, Samara), the Urals (Perm’, Ekaterinburg, Tiumen),
Siberia (Nizhnevartovsk, Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk) and the Far East (Vladivostok) form their own clusters. ASs registered in St. Petersburg and Moscow offer themost cross-border connections with Voronezh, Rostov, Vladikavkaz, Ekaterinburg,
Nizhnevartovsk, Barnaul and Chita following.1860 Based on cable maps, IXP locations,and BGP routing data, it would seem that the triangle of Nizhnevartovsk, Surgut, andинтернет. Независимая газета, 1 декабря 2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.ng.ru/politics/2017-1201/3_7127_internet.html [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
1853 Murdoch-Gibson, Sebastian. Finland's Arctic Data Cable Set to Disrupt Global Connectivity. Asia PacificFoundation of Canada, June 19, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.asiapacific.ca/blog/finlands-arcticdata-cable-set-disrupt-global-connectivity [Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Nilsen, Thomas. Russia plans to laytrans-Arctic fiber cable linking military installations. The Independent Barents Observer April 24, 2018
[Online]. Available: https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2018/04/russia-slated-lay-military-transarctic-fibre-cable [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
1854 Сурма, И.В. Единое информационное пространство СНГ: 20 лет спустя. Вопросы безопасности, №
5 (2015), 41-58.
1855 Cf. Chapter 6.2.4 & 6.3.1.
1856 Шмырова, Валерия . «Цифровая экономика» исполняет бюджет хуже всех нацпрограмм, потому чтообо всем советуется с бизнесом. CNews, 11.11.2019 [Online]. Available: https://cnews.ru/news/top/201911-08_tsifrovaya_ekonomika_ispolnyaet [Accessed: 5th January 2020].
1857 Хатунцева Е.А., Хатунцев А.Б. Анализ основных тенденций развития сетей связи на телекоммуникационном рынке России. T-Comm: Телекоммуникации и транспорт, Том 10. №7. 2016, 71-74.
1858 Федеральное агентство по печати и массовым коммуникациям. Интернет в России в 2018 году: состояние, тенденции и перспективы развития [Online]. Available: https://raec.ru/upload/files/190617fpmk-2019.pdf [Accessed: 5th January 2019]; InfraOne Research. Инфраструктура России: Индекс Развития
2019 [Online]. Available: https://bit.ly/2Fiz4GW [Accessed: 5th January 2020].
1859 RIPE NCC 2019.
1860 Runet connectivity [Online]. Available: https://www.ididb.ru/en/runet/bgp.html [Accessed: 15th April2019].

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Noiabrusk in Northern Siberia is a hub for Internet services—although Moscow isclearly the nexus of the Russian Internet infrastructure.
The largest mobile network operators in Russia are MTS (owned by Sistema and oligarch Vladimir Evtushenkov), MegaFon (owned by the USM Group and oligarch
Alisher Usmanov), Beeline (owned by VimpelCom) and Tele2 (owned by Rostelecom).1861 Based on data from the Ministry of Telecommunications in 2019, 2G and
3G networks of every company except Tele2 covered all the big cities and transportation routes in Russia. Tele2 lacked coverage in parts of the Far Eastern regions. 4G
coverage was sparser and more concentrated on population centres and western partsof Russia. Only MegaFon and MTS provided service in Novaia Zemlia.1862 Despite
the official statistics, according to (even) Roskomnadzor there was in 2017 a stretchof 400 km in Siberia and the Far East where none of the four mobile operators provided coverage. The problems with mobile connectivity continued in the Far East in
2018.1863 It should be noted that much of Russia is uninhabited and, therefore, there
is no need for fixed telecommunications.
Cloud data storage and services have developed quite rapidly in recent years but according to some sources there is a real gap between supply and demand.1864 Currently,
according to RAEK the biggest data centre providers are Rostelekom with 19 centres
on Russian territory (Moscow, Sochi, Novosibirsk, Nizhnii Novgorod, Krasnodar,
Ekaterinburg, Stavropol’, Kaliningrad, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Khabarovsk, Ryazan),
DataLine with 7 (Moscow), Linxdata-centre with 2 (Moscow, St. Petersburg), Ixcellerate with 1 (Moscow), and Selectel with 6 (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Leningradskii
oblast).1865 In 2018 Yandex launched its own cloud service platform.1866 Russian private
data servers are concentrated in Moscow or the Western part of Russia and it has
been left to Rostelekom to establish a nation-wide network of data centres.1867 Thereseems to be some cooperation between state corporations to secure connectivity, capacity, and energy-supply for the most critical data-centres, although private companies are, at least in principle, invited to construct data centres providing state services.1868
1861 Wikipedia. Список операторов сотовой связи [Online]. Available: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Спи-сок_операторов_сотовой_связи#Россия [Accessed: 14th April 2019].
1862 Минкомсвязь. Качество связи [Online]. Available: https://geo.minsvyaz.ru/#/-1/-1/12/60.166891999990966/24.943592000000006/4 [Accessed: 14th April 2019].
1863 Казарновский, Павел, Демченко, Наталья. Роскомнадзор назвал федеральные трассы с худшей мобильной связью. РВК, 25 декабря 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/society/25/12/
2017/5a40d9739a794727e1779fd2 [Accessed: 14th April 2019]; Дубов, Григорий, Костина, Екатерина. ВРоскомнадзоре ответили на слова Пескова о сотовой связи во Владивостоке. РБК, 12 сентября 2018
[Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/society/12/09/2018/5b994abb9a79473eda33153f?from=main [Accessed: 14th April 2019].
1864 Балашова. Анна. Мало места большим данным: почему Москву ждет дефицит мощностей. РВК, 06ноября 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/06/11/2018/5bdc45019a79472ab0ecdbc2?from=center_2 [Accessed: 14th April 2019].
1865 РАЭК 2019.
1866 ТАСС. “Яндекс” запускает собственную облачную платформу. ТАСС, 5 сентября 2018 [Online].
Available: https://tass.ru/ekonomika/5523570 [Accessed: 14th April 2019].
1867 CNews. Крупнейшие поставщики услуг ЦОД в России 2017. CNews 24.12.2018 [Online]. Available:
http://www.cnews.ru/reviews/cloud2018/review_table/6df1a7366926feb538d10f26888ff71d6f0ff9cd [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
1868 Кантышев, Павел. «Росэнергоатом» начал строить крупный дата-центр. Проектом займется близкаяк «Ростелекому» компания. Ведомости, 08 апреля 2015 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/
technology/articles/2015/04/08/rosenergoatom-nachal-stroit-krupnii-data-tsentr [Accessed: 21st April 2019];

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Overall, the Russian segment of Internet has been classified as highly resilient to outside interference as it is internally comprehensively interconnected and has multiple
physical and logical connections across its borders.1869 By 2019 over eighty decisions
to build ground telecommunications lines from Russia to neighbouring countries had
been made.1870 According to Oleg Demidov and Alena Makhukova the real number
could be somewhere around 150-200.1871 They also claim that the resilience of thenational segment was proven by the state level cyber exercise conducted in 2014, although the state ultimately claimed contrary results.1872
The information infrastructure and services described above form the basis for ‘theinformation-telecommunications network Internet’ of Russia which is recognized by
the Russian federal law as part of the Unified Network of Electronic Communicationsof the Russian Federation. The component parts of this network are the public communication network, separated communication networks (private and closed networks), technical communication networks (industrial management networks), andspecial networks (networks of government organs including the Armed Forces).1873
For the sake of clarity the component parts of this network and the different publicand governmental information systems are examined in Chapter 6.3.
6.1.2 Development of the international environment
This Chapter will explore Russia’s strategic environment in the period between 20002018. The main argument will be that in 2011-2014 Russian elites perceived a clear,
new and threatening change in Russia’s international environment which required the‘fitting’ of new and old strategic cultural ideas to find ways to reasonably answer tothe new challenges.
There is widespread view among Western scholars of Russian foreign policy that thecontours and directions of Russia’s foreign policy (RFP) after the Cold War must be
analysed in relation to the West or more precisely to the United States.1874 This approach has produced a view according to which the RFP has been influenced in different times by the ‘Westernist’ or ‘Atlanticist’, Statist, and Nationalist or CivilizationalЖукова, Кристина, Скоробогатько, Денис. Гособлако выведут на рынок. IT-системам органов власти
подберут операторов. Коммерсантъ, № 68 от 17.04.2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3946062?from=main_12 [Accessed: 21st April 2019].
1869 This is stated by RIPE NCC 2019; Qrator Labs. 2019 National Internet Segments Reliability Research &Report, 5th September 2019 [Online]. Available: https://habr.com/en/company/qrator/blog/466287/ [Accessed: 5th January 2019].
1870 Роскомнадзор. Выданные и аннулированные разрешения на строительство, реконструкцию, проведение изыскательских работ для проектирования и ликвидацию сухопутных линий связи при пересечении государственной границы Российской Федерации и на приграничной территории 14.01.2019[Online]. Available: http://rkn.gov.ru/communication/register/p191/ [Accessed: 18th April 2019].
1871 Демидов, Олег, Махукова, Ал на. Инфраструктура Интернета в контексте регулирования жизненно
важных услуг и критических информационных инфраструктур: обзор международного и российского
опыта. CIIP Research, 2016 [Online]. Available: http://s.siteapi.org/808b25df7dd28c9.ru/docs/bf57c0ebec178d0c74fdc875e6ca39925397fd1e.pdf [Accessed: 18th April 2019].
1872 Демидов & Махукова 2016.
1873 Федеральный закон 2003.
1874 Mankoff 2012; Kanet, Roger E. and Piet, Rémi (eds.) Shifting Priorities in Russia’s Foreign and Security
Policy. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2014; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014; Lo 2015; Tsygankov 2016; Cadier& Light 2015; Donaldson, Robert H. and Nadkarni, Vidya. The Foreign Policy of Russia. Changing Systems,
Enduring Interests (6th ed.) New York & London: Routledge, 2019.

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schools of thought. Based on the changing fortunes of these schools different chronologies and narratives of RFP have been presented.1875 I will base my approach onthese previous observations, although I will not limit myself purely to the Russia –West relationship as the RFP has been ‘multidirectional’ at least from the period ofForeign and the Prime Minister Evgenii Primakov (1996—1999).1876
Previous studies have given multiple reasons for why the RFP has developed after
2000 as it has.1877 Continuity is a consistent theme. Before Putin came to power, Russia’s relationship with the United States and NATO had soured which produced
Evgeni Primakov’s foreign policy based on ‘multipolarism’ or Eurasianism. This was
based on the understanding and vision that Russia could not rely on the West’s help
in reforming itself and would yet again seek the status of a great power to which it
was entitled, and thus had ‘privileged interests’ in Eurasia and Post-Soviet countries.
For this reason it would pursue a world based on multiple poles of power in opposition to perceived American unilateralism and hegemony. Primakov thus put the national interest at the centre of the RFP.1878 When Putin came to power first as prime
minister in 1999 and then as President in the spring of 2000 he continued with Primakov’s policy—influenced by Western policies, domestic politics, Chechen terrorism,and his own background in the KGB and FSB.1879
However, when Vladimir Putin and the new American President George Bush Jr. met
in the summer of 2001 and especially after Putin pledged Russia’s support for theUnited States’ War against Terror after 9/11 the Russia – U.S. relationship changed
dramatically. Western scholars have argued that this turn in Putin’s policy was driven
by the understanding that by jumping on the bandwagon with the U.S. Russia could
pursue its national interests. These included: the fight against Islamist extremism in
the Caucasus and Central Asia; economic recovery through integration with the world
economy as the U.S. helped Russia to gain access to the G8 and WTO; strategic
weapon reductions which were necessary because Russia did not have the resources
to keep up parity with the U.S., and the legitimation of great power status throughbilateral and equal cooperation with the United States. Putin thus conducted a pragmatic and strategic choice.1880 The 2001–2002 partnership produced the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) and enabled the U.S. to withdraw from the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty without much opposition from Russia.1881 This was against
Russia’s long-term interests, as Russia tried to connect the issues of ballistic missile
1875 Andrei Tsygankov has defined the RFP based on three distinct traditions or identities, the influence of

which has alternated: ‘Westernist’ which is based on imitation of and belonging to the West and conducting
reforms to such effect; Statist which emphasises sovereignty, the centrality of state, the importance to counter
external threats and balancing of power; and Civilizational which is based on distinct Russian values, aggressiveness and messianism (Tsygankov 2016, 4-9). Cf. also Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019; Lo 2015; Mankoff 2012;
Gvosdev & Marsh 2014; Legvold, Robert. Return to Cold War. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016; Light, Margot.
Foreign Policy Thinking. In Malcolm et al. 1996, 33-100.
1876 Mankoff 2012; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014.
1877 For the most recent summaries cf. Tsygankov 2018; Kanet, Roger E. Routledge Handbook of Russian
Security. London and New York: Routledge, 2019.
1878 Tsygankov 2016, 97-101; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 125; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 80-83; Mankoff 2012,
95-97; Kuchins, Andrew C. Mismatched Partners: US-Russia Relations after the Cold War. In Cadier & Light
2015, 117-137; Berryman, John. "Fear and Loathing" in the Kremlin. In Kanet & Piet 2014, 51-71).
1879 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 125; Myers 2015.
1880 Mankoff 2012; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014; Lo 2015; Tsygankov 2016; Donalson & Nadkarni 2019.
1881 Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 86–87.

275defence and strategic weapon’s reductions to entice the United States to renounce its
missile defence plans and thus to preserve strategic parity, restrain U.S. global hegemony, and preserve Russia’s status as a nuclear super power.1882 The partnership alsoenabled the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council which gave Russia more influence in NATO than the arguably failed Permanent Joint Council (1997–2002) as
Russia could take part, within limits, in the internal discussions of NATO.1883
There are multiple reasons why Putin’s ‘strategic choice’ failed to produce persistentchange and they all contributed to the downward spiral of the Russia–U.S. relationship from late 2002 onwards. Firstly, the United States ignored Russia’s economic,
status and military interests in attacking Iraq in 2003.1884 Secondly, the second roundof NATO enlargement began in 2002 and was completed in 2004 despite semi-official
promises given to Russia in the 1990s to not to expand the alliance. Furthermore,
Ukraine and Georgia entered intensified dialogue with NATO in 2005-2006, although
they were not ultimately offered membership in 2008.1885 This brought NATO to theborders of Russia and showed that the NATO-Russia Council did not really give Russia any power to influence NATO decision-making. For the Russian military thismeant that the Western military alliance was again a legitimate and potential adversary.1886 Thirdly, the Bush administration revived the ballistic missile defence programme which Russian military considered a direct threat to its strategic deterrence
and great power status.1887 The issue became even more divisive as the U.S. stated in2006 that it would deploy parts of the system in Europe and began negotiations with
Poland and the Czech Republic in 2007 and concluded agreements with them in2008.1888 Fourthly, the Russian regime and the Armed Forces interpreted the so-called‘colour revolutions’ in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) as Western efforts of regime change under the umbrella of democratization in the Russian
sphere of interests. This view was enhanced by the United States’ increased militarypresence in the Caucasus and Central Asia which resonated with nationalistic andcivilizational ideas that Russia was yet again being encircled and contained.1889
Fifthly, the Russian economy began to recover between 2003–2007 as a result of highenergy prices. With a recovering economy also came a more assertive foreign policy
as Russia was able to pay off its foreign debts and was able to conduct independent

1882 Donalson & Nadkarni 2019, 382–383, 406.
1883 Smith, Martin A.

A bumpy road to an unknown destination? NATO‐Russia relations, 1991–2002, European Security, Vol. 11, No.4 (2002), 59-77; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 101-102; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019,262-264.
1884 Bouldin 2004; Mankoff 2012, 107-108; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 87-88; Kuchins 2015; Donalson & Nadkarni 2019, 388-392.
1885 Blank & Weitz 2010; Mankoff 2012; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 100-101; Tsygankov 2016, 108; Donaldson& Nadkarni 2019; NATO. Enlargement [Online]. Available: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49212.htm# [Accessed: 29th April 2019].
1886 Blank 2010.
1887 Cimbala, Stephen J. The New Nuclear Disorder: Challenges to Deterrence and Strategy. London & New
York: Routledge, 2015.
1888 Lewis, George N. U.S. BMD Evolution Before 2000. In Arbatov & Dvorkin 2013, 51-70; Blank 2008.
1889 Jackson 2002; Mankoff 2012, 103-104; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019; Berryman 2014; Tsygankov 2016,
178; Nikitina, Yulia. The “Color Revolutions” and “Arab Spring” in Russian Official Discourse. Connections,Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter 2014), 87-104; Blank 2010. Whatever the Russian interpretations were, according toJeffrey Mankoff, the U.S. actively supported the pro-Western Victor Yuschenko in the Ukraine 2004 elections
while the Russians botched their own operation to sabotage his campaign. Moreover, the U.S. did eventually
position forces in Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan officially as part of the War on Terror. (Mankoff 2012).

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policy in its near-abroad.1890 Russia began to more vigorously pursue its energy interests by acquiring pipelines and assets in Post-Soviet countries which collided with theUnited States’ interests which had sought access to Russian and Eurasian energy markets.1891 Moreover, Russia engaged in natural gas price negotiations and even coercion
by disconnecting natural gas exports to Ukraine in 2006, 2007 and 2009. This caused
a diplomatic backlash from Europe which was dependent on the gas transiting
through Ukraine and Belarus.1892
Sixthly, the war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 demonstrated that Russia
was willing to use force to protect its interest.1893 It also pushed forward the longawaited military reform which (re)started in 2008 and, together with the state armament program initiated in 2010 (GPV 2020), managed to produce a significant change
in the Russian Armed Forces’ fighting capability by 2014.1894 And seventhly, various
Russian human right violations, fraudulent elections and authoritarian domestic politics were constantly criticized by the United States, the European Union, the Councilof Europe and the OSCE unceasingly from the 1990s.1895 This was a somewhat selffulfilling process and led to further ‘great power assertiveness’, mistrust towards theWest’s ‘democratizing’ tendencies. It intensified conservative and nationalist domestic
policies in Russia and produced policies like ‘sovereign democracy’ which basicallycalled for freedom from outside influence and control, national control of strategic
resources, and state-driven modernization.1896 Moreover, the Soviet past began to berehabilitated by Putin which led to consternation in Russia and in the West.1897 Russian assertiveness was most visibly present in Putin’s speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in February 2007 in which he argued that the United States
mistakenly thinks that it operates in a unipolar world and disregards the basic principles of international law.1898 Putin’s speech produced the first debate about the newCold War.1899
Although Dmitri Medvedev became president before the war with Georgia in May
2008, his term was ultimately characterised by the ‘Reset’ policy of the Obama administration, the pursuance of economic modernization after 2008–2009 financial crisis,
which hit Russia hard, and the search for alternative foreign and economic policy

1890 The causality of energy incomes to aggressive foreign policy has been challenged, cf. Weber, Yaval. Petropolitics. In Tsyganov, Andrei P. Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Policy. London and New York:
Routledge, 2018, 99-117.
1891 Mankoff 2012, 32; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 86-87; Kuchins 2015; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 158-159;
Myers 2015, 281-282.
1892 Mankoff 2012, 147; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 158–159, 184-192.
1893 Mankoff 2012, 114; Renz 2018, 144–146.
1894 Connolly, Richard and Boulégue, Mathiue. Russia’s New State Armament Programme. Implications for theRussian Armed Forces and Military Capabilities to 2027. Chatham House Research Paper, May 2018 [Online].
Available: https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2018-05-10-russia-state-armament-programme-connolly-boulegue-final.pdf [Accessed: 29th April 2019]; Persson, Gudrun (ed.) Russian Military Capability in a Ten-Year Perspective – 2016. FOI, 2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.foi.
se/rapportsammanfattning?reportNo=FOI-R--4326--SE [Accessed: 29th April 2019].
1895 Kuchins 2015; Myers 2015; Tsygankov 2016; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019.
1896 Lo 2015, 31-32; Mankoff 2012, 81-82.
1897 Lee 2015, 207-208.
1898 Legvold 2016, 105.
1899 Monaghan, Andrew. ‘An enemy at the gates’ or ‘from victory to victory’? Russian foreign policy. International Affairs, Vol.84, No.4 (2008), 717–733.

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directions in China and Eurasia. With hindsight it is easy to argue that although Vladimir Putin stepped aside to become the prime minister his influence on RFP remained strong. However, during Medvedev’s term in 2008–2012 this was not so selfevident.1900 The ‘Reset’ managed to produce the new START treaty (2010), provided
Russian support for a new UNSC resolution against Iran’s nuclear program, and overflight permission for the U.S. Afghanistan supply flights. Russia got its WTO membership, freeze on Ukraine’s and Georgia’s NATO membership process, and peacefulelections in Ukraine which brought to power pro-Russian Yanukovych, and less criticism about Russia’s democratic deficiencies but, ultimately, little else.1901 Medvedev’s
2008 proposal on a new European security architecture was practically pushed aside
by NATO and the United States.1902 Economic cooperation on energy or high technology between Russia and the U.S. stalled and remained competitive. The issue ofballistic missile defence was not solved. The ‘Reset’ did not bring about the convergence of values, threats or interests. Moreover, there was internal political resistanceto it in both countries.1903 However, the Russian economy did recover from the 2008
crisis and performed relatively well up until 2012—2013. Still, the Russian economy
remained depended own energy incomes, and structural reforms and modernization
were not successful.1904
In 2011-2012 the relationship between Russia and the United States turned for theworse. There were multiple reasons, although as Donaldson and Nadkarni have argued, the ‘Reset’ had only been a tactical measure on both sides and antagonistic interests from 2003-2008 had remained under the surface.1905 The United States andmany European countries were disappointed as Putin declared that he would seek athird term as president. Consequently, the demonstrations first against the fraudulent
Duma elections in 2011 and then against Putin in 2012 were supported, at least in
spirit, by the West.1906 Furthermore, the Arab spring, i.e. the demonstrations and revolutions which began in the Middle-East and North Africa in 2011 raised multiple
threats to Russia. It was perceived as a Western attempt to spread democracy—not
altogether without proof.1907 It threatened to give power to extremist Islamic groups
and increase terrorism. It affected Russian economic interests and threatened authoritarian political leaders which had been ready to do business with Russia. Moreover,
the West was ready to bypass Russian interests in handling the issues raised by theevents and, thus, marginalize Russia and its status.1908 Russia considered its fears validated as NATO helped to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power in Libya. As Russia
with the support of China vetoed any similar resolutions in 2011–2012 against Bashir

1900 Lo 2015, 177.

1901 Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 93-94; Tsygankov 2016, 215-216; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 426.
1902 Tsygankov 2016, 217.

1903 Mankoff 2012, 123; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 95.
1904 Oxenstierna, Susanne. The Russian Economy: Can Growth be Restored within the Economic System?

FOI, 2014 [Online]. Available: https://www.foi.se/report-search/pdf?fileName=D:%5CReportSearch%5CFiles%5C7b0d3cb7-e080-447f-a4e5-2b49d669543f.pdf [Accessed: 3rd May 2019].
1905 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 426.
1906 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 426.
1907 McCarthy, Daniel R. Open Networks and the Open Door: American Foreign Policy and the Narration of
the Internet. Foreign Policy Analysis, Volume 7, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 89–111; Griffiths, James. The
Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet. London: Zed Books
Ltd., 2019.
1908 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 331-333.

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al-Assad’s regime in Syria, relations with the West became strained.1909 In December
2011 Dmitri Rogozin claimed that the United States had influenced the uprisings inNorth-Africa and was waiting for Russia to become weak to do the same to it.1910
Putin’s 2012 election campaign emphasised Russia’s great power status, its Eurasiancharacter, and was quite critical of the West.1911 Consequently, Russia was used as athreat in the United States’ 2012 presidential campaigns, and U.S.–Russia relations
soured.1912 The U.S. Congress passed the Magnistky Act which sanctioned Russian
officials based on alleged human rights violations. Russia responded with its own
sanctions.1913 In this heightened state of political rhetoric, the new laws that Russia
began to draft and adopt restricting political freedoms in the name of national security
were seen as a proof of Putin’s inherent authoritarian tendencies.1914 The way in which
Putin presented himself as the defender of national values versus Western depravity
and decadence did not lessen the criticism.1915
In 2012 Putin was faced with multiple foreign policy problems compounded withdemonstrations directed against him, worsening economic performance and an economy still reliant on energy exports, a decaying infrastructure, income inequality andpoor public health and burdened by promises of increased social and military spending. Moreover, the United Russia party had been weakened after the election scandalof 2011.1916 The situation did not get better in 2013 although there were some promising developments and the demonstrations ended in the summer of 2012 after they
had been suppressed with a combination of new laws, media manipulation and police
operations.1917 Russia managed to mediate a deal to remove chemical weapons from
Syria and took constructive part in the negotiations concerning the Iran nuclear programme.1918 Arguably, in both cases Russia tried to protect Syria and Iran from the
U.S. use of force. The revelations of Edward Snowden on NSA’s cyber espionage
programme and his consequent flight to Russia in the summer of 2013 gave Putin the
chance to present himself as a defender of the freedom of speech.1919
When the revolution in Ukraine reached its zenith in February 2014 Russia offeredsanctuary for the ex-president, did not acknowledge the interim government, occupied and annexed Crimea, and instigated and supported an uprising in the Easternparts of Ukraine.1920 The 2014 change of government in Ukraine was portrayed by the1909 Gvosdev & Marsh 2014 313; Averre, Derek. Russia, the Middle East and Syria Conflict. In Kanet 2019,399–409.
1910 Donalson & Nadkarni 2019, 426.
1911 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019; Lo 2015; Tsygankov 2016.
1912 Lo 2015, 174–177.
1913 Cadier & Light 2015, 2; Lo 2013, 176.; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 387.
1914 Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 95; Kuchins 2015; Roberts, Karl. The United States. In Tsygankov 2018, 237-253,
247; Stoner, Kathryn E. and McFaul, Michael A. Russian security policy towards the US. In Kanet, 2019, 242256, 246.
1915 Trenin, Dmitri. Russian Foreign Policy as Exercise in Nation Building. In Cadier & Light 2015, 30–41.
1916 Donalson & Nadkarni 2019, 427.
1917 Treisman 2018.
1918 Donalson & Nadkarni 2019.
1919 Soldatov & Borogan 2015.
1920 McDermott, Roger, N. Brothers Disunited: Russia’s Use of Military Power in Ukraine, FMSO, Kansas,
2015; Norberg & Westerlund 2016; Jonsson & Seely 2015; Legvold 2016; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019.

279

Russian politicians and media as an unconstitutional coup d’état engineered by extremist and anti-Russian forces.1921 Although Russia participated in mediating the twoceasefire agreements (Minsk I and II) it has unofficially and covertly supported the
Donbass rebels against Ukraine’s Armed Forces.1922 The United States and the European Union have imposed multiple economic and financial sanctions against Russiancompanies and individuals—to which Russia has countered with its own sanctions.1923
Moreover, NATO adopted the Readiness Action Plan and the Enhanced Forward
Presence policy to enhance its military readiness and deterrence against the possible
military threat from Russia.1924 Furthermore, the EU has adopted the Joint Framework on countering hybrid threats and NATO and EU have agreed to cooperate in
the fight against hybrid threats.1925
In the autumn of 2015 Russia sent military forces to support the Syrian regime against
the rebels and has protected President al-Assad from the Western demands for regimechange.1926 Western accusations of Russia’s interference in elections, of covert support
for far-right parties, and of other diversionary actions and information warfare in
2015–2018 have further eroded the Russia–West relationship.1927 Moreover, the Russian economy suffered from a slump and the sanctions in 2014–2015, and its recovery
has been slow.1928 The economic and financial isolation from the West (and Ukraine)
has especially hit the high-technology sector.1929 The import substitution programmes
devised to help the economy have been criticised for transferring state resources to
non-profitable and rent-addicted sectors.1930 In 2018 the director of the Federal antimonopoly service called Russian economy ‘semi-feudal’.1931 The Russian economy appeared to stagnate in early 2019 despite government investments through Putin’s
twelve national projects.1932 These projects emphasising the ‘hand control’ of the headof state were accompanied by the discreet normalization of the Stalinist past.1933
1921 Donalson & Nadkarni 2019, 434.

1922 McDermott 2015; Norberg & Westerlund 2016; Jonsson & Seely 2015.
1923 Gutterman, Ivan and Grojec, Wojtek. A Timeline of All Russia-Related Sanctions. RFE/RL, September

19, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-sanctions-timeline/29477179.html [Accessed:
30th April 2019].
1924 Connolly, Gerald E. NATO @ 70: Why the Alliance Remains Indispensable. NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Report, 12th October 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.nato-pa.int/document/2019-nato70-why-alliance-remains-indispensable-146-pctr-19-e-rev1-fin [Accessed: 5th January 2020].
1925 European Parliament. Countering hybrid threats: EU-NATO cooperation. Briefing, March 2017 [Online].
Available: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2017/599315/EPRS_BRI(2017)599315_
EN.pdf [Accessed: 30th April 2019].
1926 Lund, Aron. Syria’s Civil War. Government Victory of Frozen Conflict. FOI, December 2018 [Online].
Available: https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI-R--4640--SE [Accessed: 30th April 2019].
1927 Polyakova, Alina and Boyer, Spencer P. The Future of Political Warfare: Russia, the West, and the Coming
Age of Global Digital Competition. Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/fp_20180316_future_political_warfare.pdf [Accessed: 30th April 2019].
1928 BOFIT. Venäjä-tilastot [Russia statistics] [Online]. Available: https://www.bofit.fi/fi/seuranta/tilastot/
venaja-tilastot/ [Accessed: 30th April 2019].
1929 Monaghan 2017, 36.
1930 Ibid.
1931 Артемьев, Игорь. Экономику России назвали полуфеодальной. Lenta.ru, 25 сентября 2018 [Online].
Available: https://lenta.ru/news/2018/09/25/half_feodal/ [Accessed: 3rd May 2019].
1932 Aris, Ben. The Russian Economy is Stagnating. GDP growth since the start of the year has been well below
forecasts. Moscow Times, May 28, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/05/
27/the-russian-economy-is-stagnating-a65760 [Accessed:28th May 2019].
1933 Братерский, Александр. Путинский взгляд на советских вождей. Газета, 16.6.2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2017/06/17_a_10721567.shtml [Accessed: 11th January 2020].

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On the military strategic front, Russia has been unable to stop the deployment of theelements of ballistic missile defence system to Turkey, Germany, Romania and Poland
and to the maritime areas near its borders.1934 The election of the new American President Donald Trump has not brought aid to Russia’s situation. The U.S. has accused
Russia officially of interfering in its elections, withdrew from the INF treaty in 2018,
has declined to cooperate with Russia in the Middle-East, and has accused Russia ofinterfering in the situation in Venezuela.1935 Russian military spending has risen between 2011 and 2017 from 3.5% GDP to 5.5% GDP although it fell back to 3.5%
GDP in 2018 and it has become the second or third biggest arms exporter. The military expenditure of the U.S. and China have also grown at the same time.1936 Moreover,both the United States and Russia are modernizing their strategic nuclear weapons,
and Russia has introduced new weapons systems to demonstrate the capability to
strike the United States.1937 All this has produced a second debate on the new Cold
War.1938
The reasons for Russia’s actions and its regime’s interpretations of the international
environment cannot be understood only in the context of the Russia–West relationship.1939 Russia tried half-heartedly to manage the Post-Soviet space through the Collective Security Treaty (1992) which, however, provided little concrete collective action or cooperation in the 1990s. The treaty was updated to the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO) in 2002 on the initiative of Russia and now includes
Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The CSTO’s tasks
have developed from the mid to late 2000s to include promoting regional stabilization, addressing non-traditional threats like terrorism, separatism and extremism, and1934 Arms Control Association. The European Phased Adaptive Approach at a Glance. January 2019 [Online].

Available: https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Phasedadaptiveapproach [Accessed: 30th April 2019].
1935 Dennis, Steven T., Brody, Ben and Frier, Sarah. Russia’s Bid to Help Trump Revealed as Much Wider Than
Once Known. Bloomberg, December 17, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ articles/2018-12-17/russia-waged-vast-pro-trump-social-media-plan-senate-panel-told?srnd=politics-vp[Accessed: 30th April 2019]; Engel, Eliot and Smith, Adam. US pulling out of the INF treaty rewards Putin, hurts
NATO. CNN, February 2, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/01/opinions/us-pulling-out-of-the-inf-treaty-rewards-putin-hurts-nato-engel-smith/index.html?no-st=1556603190 [Accessed: 20th
April 2019]; Schmitt, Eric and Gibbons-Neff, Thomas. American-Russian Relations in Syria? Less Rosy Than
Trump and Putin Claim. New York Times, July 17, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www. nytimes.com/2018/07/17/world/middleeast/american-russian-military-syria.html [Accessed: 30th April 2019];
The White House. Statement by National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton on Venezuela, March 29,
2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-national-security-advisor-ambassador-john-bolton-venezuela-2/ [Accessed: 18th May 2019].
1936 During the same time period the U.S. military spending has fallen from 4.5% to near 3% of GDP but in
absolute numbers rose in 2012 to 731$ billion to fall sharply but then increasing again to 649$ billion in 2018.
China’s military spending has been a steady approximately 2% of GDP but total spending has risen from 108$
in 2008 to 249$ billion in 2018. (Legvold 2016; Lo 2015, 166; SIPRI. SIPRI Military Expenditure Database
1949-2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex [Accessed: 3rd May 2019]; Oxenstierna,
Susanne. Russia’s Economy and Military Expenditures. In Kanet 2019, 97-108; BOFIT. Growth in Chineseand Russian arms exports lags growth of other major arms suppliers. BOFIT WEEKLY 2019/11 [Online].
Available: https://www.bofit.fi/en/monitoring/weekly/2019/vw201911_5/ [Accessed: 3rd May 2019];
Kruglov, Alexander. Business booming for Russia’s arms trader. Asia Times, April 22, 2019 [Online]. Available:
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/article/business-booming-for-russias-arms-traders/ [Accessed: 3rd
May 2019].
1937 Kristensen, Hans M. and Norris, Robert S. Russian nuclear forces, 2018. Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists,
2018 Vol. 74, No 3 (2018), 185–195; Kristensen, Hans M. and Korda, Matt. Russian nuclear forces, 2019.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 75, No. 2 (2019), 73-84.
1938 Legvold 2016.
1939 Mankoff 2012.

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providing security guarantees to its members in the event of a conventional war. Furthermore, it has annual exercises, rapid deployment and anti-terrorist forces, and acollective air defence system—at least on paper. For Russia, in addition to creating a
Russia-centred normative security zone, the CSTO legitimizes its military presence,and thus a buffer zone, in Post-Soviet countries, especially Central Asia. It also enables force projection and offers balancing tools towards the United States and China.
However, practice has shown that Russia’s ability to control the organization and receive its member states’ political support has been limited in the 2010s.1940
After the 2008 financial crisis Russia began to genuinely develop the economic relationship with Post-Soviet countries. A customs union between Russia, Belarus andKazakhstan was established in 2010.1941 Consequently, Putin adopted Eurasian economic integration in his 2011–2012 election campaign, and an economic integration
road-map was developed in 2013. The creation of the Eurasian Economic Union(EEU) was confirmed by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in May 2014. The EEU waslaunched in January 2015 and Armenia and Kyrgyzstan joined the same year. However, the EEU has not been able promote trade between its members and has been
hindered by internal disputes.1942 Ukraine’s decision to not join the EEU has been amajor complication.1943 By analysts, the EEU project has been variously described as
neo-imperial, pseudo multilateralism, new regionalism, and a vehicle of great power
geo-economic competition.1944
The CSTO and EEU projects are related to Russia’s so-called pivots to the East
which, according to Natasha Kuhrt, there have been at least three: in 2009, 2012 and2014. She argues that these pivots have been more reactions to events than voluntary
choices and have concentrated on China. Moreover, they have resulted in partnerships more than alliances as Russia has lacked other options. Identity, status and economics have all driven Russia’s approach to China.1945 China’s economic and militaryrise was still viewed suspiciously by the elite during Putin’s first term although energy
cooperation began to influence the relationship and by Putin’s second term the cooperation grew even more important.1946 During Medvedev’s term voicing the idea
1940 Deyermond, Ruth. The Collective Security Treaty Organization. In Tsyganov 2018, 421–429; Gvosdev &Marsh 2014, 169; Donaldson & Nadkarini 2019, 179–180.
1941 Cadier, David. Policies towards the Post-Soviet Space: The Eurasian Economic Union as an Attempt toDevelop Russia's Structural Power? Cadier & Light 2015, 156-174, 171; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 177-178.
1942 Molchanov, Mikhail A. The Eurasian Economic Union. In Tsyganov 2018, 410–420; Gvosdev & Marsh2014, 169; Donaldson & Nadkarini 2019, 197.
1943 Lo 1995, 184-192; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 184-192.
1944 Molchanov 2018; Lo 2015, 80-81; Arakelyan, Lilia A. The Soviet Union is Dead: Long Live the EurasianUnion. Kanet & Piet 2014, 141-161; Cadier 2015, 171; de Haas, Marcel. Relations of Central Asia with the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The Journal of Slavic
Military Studies, Vol.30, No.1 (2017), 1-16. Although every relationship which Russia has with its neighbours
is different, the union-state established in 1999 with Belarus is special because, in principle, it enables the unification of the two ethnically very similar countries. However, the relationship has been strained for various
reasons and Belarus has approached the European Union – and also China – to balance Russia, although only
haltingly. (Preiherman, Yauheni. Belarus and Russia Dispute the Fundamentals of Their Relationship. Eurasian
Daily Monitor, January 15, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://jamestown.org/program/belarus-and-russia-dispute-the-fundamentals-of-their-relationship/ [Accessed: 3rd May 2019]).
1945 Kurth, Natasha. Asia-Pacific and China. In Tsyganov 2018, 254–268.
1946 Tsygankov 2016, 153–154, 198–199; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 141. China was semi-officially acknowledged
as a conventional enemy by Chief of the Ground Forces General Staff Lieutenant-General Sergei Skokov. He
was dismissed as part of a group of generals in 2011 who were made to resign or resigned themselves because
they opposed the way in which the reforms were conducted (Коновалов, Сергей. Генеральский демарш.

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that China poses a military threat become a taboo.1947 In 2018 China was Russia’s
largest single trade partner but the exports were almost inclusively energy and therelationship is not economically optimal for Russia.1948 Although Russia’s military cooperation with China goes back to the mid-2000s, starting from 2012, China–Russia
military relations have deepened with more military contacts and more complex military exercises, and interestingly, increasingly less arms exports from Russia to
China.1949
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization which was established in 2001 is an integral
part of Russia’s strategy towards China.1950 Russia began to resist the United States’
presence in Central Asia by mobilising the support of the SCO from 2005 onwards
and by 2014 had managed to facilitate the removal of U.S. forces from ex-Soviet Central Asian countries.1951 Russia’s fears of the United States’ influence were at least
partly legitimate as the United States’ declared policy was to promote “freedom
through reform” in Central Asia.1952 On the other hand, Russia may have promoted
the institutionalization of the SCO and the enlargement of its membership pool tocounter China. Initially, the SCO had a security emphasis on combating terrorism,
separatism and extremism but its agenda has grown to include information security
and more importantly economics, which is China’s priority. Consequently, Russianefforts to use the organization as a political tool have been constrained and eclipsed
by the ever-increasing Chinese influence in the Central Asia.1953
Russia has also promoted the BRICS from 2006 as an alternative forum for the Westdominated G-8, G-20, IMF and World Bank. Its first summit was organized in2008.1954 Bobo Lo argues that the BRICS is an effort to realize Putin’s idea of themultipolar world, but the organization and its members lack the real resources to truly
bring such an order into existence. Moreover, they do not represent any like-minded
community of states in any sense.1955 However weak the BRICS might be as an organization it still offers Russia a platform in which and from which to promote and coordinate its ideas in other international frameworks.1956
Независимое военное обозрение, 5 июля 2011 [Online]. Available: http://nvo.ng.ru/nvo/2011-0705/1_demarsh.html [Accessed: 30th April 2019]; Rangsimaporn, Paradorn. Russian Elite Perceptions of the
Russo-Chinese ‘Strategic Partnership’ (1996-2001). Slovo, Vol. 18, No. 2, (Autumn 2006), 129-145.
1947 Kurth 2018.
1948 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 300; Barkanov, Boris. Natural gas. In Tsygankov 2018, 138-152.
1949 Meick, Ethan. China-Russia Military-to-Military Relations: Moving Toward a Higher Level of Cooperation.
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, March 20, 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China-Russia%20Mil-Mil%20Relations%20Moving%20Toward%20Higher%20Level%20of%20Cooperation.pdf [Accessed: 30th April 2019]; Juola, Cristina
D. Venäjän puolustusteollinen yhteistyö Kiinan ja Intian kanssa 2010-luvulla. [Russia’s military-industrial cooperation with China and India in the 2010s] Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu Sotataidon laitos, Julkaisusarja 3: Työpapereita nro 9 [Online]. Available: http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/164170/181108_VENR_
J_kiina_venaja_intia_juola_web.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [Accessed: 30th April 2019].
1950 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019.
1951 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 226.
1952 Fried, Daniel. A Strategy for Central Asia. Statement Before the Subcommittee on the Middle East andCentral Asia of the House International Relations Committee. Washington, DC. October 27, 2005 [Online].
Available: https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/55766.htm [Accessed: 27th April 2019].
1953 Herd, Graeme P. The Battle of ideas, Concepts and Geopolitical Projects in Central Asia: Implications for
Russo-Chinese Relations? In Kanet & Piet 2014, 183-203.
1954 Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 387.
1955 Lo 2015, 77-80.
1956 Tsygankov 2018; Gvosdev &Marsh 2014, 389-390.

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The crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States, NATO and the EU
is related to the above discussed integration projects of Russia and to their collision
with Western integration projects.1957 In brief, the EU’s European neighbourhood
policy and the Eastern Partnership Programme offered to post-Soviet countries
threatened Russian political and economic interests. Moreover, the possibility of
Ukraine’s and Georgia’s NATO membership was unacceptable for Russia.1958 The resultant crisis has been argued to have been either a result of the EU’s arrogance,
Putin’s personality, Russian elites’ deep-seated fear of regime change, or the West’s
intentional disregard of Russia’s security interests.1959 Be that as it may, aggressive foreign policy secured support for the faltering regime as Putin’s approval rating shot
above 80% in 2014.1960 Additionally, according to Levada, it stayed there until May
2018 after which it has declined to 63% in March 2019.1961
6.1.3 Development of cyberspace
Cyberspace is part of Russia’s strategic environment and its security. This means that
normative and technological developments need to be considered when examining
the situations in which the Russian elites have operated. Previous studies have argued
that the Russian elites were caught off-guard by the development of the Internet as a
new political information channel in 2011. The regime reacted based on domestic
interests and authoritarian instincts and began to force the Russian Internet understate control.1962 However, domestic issues and political control are only one part ofthe puzzle. As I demonstrated in Chapter 3.2.2 the development of cyberspace including its ICT, cryptography, use of outer space, digitalization of infrastructure, governance issues, and all the new related threats challenged states’ sovereignty, theirability to provide security, and the overall balance of power.
Already in the late 1990s the Russian security services were undoubtedly aware of therisks the Internet posed to Russia’s national security. The United States government
was openly discussing cyber threats to its national infrastructure and the NSA wasdeveloping secret cyber offensive capabilities by 1996.1963 The Clinton administration
adopted Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-63 in 1998 which stated: “I [President
Clinton] intend that the United States will take all necessary measures to swiftly eliminate any significant vulnerability to both physical and cyber-attacks on our criticalinfrastructures, including especially our cyber systems.”1964 Between 1997–1999 the
U.S. Armed Forces and the CIA used cyber capabilities against Russia’s allies the Serbs
1957 On the phases of this relationship cf. Forsberg, Tuomas and Haukkala, Hiski. The European Union. In

Tsyganov 2018, 269-281.
1958 Legvold 2015; Cadier 2015; Donalson & Nadkarni 2019, 184-192.
1959 Rieker, Pernille and Gjerde, Kristian Lundby. The EU, Russia and the potential for dialogue – different
readings of the crisis in Ukraine. European Security, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2016), 304-325; Legvold 2016, 118-199;
Trenin 2014; Mearsheimer, John J. “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2014, 77-89.
1960 Donalson & Nadkarni 2019, 433-435.
1961 Levada. Putin’s approval rating [Online]. Available: https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/ [Accessed: 27th
April 2019].
1962 Nocetti 2018, 182–198; Soldatov & Borogan 2015; Treisman, Daniel (ed.) The New Autocracy: Information, Politics, and Policy in Putin’s Russia. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2018.
1963 Kaplan 2016, 47-49.
1964 The White House Washington. Presidential decision directive/NSC-63, May 22, 1998 [Online]. Available:
https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd/pdd-63.htm [Accessed: 1st May 2019].

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in the former Yugoslavia.1965 The Russians themselves were already hacking the U.S.
DoD networks—an incident which became to be known as the Moonlight Maze.1966
This breach lead Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre to claim in 1999 that theUnited States was in a “cyberwar.”1967
Between 2000 and 2007 most state-level cyber activity seems to have concentrated onespionage although this is difficult to know for sure as the only data available forscholars comes from primarily public Western sources.1968 China activated its operations around 2000 and began to use the Internet for industrial espionage to secure its
national development to such a magnitude that the U.S. began to complain about it
in 2006–2007.1969 Cyber criminality became an international threat.1970 From a Russian
point of view the Chechen rebels’ presence on the Internet posed a threat, as did thepossibility that other radical Muslim groups in Russia or Central Asia might use theInternet to gather global support.1971 Importantly, the United States DoD and NSA
cyber forces went through multiple reorganizations in an effort to find the right balance between espionage, cyber defence, and offensive operations—a process that
Russia quite probably monitored.1972
The threats and possibilities inherent in the development of cyberspace produced international cooperation, or at least efforts to that effect such as the Budapest Convention of Cyber Crime, which was adopted quickly after 9/11. However, Russia andChina have not signed it and have criticized it.1973 The United Nations ITU createdthe World Summit on Information Security (WSIS) in 2001 and the Working Groupon Internet Governance (WGIG) in 2003 to operate between the summits (2003,
2005). The ITU’s approach to Internet governance set certain developing countries,(including Russia which argued multilaterally for a state governed Internet) against
ICANN, IETF, W3C and the multi-stakeholder model promoted by the UnitedStates.1974 In 2006 the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established as a multistakeholder open discussion forum with no regulatory functions. Its latest session washeld in Paris in 2018.1975 Another arena for developing Internet governance norms

1965 Kaplan 2016, 113-118.

1966 Kaplan 2016, 78-88; Rid 2016, 316-322.
1967 Rid 2016, 329.

1968 This is apparent from, for example, the CSIS’s list of Significant Cyber Incidents and the CFR’s Cyber

Operations Tracker (Center for Strategic and International Studies 2018; Council on Foreign Relations 2018).
1969 Kaplan 2016, 222–223; Inkster 2016, 71-75; Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018.
1970 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Comprehensive Study on Cybercrime, Draft—February 2013
[Online]. Available: https://www.unodc.org/documents/organized-crime/UNODC_CCPCJ_EG.4_2013/
CYBERCRIME_STUDY_210213.pdf [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
1971 Carr 2012; Rantapelkonen, J. Psykologiset operaatiot. Propagandasta informaatio-operaatioihin. [Psychological operations. From propaganda to information operations]. Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu Taktiikan laitos,
Julkaisusarja 1 Taktiikan tutkimuksia N:o 1/2002. Helsinki: Edita.
1972 Kaplan 2016. For ‘eyewitness accounts’ cf. CSIS. Cyber From The Start podcast, multiple episodes [Online].
Available: https://www.csis.org/podcasts/cyber-start [Accessed: 28th May 2019].
1973 Drake, Cerf & Kleinwächter 2016; The Russian claim that the Budapest Convention article 32(b) breaches
sovereignty is controversial (Clough, Jonathan. A World of Difference: The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and the Challenges of Harmonization. Monash University Law Review, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2014), 698-736).
1974 Cogburn, Derrick L. The Multiple Logics of Post-Snowden Restructuring of Internet Governance. In
Musiani et al. 2016, 25-45.
1975 Cogburn 2016; IGF. The Internet of Trust. Thirteenth Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 12 - 14 November 2018 Paris, France [Online]. Available: http://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/index.php?q=
filedepot_download/6037/1555 [Accessed: 2nd May 2019].

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have been the working groups of the UN GGE process beginning from 2004/2005.
They have approached cyber security as a disarmament issue.1976
Somewhere around 2006–2007 more serious and militarized state-to-state cyber-attacks began to surface or were at least made public.1977 Before this, the U.S. had probably used offensive cyber measures against Iraq in 2003 and against Islamist extremist
from 2001 onwards.1978 There is evidence and even acknowledgements on this and it
was also a real belief held by the Russian and Chinese elites.1979 Quite probably the
U.S. together with Israel initiated the Stuxnet or Operation Olympic Games in 2006
(which was discovered in 2010). Israel allegedly used cyber tools in its attack against
Syrian air defences in 2007. Russian state sponsored hackers managed to cause major
disturbances in Estonian financial and public services in 2007, and Russia allegedly
used cyber-attacks against the Georgian government and media in 2008.1980 These operations raised fears of catastrophic attacks against national infrastructure and the infrastructure of the Internet itself—a resource that state economies were becoming
ever more reliant on.1981
Between 2006–2009 the United State adopted the National Infrastructure Protection
Plan, the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative, and the DoD National
Military Strategy for Cyberspace Operations and chose to militarize cyber issues bydesignating cyberspace as a military domain. The U.S. Cyber Command was established in June 2009.1982 This militarization was arguably a Western led process as China
and Russia did not really discuss these issues in public and concentrated on criticizing
the U.S. while at the same time advancing their own espionage operations.1983 The
establishment of the U.S. Cyber Command forced all other states to take a similaraction, choose some other strategy to secure their national cyber security, or do nothing. The United States also led the discussion on securing critical infrastructure andhow to establish public-private partnerships to do it, although its own success was
not exemplary.1984 In addition to the threats emanating from the military steps takenby the United States, the Russian information society had developed to a phase where
cyber criminality had started to become a domestic problem and awareness of infrastructural threats also increased.1985
1976 Osula & Rõigas 2016.

1977 Libicki 2016, 6; Valeriano & Maness 2015.
1978 Kaplan 2016, 158-160.

1979 Thomas 2005; Inkster 2015.
1980 Libicki 2015; Kaplan 2016; Rid 2016; Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018.
1981 Kramer, Starr, Stuart & Wentz 2009; Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018.

1982 Kramer, Starr & Wentz 2009; Dombrowski & Demchak 2014; Kaplan 2016.

1983 Soldatov & Borogan 2015; Inkster 2016; Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. Foreign

Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets in Cyberspace. Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection andIndustrial Espionage, 2009-2011, October 2011 [Online]. Available: https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/ documents/Regulations/Foreign_Economic_Collection_2011.pdf [Accessed: 29th May 2019]. On the timeline
and relationships between different cyber operations cf. Valeriano & Maness 2015; Valeriano, Jensen & Maness2018.
1984 Kaplan 2016; Marks, Joseph. Obama’s Cyber Legacy. Defence One, January 18, 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2017/01/obamas-cyber-legacy/134629/?oref=d-river [Accessed: 3rd
May 2019].
1985 Symantec. Symantec Global Internet Security Threat Report Trends for 2009. Online]. Available:
http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/white_papers/b-whitepaper_internet_security_threat_report_xv_04-2010.en-us.pdf [Accessed: 1st May 2019]; Tadviser. Киберпреступность и киберконфликты:Россия [Online]. Available: http://www.tadviser.ru/a/240126 [Accessed: 1st May 2019]; Pynnöniemi 2012;

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The other rising great power, China, had built up its Internet censorship system called
the Golden Shield or the Great Firewall of China already in 1996–2006.1986 Between
2009 and 2013 China significantly increased the censorship of social media andpushed foreign, mainly Western Internet companies, out of the Chinese markets. The
Communist party was partly suppressing national minorities who had discovered social media and partly establishing rules of national self-censorship concerning all Chinese.1987 By 2015 the Chinese Internet was tightly under government control, and censorship was pervasive.1988 This arguably provided Russia with an example to follow as
the Arab Spring and the demonstrations of 2011–2012 began.
Before the Arab spring of 2011, the Iranian Green revolution of 2009 gave a glimpse
into how the social media could be used to organize support for a regime change.1989
Consequently, the Arab Spring had its cyberspace dimensions as cyber means werefirst used to support the revolutions but then used to cut their wings as authoritarian
countries began to ‘switch off’ mobile and Internet services in the event of demonstrations.1990 The ‘shut down’ of the Internet was not a new phenomenon but gained
popularity as a measure of political control in the 2010s. The idea had already been
discussed even in the United States in 2010, although it was ultimately discarded.1991
Additionally, the importance of protecting the critical (information) infrastructure increased. In 2012 ENISA reported that cyber-attack methods and tools had reachedsuch a maturity that they could be used for cyber warfare and that the threats against
critical infrastructures were on the rise.1992 The fear of cyber attacks against industrial
control systems with possibly catastrophic consequences increased as Stuxnet, Shamoon and then the attacks against the Ukraine’s electricity networks occurred in 2015
and 2016.1993
Before the war in Ukraine and the alleged Russian cyber operations against the political systems and critical infrastructure of the West—and other major cyber incidents
like NotPetya etc. which were blamed on Russia with or without evidence—there wasan effort to build bilateral regimes of cyber security between the United States, China
and Russia.1994 After the revelations by Edward Snowden about the massive U.S. cyberespionage campaigns in 2013 and the downturn in West–Russia relations in 2014 theefforts faltered. However, in the midst of the Snowden affair the Obama administration agreed to establish a ‘cyber-hotline’ and increase cooperation between national
Pynnöniemi, Katri and Busygina, Irina. Critical infrastructure protection and Russia's hybrid regime, European
Security, Vol.22, No.4 (2013), 559-575.
1986 Inkster 2016; Lindsay, Cheung & Reveron 20151987 Griffiths, James. The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of theInternet. London: Zed Books Ltd., 2019, 183-184.
1988 Inkster 2015; Griffiths 2019.
1989 Griffiths 2019, 110-111.
1990 Vargas-Leon 2016.
1991 Zittrain, Jonathan and Sauter, Molly. Will the U.S. get an Internet "kill switch"? MIT Technology Review,
March 4, 2011 [Online]. Available: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423196/will-the-us-get-an-internetkill-switch/ [Accessed: 3rd May 2019].
1992 ENISA. ENISA Threat Landscape Responding to the Evolving Threat Environment [Deliverable – 201209-28] [Online]. Available: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/ENISA_Threat_Landscape/at_ download/fullReport [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
1993 O’Neil, William D. Cyberspace and Infrastructure. In Kramer et al. 2009, 113-146; Harrop, Wayne andMatteson, Ashley. Cyber Resilience: A Review of Critical National Infrastructure and Cyber-Security Protection
Measures Applied in the UK an USA The White House. In Lemieux 2015, 149–166.
1994 Cf. Sanger 2018; Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018; Maurer 2018; CSIS 2018; CFR 2019.

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CERTs with Russia.1995 Additionally, in 2015 Obama was able to push the Chinese toconclude an agreement on restricting economic cyber espionage and establish a hotline for handling incidents.1996 Russian efforts towards a similar or deeper pact havefallen flat.1997 In fact, after the Obama–Xi agreement, Chinese cyber-attacks against
Russia increased significantly in 2016–2017 and were directed against Russia’s SouthAsian diplomatic efforts and arms sales and also against industrial targets in Russia.1998
This happened despite the signing of the Russia–China information security agreement in 2015 which forbid computer attacks against information resources between
the states.1999
The militarization of cyberspace was completed in the latter half of the 2010s. In 2014
NATO included cyber-attacks in its collective defence clause and in 2016 recognizedcyberspace as a domain of military operations. In 2018 it established a Cyberspace
Operations Centre.2000 In 2015 China established its own military cyber force under
the Strategic Support Forces.2001 Countries over the world followed the United States’
and NATO’s example.2002 In 2017 USCYBERCOM was elevated to a unified combatant command and in 2018 it achieved ‘full operating capability’ with 133 teams of the
Cyber Mission Force operational.2003 In the autumn of 2018 President Trump relaxed
the constraints on conducting offensive cyber operations and the U.S. DoD adopted
a doctrine of forward cyber defence even outside open conflicts.2004 However, already1995 The White House. Fact sheet: U.S.-Russian Cooperation on Information and Communications Technology

Security. June 17, 2013 [Online]. Available: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/17/fact-sheet-us-russian-cooperation-information-and-communications-technol [Accessed: 1st May
2019].
1996 Sanger 2018, 121-123; Tucker, Patrick. China Is Still Stealing America’s Business Secrets, US Officials Say.
Defense One, July 26, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/07/chinastill-stealing-americas-business-secrets-us-officials-say/150086/ [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
1997 Grisby, Alex. Russia Wants a Deal with the United States on Cyber Issues. Why Does Washington Keep
Saying No? CFR, August 27, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.cfr.org/blog/russia-wants-deal-unitedstates-cyber-issues-why-does-washington-keep-saying-no [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
1998 Lenta.ru. Китайские хакеры стали в два раза чаще атаковать стратегические объекты России. Lenta.ru,
26 августа 2016 [Online]. Available: https://lenta.ru/news/2016/08/26/hacker_china_rus/ [Accessed: 25th
May 2019]; Холявко, Анна. «Лаборатория Касперского» назвала мишени китайских хакеров в России.
Эксперты фиксируют их возросшую активность. Ведомости, 06 декабря 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2017/12/06/744343-hakeri-atakuyut-rossiiskie-gosudarstvennie-strukturi [Accessed: 25th May 2019].
1999 Правительство Российской Федерации. Соглашение между Правительством Российской Федерацией и Правительством Китайской Народной Республики о сотрудничестве в области обеспечения
международной информационной безопасности, от 30 апреля 2015 г. N 788-р [Online]. Available:
http://static.government.ru/media/files/5AMAccs7mSlXgbff1Ua785WwMWcABDJw.pdf [Accessed: 26th
February 2019].
2000 Brent, Laura. NATO’s role in cyberspace. NATO Review, February 12th, 2019 [Online].
https://www.nato.int/docu/review/2019/Also-in-2019/natos-role-in-cyberspace-alliance-defence/EN/index.htm [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2001 DIA. China Military Power. Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win, 2019 [Online]. Available:
https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/China_Military_Power_FINAL_5MB_20190103.pdf [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2002 UNIDIR. The Cyber Index. International Security Trends and Realities. New York and Geneva: United
Nations, 2013 [Online]. Available: http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/cyber-index-2013-en463.pdf [Accessed: 1st May 2019]; Pernik, Piret. Preparing for Cyber Conflict. Case Studies of Cyber Command.
RKK ICDS, December 2018 [Online]. Available: https://icds.ee/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ICDS_ Report_Preparing_for_Cyber_Conflict_Piret_Pernik_December_2018-1.pdf [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2003 The U.S. Cyber Command 2019.
2004 The White House. National Cyber Strategy of the United States of America, September 2018 [Online].
Available: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/National-Cyber-Strategy.pdf [Accessed: 3rd May 2019]; The United States Department of Defence 2018; Rudesill, Dakota S. Trump’s Secret288

in 2016 it was revealed that the USCYBERCOM had planned a massive cyber operation called ‘Nitro Zeus’ against Iran.2005 There is also evidence that the U.S. has used
its new capabilities against state and non-state actors during the Obama era and has
continued to do so under President Trump.2006 This development was noticed in Russia.2007
The evolution of cyber warfare happened while the UN GGE process first showed
great promise in 2009–2013 but then faced mounting problems and contradictions
and failed altogether in 2016–2017. Russia’s and China’s efforts to form international
consensus on banning cyber-weapons and transferring the control of the Internet tostates failed.2008 Furthermore, in 2012 the ITU organized the World Conference on
International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai where Russia, China and someother states tried unsuccessful to push through state-centred Internet governance.
Moreover, the SCO sponsored international cyber security treaties also failed to gain
traction in the United Nations in 2011 and 2015.2009 The latest ‘information sovereignty based’ norm-building effort in the context of the UN by Russia (and China)
was initiated in the autumn of 2018 and has produce a new UN GGE round, analternative forum Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) and UN committee decision on drafting a new cybercrime treaty. A clear change is that this effort is not only
parried by countries supporting non-sovereignty-based models but is also being challenged with counter proposals. The Russian and Chinese proposals have been mainly
supported by developing semi-authoritarian or authoritarian states.2010 In addition tothese state-led norm-building efforts, private companies and think tanks have put
forth their own initiatives in the last couple of years.2011
New threats to the information infrastructure upholding cyberspace and national ICT
systems have developed or become more acute in the 2010s. First, China, Russia andthe United States have advanced their anti-satellite programmes and the United States

Order on Pulling the Cyber Trigger. Lawfare, August 29, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www. lawfareblog.com/trumps-secret-order-pulling-cyber-trigger [Accessed: 3rd May 2019].
2005 Sanger 2018.
2006 Valeriano, Jensen & Maness 2018; Sanger 2018; Nakashima, Ellen. U.S. Cyber Command operation disrupted Internet access of Russian troll factory on day of 2018 midterms. The Washington Post, February 27,
2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-cyber-command-operation-disrupted-internet-access-of-russian-troll-factory-on-day-of-2018-midterms/2019/02/26/1827fc9e36d6-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.08c7444b6474 [Accessed: 3rd May 2019].
2007 RT. Чем может угрожать России активность американских военных в киберпространстве. Рамблер
28 фебраля 2019 [Online]. Available: https://news.rambler.ru/other/41794660/?utm_content=rnews&utm_medium=read_more&utm_source=copylink [Accessed: 28th February 2019]; Иванов 2018.
2008 Tikk & Kerttunen 2017.
2009 Cogburn 2016; McKune, Sarah. An Analysis of the International Code of Conduct for Information Security.
The CitizenLab, September 28, 2015 [Online]. Available: https://citizenlab.ca/2015/09/international-code-ofconduct/ [Accessed: 2nd May 2019]; Kavanagh 2017.
2010 Sherman, Justin and Raymond, Mark. The U.N. passed a Russia-backed cybercrime resolution. That’s notgood news for Internet freedom. Washington Post, 4th December 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/04/un-passed-russia-backed-cybercrime-resolution-thats-not-goodnews-internet-freedom/ [Accessed: 5th January 2020].
2011 Hinck, Garrett. Private-Sector Initiatives for Cyber Norms: A Summary. Lawfare, June 25, 2018 [Online].
Available: https://www.lawfareblog.com/private-sector-cyber-norm-initiatives-summary [Accessed: 2nd May
2019].

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established the Space Command in 2018. These developments have put space stationed Internet infrastructure under military threat.2012 Second, modern societies andmilitaries have become dependent on easily jammed satellite navigation systems andtime-services.2013 Third, the growth of IoT infrastructure and the sophistication of
exploitation methods has enabled the launching of massive DDoS attacks that canknock out parts of the Internet infrastructure—not to mention a single country’s
DNS system.2014 Fourth, the infrastructure of the Internet can itself be weaponised
through the manipulation of BGP routing, which can lead to the dropping of traffic
or its rerouting through hostile networks.2015 Fifth, the increased tensions between
great powers in the latter half of the 2010s has made supply-chain attacks a criticalnational security issue which is evident in the way in which foreign IT companies havefallen under sanctions and restrictions.2016 Sixth, the advances in artificial intelligence,quantum computing and cryptography, and blockchain based technologies all might
have disruptive effects on the balance of power in cyberspace. The problem for Russia
is that, at least according to one study, it is not among the forerunners in developing
and deploying these technologies.2017 Seventh, in April 2016 the Russian elites became
the object of an Internet leak for the first time as the Panama papers revealed information about the corruption of Vladimir Putin and people close to him.2018 This wasfollowed in 2019 by the “The Dark Side of the Kremlin” file released by human rightadvocacy groups.2019 Eighth, data localization and the possible access of foreign security services to governmental, corporate, and personal data has become a national
security issue, as has the question of using foreign cloud servers and other extraterritorial technology for critical services of societies.2020 Lastly ninth, old threats have not
2012 Sankaran, Jaganath. Limits of the Chinese Anti-satellite Threat to the United States. Strategic Studies Quar-

terly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (WINTER 2014), 19-46; Rose, Frank A. Re-establishing U.S. Space Command is a greatidea. Brookings, January 7, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fromchaos/2019/01/07/re-establishing-u-s-space-command-is-a-great-idea/ [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2013 Burgess, Matt. To protect Putin, Russia is spoofing GPS signals on a massive scale. Wired, March 27, 2019
[Online]. Available: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/russia-gps-spoofing [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2014 Sozeri 2015; Cloudflare. Famous DDoS Attacks. The Largest DDoS Attacks Of All Time [Online]. Available: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/famous-ddos-attacks/ [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2015 Jonker, Mattjis, Pras, Aiko, Dainotti, Alberto and Sperotto, Anna. A First Joint Look at DoS Attacks and
BGP Blackholing in the Wild. IMC ‘18, October 31-November 2, 2018, Boston, MA, USA [Online]. Available:
http://www.caida.org/publications/papers/2018/dos_attacks_and_bgp/dos_attacks_and_bgp.pdf[Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2016 Levite, Ariel. ICT Supply Chain Integrity: Principles for Governmental and Corporate Policies. Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, October 4th 2019 [Online]. Available: https://carnegieendowment.org/
2019/10/04/ict-supply-chain-integrity-principles-for-governmental-and-corporate-policies-pub-79974 [Accessed: 5th January 2020].
2017 KPMG. The Changing Landscape of Disruptive Technologies. Tech hubs forging new paths to outpace
the competition [Online]. Available: https://info.kpmg.us/content/dam/info/en/techinnovation/pdf/
2018/tech-hubs-forging-new-paths.pdf [Accessed: 2nd May 2019]; Bendett, Samuel and Kania, Elsa B. A new
Sino-Russian high-tech partnership. Authoritarian innovation in an era of great-power rivalry. ASPI Policy brief
Report No. 22/2019.
2018 Luhn, Alec and Harding, Luke. Putin dismisses Panama Papers as an attempt to destabilise Russia. Guardian, April 7th, 2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/putin-dismissespanama-papers-as-an-attempt-to-destabilise-russia [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2019 Shane, Scott. Huge Trove of Leaked Russian Documents Is Published by Transparency Advocates. New
York Times, January 25th, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/world/europe/
russian-documents-leaked-ddosecrets.html [Accessed: 1st May 2019]. Also a smaller leak in 2017 Cf. Newman,
Lily Hay. A fishy WikiLeaks dump targets Russia for a change. Wired, September 20, 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.wired.com/story/wikileaks-spy-files-russia/ [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2020 Тишина 2018; Захарцев, Алексей. Федеральный антивирус: Защитникам виртуального мира требуется помощь государства- ВПК, № 3-4 (618-619) за 3 февраля 2016 года [Online]. Available: https:// vpknews.ru/articles/28996 [Accessed: 28th February 2019].

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gone away as the amount of cyber-crime, including more sophisticated attacks, has
steadily increased. In 2016 the General Persecutor of the RF estimated the damages
from cybercrime to be 0.25% of GDP.2021 Vladimir Putin himself has stated thatcyber-attacks against the government have increased: in 2014–2015 there were a little
more than one and a half thousand, in 2016 there were 12 thousand, in 2017 - about
12.5 thousand, and in 2018 - already 17 thousand.2022 Of course, these declarations
must be approached in the political context of the state policies analysed below.
Now that Russia’s international and cyber environment have been examined, it is timeto answer the question of whether the Russian strategic environment changed during
the 2000s and 2010s in a way that required the Russian elites to reach for new ideas
or rediscover old ones which might then have influenced or given reason for adopting
particular policies. Arguably, the mid and late 1990s were the period when cyberspace
as a part Russia’s strategic environment was born. At that point it did not present
itself as a critical national security issue even though the Russian security services understood its potential for both offensive and defensive purposes. The exception was
the information warfare against the Chechen separatists, but it was a piecemeal effort
constituting of persecuting individual websites and disseminating counter-propaganda mainly through other mediums than the Internet.2023
During the 2000s and 2010s Russian domestic information technology research andhardware and software development and production lagged significantly behind theUnited States and increasingly that of China, and Russia became almost totally reliant
on foreign technology. The United States’ perceived control over the Internet, its
technological superiority and the eventual establishment of the Cyber Command affected the strategic balance unfavourably for Russia. As Russia’s own information
economy and society developed it was faced with the same problem of securing thecritical information infrastructure, which maintained critical state, economic, and societal services, as it did for everybody else. Moreover, the Internet was becoming asocial medium, enhancing the effects of globalization on Russian political and cultural
spheres. The first ‘new Cold War’ in 2004-2009 was certainly a change for the worsein Russia’s security environment, although this was not because of new and unseen
threats emerging. As its economy recovered, Russia began to challenge the roles, values, and norms that had been imposed upon it after the Soviet Union collapsed. Because the Internet’s influence was still marginal, these developments did not produce
any significant efforts to control or shape the national cyberspace or its content by
the Russian regime.
Yet, in 2008-2009 as Russia ‘pivoted to the East’ it is quite possible that in the context
of different economic forums, in the CSTO and the SCO there was an exchange ofideas and convergence of interests on the issues of information security. Perhaps
more critically, although Russia’s economy recovered quickly in 2009-2012,2021 Сухаренко, Александр. Кибертеррористов вычислят с ГосСОПКА. Независимая газета, 23.12.2016[Online]. Available: http://www.ng.ru/ideas/2016-12-23/5_6893_kiber.html [Accessed: 1st May 2019].
2022 Латухина, Кира. Барьер для шпиона. Владимир Путин призвал ФСБ защитить Россию от кибернаступления. RG.ru, 6 марта 2019 [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2019/03/06/putin-prizval-fsb-zashchitit-rossiiu-ot-kibernastupleniia.html [Accessed: 28th May 2019].
2023 On Chechenia Cf. Thomas 2005; Berger 2010.

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Medvedev (in fact Putin’s government) failed in reforming the Russian ‘digital’ economy. At the same time, the great power balance was changing. In the contest between
a rising China and the status quo United States, Russia chose to ally itself with China
which shared a similar authoritarian political system and compatible values. Moreover,as was noted above, the U.S. ‘Reset’ policy was only a tactical move and the underlying
interest-conflicts between Russia and the United States remained.
The way in which the militarization of cyberspace advanced and the Internet began
to challenge the state-controlled media as a source of information in Russia also affected the foundations of the Russian security environment. It is probable that the
military reform and the rearmament programme that began in 2008-2011 heightened
the sensitivity of the Russian defence and security elites to the performance gap between Russia and the U.S.—and increasingly China. Ever faster developing information technology with its potentially disruptive effects and the possibility for rapid
impacts on the balance of power made it imperative to enhance the domestic technological base. More so as the efforts to control the United States through arms control
negotiations disguised as ‘information security norm-building’ repeatedly failed. The
failure of the Russian initiative in the 2012 WCIT in Dubai demonstrated that international sovereignty-based cyber security was unattainable through global agreements. Russia had to go ahead and make sovereignty a norm through its own actions
and regional agreements.
Around 2011–2012 the Internet had reached a significant portion of the Russian urban population, and arguably the 2011 Arab spring was an event that changed thecalculus of the Russian elite.2024 It highlighted the power of social media and heightened the tensions between the ‘interventionist’ and ‘democratizing’ West and the ‘sovereignty-respecting’ and ‘great-power status seeking’ Russia (and China). However,there was nothing new in the threat of regime change or the Russian vision on themultipolar world order. Moreover, the grounds for fearing a ‘colour revolution’quickly faded as the Arab spring largely fizzled out by the end of 2012 and the demonstrations inside Russia were over by the summer of 2012. More importantly, Putin
had clearly decided to develop the Russian ‘pivot to the East’ even before the demonstrations of 2011-2012 occurred. He built his re-election campaign on great-powerness, Eurasian alliances and he chose to retain his anti-Western stance even after thedemonstrations had been suppressed.2025 As the United States was withdrawing from
Iraq and Afghanistan and itself ‘pivoted to the East’ to counter the rising China, theRussian military was regaining its strength. Thus, the global balance of military power
was rapidly changing. This is not to argue that the Arab spring had no genuine effect,
only that it was a prelude, not the defining moment.
Geopolitical great power rivalry intensified in 2013 and the Snowden case forced
states all around the world to take a good look at their national cyber security. The
Russian economy began to falter just as the European Union was drawing Ukraine(and Georgia) away from Russia’s sphere of influence. Consequently, the real change

2024 Nocetti 2015; Soldatov 2017; Treisman 2019.
2025 Fernandes, Sandra. Putin’s Foreign Policy towards Europe: Evolving Trends of an (Un)Avoidable Rela-

tionship. In Kanet & Piet 2014, 13-34, 26-27.

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in Russian international environment occurred in 2014, first, as the result of the revolution in Ukraine, and then with the diplomatic and economic confrontation with
the West, which is still ongoing. By 2015 Russia had ended up with a latent conflictwith the United States, NATO and European Union with little support from its socalled allies from CSTO or SCO, while its military reform was still uncompleted.
Moreover, Russia’s economic decline and the use of force against Ukraine had undermined its Eurasian integration policies. Thus, Russia’s security and economic environment changed drastically to the worse. Moreover, the Russian digital economy wasfacing a triple crisis: intense competition from foreign companies, sanctions restricting financing and cooperation, and weak domestic markets. Through Russian andWestern reactions and counter reactions the militarization of cyberspace accelerated
and information became weaponized in state-to-state relationships, and Russia wasunder threat of further sanctions from the U.S., NATO and the EU. Thus, the cyberspace had in fact become more dangerous for Russia at the same time as it has
become reliant on foreign IT technology. Russia’s policies during 2015–2019 testify
to this as it has tried to eliminate its technological vulnerabilities and build up its stagnating technological-scientific power base.
Together with everything noted above, an American administration led by President
Trump which clearly strives to rid itself from binding and unbeneficial international
agreements, has made Russia’s strategic environment quite fluid.2026 Its vulnerability is
increased by its slowly recovering economy, micro-level protests to the cuts on social
benefits, and the dipping approval ratings of Putin and his party. It can thus be argued
that the Russian elites have been looking for ideas after the spring of 2014 that mightprovide answers to Russia’s current situation which has been characterised by theperceived change in the balance of power, multiple outside and inside security threats,
economic problems, and the forced reorientation to Eurasia and Asia—in addition to
the need to control a society penetrated by the Internet. The Russian elite became
acutely aware of the changes in the cyberspace between 2011-2012, particularly in theInternet, and most importantly of its effects on national security throughout the wider
information space. This increased the demand for new and old ideas as the elite
searched for creative and innovative ways to make sense of the confusing and threatening environment from domestic epistemic communities but perhaps also from foreign sources. However, the true shift in the strategic environment necessitating novel
policies and strategic choices happened in 2014. A new or at least updated strategy toconfront the threats in and from cyber and information space was needed.
6.2

Policies and ideas

This chapter analyses the strategies, policies, and laws that have been adopted by the
Russian regime to tackle the new security issues brought forth by the development of
the international environment and the Internet in the period of 2000–2019. I will startby examining the national actors involved in developing, selecting, and implementing
policies to understand how and through what kind of instruments cyberspace isshaped by the Russian state, and how cyber strategy is made and to examine how2026 Wolf, Zachary B. and Carman, JoElla. Here are all the treaties and agreements Trump has abandoned.

CNN, February 1, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/01/politics/nuclear-treatytrump/index.html [Accessed: 8th July 2019].

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ideas are transferred between the elites and epistemic communities. The second partof this chapter examines the international treatises Russia has either advocated or
adopted concerning cyber and information security during 2000–2019. The third partexamines the strategies, policies, and laws developed and adopted in the period of
2000–2011 to give context for the next chapter. Throughout these parts I analyse how
the strategic cultural ideas examined in Chapter 5 resonate with the adopted strategies,
policies, and laws.
6.2.1 Decision-making elites and institutions
Russian security, defence and foreign policy behaviour has been explained throughmultiple different theories and variables—many of them domestic.2027 Russia has beenvariously described as authoritarian state, a Neo-Soviet Union, a ‘KGB state’, a kleptocracy and an ‘informational autocracy’.2028 Some have found persistent features likepatron-client nomenclature, administrative silos, lack of investment, directly government led strategic projects, non-transparency, lack of responsibility, and emphasis on
campaigns and projects instead of development.2029 However, Russia’s political system
has changed between 2000–2019 and thus any single theory describing the Russianpolitical system under Putin will fail to capture the whole picture, which has changed
over time.2030 Keeping that in mind I shall limit myself here to examining the current
main Russian public and private decision-making elites or institutions, in short thoseactors taking part in developing and implementing policies towards the Russian national segment of the Internet. The actors and their responsibilities towards different
networks of the Russian national segment are presented in Table I.2031 The categorization of actors is based on mandates and functions as indicated by the references inthe table. The categorization of the networks is based on Russian law. Public Internet
refers to the ‘information-telecommunications network Internet’ defined by the Russian federal law. Government networks and the military Internet are different typesof special networks also defined be law. Critical information infrastructure is a regulatory category central to understanding Russian national cyber security. Corporate

2027 Cf. Lo 2015; Cadier & Light 2016; Oliker 2017; Tsygankov 2018; Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019; Kanet 2019.
2028 The debate about the Russian authoritarian nature is ongoing. Perhaps the most prominent Western scholaron the Russian domestic political system Richard Sakwa has labelled Russia ‘soft authoritarian’ but he has also
pointed out that designating Russia to be authoritarian and ‘the West’ liberal democratic is a gross simplification
and a political act (Sakwa, Richard. Dualism at Home and abroad: Russian Foreign Policy Neo-Revisionism
and Bi-continentalism. Cadier & Light 2015, 65-79). Also cf. Treisman 2018; Pomerantsev, Peter and Weiss,Michael. The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money. New York:The Institute of Modern Russia, Inc., 2014; Oliker, Olega: Putinism, Populism and the Defence of Liberal
Democracy, Survival, Vol.59, No. 1, February – March 2017, 7-24.
2029 Porfiriev & Simons 2016.
2030 On this change cf. Marten 2017; Soldatov, Andrei. From the “New Nobility” to the KGB. Russian Politics
and Law, Vol. 55, No. 2 (2017), 133-146; Soldatov, Andrei and Rochlitz, Michael. The Siloviki in Russian
Politics. In Treisman et al. 2018, 79-103; Konyshev, Valery and Sergunin, Alexander. Military. In Tsyganov
2018, 168-181; Herspring, Dale R. Vladimir Putin and Military Reform in Russia, European Security, Vol.14,
No.1 (2005), 137-155; Vendil 2001; Mankoff 2012; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014; Bacon, Edwin. Security Council
and decision-making. In Kanet 2019, 119-130; Pomeranz, William E. Law and the Russian State- Russia’s Legal
Evolution from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin. London and New York: Bloomsburym 2019, 164-165; Noble, Ben and Schulmann, Ekaterina. Not Just a Rubber Stamp. Parliament and Lawmaking. In Treisman 2018,
47-78; Monaghan 2017; Renz 2018; Golts, Aleksandr. Military Reform and Militarism in Russia. Washington,
D.C.: The Jamestown Foundation, 2019.
2031 For a somewhat similar survey cf. Carr 2012; Nocetti 2015; Vendil Pallin 2019, 203-213.

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networks refer to ‘separated networks’ administered by non-governmental entities
and possibly connected to the common telecommunications network.2032
Table I. The Russian National segment of the Internet: Actors, Networks and Responsibilities2033
Networks
ActorsPublicInternet

Government
networks

Military
Internet

Critical information infrastructure

Corporate
networks

The President of the Russian Federation

SP
AL
SP
C
DL&DP
DL&AL

SP
AL
SP
C
DL&DP
DL&AL

SP
AL
SP
C
DL&DP
DL&AL

SP
AL
SP
C
DL&DP
DL&AL

SP
AL
SP
C
DL&DP
DL&AL

DL&DP
IP
NR

DL&DP
IP
NR

NR

NSC
CM
TC
TD
TC
PC
RA
IP
RA
C
DP
IP
CD
CD
DP
TD
CD
C

NSC
CM
TC
TD
TC
PC
RA

NSC
(TC)

C
DP

C
DP

NR
CL

NR
CL

The Security Council
The Federal Assembly
The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and MassMedia of the Russian Federation
Rozkomnadzor

Rossviaz’
Rospechat’
ANO Tsifrovaia Ekonomika
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Think tanks and other forums

DP

DP

C

DP&IP
RA
NR
TC
CL
CS
NR
CL

The Ministry of Defence and theArmed Forces

The Federal Service for Technicaland Export Control

DP
TD

NR
NSC
CL

CL

TD
PC
SS

The Defence-Industrial Complex
Ministry of Interior (Directorate
K)

DP

LE

LE

LE

2032 Федеральный закон 2003; Федеральный закон от 27.07.2006 N 149-ФЗ (ред. от 18.03.2019) “Об ин-формации, информационных технологиях и о защите информации” [Online]. Available: http://www.
consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_61798/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019]; Федеральный закон 2017a.
2033 Abbreviations: Strategic planning (SP), Coordination (C), Drafting laws (DL), Drafting policies (DP),
Adopting laws (AL), Implementing policies (IP), Normative regulation (NR), Normative supervision and control (NSC), Cyber diplomacy (CD), Content monitoring (CM), Technical control (TC), Providing connectivity(PC), Technical development (TD), Resource administration (RA), Cyber security and incident response (CS)RU-CERT(a), GOV-CERT(b), Military SOCs (c), FSB (d), CERT-GIB / Private SOCs FIN-CERT (e), Certification and licences (CL), Systems and Services (SS), Law enforcement (LE).

295

Networks
ActorsPublicInternet

Government
networks

Ministry of Industry and Trade andthe Ministry of Economic Development

DP&IP

DP&IP

LE
CM
CL

LE
CM
CL

LE
CM
CL

C
LE
CL
TC
CS(d)

LE
CL

CS(a)

TC
PC
CS
SS
CS(b)

CS(c)

CS(d)

CS (e)

TC
PC

TC
PC

PC
(TC)
SS
TD
CM

PC

PC

SS
TD

SS
TD

The Federal Security Service

The Federal Protective Service
Computer Emergency Response
Teams
Coordination Centre of National
Domain of Internet and TechnicalCentre Internet
State and private Internet Service
ProvidersState and private software andhardware companies”The civil society”

Military
Internet

Critical information infrastructure

Corporate
networks
DP&IP

PC
PC
(TC)
SS
TD

PC
SS
TD

The President of the Russian Federation by the constitution and through Vladimir
Putin’s personal power and through the political system is the highest decision-makerof Russian security, defence and foreign policy.2034 He approves all federal laws andhas veto powers which have not been challenged after 2011.2035 This does not meanthat he is omnipotent or a dictator, but he can, if he so chooses, ‘manually control’
issues he deems to be important.2036 He takes part in the strategic planning process as
the Head of the Security Council, by influencing the legislative system through thepresidential administration and the United Russia party, by issuing strategic directives
like the May Edicts, by controlling the executive system through constitutional andpersonal power.2037 During his third and fourth term, Putin has relied more on semiformal gatherings or working groups and presidential advisers and representatives
like: the Internet Ombudsman Dmitrii Marinichev, the Presidential Adviser on theDevelopment on the Internet German Klimenko, and the Presidential Adviser on
International Cooperation in the Area of Information Security Andrei Krutskikh.2038

2034 Mankoff 2012, 55; Gvosdev & Marsh 2014, 34–36; Lo 2015, 7; Trenin 2015.
2035 Pomeranz 2019.

2036 Monaghan 2017; Treisman 2019.

2037 Sakwa 2015; Lee 2015; Oliker 2017; Monaghan 2017; Treisman 2019.

Soldatov 2017; Monaghan 2017; Treisman 2019; Pomeranz 2019; Левченко, Григорий. Интернетомбудсмен и советник Путина открестились от защиты пользователей Сети. Republic, 11 января 2016
[Online]. Available: https://republic.ru/posts/62291 [Accessed: 8th May 2019]; Указ Президента РФ 2018a;Посольство России в Республике Гана. Статья спецпредставителя Президента Российской Федерациипо вопросам международного сотрудничества в области информационной безопасности, Посла поособым поручениям МИД России А.В.Крутских, опубликованная в газете "Коммерсант" 27 марта 2019года [Online]. Available: https://ghana.mid.ru/ru/press-centre/news/statya_spetspredstavitelya_prezidenta_rossiyskoy_federatsii_po_voprosam_mezhdunarodnogo_sotrudniches/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2038

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The Security Council of the Russian Federation has the overall responsibility for the
strategic planning process.2039 It is headed by the president and has approximately 30
permanent and ordinary members including the prime minister, heads of key ministries, head of the presidential administration, head of the Armed Forces, security services, speakers of the Duma and Federal Council, and regional presidential representatives. The Security Council has a secretariat headed by the ex-FSB Director andfriend of Vladimir Putin, Nikolai Patrushev.2040 The Security Council functions as anational security coordination instrument at the highest level. It formulates policies,
strategies and law drafts, monitors the national security situation and exercises oversight over the federal and regional executive power.2041 As Edwin Bacon has noted,
the Security Council blurs the lines between the constitutional separation of powers.2042 The Security Council does much of its work through inter-departmental commissions, one of which is the Inter-Departmental Commission of Information Security. It analyses and forecasts the information security situation in Russia, makes policy
proposals for the Security Council and takes part in the strategic planning process.
The Commission together with the Scientific Council of the Security Council hastaken part in the formulation of the Digital Economy programme and the debates on
information threats against Russia.2043 The membership of the Commission includes
presidential representatives, representatives of ministries, security services (FSB, SVR,FSO), the military, the national guard, the federal agencies related to information security (Roskomnadzor, Rossviaz’, Rospechat’), the FSTEK, and representatives from
Gasprom, Rosneft, Rosatom, and Sberbank among others.2044 The Scientific Council
provides overall scientific-methodological support for the Security Council and its
memberships includes 150 academicians from the leading think tanks and universities
including: V. M. Burenok, S. N. Griniaev, S. G. Chekinov, A. A. Kokoshin, A. V.
Krutskikh, A. V. Serzhantov and many representatives from the scientific military2039 Cf. Chapter 5; Федеральный закон от 28.12.2010 N 390-ФЗ (ред. от 05.10.2015) “О безопасности”[Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_108546/ [Accessed: 6th May
2019]; Указ Президента РФ от 06.05.2011 N 590 (ред. от 25.07.2014) “Вопросы Совета Безопасности
Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_
113807/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019]; Vendil 2001; Bacon 2019.
2040 Указ Президента РФ от 25.05.2012 N 715 (ред. от 18.02.2019) “Об утверждении состава Совета Безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_
doc_LAW_130204/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2041 Указ Президента РФ от 06.05.2011 N 590 (ред. от 25.07.2014) “Вопросы Совета Безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_ LAW_113807/[Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2042 Bacon 2019.
2043 Указ Президента РФ от 20 октября 1993 г. N 1686 “О совершенствовании деятельности межведомственных комиссий Совета безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: https://base.garant.ru/5348225/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019]; Совет Безопасности РФ. Вопросы информационной безопасности при реализации национальной программы «Цифровая экономика России» обсуждены экспертами Совета Безопасности РФ. 29 октября 2018 года [Online]. Available: http://www.scrf.gov.ru/news/allnews/2493/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019]; Совет Безопасности РФ. В аппарате Совета Безопасности РФ рассмотрены вопросы развития цифровой экономики с точки зрения обеспечения национальной безопасности. 30 июня 2017 года [Online]. Available: http://www.scrf.gov.ru/news/allnews/2245/ [Accessed: 8th
May 2019].
2044 Указ Президента РФ от 10 ноября 2018 г. N 648 “Об утверждении состава Межведомственной комиссии Совета Безопасности Российской Федерации по информационной безопасности по должностям” [Online]. Available: https://base.garant.ru/72100350/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].

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institutions.2045 The Security Council and its Committees have had a decisive role in
how Russian information security has developed.2046
The role of the Bicameral Federal Assembly, i.e. the State Duma and the Federal
Council in the area of information or cyber security is mainly limited to drafting andapproving laws and offering a platform for “elite battleground” on issues concerning
rents and power.2047 Although many laws affecting the national segment of the Internet are proposed by seemingly independent parliamentarians, they are more often
than not based on the guidance of the Presidential Administration, the Security Council, the government or corporation lobbyists.2048 Donaldson and Nadkarni argue that
under the Putin regime the parliament may have shaped the tone, tactics, and politicalclimate through discussion but not its directions.2049
The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media (in short
Minkomsviaz’) is a federal executive organ responsible for, among other things, thedevelopment and implementation of state policy and regulatory framework in the fieldof information technology, telecommunications, radio spectrum, the Internet, and theprovision of public services in the field of information technology. Basically,
Minkomsviaz’ has the power to regulate public telecommunications and government
networks, including the content and some aspects of security, and it administers certificates of electronic signatures and regulates their providers. It is also responsible
for forming ‘a unified information space’ in the territory of CIS countries.
Minkomsviaz’ takes part in mobilization and civil defence if so ordered.2050
Minkomsviaz’ is the ministry responsible for the national programme of the Digital
Economy which is one of national programmes based on Putin’s May Edicts 2018.2051
It also maintains the register of Russian produced software (Unified Register of Russian Programs for Electronic Computers and Databases) and may in the future withsome other ministries manage a register of Russian produced hardware.2052 Federal
2045 Указ Президента РФ 2011; Указ Президента РФ от 29 декабря 2018 г. № 771 ”Состав научного советапри Совете Безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.scrf.gov.ru/about/
NS_spis_organ/sost_NS/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2046 Cf. Chapter 4.1.
2047 Noble & Schulmann 2018.
2048 Treisman 2019; Конституция Российской Федерации (принята всенародным голосованием
12.12.1993) (с учетом поправок, внесенных Законами РФ о поправках к Конституции РФ от 30.12.2008
N 6-ФКЗ, от 30.12.2008 N 7-ФКЗ, от 05.02.2014 N 2-ФКЗ, от 21.07.2014 N 11-ФКЗ) [Online]. Available:
https://base.garant.ru/10103000/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019]; Sakwa 2008.
2049 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 152-253.
2050 Постановление Правительства РФ от 02.06.2008 N 418 (ред. от 07.02.2019) “О Министерстве цифрового развития, связи и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available:
http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_77387/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019]; Закон РФ "О государственной тайне" от 21.07.1993 N 5485-1 (последняя редакция) [Online]. Available: http:// www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_2481/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019]; Федеральный закон 2006.
2051 Президиум Совета при Президенте Российской Федерации по стратегическому развитию и национальным проектам от 24 декабря 2018 года “Паспорт национальной программы «Цифровая экономика
Российской Федерации».” [Online]. Available: http://static.government.ru/media/files/ urKHm0gTPPnzJlaKw3M5cNLo6gczMkPF.pdf [Accessed: 7th January 2020]; Правительство Российской Федерации. Заседание президиума Совета при Президенте Российской Федерации по стратегическому развитию и национальным проектам, 24 декабря 2018 [Online]. Available: http://government.ru/news/ 35168/[Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2052 On the register cf. Chapter 6.3.1. These are the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation,
Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, and the Federal Antimonopoly Agency. (Федеральный закон 2006; Кодачигов, Валерий. В России появится реестр отечественного телеком-оборудования. Реестр отечественного софта уже три года ведет Минкомсвязи. Ведомости, 14 января 2019298

agencies under Minkomsviaz’ are responsible for the control and censorship of theRussian segment of Internet. The Ministry has been headed by Igor’ Shchegolev(2008–2012), Nikolai Nikiforov (2012–2018), Konstantin Noskov (2018–2019) and
Maksut Shadaev (2020–).2053 In addition to Noskov, from 2018 to 2020 Vice-Premier
Maksim Akimov has been responsible for transportation, communications, and digital economy.2054 Akimov’s position is a clear indication of the primacy the Kremlinsets for the controlling and developing of the national segment. He was replaced in
January 2020 by Viktoriia Abramchenko.
Rozkomnadzor or the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media is the federal executive body responsible for,among other things, monitoring and supervising the mass media and electronic masscommunications, information technologies and communications, the compliance ofthe processing of personal data with the requirements of the legislation of the RussianFederation, and the functions of organizing radio frequency service. Roskomnadzor’s
powers extend to the so-called special networks if they affect the routing of public
networks. Moreover, it manages the Register of Information Dissemination Organizers (ORI) which defines the status of Russian ISPs and Internet content providers in
the context of the laws regulating the Internet.2055 Additionally, it maintains the register of blocked Internet resources, i.e. the Unified register of domain names, websites
on the Internet and network addresses that identify Internet sites containing information the distribution of which is prohibited in the Russian Federation. The registerobliges ISPs to block access to designated resources within a day of the promulgationof an order. Resources can be added to the register by Rozkomnadzor based on law
or through a court decision.2056 Rozkomnadzor will be responsible for the system forensuring the resilience, security and integrity of the Russian segment of the Internet
beginning from December 2019.2057 This is a definite change in its responsibilities as
it becomes a national security operator instead of being a supervisory and regulatoryorgan of state power. Under Roskomnadzor operates the Radio Frequency Service orFederal State Unitary Enterprise “Main Radio Frequency Centre” which has been allegedly responsible for monitoring the traffic of the national segment since 2014–2015 to ensure the compliance of the ISPs with the Unified Register. The Service will
most probably operate the “Centre for monitoring and management of public telecommunications network” which will be used to disconnect the Russian segment ofInternet from the global Internet if necessary.2058[Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2019/01/14/791362-reestr-otechestvennogo [Accessed: 8th May 2019]).
2053 Википедия. Министерство цифрового развития, связи и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации [Online]. Available: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Министерство_цифрового_развития,_связи_и_массовых_коммуникаций_Российской_Федерации [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2054 Ведомости. Кто вошел в новое правительство. Полный список. Десять вице-премьеров и двадцать
один министр. Ведомости, 18 мая 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/economics/articles/
2018/05/18/768949-pravitelstvo-polnii-spisok [Accessed: 8th May 219].
2055 Постановление Правительства РФ от 16.03.2009 N 228 (ред. от 28.02.2019) “О Федеральной службепо надзору в сфере связи, информационных технологий и массовых коммуникаций” (вместе с “Положением о Федеральной службе по надзору в сфере связи, информационных технологий и массовых
коммуникаций”) [Online]. Available: https://base.garant.ru/195117/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2056 Федеральный закон 2006.
2057 Федеральный закон 2019.
2058 Голунов, Иван, Горбачев, Александр, Туровский, Даниил. «Симона» в поисках мата и порно «Медуза» выяснила, как работают сотрудники Роскомнадзора, которые занимаются цензурой в СМИ. И

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Rossviaz’ or the Federal Communications Agency is the federal executive body responsible for managing state property and providing public services in the field of
telecommunications including communication networks and satellite services. It is
responsible for managing the public telecommunications network of the RF during
emergency situations.2059 The satellite fleet is operated by Kosmicheskaia sviaz’ company and consists of 12 satellites.2060 Emergency communications are offered by theFederal State Budgetary Organization “Industry Expertise Centre for Monitoring andDevelopment in the Sphere of Info-Communication Technologies” for example
through TETRA networks.2061 Furthermore, the SORM system was and is still developed by the FGUP TsNIIS under Rossviaz’.2062 The convergence of mobile communications and data traffic further promotes Rossviaz’s role.2063
Rospechat’ or the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications is a federal
agency which manages state property in the field of press, mass media and mass communications including computer networks. It implements state information policy,
for example, through the control of the main television channels and by supporting
various patriotic events like the Premiia Runeta competition.2064
The autonomous non-commercial organization (ANO) Digital Economy is one of
the institutions created for the implementation of the national programme of the Digital Economy. Its main function is the coordination between the government and thestate and private businesses. It monitors the development of the program, forms
workgroups, comments on law drafts and participates in the goal setting of the program. It is led by people from the leading Russian ICT companies.2065 Although it has
no authority to allocate resources, it does provide a platform for debate and feedbackсколько это стоит. Meduza, 8 декабря 2017 [Online]. Available: https://meduza.io/feature/2017/12/08/ simona-v-poiskah-mata-i-porno [Accessed: 15th May 2019]; Роскомсвобода. Суверенное регулирование продолжает обрастать «нормативками». Роскомсвобода, 21.6.2019 [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/47728/ [Accessed: 8th July 2019].
2059 Постановление Правительства РФ от 30.06.2004 N 320 (ред. от 25.09.2018) “Об утверждении Положения о Федеральном агентстве связи” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/
cons_doc_LAW_48289/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2060 Космическая связь. Спутниковая группировка. [Online]. Available: https://www.rscc.ru/space/seriyaekspress-am/ekspress-am44-11-zd/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2061 ФГБУ Центр МИР ИТ. Устав ФГБУ Центр МИР ИТ, 22.6.2016 [Online]. Available: http://centrmirit.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Ustav-FGBU-TSentr-MIR-IT.pdf [Accessed: 8th May 2019];
Ландышв, Юлия. Ростове монтируют новую систему связи для чемпионата мира по футболу. Современная радиосеть позволит надежно общаться тысячам волонтеров. Комсомольская Правда, 20 апреля
2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rostov.kp.ru/online/news/3091086/ [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2062
Центральный научно-исследовательский институт связи. СОРМ [Online]. Available:
https://zniis.ru/focus/sorm [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2063 Маркелов, Роман. В России предложили ввести платную регистрацию мобильных устройств. RG.ru,
25 января 2019 [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2019/01/25/v-rossii-predlozhili-vvesti-platnuiu-registraciiu-mobilnyh-ustrojstv.html [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2064 Постановление Правительства РФ от 17.06.2004 N 292 (ред. от 25.09.2018) “О Федеральном
агентстве по печати и массовым коммуникациям” [Online]. Available: https://base.garant.ru/187125/[Accessed: 22 January 2018]; Федеральное агентство по печати и массовым коммуникациям. Итоги
премии Рунета 2017, 24 ноября 2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/newsandevents/newsagency/2017/11/item20.html [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2065 Постановление Правительства РФ от 2 марта 2019 г. N 234 “О системе управления реализацией
национальной программы “Цифровая экономика Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available:
https://base.garant.ru/72190034/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019]; АНО «Цифровая Экономика». Наблюдательный совет АНО «Цифровая экономика» назвал законопроекты, которые требуют приоритетного одобрения Госдумой, 04.12.2018 [Online]. Available: https://data-economy.ru/04122018 [Accessed: 6th May
2019].

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and it its officially connected to the government. In addition to the ANO Digital
Economy there are also investment and financing tools like the Internet Initiatives
Development Fund (FRII) which channels energy-revenues into the ICT sector,2066
and government–private business forums like the Internet Development Institute(IRI).2067 The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) also has a
Committee of Digital Economy chaired by the President of Rostelekom.2068 Because
venture-capitalism is poorly developed in Russia, these organizations facilitate theprocess of allocating state resources to national projects.2069
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has a distinct role in the international cybernorm-building effort of the Russian regime.2070 It must be noted that the MoD also
has a role in this process as do some representatives from the security services. However, official international negotiations are conducted in the framework of the United
Nations which is the territory of the MFA.2071 Because the MFA does not conduct
independent policy its main function in the context of information security is theadvancement of Russian national interests by promoting Russian ideas about information security.2072 To these ends, it in 2019 established the 42nd Department of International Information Security. It is headed by Andrei Krutskikh, a founding member of NAMIB and a career diplomat.2073
Independent, semi-independent, and subordinate think tanks and domestic and international forums provide a platform for developing technologies and policies related
to the control and development of the national segment of the Internet.2074 These
think tanks include, for example, many of those which have representatives in the
Security Council and whose members’ writings have been analysed in Chapter 5 suchas the PIR Centre, MGIMO, RISI, RIAC, the Centre of Strategic Estimations andForecasts, the Centre for Military Strategic Studies of the General Staff, various institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, the Institute of Information Security Problems at the MGU, the Russian
Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, the Skolkovo
2066 Сухаревская, Алена. Нефтегазовый венчур: как работает Фонд развития интернет-инициатив. РБК,28 апреля 2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/magazine/2016/05/570fa16e9a794781cb616fa0 [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2067 IRI is connected to the Fond for Developing Internet-Initiatives (FRII) and ROTsIT which is a non-governmental Internet development organization. IRI has faltered after its initiator Viacheslava Volodin left thepresidential administration. (Богданов, Юрий. Институт развития интернета укрепит цифровой суверенитет страны. ВЗГЛЯД, 12 марта 2015 [Online]. Available: https://vz.ru/society/2015/3/12/ 734014.html[Accessed: 9th May 2019]; Голицына, Анастасия. Институт развития интернета увольняет сотрудников.
У организации начались проблемы с финансированием. Ведомости, 18 января 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2017/01/18/673512-institut [Accessed: 17th May 2019].)2068 Российский союз промышленников и предпринимателей. Комитет по цифровой экономике
[Online]. Available: http://www.rspp.ru/cc/news/60 [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2069 Бутрин, Дмитрий. «Конкуренция должна происходить внизу, в экосистеме». Коммерсантъ, №227 от
10.12.2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4187705 [Accessed: 6th January 2020].
2070 Cf. Chapter 4 and 5; Nocetti 2015; Ristolainen 2017a & 2017b; Tikk & Kerttunen 2018.
2071 Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации. О принятии Генассамблеей ООН российской резолюции по международной информационной безопасности. 7.12.2018 [Online]. Available:
http://www.mid.ru/mezdunarodnaa-informacionnaa-bezopasnost/-/asset_publisher/UsCUTiw2pO53/content/id/3437775 [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2072 Donaldson & Nadkarni 2019, 138.
2073 Черненко, Елена. МИД обзаведется новым департаментом. Коммерсантъ №56 от 01.04.2019 [Online].
Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3930510 [Accessed: 6th January 2020].
2074 CF. Иванов 2014; Vendil & Oxenstierna 2017.

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technology park, and RAEK.2075 While some of the think tanks might conduct secret
research, the forums are open and are meant for exchanging and promoting ideas
publicly. These include, for example, the SOC-Forum, the 1T Forum, the RussianInternet Forum, and some foreign policy and security forums like the Valdai Club andthe Moscow Conference on International Security.2076
The Ministry of Defence is a federal executive organ which commands, controls andmanages the Russian Armed Forces and coordinates its actions with other ministries
and agencies. It develops and implements defence policy, coordinates with other federal organs on defence issues, and supports the military readiness of the Armed
Forces. The MoD manages military procurement through a ‘unified information system’, cooperates with the OPK and conducts defence-related scientific research. It
develops plans for mobilization of the economy including the use of infrastructure,organises the strategic deployment of forces and enables the mobilization of militaryforces. The MoD supervises the development of the command and control system of
the AF, ensures the information security of the AF, organizes federal cooperation on
the use of communications networks for the defence of the country, certificates military ICT, and conducts defence intelligence. The MoD also organizes the militarypolitical activity of the AF. The MoD has the power to conduct and order independent construction projects for defence needs. It can conduct foreign policy activities
related to the defence and military security of the Russian Federation, including military-technological cooperation. The minister of defence is directly responsible to thepresident. The MoD drafts, for example, the Defence Plan of RF, the Plan to Prevent
and Deter Military Conflicts, the Mobilization Plan, and the Information Confrontation Plan, and the Defence Command and Control (management) Plan.2077
The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation Armed Forces is the President.
The AF is commanded by the Minister of Defence through the ministry.2078 The General Staff is subordinated to the Minister of Defence and is responsible for the operational activities of the AF. The GS and the Main Directorate of Communications of
the AF are responsible for the organization and maintenance of the telecommunications networks and automated control systems of the Armed Forces and nationalcommand and control centres.2079 The MoD and the Armed Forces manage their own
2075 RAEK is a commercial lobbying organization with tight relations with the government and the Digital

Economy programme and publishes the yearly Economy of RuNet report (Ассоциация электронных
коммуникаций (РАЭК) [Online]. Available: https://raec.ru/statute/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2076 SOC-Форум [Online]. Available: https://soc-forum.ib-bank.ru/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019]; ITForum. XIInternational it-forum with BRICS and SCO participation [Online]. Available: https://itforum.admhmao.ru/
2018/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019]; РИФ. 23-й Российский Интернет Форум [Online]. Available:
https://2019.rif.ru/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019; Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. VIII Moscow
Conference on International Security [Online]. Available: https://eng.mil.ru/ en/mcis/index.htm [Accessed:
9th May 2019].
2077 Указ Президента РФ от 16.08.2004 N 1082 (ред. от 26.01.2019) “Вопросы Министерства обороны
Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_
48879/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2078 Федеральный закон 1996.
2079 Указ Президента РФ от 23.07.2013 N 631 (ред. от 01.07.2014) “Вопросы Генерального штаба Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации” (вместе с “Положением о Генеральном штабе Вооруженных СилРоссийской Федерации”) [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/ cons_doc_LAW_
149773/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019]; Mil.ru. Главное управление связи Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации [Online]. Available: https://structure.mil.ru/structure/ministry_of_defence/details.htm?id=
9587@egOrganization [Accessed: 9th May 2019].

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networks which are partly disconnected from the public Internet but at least partly
rely on the civilian information infrastructure.2080 They are able to protect their networks through the operations of the Main (Intelligence) Directorate, Information
troops, EW troops, science companies, military-scientific institutions, and military
SOCs and CERTs.2081
The Federal Service for Technical and Export Control Agency (FSTEK) functions
under the MoD and is responsible for ensuring the protection of the critical information infrastructure including super-computers, as well as countering foreign technological intelligence activities, ensuring the protection of state secrets, and conducting export control. In practice, the FSTEK regulates the actions of the federal, regional and municipal organs and private actors. It also licenses approved information
security actors and provides certificates for officially approved solutions and products—the exception is cryptography which belongs to the mandate of the FSB. The
FSTEK has the right to supervise technological counter-intelligence activities and information security systems of public organs except the MoD, SVR, FSB, FSO andthe General Directorate of Special Programmes for the President of the Russian Federation (GUSP).2082 The FSTEK and FSB must approve the security systems and cryptography used in systems transferring secret information across Russia’s borders toforeign networks.2083 The protection of the CII is largely based on the responsibilitiesof the operators of the CII. They are monitored and regulated by the FSTEK which
manages a register of the CII. The FSTEK is responsible for establishing requirements for the protection of the CII but must cooperate with, for example,
Minkomsviaz’ and the Bank of Russia, in the case of systems related to their authority.2084 The FSTEK’s responsibilities in the area of the CII are based on earlier regulations on the protection of ASUs and critical objects.2085

2080 Cf. Chapter 6.3; Carr 2012; Зыков & Рамм 2016.
2081 Cf. Chapter 6.3; Независимое военное обозрение 2017; Иванов, Павел. Плакали ваши хакеры. ВПК,№ 18 (2017); Туровский Даниил. Российские вооруженные киберсилы Как государство создает военные
отряды хакеров. Meduza, 7 ноября 2016 [Online]. Available: https://meduza.io/feature/2016/ 11/07/rossiyskie-vooruzhennye-kibersily [Accessed: 9th May 2019]; Рябов, Кирилл. Мультисервисная транспортная
сеть связи для министерства обороны. Военное обозрение, 13 марта 2019 [Online]. Available: https://topwar.ru/155340-multiservisnaja-transportnaja-set-svjazi-dlja-ministerstva-oborony.html [Accessed: 18th April2019]; Kjellén 2019.
2082 Указ Президента РФ от 16 августа 2004 г. N 1085 “Вопросы Федеральной службы по техническомуи экспортному контролю” (с изменениями и дополнениями) [Online]. Available: https://base.garant.ru/
12136635/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019]; ФСТЭК. Сведения о полномочиях ФСТЭК России; перечень нормативных правовых актов, определяющих эти полномочия. 28 Марта 2016 [Online]. Vailable:
https://fstec.ru/obshchaya-informatsiya/polnomochiya [Accessed: 6th May 2019]; Приказ Федеральной
службы по техническому и экспортному контролю от 3 апреля 2018 г. N 55 “Об утверждении Положения о системе сертификации средств защиты информации” [Online]. Available: http://ivo. garant.ru/#/document/71942006/paragraph/1:0 [Accessed: 8th May 2019].
2083 Указ Президента РФ от 17.03.2008 N 351 (ред. от 22.05.2015) “О мерах по обеспечению информационной безопасности Российской Федерации при использовании информационно-телекоммуникационных сетей международного информационного обмена” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_75586/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2084 Федеральный закон 2017; Приказ Федеральной службы по техническому и экспортному контролю
от 25 декабря 2017 г. N 239 “Об утверждении Требований по обеспечению безопасности значимых
объектов критической информационной инфраструктуры Российской Федерации” (ред. от 9 август2019) [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_294287/ [Accessed: 6th January 2020].
2085 Приказ Федеральной службы по техническому и экспортному контролю от 14 марта 2014 г. N 31“Об утверждении Требований к обеспечению защиты информации в автоматизированных системах

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The military-industrial complex (OPK), understood as the private and state companies and corporations providing equipment and services to the MoD and its armaments programme has a distinct role in providing the ‘military Internet’ with the connectivity, resources and services it requires. These are mainly military solutions andmeant exclusively for the Armed Forces. However, in the context of ICT and cybersecurity there is much overlap between the military and civilian technologies as dual
use is becoming increasingly common. Furthermore, as there are dozens of research
institutes operating under the MoD with various commercial connections the lines
between the military and OPK become highly blurred.2086 Many of the think tanks
listed above could be rightfully placed into the OPK but at least the 27th TsNII, 16th
TsNII, 18th TsNII, 4th TsNII, TsNII EISU, and the Era technology park can beconsidered inherently part of the OPK.
The Ministry of Interior’s role in controlling and developing the national segment of
the Internet lays in its power of criminal investigation. Cybercrimes are investigatedby Directorate K.2087 Other ministries like the Ministry of Industry and Trade of theRussian Federation and the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation affect the national segment mainly through import substitution policies which
are meant to promote Russian domestic software and hardware development andproduction.2088
The FSB or the Federal Security Service has an important role in controlling the national segment. Consequently, two of its main functions are counterintelligence andensuring information security. Firstly, it manages the SORM system for criminal investigation, domestic intelligence, and counter-intelligence purposes and conducts
criminal investigations into cybercrimes.2089 Secondly, it controls the GosSOPKA system through the National Coordination Centre of Computer Incidents (NKTsKI).2090
управления производственными и технологическими процессами на критически важных объектах, потенциально опасных объектах, а также объектах, представляющих повышенную опасность для жизнии здоровья людей и для окружающей природной среды” (с изменениями и дополнениями) [Online].
Available: https://base.garant.ru/70690918/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2086 Bitzinger, Richard A. and Popescu, Nicu. Defence industries in Russia and China: players and strategies.
EU Institute for Security Studies, Report No 38 – December 2017 [Online]. Available: https://www.iss.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EUISSFiles/Report_38_Defence-industries-in-Russia-and-China.pdf [Accessed:
9th May 2019]; Связь. Связь в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации 2018. Москва: Информационный мост, 2018.
2087 Keir 2011; Carr 2012; Министерство Внутренних Дел Российской Федерации. Управление «К» МВДРоссии [Online]. Available: https://мвд.рф/mvd/structure1/Upravlenija/Upravlenie_K_MVD_Rossii [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2088 Шмырова, Валерия. В России хотят запретить госзакупки иностранных СХД. CNews, 8 мая 2019
[Online]. Available: http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2019-05-08_v_rossii_zapretyat_goszakupki_ inostrannyh_shd?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=desktop [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2089 Федеральный закон от 03.04.1995 N 40-ФЗ (ред. от 07.03.2018) “О федеральной службе безопасности” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_6300/ [Accessed: 9th May
2019]; Приказ Минкомсвязи России от 12.12.2016 N 645 “Об утверждении Правил применения оборудования систем коммутации, включая программное обеспечение, обеспечивающего выполнение установленных действий при проведении оперативно-розыскных мероприятий. Часть I.”(Зарегистрировано в Минюсте России 13.01.2017 N 45201) [Online]. Available: https://digital.gov.ru/ru/
documents/5413/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2090 Федеральный закон 2017; Приказ ФСБ России от 24.07.2018 N 366 “О Национальном координационном центре по компьютерным инцидентам” (вместе с ”Положением о Национальном координационном центре по компьютерным инцидентам”) (Зарегистрировано в Минюсте России 06.09.2018 N
52109) [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_306334/ [Accessed: 18th
April 2019]; Выписка. “Выписка из Концепции государственной системы обнаружения, предупреждения

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Thirdly, the FSB functions as the national authority on certification of cryptographic
means and licensing their development.2091 The FSB encryption certification and investigative powers extend to all government agencies. Moreover, the so-called AntiTerrorism laws require ‘organizations disseminating information’ to release their encryption keys to the FSB.2092 The FSB’s main cybercrime investigation unit is the Information Security Centre which was tarnished in an espionage scandal in 2017.2093
The Communications Security Centre (8th Directorate) operates the NKTsKI and ensures security standards for government communications.2094 The Centre for Licensing, Certification and Protection of State Secrets manages cryptography licences andcertificates.2095
The FSO or Federal Protective Service mainly provides and secures the confidential
and secret communication of the Presidential Administration and the government or‘the Russian governmental segment of the Internet.’2096 The structure of the FSO includes the Special Communications and Information Service (Spetssviaz’) which inpractise manages the FSO’s communications responsibilities. The Spetssviaz’ operates the government’s special networks, command and control posts, situation centres, and prepares communications for wartime.2097 Interestingly, the FSO is also responsible for gathering situation information on the federal level about political, societal and economic issues.2098
Multiple CERTs are responsible for incident response in the public networks and incertain segments of private networks and coordinate actions between corporationи ликвидации последствий компьютерных атак на информационные ресурсы Российской Федерации”(утв. Президентом РФ 12.12.2014 N К 1274) [Online]. Available: http://www.fsb.ru/files/PDF/Vipiska_iz_
koncepcii.pdf. [Accessed 10 January 2018]; ГосСОПКА. Нормативные документы о безопасности КИИ[Online]. Available: http://gossopka.ru/law/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2091 Приказ федеральная служба безопасности российской федерации № 41821 23 марта 2016 года[Online]. Available: http://www.fsb.ru/files/PDF/prikaz_182.pdf [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2092 Федеральный закон от 06.07.2016 N 374-ФЗ “О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон “О противодействии терроризму” и отдельные законодательные акты Российской Федерации в части установления дополнительных мер противодействия терроризму и обеспечения общественной безопасности”(последняя редакция) [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/ cons_doc_LAW_201078/[Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2093 Алехина, Маргарита. Хакер из «Шалтая-Болтая» заявил о сотрудничестве с ФСБ. РБК, 9 января 2019
[Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/society/09/01/2019/5c35fab59a7947185fe6da57?from=main [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2094 Carr 2012; Жукова, Кристина. ГосСОПКА сдадут под ключ. Коммерсантъ №215 от 20.11.2017[Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3472959?from=four_tech [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2095 Центр по лицензированию, сертификации и защите государственной тайны ФСБ России. Перечень средств защиты информации, сертифицированных ФСБ России [Online]. Available:
http://clsz.fsb.ru/files/download/svedeniya_po_sertifikatam_22.04.doc [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2096 Указ Президента РФ от 07.08.2004 N 1013 (ред. от 27.02.2018) “Вопросы Федеральной службы
охраны Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_
LAW_48778/ [Accessed: 9th May 2019]; Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 22.05.2015 № 260 “Онекоторых вопросах информационной безопасности Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available:
http://www.consultant.ru/document/Cons_doc_LAW_179963/ [Accessed 11 January 2018]; Susiluoto 2006;
Carr 2012.
2097 Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 14 июля 2003 г. N 774 Вопросы службы специальной
связи и информации при Федеральной службе охраны Российской Федерации [Online]. Available:
http://www.agentura.ru/dossier/russia/fso/docs/polojeniespecvyaz/ [Accessed: 6th May 2019].
2098 Звездина, Полина. Охрана для нацпроектов: почему контроль за майским указом отдали ФСО. РБК:26 октября 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/society/26/10/2018/5bd1b4299a7947b26916a555?from=center_5 [Accessed: 6th May 2019].

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SOCs.2099 Moreover, at least some of them are connected to the GosSOPKA network.2100 Admittedly, when it comes to the cyber security management of confidential
government networks, the responsibilities of the FSB, FSO and CERTs are somewhat
difficult to distinguish, although their cooperation is increasing.2101
The Coordination Centre of National Domain of Internet and Technical Centre Internet are responsible for the administration of the main ccTLD servers and managing.ru, .рф and .su domains. They provide connectivity and technical control on a national level and are the Russian national contact point for the Internet’s international
multi-stakeholder governance.2102 Moreover, the Coordination Centre manages a national cybersecurity information platform ‘Netoskop’ which enables public and private actors to share threat intelligence and, furthermore, to eliminate these threats
though the Coordination Centre’s ability to remove hostile resources from national
domains.2103
The role of the ISPs and hardware and software companies is to provide connectivity,
resources and services for the national segment of the Internet. They form the coreof the segment and provide the infrastructure upon which the federal government
and military networks are built. Many of the most critical companies are owned bystate corporations.2104 The companies, be they private or public, do of course affectthe national segment in multiple ways, but from the regimes point of view, they appear
only as potential resources and tools of control. They form the backbone of digital
sovereignty but also an environment that needs to be controlled and delineated fromthe rest of the cyberspace. However, as Rostelekom owns much of the critical infrastructure of the national segment and many private companies are tightly connectedto the regime, they also function as tools of indirect control. This category also includes the commercial and non-commercial, private and state-owned domain nameregistrars and IXP managers. The final actor affecting the control and developmentof the national segment is civil society. Although Russia has not developed the same

2099 Коммерсантъ. Киберугрозы сажают на CERT. В России создают центр реагирования на инцидентыв сфере информационной безопасности. Коммерсантъ №160 от 01.09.2016 [Online]. Available:
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3077603 [Accessed: 9th May 2019]; Коломыченко, Мария. Киберспецслужба: Сбербанк предложил создать штаб борьбы с хакерами. РБК, 1 сентября 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/01/09/2017/59a9799f9a7947375702db15?from=center_7 [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2100 Грач в, Анатолий. Технические аспекты взаимодействия с НКЦКИ. SOC-Форум, 27 ноября 2018
[Online]. Available: https://soc-forum.ib-bank.ru/files/files/SOC%202018/08_Grachev.pdf [Accessed: 9th
May 2019]; Григорьев, Дмитрий. Решения от InfoTeCS. Защита от компьютерных атак, 2017 [Online].
Available: http://www.cio-sibir.ru/files/Meet/2017/10/GosSOPKA.pdf [Accessed: 10th May 2019].
2101 Неф дова, Мария. Эксперты Group-IB сообщают, что рунет стал чище. Хакер, 5.7.2019 [Online].
Available: https://xakep.ru/2019/07/05/runet-stats/ [Accessed: 7th July 2019].
2102 Cf. Chapter 6.1.1.
2103 Координационный центр доменов .RU/.РФ «Национальный координационный центр по компьютерным инцидентам (НКЦКИ)» стал новой компетентной организацией при Координационном центре доменов .RU/.РФ, 6 августа 2019 [Online]. Available: https://cctld.ru/media/news/kc/21309/ [Accessed: 7th August 2019].
2104 Chapter 3.1; Vendil Pallin 2017; Связь. Связь в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации 2017.
Москва: Информационный мост, 2017; Связь 2018; Minkomzsiaz’. “Nikolay Nikiforov Presented Branch
Plan on Import Substitution of Software,” (2015, Apr. 3rd). [Online]. Available: http://minsvyaz.ru/en/
events/32967/. [Accessed 12 January 2018].

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degree of aggressive voluntary civilian censorship as China, the League of Safe Internet has similar characteristics.2105
A few observations are necessary before moving on to laws and policies. First, there
are some over-lapping functions that may hinder the control and shaping of the national segment of the Internet. For example, multiple actors are responsible for themonitoring and security of the segment or its distinct parts. However well-defined thepolicies derived from strategic planning are, the political and institutional system described above combined with multiple actors and the possibility of gathering rents
through licences, certificates, government orders etc. may lead to rent-seeking behaviour, corruption, and institutional infighting. Secondly, the whole system of responsibilities described above is an effort to push top-to-bottom control on a network thathas developed from the bottom-to-top. This will lead to resistance, friction, and compromise. Thirdly, all the different actors and networks lead to multiple systems whichlead to multiple gateways between systems and which quite possibly may lead to multiple vulnerabilities. Russian cyber security actors are aware of this and centralizationand dismantling of stove-piped organizations is understood as a necessity. However,this is much easier said than done. Thus, we should not be surprised if the strategic
cultural ideas present amongst the epistemic communities and even found in strategic
documents and policies do not resonate with the actual performance of the regime.
Fourthly, the heavy presence of the security services or more inclusively ‘the power
ministries’ in the managing of the national segment will probably affect the way inwhich policies are formulated and implemented. This presence is probably somewhat
mitigated by the lobbying of Internet industry people whose business model is affected by increased state control. Fifthly, the Russian concept of ‘state secret’ has across-cutting influence on all the actors and their responsibilities. The protection of
the secrecy of information is well established in laws and regulations.2106 Moreover,state secrets have also their own highly secret agency.2107 And sixthly, it is clear thatsome people discussed in Chapter 4 and 5 have moved into and out of the institutions
developing and implementing policies. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that there
will be some connection between their ideas and the way the Russian elites began toshape cyberspace in the 2000s and 2010s.
6.2.2 International treatises and ideas
This chapter provides an analysis of the way in which the strategic cultural ideas resonate with the international treatises on cyber or information security which Russia
has promoted or adopted from 1998 to 2018. I will examine the treatises chronologically to investigate if and how the treatises correlate with changes in the Russian strategic environment.2108
2105 Балашова, Анна, Посыпкина, Александра. Властям предложили штрафовать соцсети и поисковикиза запрещенный контент. РБК, 22 октября 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_
and_media/22/10/2018/5bcda8179a79471e45ad2d1e#ws [Accessed: 9th May 2019]. For China cf. Griffiths
2019.
2106 It is defined in the Law on State Secrets which designates three levels of secrecy of information – special
importance, top secret, and secret. (Закон РФ 1993).
2107 Кузнецов, Юрий. Сто лет на охране секретов государства. Красная звезда, 2.11.2018 [Online]. Available: http://redstar.ru/sto-let-na-ohrane-sekretov-gosudarstva/ [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2108 Previous studies on the subject cf. Popescu, Nicu and Secrieru, Stanislav (Eds.) Hacks, Leaks and Disruptions: Russian Cyber Strategies. Chaillot Papers No. 148, October 2011. Paris: European Union Institute for

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The ideas of interstate struggle, digital sovereignty, and information-technological
warfare were explicitly present in the Russian proposals on drafting an international
norm to ban ‘information weapons.’ The first proposal was delivered to the United
Nations General Assembly in 1998.2109 Even before this the CIS countries had
adopted an appeal “On the Prevention of Information Wars” which was presented
to the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe in 1997.2110 In his letter to theSecretary-General of the UN the Russian ambassador to the UN Sergei Lavrov
claimed that developments in the information field were being used for purposes incompatible with maintaining international stability and security, as well as the principles of the non-use of force and non-interference in internal affairs. This could leadto the emergence of a fundamentally new area of international confrontation, information wars, which he understood as “actions taken by one country to damage theinformation resources and systems of another country while at the same time protecting its own infrastructure.” A new arms race could develop as information weapons
with destructive effects comparable to that of weapons of mass destruction appeared.2111 Lavrov thus summarized the Russian negotiation position, which has remained more or less unchanged from 1998 to 2018.2112
In the context of drafting international cyber security norms, in 2001 Russia argued
that information threats included the following: technological attacks against information resources, telecommunications systems and critical structures of the state; theuse of information to undermine the state’s economic and social systems and psychological manipulation of society for the purposes of destabilising society; illegal penetration of information-telecommunications systems of the state; efforts to dominate
the information space by imposing technological standards on less developed countries and restricting their access to advanced technology; the encouragement of theterrorist use of information; the adoption of doctrines aimed at waging information
war; the use of information technologies to the detriment of human rights and freedoms; the blurring of state borders and jurisdictions that normally delineate national
security; and the manipulation of information flows and spreading of disinformation
including the eroding of spiritual values.2113 Information security was defined for the
information space, which included the consciousness of the people, infrastructure andinformation. Information weapons caused damage to the state interests on technological and psychological level.2114 The threats and definitions were clearly based on

Security Studies, 2018; Giampiero 2014; von Heinegg, Wolff Heintschel: Legal Implications of Territorial Sovereignty in Cyberspace. In Czosseck, C., Ottis, R. and Ziolkowski, K. (Eds.) 4th International Conference on
Cyber Conflict. Tallinn: NATO CCD COE Publications, 2012, 7-20; Nocetti 2015; Eneken 2016; Eneken &Kerttunen 2017; Giles 2012.
2109 United Nations General Assembly. Resolution adopted by the general assembly. Developments in the fieldof information and telecommunications in the context of international security. A/RES/53/70 4 January 1999
[Online]. Available: https://undocs.org/A/RES/53/70 [Accessed: 10th May 2019].
2110 Матяшов, Виктор. Войны в информационном пространстве. Защита и безопасность, № 1 (2009),
17-19.
2111 Комов 2009, 144.
2112 Eneken & Kerttunen 2017. Grisby, Alex. Russia and the U.S. Offer Competing Vision of Cyber Norms to
the U.N. Defence One, October 29, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.defenseone.com/politics/
2018/10/russia-us-offer-competing-vision-cyber-norms-un/152382/?oref=d-river [Accessed: 25th February2019].
2113 Комов 2009, 189-199.
2114 Ibid., 181-182.

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the idea of territorial state sovereignty in information (cyber) space. The threat ‘cavalcade’ shows that both information-technological and the psychological aspects were
present as distinct threats, although the objective, i.e. the destabilization of a state
dominated the understanding. Moreover, information threats were explicitly connected to strategic stability and the interstate struggle in the claim that the ‘denial oftechnology’ was used as a tool of domination. Information war was now part of themodern character of war also on the diplomatic level.
In 1999 the CIS adopted the Concept of Information Security of the Members of CIS
in the Military Sphere. It recognized a full spectrum of sources of information threats
the main one of which was the espionage conducted by ‘foreign countries’ aimed atachieving unilateral advantages. It also recognized the use of exported hardware andsoftware as a threat and argued for cooperation between the CIS countries in theconfines of their national interests. The ultimate goal of the Concept was to form acommon information policy, to create “a unified information space [edinnoe informatsionnoe prostranstvo]”, and to develop and implement measures to ensure themilitary information security of the member states.“2115 The strategic cultural ideas
were thus present in the CIS concept also already at the beginning of the Putin regime.
The presence of the EIP in the context of the CIS shows how the borders of theinformation space were inherently political.
The effort to build norms in the context of the SCO began in 2006 when the headsof the SCO gave a declaration on the international information security which envisioned information-communication technology as a military-political tool of states ona par with weapons of mass destruction.2116 Its argument was based on the view that
“ICT forms the global information environment, upon which the state of political,
economic, defence, socio-cultural and other components of national security and thegeneral system of international security and stability directly depend.”2117 Information
had thus become one of the most important political-economic resources, and, consequently, ICT could be used to interfere in the internal affairs of states for terrorist
purposes and for military-political ends. The heads of states argued that the development and use of ICT should respect national and cultural traditions and declared theirsupport for a state-centric and UN led process of international information security
norm-building.2118 Based on the declaration, the strategic cultural ideas of Russia andChina were quite well synchronized from the beginning. The declaration did not envision an EIP inside the SCO and it was based on technology and military-politicalthreats more than psychological threats. The declaration was probably connected to
the ITU/UN led WGIG/WSIS process and was an effort to establish joint SCO
views on the issues debated there—thus state sovereignty was a guiding idea.2119

2115 СНГ. Концепция информационной

безопасности государств-участников Содружества Независимых Государств в военной сфере, 4 июня 1999 года [Online]. Available: http://www.e-cis.info/page.
php?id=21396 [Accessed: 25th February 2019].
2116 ШОС. Заявление глав государств – членов Шанхайской организации сотрудничество по международной информационной безопасности. Г. Шанхай, 15 июня 2006 года [Online]. Available:
http://rus.sectsco.org/ [Available: 2nd April 2019]; Комов 2009, 219-222.
2117 ШОС 2006.
2118 Ibid.
2119 Cf. Chapter 6.1.3.

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In 2008 the CIS adopted the Concept of Cooperation of the States Parties of theCommonwealth of Independent States in the Field of Information Security.2120 It defined information security through threats and was quite state-centric. The threatsemanated, for example, from other states trying to destabilize the social-political situation of other countries, from criminals and terrorists, from unsanctioned access tostate information, and from states trying to dominate the information space. The concept of space was not defined but the CIS was described as having its own information
infrastructure. The objects of threats were, among other things, the interstate cooperation of the CIS states, the information infrastructure of the CIS, the interstate information systems including telecommunications networks and ASUs of militaryforces, and the services and systems based on those systems. The common tools of
the CIS to counter these threats would be legal, organization-technological, and organization-economic.2121 The Concept was an effort to define many central concepts
of information security, but it is clearly a result of compromise and partly vague andpartly quite technical. There is a clear tension between proposed technological andtechnical methods of security and the view that the information threats are partly
psychological and highly political. However, there is little in the document that does
not resonate with the strategic cultural ideas.
In 2009 the SCO adopted the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of International
Information Security between the Governments of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.2122 The Agreement did not enter into force until 2012.
It was a defining agreement offering a much clearer vision of information security
than Russia’s previous international treatises. Information threats were categorized
into the use of information weapons to wage information war (informatsionnaia
voina), which was understood as a confrontation (protivoborstvo) between states in
the information space (informatsionnoe prostranstvo), terrorism, crime, the efforts
to use a dominant position in the information space to cause damage to others, disseminating harmful information to the political, social, economic, spiritual and cultural systems of other states, and threats to the global information infrastructure. The
Agreement defined the protection of information resources and critically important
infrastructure as belonging to the state interest. Each party to the agreement had theright to protect its own information resources and structure.2123 Information resources were defined as the infrastructure and information itself, and critical structures were objects, systems and institutions which if damaged could threaten national
security.2124 This duality resonated with the Russian technological-psychological IW
categorization. However, the information-technological and psychological threats,means, and objectives of IW are perhaps more intertwined than in the previous treatises. This resonates with the idea of strategic deterrence which was developing at that
2120 СНГ. Решение о Концепции сотрудничества государств – участников Содружества Независимых

Государств в сфере обеспечения информационной безопасности и о Комплексном плане мероприятийпо реализации Концепции сотрудничества государств – участников Содружества Независимых Государств в сфере обеспечения информационной безопасности на период с 2008 по 2010 год [Online].
Available: http://www.e-cis.info/page.php?id=20229 [Accessed: 25th February 2019].
2121 Ibid.
2122 ШОС. Соглашение между правительствами государств-членов Шанхайской организации сотрудничества о сотрудничестве в области обеспечения международной информационной безопасности. 16
июня 2009 года. Екатеринбург. [Online]. Available: https://base.garant.ru/2571379/ [29th March 2019].
2123 Ibid.
2124 Ibid.

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time. The idea of sovereignty over and in information space is present but is not
mentioned directly. The threats described in the Agreement are connected to the ideaof the interstate struggle and information superiority, although on a strategic level.
The SCO Agreement raises the question of how much the Russian elites were affectedby domestic ideas and what role Chinese ideas played. The SCO affirmed its commitments to the 2008 Agreement in the 2017 Astana declaration.2125
In 2011 and 2015 the members of the SCO and some others submitted their joint
proposals for the International Code of Conduct for Information Security for the UN
Secretary-General.2126 They proposed that states would recognize “norms governinginternational relations that enshrine, inter alia, respect for the sovereignty, territorial
integrity and political independence of all States, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and respect for the diversity of history, culture and social systems of
all countries.”2127 States should not use information and communication technologies
to carry out hostile actions, should reaffirm the right of states to protect their information space and should promote multilateral, transparent and democratic governance of the Internet.2128 To the listed hostile actions, the 2015 version added “interference to internal affairs” and “undermining political, economic and social stability”
and emphasised the role of states in the governance of the Internet.2129 The last pointis probably connected to the failed effort of Russia in the WCIT meeting in 2012
Dubai to push through ITU control over IANA/ICANN.2130 In the proposals theRussian strategic cultural ideas are presented as the building blocks of international
norms. Sovereignty was positioned in the information space as new international
norms would build borders for it. Interstate struggle and information superiority inthe form of strategic balance, i.e. ‘equality’ were present. Security is the security ofstates. On this level, the lines between information-technological and psychological
warfare are most blurred. The EIP is present as the global and common information
space which needs to be regulated—it is however distinct from the idea of how national information spaces should be ordered. Both the 2011 and 2015 proposals
should be understood through strategic deterrence as they are meant to prevent
threats from materializing and to weaken and restrain powerful opponents.
In 2012 the CIS adopted the Agreement on the Cooperation of the State Members of
the Commonwealth of Independent States in the Field of Information Security which

2125 ШОС. Астанинская декларация глав государств – членов Шанхайской организации сотрудничества

9 июня 2017 года [Online]. Available: http://kremlin.ru/supplement/5206 [Accessed: 10th May 2019].
2126 For a comparison of the 2011 and 2015 version cf. McKune 2015.
2127 United Nations General Assembly. Letter dated 12 September 2011 from the Permanent Representativesof China, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the United Nations addressed to the SecretaryGeneral. A/66/359, 14 September 2011. [Online]. Available: https://undocs.org/A/66/359 [Accessed: 2nd
April 2019].
2128 Ibid.
2129 United Nations General Assembly. Letter dated 9 January 2015 from the Permanent Representatives ofChina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the United Nations addressed Secretary-General. A/69/723, 13 January 2015 [Online]. Available: https://undocs.org/A/69/723[Accessed: 2nd April 2019].
2130 Julian Nocetti argues that the ITU-WCIT 2012 in Dubai was a sign of a new, more contentious phase inInternet governance (Nocetti 2015, 121-125).

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updated the 2008 Concept.2131 It defined practical goals for CIS information security
cooperation based on state interests. The object of cooperation was information and‘the interstate information system.’ The 2012 Agreement implicitly called for the creation and control of the CIS information space through governance, encryption, cybersecurity systems, regulation of cross-border traffic, and standardization of technological solutions. As was the case with the 2008 Concept, the strategic cultural ideas are
implicitly present. The most interesting point is the drive to shape the CIS EIP into
being through cooperation on information security. Still, the CIS agreement demonstrates the tension between the idea of sovereignty and the EIP when they are transferred to a regional context.
In 2013 Russia adopted the Basics of Government Policy in the Area of International
Information Security.2132 Its substance correlated with the 2011 and 2015 International
code of conduct for information security initiatives. The document was also in linewith the Russian overall foreign policy as it promotes a regional approach in normbuilding. The objective of the Russian policy was the achievement and retaining oftechnological parity with leading world great powers and ensuring the strategic stability. The policy should secure ‘the technological sovereignty’ of Russia.2133 The policy
represented a clear indication of the move from sovereignty in information space towards full digital sovereignty. It was also explicitly related to interstate struggle andinformation superiority.
In addition to the SCO, Russia promoted cyber security norms in the CSTO which
adopted the Protocol On the Interaction of the State Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Combating Criminal Activities in the Information
Sphere in 2014.2134 The most interesting aspect of the Protocol are the definitions of‘information space’2135 and ‘information sphere’2136 and the use of the concept of ‘thenational segment of the Internet’ when referring to the part of information space
under state jurisdiction. As was noted in Chapter 5 this concept appeared in the context of the CIS and more precisely in Belarussian documents around 2010. The Protocol was a clear move towards territorially defined information sovereignty and an
acknowledgement that the Internet should be divided into sovereign segments. Although the Protocol is officially about combatting criminal activities it emphasises the‘destructive effects’ against the constitutional order and national security which hardly

2131 Распоряжение Правительства РФ от 28 мая 2012 г. №856-р. О подписании Соглашения о сотрудни-честве государств – участников Содружества Независимых Государств в области обеспечения информационной безопасности [Online]. Available: https://digital.gov.ru/ru/documents/3729/ [Accessed: 29th
March 2019].
2132 Основы 2013.
2133 Ibid.
2134 ОДКБ. Протокол О взаимодействии государств – членов Организации Договора о коллективной
безопасности по противодействию преступной деятельности в информационной сфере, от 23 декабря
2014 года [Online]. Available: http://base.spinform.ru/show_doc.fwx?rgn=77790 [Accessed: 25th February2019].
2135 “An area of activity related to the formation, creation, transformation, transfer, use, storage of informationthat has an impact on the individual and public consciousness, the information infrastructure and the information itself.” (ОДКБ 2014). This same definition was used in the Russia–China Information Security Agreement in 2015 (Правительство Российской Федерации 2015a).
2136 “A set of information, information infrastructure, entities engaged in the collection, formation, dissemination and use of information, as well as a system for regulating the resulting public relations.” (ОДКБ 2014).

312sound like criminality.2137 Nevertheless, the crime-aspect silences the influence ofsome strategic cultural ideas and gives room only to the centrality of sovereignty andthe EIP in the form of the national segment of the Internet.
Russia and China signed the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of International
Information Security in 2015.2138 It expressed the now already established view that
information and communications technology could be used for military ends and “toundermine the sovereignty and security of states and interfere in their internal affairs,
violate the privacy of citizens, destabilize internal political and socio-economic situation, incite ethnic and religious hatred.” The information infrastructure on a state’s
territory, including the Internet, was under its sovereign rights, and the governance of
the Internet should be ‘democratised’ and ‘internationalised’. The Agreement added
to the threats expressed in the 2009 SCO Agreement threats to economy and theinterference in the internal affairs of states.2139 The Agreement was clearly based on
the idea of information sovereignty and struggle in information space manifested in
the notion that some actors had attempted to gain dominance over Russia and China.
The wide range of threats resonates with strategic deterrence. The additions to thethreat list meant that now information security cut across all spheres of state interests.
The 2015 Agreement used the same wording as the 2009 SCO agreement which isfurther proof that Chinese and Russian ideas have interacted.
The declarations given in the conclusion of the BRICS summits in 2015 and 2017reflected the views presented in Russia’s UN Code of Conduct initiatives and the
Basics of Government Policy document. However, their tone was not as confrontational as in the CIS and SCO treaties. Moreover, the aspects of territorial sovereignty
and national segments of the Internet were overshadowed by the idea of an open,
common, and secure Internet in 2015 and a peaceful, secure, open, cooperative, stable, orderly, accessible and equitable ICT environment in 2017.2140 The declarations
were the result of negotiations between Russia, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa
so their substance was based on the interaction between strategic cultural ideas fromdifferent nations—as well as cold-blooded realpolitik and compromise.
The Strategy of Collective Security of CSTO for 2025 adopted in 2016 is perhaps themost confrontational of the treatises discussed thus far. It recognized that information and communication technology can be used to pressure states, to interfere in
their internal affairs, to inflict destructive socio-political and socio-economic, to andmanipulate the public consciousness. It even mentions ‘colour revolutions’ and ‘hy-

2137 It is possible that Russia wanted to avoid the ‘militarization’ of the ‘information sphere’ as it was contrary

to its international cyber security norm-building project. Thus, the Protocol concentrated on criminality.
2138 Распоряжение Правительства Российской Федерации от 30 апреля 2015 г. N 788-р О подписании
Соглашения между Правительством Российской Федерации и Правительством Китайской Народной
Республики о сотрудничестве в области обеспечения международной информационной безопасности
[Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc&base=EXP&n=620700#
0463235836450268
2139 Ibid.
2140 БРИКС. VII саммит БРИКС Уфимская декларация (Уфа, Российская Федерация, 9 июля 2015 года)[Online]. Available: http://www.brics.utoronto.ca/docs/150709-ufa-declaration-ru.pdf [Accessed: 10th May
2019]; БРИКС. Сямэньская декларация руководителей стран БРИКС (Сямэнь, Китай, 4 сентября 2017года) [Online]. Available: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/55515 [Accessed: 10th May 2019].

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brid wars.’ To counter these effects, it was seems as necessary to create a secure information space and a system of information security of the CSTO member states.2141
The Strategy mentions non-state threats, i.e. terrorism, separatism, and criminality but
it is definitely state-centric in its approach emphasising the territorial integrity andsovereignty of the member states. All strategic cultural ideas are present in the CSTO
Strategy: The idea of struggle now takes new forms; information is used to degrade
sovereignty; multifaceted deterrence is needed to counter multifaceted threats; potential adversaries are seen to strive towards superiority through technology; and a system
is required to counter threats. However, information threats are described as societalpolitical and societal-economic and directed against societal consciousness—not somuch technological. In June 2019 the Russian MoD proposed that the CSTO should
adopt a common information policy and General Kartapalov even compared information-psychological weapons to weapons of mass destruction.2142
In 2018 Russia and a group of other countries (including Syria, China, North Korea)
submitted their latest initiative for an international code of conduct in the UN. It
basically repeated the statements of the 2011 and 2015 proposals. It was more precise
in that states should not allow their territory to be used for wrongful acts using information and communications technologies, should not use proxies, and should seek
to ensure that non-state actors do not commit such acts from their territory. The roleof the private sector and civil society is mentioned once.2143 Russia claims that its
initiative is supported by its ‘partners’ in BRICS, SCO and CSTO.2144 It can be argued
that little has changed in the Russian approach and that the UN initiative is now almost fully synchronized with the 2015 Russia-China agreement.
The reactivation of Russian cyber diplomacy in 2018 after the failure of UN GGE in2017 is connected to the National Programme of the Digital Economy. The Programme includes direct tasks for the ‘cyber diplomacy team’.2145 The current Russian
worldview was summarized by Sergei Lavrov in the 73th General Assembly of the
UN in September 2018 when he claimed that there was a collision under way between
the rising centres of power which demanded individual models of political and economic development and the Western status quo powers who were using all means intheir possession to slow the inevitable ‘progress’.2146 The Minkomsviaz’ argued that
the United States and EU countries did not support Russia’s latest initiatives because
2141 ОДКБ. Стратегия коллективной безопасности Организации Договора о коллективной безопасно-сти на период до 2025 года. от 14 октября 2016 года [Online]. Available: http://odkb-csto.org/ documents/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=8382 [Accessed: 25th February 2019].
2142 ТАСС. Минобороны РФ предлагает странам ОДКБ сформировать согласованную информационную политику. ТАСС, 20 июня 2019 [Online]. Available: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/6573842 [Accessed:
8th July 2019].
2143 United Nations General Assembly. Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in
the context of international security. A/C.1/73/L.27/, 22 October 2018 [Online]. Available: https://undocs.
org/pdf?symbol=en/A/C.1/73/L.27 [Accessed: 2nd April 2019].
2144 Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации. О принятии Генассамблеей ООН российской резолюции по противодействию информационной преступности, 18.12.2018 [Online]. Available:
http://www.mid.ru/web/guest/mezdunarodnaa-informacionnaa-bezopasnost/-/asset_publisher/
UsCUTiw2pO53/content/id/3449030 [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2145 Распоряжение Правительства РФ 2017.
2146 Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации. Выступление Министра иностранных делРоссии С.В.Лаврова на 73-й сессии Генеральной Ассамблеи ООН, Нью-Йорк, 28 сентября 2018 года[Online]. Available: http://www.mid.ru/web/guest/general_assembly/-/asset_publisher/lrzZMhfoyRUj/
content/id/3359296 [Accessed: 14th May 2019].

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they tried to preserve the digital inequality between the members of the world community.2147 Moreover, Russia did not support the alternative cyber security proposal
as they went against the principles of state sovereignty or implicitly accepted the useof ICT technology in warfare.2148 When the UN General Assembly in December 2019
voted in support of drafting the Russian cyber-crime treaty, the Russian MFA claimed
the treaty would validate the principle of digital sovereignty.2149
To summarize. The international treatises on information security resonate strongly
with the idea of territorial state sovereignty. The connection has developed over time,
but by 2013–2015 it had reached the level of information sovereignty, i.e. state sovereignty defined by information space on a par with other aspects of sovereignty. Theinterstate struggle is also present and indeed provides the reasoning for the treatises
as Russia’s great power competitors try to dominate it and its allies through the information space with superior technology to achieve information superiority or dominance in peacetime. Strategic deterrence is present in the regional agreements as military threats and nuclear parity give way to multiple different information-related stateand non-state threats which must be prevented and deterred. However, the agreements are more defensive and passive than Russia’s own strategic planning documents were. The idea of a unified information space is expanded to include the CIS
and CSTO in the documents. This raises the interesting question of where the bordersof the Russian national segment of the Internet begin and where they stop. Clearly,
the EIP can also be an inclusive concept when politico-militarily or for economic
reasons appropriate or culturally feasible. This means that any ‘single cause’ explanation, like ‘the besieged fortress syndrome’ cannot fully explain Russian policies towardcyberspace. Information-technological warfare is lost its distinctiveness in the 2010s,
which correlates with the appearance of ‘Western hybrid and information warfare.’However, there remains a purely technological aspect which is related to the security
and functioning of critical information infrastructure, and the destructive effects of
information weapons. As the treatises are high-level political documents automatedcommand and control systems do not really feature in them—excluding the mentionof CIS information security system, which was probably a more organizational thantechnological concept. The idea of asymmetric response was not part of international
treatises.’
To be analytically accurate, terrorism, separatism and extremism are persistent threatsin the documents—especially in the context of the SCO. Moreover, the official texts
did not explicitly use the terms digital or information sovereignty. The agreements
between the CIS, CSTO and SCO reflect a like-minded and negotiated approach to
information security. Thus, Russia is not the sole author of the documents or the sole,2147 Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации 2018c.
2148 Комментарий Департамента информации и печати МИД России о российских оценках француз-ской инициативы «Парижский призыв к доверию и безопасности в киберпространстве», 20.11.2018[Online]. Available: http://www.mid.ru/web/guest/mezdunarodnaa-informacionnaa-bezopasnost /-/asset_publisher/UsCUTiw2pO53/content/id/3413302 [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2149 Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации. Об итогах голосования в ГенассамблееООН по российскому проекту резолюции по противодействию киберпреступности, 30.12.2019[Online]. Available: https://www.mid.ru/organs/-/asset_publisher/AfvTBPbEYay2/content/id/3988579[Accessed: 6th January 2020].

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or even original, source of all of the ideas.2150 Russian ideas most probably interactedwith Chinese ideas and ideas from Post-Soviet countries. The international treatises
demonstrate that the part of the strategic cultural ideas analysed in this study werealready part of the Russian decision-making elite’s worldview in 2000–2011. However,Russian policies concerning cyber or information space were largely directed outsideof Russia—to change the rules of the international system to balance the perceived
disbalance in power between Russia and the United States.2151 The idea of a Russian
national segment of the Internet was already present before 2014 but the elites concentrated mainly on shaping and controlling its external normative borders, not somuch its internal elements and functions. After 2014 this project intensified andgained urgency.
6.2.3 The early policies and laws of 2000–2011
This chapter looks at the Russian strategies, policies and laws promulgated and implemented during 2000–2010 to provide a context to the change that occurred after
2010. The basic principles of the government policy concerning information security
were established in the Information Security Doctrine of 2000.2152 Manoilo, Petrenko
and Frolov have argued that a long-term programme for coordinating the actions offederal bodies of state power for the development and implementation of state information policy and information warfare was designed in a meeting of the Security
Council of the Russian Federation held in July 2000.2153 As the Doctrine has been
analysed previously, and there are few public sources available to trace the policy referred by Manoilo et al., I shall start my analysis on the first public government efforts
to shape the Russian cyber and information space.
As was argued above, the Russian regime allowed the Russian Internet to develop
largely without state control in the 2000s. In 2002 the Russian government adopted
the federal Electronic Russia Programme for 2002–2010. It was meant to ensure thedevelopment of the public information infrastructure and services of the government,
and to enhance intragovernmental cooperation for the needs of the state authorities
throughout the Russian Federation. This included adopting measures aimed at costeffectiveness, reducing bureaucracy and increasing the transparency of the public administration. The Programme was the government’s answer to the digitalization ofsociety and the economy. ‘A unified information space’ was considered to be an important component in the building of a strong federal state as Russia was characterized by the vastness of its territory and sparseness of the population. In principle, it
did not differ from the eGovernment programmes adopted by other governments at
2150 For example, in 2010 the president of Belarus already gave an edict titled: On the Measures to Improve theUse of the National Segment of the Internet, and in 2019 the county adopted the Concept of Information
Security of the Republic of Belarus, which defined such concepts as ‘information sovereignty’ and ‘national
segment of the Internet’ which are both concepts that Russians have consistently used but never officiallydefined. (Указ Президента РБ 2010; Постоновление Совета Безопасности Республики Беларусь от 18марта 2019 № 1 “О Концепции информационной безопасности Республики Беларусь” [Online]. Available: http://president.gov.by/uploads/documents/2019/1post.pdf [Accessed: 2nd April 2019]). Soldatov andBorogan have claimed that Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazabayev called for electronic borders and esovereignty already at the SCO summit in Astana in June 15, 2011 (Soldatov & Borogan 2013, 29-30).
2151 For a similar conclusion cf. Giacomi 2014; Nocetti 2015.
2152 CF. Chapter 4.
2153 Манойло, Петренко & Фролов 2012, 456.

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that time.2154 However, it envisioned ‘a unified, vertically integrated state automatedinformation system of ‘Management’ (upravlenie)’ which would be based on regional
databases and the sharing of information between all federal institutions. This systemdiffered from programmes of other governments and resonated strongly with Soviet‘kibernetik’ ideas.2155 The Electronic Russia Programme also included the establishment of regional information-analytical centres and situation centres for ‘higher organs of the government’. These new systems would be based on automated information systems harmonized and integrated through federal and municipal levels. In
principle, the Programme should have produced a unified federal and municipal government information system based on common computer systems and protected
communication channels operated by a single operator.2156
According to Ilmari Susiluoto, the Electronic Russia Programme was followed by apush to develop techno parks, centres and cities modelled after the success of the
Silicon Valley but based on Soviet ‘science cities.’ Susiluoto argues that these ideas
were connected to the utopian Soviet thinking. They were efforts to control information society without understanding its creativity.2157 Moreover, they were an effort
to fix the decline of the Russian information scientific and industrial civilian and military base through the government support.2158
Although this first state-led push to create the information society in Russia in 2002–
2008 was dominated by liberal and progressive economic thinking, it also included
the first restrictions to Internet freedoms. This was not a surprise as the Information
Security Doctrine published in 2000 had practically made information security a national security issue.2159 In 2003 Russia got a new Federal Law on Communications
which strived to regulate the changing information landscape. It included licensing
procedures and monopolistic tendencies that tried to give the regime the ability tocontrol the telecoms market.2160 Ultimately, in 2006 the ISPs were ordered to provide
the FSB real-time access to their customer databases.2161 This development culminatedin the Federal Law on Information, Information technology and the Protection ofInformation, which was adopted in 2006.2162 Although its first version included only
2154 Schware, Robert (ed.) E-Development: From Excitement to Effectiveness. Washington D.C.: The WorldBank Group, 2004 [Online]. Available: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/261151468325237852/
pdf/341470EDevelopment.pdf [Accessed: 13th May 2019].
2155 The “Management” system is a unified territorially distributed state information system which offers analytics and decision-making support, enables the monitoring of the implementation of federal and municipal
programmes and the evaluation of their effectiveness, the monitoring of economic, financial and social situationin the country, and supports strategic planning. (Постановление Правительства Российской Федерации
от 25 декабря 2009 г. № 1088 (В редакции от 02.02.2019 № 77) Положение о государственной автоматизированной информационной системе “Управление” [Online]. Available: http://pravo.gov.ru/
proxy/ips/?docbody=&nd=102134940 [Accessed: 13th May 2019].)2156 Постановление Правительство Российской Федерации от 28 января 2002 г. №65 “ФЦП «Электронная Россия (2002–2010 годы)” [Online]. Available: http://minsvyaz.ru/ru/activity/programs/6/ [Accessed:
4th March 2019].
2157 Susiluoto 2006.
2158 Roffey 2013; Locksley 2001; Golts, Alexander M. and Putnam, Tonya L. State Militarism and Its Legacies:
Why Military Reform Has Failed in Russia. International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2004), 121-158.
2159 Cf. Chapter 4.
2160 Alexander, Marcus. The Internet and Democratization: The Development of Russian Internet Policy. Demokratizatsiya, The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2004), 607-627.
2161 Susiluoto 2006, 393-394.
2162 Федеральный закон 2006.

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basic provisions to bring the Internet into the sphere of legal regulation, it later became ‘the law of Internet state control’, as will be shown below.
The Russian regime’s thinking on critical infrastructure develop during the 2000s withinternational trends but also with national characteristics. Katri Pynnöniemi and Irina
Busygina have argued that Russian views began to change in 2003 after a Security
Council meeting.2163 The planning and preparing for emergency situations developed
towards the protection of certain critical objects, and the conceptual basis to protect
critical infrastructure was formulated in 2006.2164 However, at this point the issue wasstill connected to internal security and emergency situations- The ensuring of resilientand secure functioning of information-telecommunications systems of ‘the dangerous
objects’ was only one of the measures proposed to protect CI. Interestingly, in a similar manner to the Electronic Russia Programme, the concept called for the creationof ‘a unified state system for the prevention and elimination of emergency situations.’
It also demanded the creation of a national control centre for crisis situations as well
as a decision support system, and automated information and forecast-analytical systems for identifying and assessing possible threats. Is also required a certification system for the ICT and software of critical objects.2165 This system was later named theUnified State System of Emergency Prevention and Response (RSChS).2166 Sergei
Shoigu later managed to construct this system during his post as the Minister of Emergency Situations 1994-2012.2167
Although the public and official policies do not mention the subject, the issue of
informatization of the society touched also mobilization in the 2000s. Julian Cooper,
who has studied the mobilization planning of Russia, claims that the Ministry of Economic Development and Commerce sponsored a federal level integrated systemcalled EMAPU which would have connected 10 000 local government organizations
and 25 000 enterprises.2168 Furthermore, as noted in Chapter 5, the Russian militarybegan to develop concepts for its own unified information space from the early 2000s.
Previous studies on the Russian military reform have shown that automated command and control systems and digital communications were at the core of the newarmaments programme launched in 2011.2169 The military-industrial complex had its
own strategies and concepts for development.2170 However, the results would begin
to materialize only in the 2010s when there was enough financing and the worst problems of the armament program had been ironed out.2171
2163 Pynnöniemi & Busygina 2013.

2164 Pynnöniemi 2012; Pynnöniemi & Busygina 2013.
2165 Президент РФ 28 сентября 2006 г. № Пр-1649 Основы государственной политики в области обес-печения безопасности населения Российской Федерации и защищенности критически важных и потенциально опасных объектов от угроз техногенного, природного характера и террористических актов
[Online]. Available: https://base.garant.ru/198664/ [Accessed: 13th May 2019].
2166 Поручение Президента РФ от 15.11.2011 N Пр-3400 Основы государственной политики в области
обеспечения безопасности населения Российской Федерации и защищенности критически важных ипотенциально опасных объектов от угроз природного, техногенного характера и террористических актов на период до 2020 года [Online]. Available: https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/
70041358/ [Available: 13th May 2019].
2167 Roffey, Roger: Russia’s EMERCON: Managing emergencies and political stability, FOI, 2016.
2168 Cooper 2016, 17.
2169 Bartles 2011; McDermott 2011; Blank 11; McDermott 2015.
2170 Растопшин 2004.
2171 McDermott 2011; McDermott 2015; Renz 2018.

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The next push for the informatization and digitalization of the Russian economy andgovernment came with Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency. However, the 2008 Strategy
for the Development of Information Society in the Russian Federation was adopted
already under the reign of Vladimir Putin.2172 Its main objective was to ensure for
Russia ‘a worthy place among the leaders of the global information society.’ Its tasks
included the formation of modern information and telecommunications infrastructure, the development of economy based on the use of ICT, the protection of culture,and strengthening of patriotism, and the thwarting the use of information and telecommunications technologies to threaten Russia’s national interests. The ensuring of
national security and the enhancement of military defence were a constant theme in
the Strategy. The emphasis of national interests was a clear departure from earlier
eGovernment initiatives. It demanded the creation of ‘a unified information space’inter alia for the needs of the national security and the protection of the informationand telecommunications systems of key infrastructure facilities. Despite this ‘securitization’, the economy, society and government services were the main targets of theStrategy. It promoted public private cooperation, indirect government support instead of state-led projects, and international cooperation.2173
The new government adopted in the November of 2008 the Concept of Long-periodSocial-Economic Development of the Russian Federation until 2020 declared that
Russia was yet again becoming an economic great power.2174 The Concept acknowledged the importance of scientific and technological development and the lag of Russia in this respect, which could increase Russia’s vulnerability in the context of growing geopolitical rivalry. Economic development was explicitly connected to combat
readiness of the Armed Forces and thus deterrence. Moreover, financial competitiveness was the basis for ‘economic sovereignty’. The transformation towards economyof knowledge from energy-based economy was a priority and it included investments
to human capital and scientific research. The part of the Concept discussing ICT
mentioned the need to develop a unified information space, to stimulate domestic
hardware and software production, to create technology parks, and to counter the useof ICT against Russia’s national interests. The Concept also called for systems ofmanagement to be created to manage different sectors of the Russian economy in theframework of strategic planning.2175 It was one of the first official references to strategic planning in national policy setting context. Moreover, it echoed the emphasis ofsovereignty which Putin had elevated to almost an official ideology.2176

Стратегия. Стратегия развития информационного общества в Российской Федерации (утв.
Президентом РФ 7 февраля 2008 г. № Пр-212) [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2008/02/16/informaciastrategia-dok.html [Accessed: 13th May 2019].
2173 Ibid.
2174 Распоряжение Правительства РФ от 17.11.2008 N 1662-р “О Концепции долгосрочного социальноэкономического развития Российской Федерации на период до 2020 года” (вместе с "Концепцией долгосрочного социально-экономического развития Российской Федерации на период до 2020 года"):http://www.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc&n=82134&base=LAW&from=3080691847&rnd=0.6960341791725004#0577375847182553 [Accessed: 13th May 2019].
2175 Распоряжение Правительства РФ 2008a.
2176 Lo 2015, 31-32; Mankoff 2012, 81-82.
2172

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The Strategy and Concept of 2008 were put into practice in the Government Programme on Information Society (2011—2020) adopted in 2010.2177 The Concept has
been significantly updated during 2010-2013 and I will refer here to the original 2010
version. The implementation of the Concept was the responsibility of Minkomsviaz’
and a group of other ministries, the FSO, and the FSB. It recognized many future
problems and challenges of “ensuring the security of the national segment of the Internet”. It had six subprogrammes.2178 The priority of the programme was to create a
unified information space which was a composition of other unified or single systems.
The subprogramme of e-state included the creation of state system of electronic identification and the state information-analytical system to support state economic andsocietal policies, and the development of a protected Russian segment of the Internet
for government use. It also called for the integration of government services and thecontinuing development of the Management System (Upravlenie). The subprogramme of basic infrastructure included, for example, the construction of modern
national backbone communication network. The security subprogramme concentrated on preventing terrorism but also included the creation of national software andsupercomputer production.2179 The Concept was meant to enhance Russian information society and economy with limited state intervention. It dispensed almost completely with the national security language of its guiding Strategy and Concept. However, the Concept did retain the drive to integrate, synchronize, and harmonize government networks, and the idea of collecting information on nation-wide basis forthe efficient management of the state.
In 2008 the Russian government also adopted the Concept on Forming Electronic
Government in the Russian Federation until 2010.2180 It was drafted by the Ministryof Communications, the Ministry of Economic Development, and the FSO. The
Concept noted the technological lag of Russia compared to developed countries andstated that forming a unified information infrastructure between government agencies
had failed. The Concept repeated the objectives and tasks of the 2002 Electronic Russia program and thus it was basically an admission of a failed policy. The Concept did
not include the national security issues mentioned in the 2008 Strategy.2181
During the term of President Medvedev Russia also redefined the roles and tasks ofsome of its central actors in the information space. Minkomsviaz’ and Roskomnadzor
got new provisions in 2008 and 2009, and the Federal Law on Security was modified
in 2010.2182 The MoD adopted in 2010 the Regulations on the Information Support
Bodies of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The subject of this order were2177 Распоряжениие Правительства Российской Федерации от 20 октября 2010 г. N 1815-р Государствен-ная программа Российской Федерации "Информационное общество (2011-2020 годы)” [Online]. Available: http://pravo.gov.ru/proxy/ips/?docbody=&nd=102142714 [Accessed: 11th April 2019].
2178 The quality of life of the citizens and the conditions for the development of business in the informationsociety; the e-state and government effectiveness; the Russian market of information and telecommunication
technologies; the basic infrastructure of the information society; the security in the information society; and thedigital content and cultural heritage.
2179 Ibid.
2180 Распоряжение Правительства РФ от 6 мая 2008 г. N 632-р Концепция формирования в Российской
Федерации электронного правительства до 2010 года [Online]. Available: http://www.garant.ru/products/
ipo/prime/doc/93274/ [Accessed: 13th May 2019].
2181 Распоряжение Правительства РФ 2008b.
2182 Постановление Правительства РФ 2008; Постановление Правительства РФ 2009a; Федеральный закон 2010.

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public relations, not information or cyber security or defence.2183 It did however point
to the fact that the Russian Armed Forces took information warfare increasingly seriously.
Although the 2008 Strategy and Concept did include the element of national interest
and a view that Russian was in a geopolitical competition in which it was in danger ofbeing left behind, the early Putin and Medvedev era documents are decidedly technocratic, optimistic, cooperative, and liberal in their character. However, the issue ofsovereignty appeared as ‘technological independence’ or ‘technological sovereignty’and so did the claim that information society was connected to hard national security.
The issue of technological dependence on the West did not escape the attention of
the commentators at that time.2184 This zero-sum approach was compatible with theidea of interstate struggle, great powerness, and the balance of power. As the threatsin the information space are mainly crime and terrorism, deterrence comes up only inthe margins. Additionally, the idea of asymmetric response does not really appear as
the overall tone is that of catching up with developed countries not finding ways tocounter or surpass them. Nevertheless, the idea of information superiority on strategic level guides the need to develop domestic technology. Information-technological
warfare was eclipsed by crime and terrorism which were the main threats directedagainst the information society and the state, but the concept of critical information
infrastructure began to form a basis for an understanding of national cyber security.
The most important element was the continuing Russian fascination with the idea ofa unified, centralized, vertically integrated automated management system on a national level and the related information-analytical systems and situation centres. Thesesystems were explicitly connected to the concept of the national segment of the Internet, although what that segment entailed, remained vague. So, there was alreadybefore 2012 a tension between the idea of free and liberal development of the Internet
to gain maximum economic benefits and the reflexive need of the elites to control
that same Internet and use it to micromanage the society and the economy. As wasshown in Chapter 5, similar ideas circulated amongst the Russian military, although,the policies of the MoD and the Armed Forces concentrated first on survival andthen from 2008 onwards on military reform.
6.3

The developments of 2012–2019

In 2012 the Russian defence and security elites changed their approach to the Internet.
Reasons for this have been examined in Chapter 6.1. This change manifested in agroup of laws directed against the political opposition which had used the Internet tomobilize first against the fraudulent Duma election and then against Vladimir Putin’s
re-election. The Russian regime first reacted to the demonstrations by tightening theregulation on the freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, by staging show trailsof the opposition leaders and by mounting a domestic propaganda campaign against

2183 Приказ Министра обороны РФ от 11 февраля 2010 г. N 70 "Об утверждении Положения об органах

информационного обеспечения Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации" [Online]. Available:
http://base.garant.ru/55170392/ [Accessed: 13th May 2019].
2184 Крикунов, Александр, Корол в, Александр. Информационные войны будущего. О необходимости
адекватной защиты отечественной информационной инфраструктуры от кибератак. Военный дипломат, № 1 (2009), 94-103.

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the opposition.2185 The Internet censorship followed after the elite had properly analysed the situation and reoriented itself.2186
6.3.1 The laws
The laws aimed at controlling the Internet have mostly been amendments to existinglaws such as the Federal Law on Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection, the Law on Mass Media, the Law on Communications or the
Criminal Code—the first of which has virtually become a law on Internet censorship.2187 In 2012 Federal Law № 139-FZ “On Introducing Amendments to the Lawon the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development” was adopted.2188 The law introduced an Internet blacklist managed by the
Roskomnadzor.2189 The register includes the domain names, IP -addresses, and URLs
of banned web sites and services. Providers hosting banned sites need to notify theowner of a site displaying banned information to take down the material or restrict
the access to it themselves in 24 hours. Providers include social media companies andany services that offer platforms for user generated material. Failure to restrict accessto the banned resources will result in legal prosecution and/or fines. Initially and officially the register was introduced to protect children from harmful material. However, the ‘Unified register’ has been used to ban services like the Telegram and Zello,
and websites of opposition politicians like Alexei Navalnyi.2190 In 2013 the so-called“Lugovoi Law” gave the authorities the power to block Internet sites and resources
disseminating calls for “mass unrest, extremist activities, and participation in mass
events held in violation of the established procedure.” This law made it administratively much easier, based only on the order of the General Prosecutor’s office, toquickly block information about a political event.2191 Moreover, the authority of Roskomnadzor to independently add sites to the blacklist–blocking has to otherwise bebased on law or court order–has increased incrementally and it has begun to ‘advise’2185 Pomeranz 2019, 156-157.

2186 FIDH. Table Illustrating Legislative Crackdown on Rights and Freedoms of the Civil Society in Russia

since 2012 (2018) [Online]. Available: https://www.fidh.org/en [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Freedom House
2018; Агора 2016.
2187 By censorship here is meant: “The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. thatare considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” (Censorship. Oxford English Dictionary. [Online]. Available: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/censorship [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
Cf. also Prakash, Pranesh, Rizk, Nagla and Souza, Carlos Affonso (eds.) Global censorship Shifting Modes,
Persisting Paradigms. New Haven: Yale Law School 2015 [Online]. Available: https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/isp/documents/a2k_global-censorship_2.pdf [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2188 Федеральный закон от 28.07.2012 N 139-ФЗ (последняя редакция) “О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон “О защите детей от информации, причиняющей вред их здоровью и развитию” и отдельные законодательные акты Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/
document/cons_doc_LAW_133282/ [Accessed: 14 May 2019].
2189 Федеральная служба по надзору в сфере связи, информационных технологий и массовых коммуникаций. Единый реестр [Online]. Available: https://eais.rkn.gov.ru/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2190 Webb, Isaac. Russian Web Censor Cracks Down Ahead of Next Anti-Corruption Protests. Global Voices,
31 March 2017 [Online]. Available: https://globalvoices.org/2017/03/31/russian-web-censor-cracks-downahead-of-next-anti-corruption-protests/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Кантышев, Павел. Роскомнадзор
добивается блокировки IP-адресов Amazon. Ведомости, 23 марта 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2018/03/23/754777-roskomnadzor-amazon [Accessed: 14th
May 2019]; Lenta.ru. Роскомнадзор отказался от попыток веерно заблокировать Telegram. Lenta.ru, 25апреля 2018 [Online]. Available: https://lenta.ru/news/2018/04/25/telega/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2191 Федеральный закон от 28 декабря 2013 г. N 398-ФЗ “О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон“Об информации, информационных технологиях и о защите информации” [Online]. Available:
https://rg.ru/2013/12/30/extrem-site-dok.html [Accessed: 14th May 2019].

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ISPs on how to best restrict access to banned sites such as by using highly intrusive
DPI technology.2192 The somewhat crude procedures and technology behind theblocking efforts have negatively affected the functioning of the Russian segment of
the Internet and generated losses for the Internet service and content providers.2193
The “Blogger’s Law” adopted in April 2014 was a step towards self-censorship as it
required bloggers with more than 3,000 visits per day to register as ‘organizers of thedissemination of information’ (ORI).2194 ORI became the main regulatory category in
the Russian Internet. It was defined as a legal entity or a person who uses computers
and/or computer programs for receiving, transmitting, delivering and (or) processing
electronic messages of Internet users. The ORIs were required to store information
about the reception, transmission, delivery, and (or) processing of voice data, written
text, images, sounds or other electronic messages of Internet users and information
about these users for six months. They are also required to provide law enforcement
and secret services access to it under the threat of banning their sites and receivingfines.2195
In July 2016 a federal law was adopted which made Internet news aggregators withover a million users (such as Yandex, Rambler, VKontakt) and disseminating news in
Russian, or other languages of the Russia Federation, responsible for the authenticity
and legality of the information and links on their sites. These news aggregators were
to be registered by Rozkomnadzor to a special register which would monitor the visitor count of the news aggregators.2196 In 2017 the controlling effort extended to messaging apps and proxy services. Organizers of messaging services were required to
identify their users by their cell phone numbers, i.e. abolishing anonymity, and to
restrict the use of their services if ordered by the officials. Information about the users

2192 Зыков, Владимир, Кондратьев, Александр. Роскомнадзор будет оперативно получать решения судово блокировках Для этого будет создана система электронного взаимодействия. Известия, 2 февраля 2017
[Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/news/662031 [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Известия. Роскомнадзор обновил рекомендации операторам по фильтрации трафика. Известия, 27 июня 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://iz.ru/611620/2017-06-27/roskomnadzor-obnovil-rekomendatcii-operatoram-po-filtratcii-trafika [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2193 Брызгалова, Екатерина. Роскомнадзор начал блокировать страницу «МБХ медиа» в «Яндекс.Дзене».
Ведомости, 23 февраля 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2018/02/22/
751870-roskomnadzor-zablokiroval-mbh-yandeksdzene [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Сухаревская, Алена.
Роскомнадзор заблокировал почти триста доменов Google. Ведомости, 11 апреля 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2018/04/11/766420-roskomnadzor-zablokiroval-google[Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2194 The mention about bloggers was later removed cf. Федеральный закон от 29 июля 2017 года № 276-ФЗ“О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон “Об информации, информационных технологиях и озащите информации” [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2017/07/30/fz276-site-dok.html [Accessed: 14th
May 2019].
2195 Федеральный закон от 05.05.2014 N 97-ФЗ (ред. от 29.07.2017) ”О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон “Об информации, информационных технологиях и о защите информации” и отдельные
законодательные акты Российской Федерации по вопросам упорядочения обмена информацией с использованием информационно-телекоммуникационных сетей” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_162586/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2196
Федеральный закон от 23.06.2016 N 208-ФЗ “О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон “Обинформации, информационных технологиях и о защите информации” и Кодекс Российской Федерации об административных правонарушениях” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/
cons_doc_LAW_200019/ [Accessed: 29th May 2019].

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of the services must be stored in Russia.2197 Moreover, services that provided accessto the blacklisted websites from Russia i.e. public proxy and VPN servers, were required to cease their actions if ordered by the Roskomnadzor.2198 Thus, at least intheory, all public and some private Internet communication were put under legal state
control by the end of 2018. This was by no means a waterproof mechanism as theattempt to block the messaging service Telegram has proved.2199 Moreover, the Russian regime has had only limited success regulating the international Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter—although many of the them do follow theRussian law. The banning of LinkedIn in 2016 proved that the regime was serious.2200
Google began complying with the blacklisting requirements in 2019 in its transparency report declared that the Russian government accounted for 75 percent of all
global requests to delete content in January–July 2018.2201
Along with blacklisting sites, monitoring and blocking content, regulating news andsocial media platforms, and outright banning of whole services, the Russian regime
has sought to restrict the foreign ownership of information resources located in Russia. In October 2014 Russia adopted a law that restricted the permissible percentageof foreign ownership of any print media, registered online media, television, or radio
broadcasters to 20 percent.2202 In December 2015 a follow-up law ordered media companies to declare any foreign financing they received once every quarter.2203 These
were amendments to the Law on Mass Media whereas the ownership of major telecommunications, television, radio and newspaper companies is regulated by the Law
on Foreign Investments in Strategic Assets.2204 Admittedly, it would have been somewhat difficult to designate Internet sites as strategic assets. However, only Russiancompanies or citizens could own Internet news aggregators (ORI).2205 The major Russian telecommunications companies which provide the backbone for the Russian Internet are ‘strategic assets.’ So are the state-owned television companies the websitesof which are amongst the most popular in the RuNet.2206 Moreover, as many major
Russian companies are either directly stated owned or owned by the oligarchs, the2197 Федеральный закон от 29.07.2017 N 241-ФЗ “О внесении изменений в статьи 10.1 и 15.4 Федераль-ного закона “Об информации, информационных технологиях и о защите информации” [Online].
Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_221183/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2198 Федеральный закон 2017c.
2199 Роскомсвобода. Telegram: год под «блокировкой». Роскомсвобода, 16.4.2019 [Online]. Available:
https://roskomsvoboda.org/46556/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019]. For the case of Telegram cf. Griffiths 2019.
2200 Soldatov & Borogan 2015; Rambler News Service. Итоги года: рунет 2016 [Online]. Available:
https://rns.online/articles/Itogi-goda-runet-2017-01-02/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Freedom House 2018.
2201 Moscow Times. Google Began Censoring Search Results in Russia, Reports Say. Moscow Times, February
7, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/02/07/google-began-censoring-searchresults-russia-reports-say-a64423 [Accessed: 29th May 2019].
2202 Федеральный закон от 14.10.2014 N 305-ФЗ (последняя редакция) ”О внесении изменений в Закон
Российской Федерации ”О средствах массовой информации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.
ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_169740/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2203 Федеральный закон от 30.12.2015 N 464-ФЗ “О внесении изменений в Закон Российской Федерации“О средствах массовой информации” и Кодекс Российской Федерации об административных правонарушениях" [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_191539/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2204 Федеральный закон от 29 апреля 2008 г. N 57-ФЗ “О порядке осуществления иностранных инвестиций в хозяйственные общества, имеющие стратегическое значение для обеспечения обороны страныи безопасности государства” [Online]. Available: http://ivo.garant.ru/#/document/ 12160212/paragraph/3780:0 [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2205 Федеральный закон 2016a.
2206 Федеральный закон 2008.

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state influence on the national segment is quite solid even without tight legal regulation of the ownership of the Internet services. This has not stopped the introductionof a draft law on restricting the foreign ownership of ‘Internet resources.’2207
Data localization is another issue that the regime has pursued through law-making. In
July 2014 the Law on Personal Data was amended so that the personal data of Russian
citizens had to be stored inside Russian borders. Subsequently, Roskomnadzor was
mandated to monitor that this law was followed by the foreign and Russian ISPs.2208
The law entered into force in September 2015 but Roskomnadzor’ was still pushinginternational Internet companies like Facebook and Twitter to comply with at in theend of 2019.2209 Data localization has been driven by both economic and security interests. By insisting that international companies store their data on Russian citizens
in Russia, the government creates demand for the ICT sector. It also makes Russian
laws applicable to that data and gives the law enforcement and security services accessto it. Moreover, personal data would be, from the Russian state’s point-of-view, better
protected than if it was stored in ‘the cloud’ i.e. under some other state’s jurisdiction.
The so-called Iarovaia Laws or Anti-Terrorism laws which were signed by Putin in
July 2016 and entered into force in July 2018 take the data localization to the extreme
in the form of massive data retention.2210 Originally, the laws demanded that the telecommunications companies and the ISPs retained all text messages, voice, data, andimages for six months and metadata about the time, location, and sender and recipients of messages for three years. All this data had to be stored in Russia. Moreover,the companies were ordered to give the law enforcement and secret services accessto that data including the means to decrypt it. Later, the demands have been slightly
modified.2211 The Russian ISPs have tried to get the requirements of the laws eased
and complained that they will be either impossible or exceedingly costly (17 trillion
roubles) to implement—as the ISPs themselves are required to provide the equipment
for the data storage.2212 Furthermore, there were no certified domestic equipment or
government guidelines available when the law entered into force. The use of foreign
equipment was, in principle, banned as it was seen as a security risk, or was considered

2207 Seddon 2019.

2208 Федеральный закон от 21 июля 2014 г. N 242-ФЗ "О внесении изменений в отдельные законода-тельные акты Российской Федерации в части уточнения порядка обработки персональных данных винформационно-телекоммуникационных сетях" [Online]. Available: http://ivo.garant.ru/#/ document/70700506/paragraph/1:0 [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2209 ТАСС. Жаров: Twitter и Facebook должны локализовать данные пользователей РФ к декабрю-январю. ТАСС сентября [Online]. https://tass.ru/obschestvo/6921980 [Accessed: 6th January 2020].
2210 Федеральный закон 2016b; Федеральный закон от 06.07.2016 N 375-ФЗ (последняя редакция) ”О
внесении изменений в Уголовный кодекс Российской Федерации и Уголовно-процессуальный кодекс
Российской Федерации в части установления дополнительных мер противодействия терроризму иобеспечения общественной безопасности” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/
cons_doc_LAW_201087/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2211 Трунина, Анна. Интернет-сервисы в России обязали хранить трафик пользователей полгода. РБК,5 фебраля 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/28/06/2018/5b34f94f9a79476cbd07e0e8?from=main [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2212 Тишина, Юлия. «Закон Яровой» вписали в инфляцию. Объемы хранения данных и затраты операторов могут вырасти. Коммерсантъ, №61 от 10.04.2017 [Online]. Available: https://www. kommersant.ru/doc/3267272 [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Тишина, Юлия. «Закон Яровой» сводят с реальностью
Власти смягчают его условия и сроки введения. Коммерсантъ, №10 от 22.01.2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3526894 [Accessed: 14th May 2019].

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a competitor to the Russian domestic ICT industry.2213 In addition to being a domestic
security measure, the ‘Iarovaia laws’ have become a tool for building digital sovereignty. Data does not just flow through Russia but, in principle, resides there on Russian servers under state jurisdiction.
Although the laws discussed above are important tools of political control, their relevance comes from some other laws enacted between 2012–2018, and from the Roskomnadzor’s, FSB’s and other officials’ use of those laws. These laws designate whatkind of information and actions in the information space can be regulated and bywhom, and they all leave enough room for discretion in the implementation so thatthey can be used against any politically undesirable action on the Internet.2214 Although, the censorship laws have mainly empowered Roskomnadzor, the powers of
the FSB were increased in December 2013 as its mandate on criminal intelligence andsurveillance operations was extended to the ‘information security’ of the Russian Federation.2215 The Agora organization has claimed that the failure to deploy effective
Internet censorship in 2016–2017 has led to the side-lining of the Roskomnadzor as
the FSB uses its increased powers and new laws to pursue ‘illegal’ web resources andactivities through criminal investigation instead of censorship.2216
One additional legislation effort that has not yet succeeded to gather enough support
is mandatory state certified encryption. From 2016 the FSB has published administrative orders (prikaz) which demand that the Internet companies relinquish theircrypto keys to the FSB.2217 This policy escalated to the total ban of Telegram in Russia
in April 2018 when the company refused to hand over its keys and user data.2218 Moreover, as the use of the HTTPS protocol increased in the Russian segment, the FSB
and Roskomnadzor pushed for a mandatory national SSL certificate in 2016 which
would give them the ability to conduct MITM attacks on all encrypted traffic in thenational segment using the national certificate.2219 This would have been possible, for
Lenta.ru. «Закон Яровой» оказался неисполним. Lenta.ru, 3 июля 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://lenta.ru/news/2018/07/03/illegal/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Баленко, Евгения, Посыпкина,Александра. Не дописали: почему интернет-компании не могут исполнять «закон Яровой» РБК, 13июля 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/31/07/2018/5b5f22609a7947e1f4470779?from=main [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Роскомсвобода. Минпромторг хочет запретить
реализацию «пакета Яровой» на иностранном оборудовании. Роскомсвобода, 7.5.2019 [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/46996/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2214 FIDH 2018; Agora 2018; HWR 2018.
2215 Федеральный закон от 21 декабря 2013 г. N 369-ФЗ “О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон“Об оперативно-розыскной деятельности” и статью 13 Федерального закона “О федеральной службе
безопасности” [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2013/12/25/deatelnost-dok.html [Accessed: 14th May
2019].
2216 Корня, Анастасия. Главным регулятором рунета становится ФСБ. Свободы в российском интернетевсе меньше, считают правозащитники. Ведомости, 05 февраля 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2018/02/05/749913-regulyatorom-runeta-fsb [Accessed: 14th May 2019].
2217 Кантышев, Павел. ФСБ хочет получать ключи от электронной переписки за 10 дней. Спецслужба
уточнила требования к интернет-компаниям, но выполнить их будет сложно.Ведомости, 07 декабря
2017 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2017/12/07/744550-fsb [Accessed:
15th May 2019].
2218 Рожков, Роман, Новый, Владислав. Telegram не сдал ключи. Роскомнадзор будет добиваться ограничения доступа к мессенджеру через суд. Коммерсантъ №58 от 05.04.2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3593600 [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
2219 Коломыченко, Мария. Шифр и меч. ФСБ собирается взять интернет-трафик на контроль.
Коммерсантъ" №174 от 21.09.2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3094848 [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2213

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example, through the use of Russian web browsers and by establishing national certification authorities. The domestic Sputnik browser and state websites began the test
trial of Russian SSL certification in 2017.2220 It seems that this policy is incorporated
into the new ‘Law on Sovereign Internet’ although the cryptography part will only
come into an effect in 2021.2221 The Security Council has also authorized the FSB tocreated national encryption for mobile networks called “Konus” which includes SIM
cards with Russian crypto keys, hardware security modules on the network side, andauthentication of users through national register connecting SIM cards to natural or
judicial persons.2222 Moreover, in December 2019 Putin signed a law that obliged theelectronic devices sold in Russia to have pre-installed Russian applications.2223
If the development of censorship laws is compared to the changes in Russia’s strategic
environment, it is obvious that the efforts to control the substance of the national
segment of the Internet were based in the domestic and international events of 2011–2012. The tone of those efforts changed slightly in 2014 and became more resoluteas the perceived information war with the West intensified and the Ukrainian revolution was interpreted as a Western regime change operation. The direct control of theInternet through regulation became increasingly pronounced. It was important to restrict the ability of the opposition to collective action, but it became ever more important to push the outside influence in the Russian information space to a minimum.
Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that the Russia regime did not initiallypursue the kind of total censorship that, for example, China was using by the 2010s.
Developments were incremental, opposed by civil society and the private sector, anda system like China’s “Great Firewall” was probably technologically impossible toachieve in the timeframe of 2012-2019.2224 Nevertheless, the laws adopted in 20112019 make concrete the strategic cultural ideas as information sovereignty is given
substance, and the EIP borders, strategic deterrence and interstate information struggle is provided means, asymmetric response and information superiority enhanced bydenying the opponent’s the freedom of action, and the legal basis for automated systems of information-technological security and defence are created.

2220 Зыков, Владимир. Российское шифрование протестируют на сайте госуслуг. Начато тестовое внед-рение российских систем защиты интернет-трафика. Известия, 31 августа 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://iz.ru/636884/sertifikat-dlia-gosuslug-i-sputnika [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
2221 Коломыченко, Мария. Депутаты предложили защитить Рунет с помощью отечественного шифрования. РБК, 2 апреля 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/02/04/
2019/5ca2138a9a79477cb5e399e7 [Accessed: 9th May 2019].
2222 Коломыченко, Мария, Посыпкина, Александра. Российские сим-карты запустят на чипах SamsungОтечественное шифрование нужно ФСБ для борьбы с иностранными разведками. РБК, 23 мая 2019
[Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/23/05/2019/5ce53a039a79471bde8de739?
from=center [Accessed: 26th May 2019].
2223 Кречетова, Ангелина, Харатьян, Петр. Путин подписал закон о предустановке российского софтана гаджеты. Ведомости 02 декабря 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/ articles/2019/12/02/817628-putin-podpisal-zakon [Accessed: 6th January 2020].
2224 Based on human rights organizations’ and Internet activists’ reporting Russian censorship is working andit is enforced by legal persecution although there are enough technological loopholes that the current methods
can be circumvented if there is will and moderate technical knowhow. (Агора 2018; Dobrokhotov, Roman.
Putin vs the Russian Internet - 0:1. Al Jazeera, 25 Apr 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.aljazeera. com/indepth/opinion/putin-russian-internet-01-180424170551334.html [Accessed: 17th May 2019]; Ermoshina,
Ksenia and Musiani, Francesca. Migrating Servers, Elusive Users: Reconfigurations of the Russian Internet in
the Post-Snowden Era. Media and Communications, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2017), 42-53.)

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The critical information infrastructure and the regulations and systems created to protect it constitute another element of normative control. The Russian concept of CII
grew out of the laws and regulations on emergency situations and the protection ofcritical objects of the energy and transportation sector in the period of 2003-2011.2225
In 2012 the Fundamentals of the State Policy in the Field of Ensuring the Safety of
the Population of the Russian Federation and the Protection of Critical and Potentially Dangerous Objects from Natural Threats, Man-made and Terrorist Acts for the
Period up to 2020, drafted by the Security Council, for the first time defined the CII
as “a set of automated control systems and interaction-enabling information and telecommunications networks of the critically important objects that are designed tomeet the challenges of public administration, defence, security and law and order, thedisruption (or termination) of which may cause serious consequences.”2226 The document also introduced the concept of the future national cyber security system GosSOPKA (Gosudartsvennia sistema obnaruzheniia, preduprezdeniia i likvidatsii
posledsvii komp’iuternykh atak) (cf. Chapter 6.4.1). Furthermore, the document practically introduced the official Russian language of information-technological security
concerning the CII. It did not, however, include the term cyber.
According to the Fundamentals, the reasons for protecting the CII were the blurredand vulnerable boundaries between ‘the national segments of telecommunications
networks.’ The main task of the government was to develop a system of government
management and control over the CII, to ensure the resilience of the national segmentof the global information network, to create a system of protection of the CII, toprevent the flow of information critical for the CII through foreign countries, and topromote domestic ICT industry and import substitution. After a preparatory period
in 2012–2016, the policy would be implemented in 2017–2020.2227 In the absence ofa national cyber security strategy, the Fundamentals provide a substitute. It resonates
quite significantly with the idea of digital sovereignty and the unified information
space. It also incorporates the concept of ASUs to the CII and creates an interesting
dichotomy between them. Most importantly, it defines the framework and language
for the defensive side of strategic level information-technological security and defence. The protection of the CII is a task of national level cyber defence and theauthority concerning it is given to the FSB.
The project to protect the CII was largely frozen between 2014–2017 as
Minkomsviaz’, the FSTEK, and the FSB fought over the power to control the CII
through various draft laws. In 2017 the Law on Critical Information Infrastructure
was finally adopted and it affirmed the leading role of the FSB.2228 It defined the CII
as “information systems, information and telecommunications networks, automatedcontrol systems of critical information infrastructure subjects [state administration,
2225 Комаров, Алексей. Нормативные документы по безопасности АСУ ТП, АСУ ПиТП, КСИИ, КВО,КИИ [Online]. Available: https://www.securitylab.ru/blog/personal/zlonov/144489.php [Accessed: 15th May
2019]; Pynnöniemi 2012; Pynnöniemi & Busygina 2013.
2226 Основные направления. Основные направления государственной политики в области обеспечения
безопасности автоматизированных систем управления производственными и технологическими процессами критически важных объектов инфраструктуры Российской Федерации (утв. Президентом РФ
03.02.2012 N 803) [Online]. Available: http://www.scrf.gov.ru/security/information/document113/ [Accessed: 18th April 2019].
2227 Ibid.
2228 Ristolainen 2017a & 2017b.

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persons or firms].”2229 The critical aspect was linked to the infrastructure related tothe health care, science, transport, communications, energy, banking and other areasof the financial market, the fuel and energy complex, the field of atomic energy, defence, rocket and space, mining, metallurgical and chemical industries. The securityof CII meant its resilient functioning under computer attack.2230 The law on the CII isdecidedly state-centric, materialistic, and technology-oriented in its approach. It
makes a distinction between electronic communication networks and the CII/ASUs.
The former was regulated by the Law on Communication and belonged to the authority of Minkomsviaz’. However, as the GosSOPKA system was envisioned tocover both, and the authority to define and regulate what exactly belonged to the CII
was given to the FSTEK, tensions between institutions were inevitable. The ‘significant objects’ of CII were to be categorized by the operators of CII objects themselves
and then submitted to the FSTEK for approval. The categories were based on social,political, economic, ecological, and defence and security significance, and the degreeof criticality was based on three levels of damaging effects from minor to catastrophic.
The criteria for the categorization of the ‘significant objects’ of CII are provided in agovernment decree published in 2018 and they are based on the indicators of humancasualties, economic losses, territorial magnitude, and the hierarchy of state power.2231
The FSTEK approves the categorizations and designation, and places the CII in a
special register. However, the operators are themselves responsible for the protectionof CII objects, and must react to incidents in a way defined by the FSTEK/FSB. They
must also share information with them and must ensure the access of the FSB to theobjects of CII under their control.2232 The monitoring and security systems of theseobjects could be connected, if operators so wished, to the GosSOPKA (cf. Chapter
6.4.1).
Based on the above it can be argued that, the Russian state cyber security understanding focuses around the concept of CII. To protect its ‘significant objects’ a vertical,
hierarchical, and centralized system is being built which has the possibility to connect
all strategic sectors of the nation to a system of cyber security operated by the FSB.
The CII is the infrastructural part of the unified information space and thus digital
sovereignty and its defence resonates quite strongly with strategic deterrence and withretaining the information superiority. The laws and directives concerning the CII and
GosSOPKA state quite clearly that the control of the infrastructure is a source ofsovereignty and material and technological power, and that the CII must be protectedprimarily from foreign actors and influence. Moreover, the CII is central to nationlevel information-technological warfare combining the vulnerabilities and strengthsof ASUs for a new era. GosSOPKA with its multilevel centres and systems is a clear
manifestation of the information security system of systems that Russian information
warfare theorists were promoting from the 2000s. Thus, it combines the idea of the
EIP and ASUs.
2229 Федеральный закон 2017a.
2230 Ibid.

2231 Постановление Правительства РФ (2018a) от 8 февраля 2018 г. № 127 Об утверждении Правил ка-тегорирования объектов критической информационной инфраструктуры Российской Федерации, атакже перечня показателей критериев значимости объектов критической информационной инфраструктуры Российской Федерации и их значений (с изменениями от 13 апреля 2019 г.) [Online]. Available: https://fstec.ru/component/attachments/download/1917 [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
2232 Ibid.

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6.3.2 The strategies
Parallel and concurrently with the censorship policies, law enforcement, and protection of critical infrastructure, the Russian regime has implemented its informationsociety strategy and doctrine. The Russian government led again by Dmitri Medvedev
in November 2013 published the Development Strategy of the Information Technology Industry in the Russian Federation for 2014–2020 and for the Future up to
2025.2233 It was based on the 2008–2009 Strategy and Concept. It would contribute toensuring the information security and high quality of Russia’s defence through newtechnologies and by neutralizing global information threats. The Strategy recognized
the problems of Russian ICT sector but was quite optimistic about the global prospects of Russian companies. It stated the main civilian and military technologies thatmust be pursued were to be AI, quantum technologies, and robotics. Information
security required the production of domestic technologies. The objective was to ensure the sovereignty of the information technology sector.2234 Although the Strategy
incorporated the ideas of sovereignty and great power struggle, it was decidedly business-oriented and information security was almost an afterthought. However, information technology was now accepted as a defining element of state and military
power.
The new Government Programme of Information Society (2011–2020) was adopted
in 2013.2235 It was based on previous strategic documents and emphasised economic
and technological competition. It consisted of four ‘directions’ (napravlenie) of information and telecommunications infrastructure and services, information environment, security in information society, and information government. The objective of
the first was to modernize the Russian ICT infrastructure. The second included both
domestic and international strategic communication and public affairs projects like
support for the Russia Today TV-channel. The third direction was based on creating
resilient information infrastructure, on counterterrorism and extremism efforts, andon controlling and monitoring of communications. The fourth direction was about egovernment and the removal of domestic ‘digital inequality’. Overall, the 2013 Programme did not diverge very much from the direction set by the earlier governments.
It still included the Management System and the protected government segment, theinformation-analytical system for special purposes, and the unified information spacein the sphere of technological and information-communication management of thegovernment, and multiple unified and single subsystems. The term unified information space, as a main principle, was however dropped.2236
The Programme was decidedly revised in March 2017 and has been revised multiple
times after that. It was now based on the 2016 Information Security Doctrine. Under
2233 Распоряжение Правительства РФ от 01.11.2013 N 2036-р (ред. от 18.10.2018) “Об утверждении Стра-тегии развития отрасли информационных технологий в Российской Федерации на 2014 - 2020 годы ина перспективу до 2025 года” [Online]. Available: https://digital.gov.ru/common/upload/ Strategiya_razvitiya_otrasli_IT_2014-2020_2025.pdf [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
2234 Ibid.
2235 The comparisons of different versions was done using the Consultant.ru service. For the latest version cf.
Постановление Правительства РФ от 15.04.2014 N 313 (ред. от 29.03.2019) “Об утверждении государственной программы Российской Федерации "Информационное общество” [Online]. Available:
http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_162184/ [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
2236 Ibid.

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priorities and targets, for example, it mentions, strategic deterrence and the prevention of military conflicts that may arise as a result of the use of information technology; countering the use of information technology to promote extremism, xenophobia and nationalism; and eliminating the dependence of the domestic industry on foreign information technologies. The third ‘direction’ was now about “the preventionof threats in the information society” and was based decidedly on blacklisting andcontent monitoring but also on data privacy protection and counter-terrorism. It
lacked any mention of fighting cybercrime, but as responses to nation level cybersecurity threats it promoted the creation of a national routing information register and‘the cybersecurity of the microprocessors of transportation.’ The fourth direction was
still about e-government but emphasised the information infrastructure and services
the government required, not so much the services it was supposed to offer.2237 National security issues clearly gained importance, but it would be exaggeration to claimthat the Programme was militarized, securitized, or had a ‘mobilizing’ character. It
combined many older projects but placed the emphasis on security and domestic production of hardware and software. One important detail is that between 2017-2019
versions of the program the national segment of the Internet replaced the EIP as a
guiding concept.2238
The change in the tone of the Programme was related to the domestic political debate
on the information sovereignty and the suspected foreign plans to ‘disconnect theRussian Internet’, a threat promoted perhaps most vocally by the Minkomsviaz’. The
idea of information or digital sovereignty was embraced by some Russia politiciansalready in 2012. The Federal Council drafted in 2012–2013 a Concept of Cyber Security of the Russian Federation which was never approved. The Concept introduced
the concepts of cyberspace2239, cyber security2240 and cyber war, but tried as well to
include the information-psychological aspects of previous doctrines and strategies.2241
The advocate of the failed Russian cyber security strategy in the Federal Council,
Ruslan Gattarov, stated in 2012 that the goal of the document was to shape thecounty’s ‘digital sovereignty’.2242 Ruslan Gattarov argued that “an infrastructure must
be created so that the system [infrastructure of security] does not depend on a single
cable, and in the case of a state of emergency it could redistribute the load for thesmooth operation of the Russian Internet […] That is, the strategy should guarantee
2237 Ibid.
2238 The comparison of different versions was done with Consultant.ru service.

2239 “Cyberspace is a sphere of activity in the information space, formed by a set of communication channelsof the Internet and other telecommunication networks, technological infrastructure ensuring their functioning,
and any forms of human activity carried out through their use (person, organization, state).” (Концепция.
Концепция Стратегии Кибербезопасности Российской Федераци [Проект], 2013 [Online]. Available:
http://council.gov.ru/media/files/41d4b3dfbdb25cea8a73.pdf [Accessed: 27th February 2019].)2240 “a set of conditions under which all components of cyberspace are protected from the maximum possible
number of threats and impacts with undesirable consequences.” (Ibid.)2241 Ibid.
2242 Совет Федерации Федерального Собрания Российской Федерации. Проект стратегии кибербезопасности России направлен на формирование цифрового суверенитета страны, 27 фебраля 2013 [Online].
Available: http://council.gov.ru/events/news/14575/ [Accessed: 27th February 2019]; Иванов, Максим. Совет федерации занялся цифровым суверенитетом: Стратегии кибербезопасности наметили основные
направления. Коммерсантъ № 209 от 06.11.2012 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.
ru/doc/2060832 [Accessed: 4th December 2018]; Рябухина, П. П., Бондуровского, В. В., Перекопского, Г.
И. (Под ред.) Законодательство государств - членов ОДКБ в сфере обеспечения информационной безопасности: опыт, проблемы и перспективы гармонизации. Материалы международной научно-практической конференции. СПб.: Секретариат МПА СНГ.

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“digital sovereignty”.”2243 Dennis Davydov the Director of the League for a SecureInternet claimed in response to Gattarov that “Digital sovereignty is part of our statesovereignty, part of absolute and complete autonomy in determining policies and setting any rules. Globally, only three powers have the digital sovereignty: The UnitedStates, China and, to a lesser extent, the Russian Federation. Here, from the point ofview of digital sovereignty one can speak about the presence of one’s own searchengines, one’s own social networks, browsers and operating systems.”2244 Russia’s
Minister of Telecommunications Nikolai Nikiforov (2010–2018) was also a supporterof the idea of ‘information sovereignty’. For him, sovereignty meant domestic hardware and software production i.e. independence from foreign technological solutions.2245 Consequently, the concept of sovereignty was associated with ICT and theInternet in the names of government workgroups and projects. For example, in 2016
a working group titled ‘Internet + sovereignty’ was established in the presidential administration to draft a road map for “ensuring sovereignty in the field of information
technology and telecommunications.”2246
The war in Ukraine and the Western reactions to it brought about a real policy change
instead of just philosophical debates.2247 In July 2014 the Minkomsviaz’, the FSB, theFSO, the Ministry of Defence and Rostelekom (including the Coordination Centre of
National Domain of Internet and the Technical Centre) conducted an exercise to assess the security and stability of the national segment, the degree of its connection to
the global infrastructure, its potential vulnerabilities, and the level of readiness forjoint work of industry organizations, telecom operators and situation centres of thefederal executive bodies.2248 According to Oleg Demidov, the scenario of the exercise
was based on the ENISA Threat Landscape of Internet Infrastructure report published in 2008 and it involved threats against the DNS, BGP and IP routing, DDoS
attacks, and the disconnection of traffic to and from Russia by foreign actors. Demidov claims that the exercise proved that the segment was resilient but the cooperation
between different actors had serious problems.2249 However, the Security Council
adopted a statement that argued that the exercise had shown that the national segment
was vulnerable. Minkomsviaz’ was probably given a task to draft a proposal on how
to ensure the resilience of the national segment, and yearly cyber exercises including
the Minkomsviaz’, the FSB and the MoD were announced.2250
2243 Иванов 2012.

Хизриев, Арсен, Балтачева, Марина. «Используют тактику «выжженной земли». ВЗГЛЯД, 27сентября 2013 [Online]. Available: https://vz.ru/politics/2013/9/27/652418.html [Accessed: 27th February].
2245 Латухина, Кира. Спецфонд безопасности. Российская газета 25.09.2014 [Online]. Available:
https://rg.ru/2014/09/24/putin-site.html [Accessed: 28th February 2019].
2246 Анненков, Андрей. «Интернет+суверенитет» рабочей группы по Интернету рассмотрела проект дорожной карты. D-Russia.ru 29 сентября 2016 [Online]. Available: http://d-russia.ru/podgruppa-internetsuverenitet-rabochej-gruppy-po-internetu-rassmotrela-proekt-dorozhnoj-karty.html [Accessed: 28th February2019].
2247 Резчиков, Андрей. Избежать отключения от интернета России поможет Китай. ВЗГЛЯД, 29 декабря
2016 [Online]. Available: https://vz.ru/society/2016/12/29/744236.html [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2248 Минкомсвязь. Минкомсвязь, ФСБ и Минобороны провели учения по защите российского сегмента
интернета. 28 июля 2014 года [Online]. Available: https://digital.gov.ru/ru/events/31441/ [Accessed: 16th
May 2019].
2249 Демидов & Махукова 2016.
2250 Совет Безопасности Российской Федерации 2014; Голицына, Анастасия. Совет безопасности обсудит отключение России от глобального интернета. Ведомости, 19 сентября 2014 [Online]. Available:
https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2014/09/19/suverennyj-internet [Accessed: 16th May 2019];
Кантышев, Павел, Болецкая, Ксения, Никольский, Алексей. Россия не будет отключена от интернета.
2244

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Ex-minister of Communications Igor Chshegolev and the then advisor of the president on information technology claimed in October 2014 that the Security Council
considered the functioning of the Internet to be a national security issue and that
Russia was being isolated from the outside. The critical services of the national segment resided outside Russia and it did not control them. Russian ccTLDs could be
removed from DNS root-files or its AS and IP -address spaces from RIPE registries
and/or from the routing policies of neighbouring networks. Moreover the leading
Internet companies were American and their data was in the disposal of American
intelligence services.2251 Later, in May 2015 Chshegolev claimed that the national security of states would be secured if they had the sovereign right to control their national segments, domestic laws to regulate global Internet companies were formulated, and the governance of the Internet was established on equal grounds.2252 Theseviews were shared by the President’s advisor on the Internet German Klimenko who
in December 2016 claimed that Russia had to be ready for it to be disconnected fromthe Internet from the outside and this required laws to regulate the national segmentof the Internet.2253 Klimenko also argued in a meeting of the General Staff in 2017that the only way to secure the Russian Internet was to copy the information security
system of China. This policy is nowadays called ‘kitaizatsiia’ or Sinicization.2254 It isthus safe to argue that the views later manifested in the government programs andlaws were quite widely shared by the security and defence elite of Russia by 20152016.
Minkomsviaz’ drafted a proposal for securing the resilience and security of the national segment which was ‘leaked’ in March 2015. It included measures such as taking
state control of the MSK-IX, the Coordination Centre of National Domain of Internet and the Technical Centre, implementing a ban on using cross-border connections
by commercial companies, and the duplication of ccTLD DNS architecture and national AS/IP -registries managed by the RIPE/ICANN.2255 Minister Nikiforov
planned to bring his ideas on information sovereignty to the government and Putin
in April 2015, but for reasons unknown he did not publicly present his report and theВедомости, 02 октября 2014 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/
2014/10/02/na-strazhe-interneta [Accessed: 16th May 2019]; ТАСС. Глава Минкомсвязи пообещал проводить ежегодные учения по обеспечению устойчивости рунета. ТАСС, 19 ноября 2014 [Online]. Available:
https://digital.gov.ru/ru/events/32136/ [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2251 Анненков, Андрей. Игорь Щ голев: «Учения подтвердили недостаточную устойчивость Рунета принедружественных «целенаправленных действиях». D-Russia.ru, 17.10.2014 [Online]. Available: http://drussia.ru/ucheniya-podtverdili-nedostatochnuyu-ustojchivost-runeta-pri-nedruzhestvennyx-celenapravlennyxdejstviyax.html [Accessed: 29th May 2019].
2252 Анненков, Андрей. Игорь Щ голев: безопасность Интернета и безопасность граждан должны обеспечиваться суверенитетом государств в киберпространстве. D-Russia.ru, 12.5.2015 [Online]. Available:
http://d-russia.ru/igor-shhyogolev-bezopasnost-interneta-i-bezopasnost-grazhdan-dolzhny-obespechivatsyasuverenitetom-gosudarstv-v-kiberprostranstve.html [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2253 Ведомости. Клименко предупредил россиян о возможном отключении от мирового интернета.
Ведомости, 29 декабря 2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/2016/12/29/671725-klimenko [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2254 Интерфакс. Советник президента Клименко предложил ограничить в России интернет. Интерфакс,26 января 2017 [Online]. Available: https://meduza.io/news/2017/01/26/sovetnik-putina-nazval-kitayskiyvariant-edinstvennym-sposobom-obespechit-informatsionnuyu-bezopasnost-rf [Accessed: 17th May 2019];
Роскомсвобода. «Китаизация» Рунета входит в активную фазу и начн тся с точек обмена трафиком.
Роскомсвобода, 18.8.2017 [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/31224/ [Accessed: 17th May
2019].
2255 Голицына & Серьгина 2015.

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discussion on sovereignty was put aside.2256 However as will become clear below, theideas in the Minkomsviaz’ report were included in the National Programme of theDigital Economy adopted in 2017. Minkomsviaz’ tried to push its views into law during 2015-–2018 but it ultimately failed as first the new Information Security Doctrine
was adopted in December 2016 and then the FSB managed to get its own law on
critical information infrastructure accepted in July 2017.2257 However, Minkomsviaz’
gained control of the Digital Economy Programme which incorporated almost everything Nikiferov had promoted. Moreover, Rostelekom took control of the criticalservices listed by the Minkomsviaz’ between 2017–2018.2258
Consequently, in 2018 Nikiforov begun to use the term ’digital’ instead of ’information’ sovereignty.2259 The term ’digital sovereignty’ was also used by Natal’ia
Kasperskaia who stated in 2017 that ”Digital state sovereignty is the right and theability of a country to independently determine what is happening in its information
space […] The components of digital sovereignty are its own hardware platform, its
own software platform, its own enterprise and state management systems, its own
Internet infrastructure, its own online payment system and electronic commerce system with the remote identity verification subsystem, its own media structure of theInternet, and its own information management system.”2260 She also stated that only
the Unites States is currently digitally sovereign. For Kasperskaia digital sovereignty
obviously included both the psychological or, more precisely, content aspect of information and the technological or infrastructural aspect.2261 For her, digital sovereignty
was a system of systems run over common platform.
The above examined discussions were reflected in the new Strategy of the Development of Information Society for 2017—2030 which was signed by the President in
May 2017.2262 It was an official strategic planning document and incorporated fully theguidance of 2015 NSS and 2016 Information Security Doctrine. It offered many definitions of central concepts and defined, for example, information space (informatsionnoe prostranstvo) as “a set of information resources created by subjects of
the information sphere, means of interaction of such subjects, their information systems and the necessary information infrastructure.” The basic premise was that new
2256 Голицынаб Анастасия. Правительство не планирует рассматривать вопрос о суверенитете рунета.

Ведомости, 31 марта 2015 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2015/03/31/
pravitelstvo-ne-planiruet-rassmatrivat-vopros-o-suverenitete-runeta [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2257 Ristolainen 2017a & 2017b; Голицына, Анастасия, Серьгина, Елизавета, Козлов, Петр. Государство
хочет контролировать маршруты интернет-трафика в стране. Ведомости, 11 февраля 2016 [Online].
Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2016/02/11/628508-gosudarstvo-hochet-kontrolirovat-rossiiskii-zarubezhnii-internet-trafik-strane [Accessed: 16th May 2019]; Балашова, Анна, Коломыченко,Мария. Власти предложили новые ограничения для владельцев точек обмена трафиком. РБК, 16 август
2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/16/08/2017/ 59942b429a794794dd46800c [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2258 Cf. Chapter 6.1.
2259 АиФ 2018.
2260 Бирюлин, Роман. Стремление к цифровому суверенитету. Кразная звезда, № 136 6 декабря 2017.
2261 Kasperskaia is the leader of the work group on information security in ANO Digital Economy. She is also
the President of the InfoWatch group of companies, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, a member of the Grant
Committee of the Skolkovo Foundation, Chairman of the Board of the Association of Software Developers“Otechestvenniy Soft”, member of the Expert Council on Russian Software at the Ministry of Communications
and Mass Media. (Цифровая экономика. Информационная безопасность [Online]. Available: https://dataeconomy.ru/security#rec34030444 [Accessed: 28th February 2019].)2262 Указ Президента РФ 2017a.

334and future technologies2263 would create a national digital economy which would provide a source of wealth but also protect the country from vulnerabilities and outside
attacks. The way in which information technologies had developed, especially the Internet, gave states with developed technologies the possibility to influence the populations of other countries to advance their own interests. The Strategy stated that “toeffectively manage the communication networks of the Russian Federation, to ensure
their integrity [tselostnost’], unity [edinstvo], resilient [ustoichivyi] operation and security [bezopasnost’], it is necessary to: a) create a centralized system for monitoringand managing the unified telecommunications network of the Russian Federation; b)
to create systems enabling stable, safe and independent functioning of the Russian
segment of the Internet; c) ensure the reliability and availability of communication
services in Russia, including in rural areas and inaccessible localities; d) create statebodies and organizations for expanding the use of domestic telecommunications
equipment and software in communication networks; e) maintain the infrastructureof traditional communication services (postal services, telecommunications).”2264 To
these requirements were added the uniformity of state regulation, e-government services, the use of Russian crypto algorithms, ensuring information technological independence, the deployment of the GosSOPKA, and ensuring data localization andprivacy.2265 The concepts of technological independence and competitiveness were
derived from the Strategy of Scientific-Technological Development of the RussianFederation which was adopted in 2016.2266 The Strategy reflects the increasing importance of sovereignty and information struggle which were observed already abovein the way the Programme of Information Society developed between 2013—2017
and the Russian internal information and cyber security debate proceeded between
2013—2016.
The Strategy used the concept of ’the national segment of the Internet’ to emphasis
the sovereign right of the state to control its information space. The national segment
implicitly consists of the national information infrastructure (software and services,
information systems, data centres and networks), mainly but not altogether understood as a part of the Internet. Interacting upon and with it are political, military,economic, and information (cultural) spheres of life which are under the state jurisdiction. The concept of ‘information space’ was used to denote a Russian value, language and culture-based space while critical infrastructure was the material and technological base of the national segment. Thus, the Strategy incorporated both information-technological and psychological aspects of information. According to theStrategy, Russian interests included, amongst increased competitiveness, strengthening of economy and the protection of private and business interests, ‘technologicalindependence’, and the securing of Russian public and private information. Import
restrictions would protect its developing industry.2267 The Strategy resonates with theidea of struggle and information superiority through the strategic technological-scientific advantage it pursues. The emphasis of future breakthrough technologies and the2263 Nano- and biotechnologies, optical technologies, data analytics and storage (big data, IoT, and cloud-based

services), artificial intelligence, and alternative energy sources.
2264 Указ Президента РФ 2017a.
2265 Ibid.
2266 Указ Президента РФ от 01.12.2016 N 642 “О Стратегии научно-технологического развития Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_ 207967/ [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2267 Ibid.

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simultaneous protection of own industry and society is compatible with an asymmetric response. The whole Strategy is a means to produce measures for strategic deterrence and to create substance for digital sovereignty.
6.3.3 The policies
The main implementation policy document related to the national segment of theInternet is the government programme and later national programme of Digital Economy. It is based on the Strategy of the Development of Information Society and, toa lesser extent, the Information Security Doctrine.2268 It is thus part of the strategicplanning process of the state and has both socio-economic and (military) security aspects.2269
The Programme of Digital Economy sets its objectives and tasks in the context offive directions (napravlenie): normative regulation, cadres and education, research andtechnical reserves, information infrastructure, and information security. The last two
are of interest when examining how Russia is shaping cyberspace and trying to control
the national segment of the Internet. Information infrastructure and security related
objectives and tasks are based on external and internal challenges and threats, and themain objective is: “ensuring the unity [edinstvo], resilience [ustoichivost’] and security[bezopasnost’] of information-telecommunications infrastructure of the Russian Federation on all levels of information space.”2270 The Programme combines security witheconomy by emphasising the use of domestic software, hardware, and cryptographic
solutions. Most interestingly, the Programme presents a ‘road-map’ which states thatin 2020 Russia will ensure its ‘digital sovereignty’ and in 2024 all the objectives of theProgramme will be achieved. In relation to this, according to the Programme, in 2024
only 10% of internal traffic of the ‘Russian segment of Internet’ will be routed throughforeign servers.2271
Between December 2017 and February 2018 ‘the Government Commission on the
Use of Information technology to Improve the Quality of Life and Business Conditions’ approved action plans for the five ‘directions’ of Programme of the Digital
economy.2272 According to the action plans the total budget of ‘the Digital Economy’
would be 522 billion roubles.2273 However, the Programme was updated to a status ofa national programme in May 2018 and its budget was raised first to 3,5 trillion roubles
2268 Распоряжение Правительства РФ 2017.
2269 Распоряжение Правительства РФ 2017; Указ Президента РФ 2016b; Федеральный закон от 2014a.

Another important document is the Strategy of Scientific-Technological Development of the Russian Federation (Указ Президента РФ 2016a). The following examination of the Digital Economy Programme is takenfrom a previously published research paper and updated (Kukkola, Juha. New guidance for preparing Russian‘digital sovereignty’ released, Finnish Defence Research Agency, Research Bulletin 01 – 2018).
2270 Распоряжение Правительства РФ 2017.
2271 Ibid.
2272 Правительство Российской Федерации. О «дорожных картах» по направлениям программы «Цифровая экономика Российской Федерации». 9 января 2018 [Online]. Available: http://government.ru/orders/selection/401/30895/ [Accessed: 16th May 2019]; Правительство Российской Федерации. Утвержд нплан мероприятий по направлению «Кадры и образование» программы «Цифровая экономика Российской Федерации» 21 февраля 2018 [Online]. Available: http://government.ru/news/31428/ [Accessed: 22
March 2018].
2273 Тишина, Юлия, Жукова, Кристина. Оцифрованные миллиарды. Правительство утвердило проекты
«Цифровой экономики». Коммерсантъ №2 от 10.01.2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.
ru/doc/3515334 [Accessed: 22 May 2018].

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and then by December 2019 lowered to 1,7—1,8 trillion roubles of which 1 trillion
would be designated from the federal budget for 2019—2024 and the rest would
come from the private sector.2274 For comparison the whole budget of the national
programmes initiated by Putin’s 2018 May Edicts is 25,7 trillion roubles.2275 In comparison the budget of arms procurement programme GPV 2018— is approximately
19 trillion roubles.2276 The responsibility for implementing ‘directions’ of ‘information
infrastructure’ and ‘information security’ was given to Minkomsviaz’, and a non-commercial organisation ‘Digital Economy’ was created to coordinate the public and private activities and to monitor the realization of the state programme.2277
Practically all state power ministries and security agencies are listed as responsible
actors for ‘the direction of information infrastructure.’2278 The same applies to major
IT-companies which are listed as participating contractors. The main objectives of‘the direction’ are: Adequate national communication network; domestic infrastructure for data storage and processing which provides affordable, sustainable, safe, andcost-effective services; and adequate digital platforms for the needs of citizens, business and the government. In practice, the first objective includes, for example, creating normative base for the use of information technology, high-speed Internet(100Mb/s) to almost every household and government institution by 2024, speechand data connection to all priority objects of transport infrastructure, the implementation of 5G technology by the economic sector, developing state-wide narrow-band
IoT network (LPWAN), and state-wide (including the Arctic EEZ) satellite services.
The second objective includes, for example, the establishment of federal datacentres(eight by 2024)2279 and unified cloud services for the government. The third objective
includes, for example, e-government services and their management systems, space
based remote sensing system and geodetic control network, and services based onthese systems. ‘The direction of information infrastructure’ is the most expensive one
and amounts to circa 436 billion roubles (7,6$ mrd). The FSB, FSO and FSTEC havea definite role in planning these projects but implementation is left to state corporations and private sector.
Russia is planning, as a part of Sfera which is a more comprehensive satellite programme including navigation and communication services, to either participate orclone the OneWeb, SpaceX and Telsat LEO satellite mega-constellations projects toprovide Internet regionally and globally to ‘friendly’ countries. This project has faced
2274 Шмырова, Валерия. «Цифровая экономика» исполняет бюджет хуже всех нацпрограмм, потому чтообо всем советуется с бизнесом. CNews, 11.11.2019 [Online]. Available: https://cnews.ru/news/top/201911-08_tsifrovaya_ekonomika_ispolnyaet [Accessed: 6th January 2020].
2275 Баленко, Евгения, Кузнецова, Евгения. Исполнение законопроекта о суверенном Рунете подорожало до ₽30 млрд. РБК, 26 мая 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and _media/26/03/2019/5c98f1bd9a79476ea86fc631?from=center [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2276 Connolly & Boulégue 2018.
2277 Постановление Правительства РФ 2019a.
2278 Правительственная комиссия. План мероприятий по направлению “Информационная инфраструктура” программы “Цифровая экономика Российской Федерации” (утв. Правительственной комиссиейпо использованию информационных технологий для улучшения качества жизни и условий ведения
предпринимательской деятельности (протокол от 18.12.2017 N 2)) [Online]. Available: http://static.government.ru/media/files/DAMotdOImu8U89bhM7lZ8Fs23msHtcim.pdf [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2279 Situated in the Central Federal Okrug, North-Western Federal Okrug, Uralskii Federal Okrug, Siberian
Federal Okrug , Privolzhzkii Federal Okrug , and the Far-Eastern Federal Okrug , and probably two more toensure resiliency of the system.

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opposition from parts of the government and domestic companies.2280 Most importantly, the FSB has opposed the project demanding that it must have access to alldata traffic going through the Russian national segment of the Internet, and the MoD,
which controls the frequency allocation in Russia, has been unwilling to provide upand downstream frequency bands for the satellites.2281 The plans to deploy 5G IoTand SmartCity and SmartGrid networks in the biggest Russian cities has also faced
resistance from the FSO and the MoD.2282 The most important challenge to all theseprojects has been the lack of financing and technology which has led Russia to partnerwith China.2283 However, the demands that the Digital Economy projects should bebased on Russian hardware and software might make this cooperation challenging.2284
The other member of the EEU have already complained about Russian protectionist
ICT policies.2285‘The direction of information security’ does not include the Ministry of Defence in
its list of responsible actors, although, it is consulted in some of the projects. All theother security ministries and agencies are present. The main objectives of information
security are: ensuring the integrity (tselostnost’), resilience (ustoichivost’) and security(bezopasnost’) of information-telecommunications infrastructure of the Russian Federation on all levels of information space; ensuring organizational and legal protectionof individual, business and state interests in the framework of the digital economy;
and the creation of conditions for Russia’s leading position in the export of information security services and technologies, as well as the integration of national interests in the international documents on information security issues.2286
2280 Джорджевич, Александра. Сферический триллион в «Эфире»ю Как «Роскосмос» конкурирует сИлоном Маском за глобальный спутниковый интернет. Новая газета, № 140 от 13 декабря 2019 [Online].
Available: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/12/12/83136-sfericheskiy-trillion-v-efire [Accessed: 7th
January 2020].
2281 Балашова, Анна, Сидоркова, Инна, Коломыченко, Мария. Правительству предложат создать глобальную спутниковую сеть за ₽299 млрд. РБК, 22 ноября 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/22/11/2017/5a159bdb9a79476a55456d2b?from=center_4 [Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Сафронов, Иван. «Группировка будет развернута в любом случае: с нашим участием или без него». Коммерсантъ №33 от 25.02.2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3894154?from=author_tech [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
2282 Репин, Андрей. «Новинки Smart City» будет достраивать АО «СЗ НО «Дирекция по строительству».
Коммерсант, 12 декабря 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3827866 [Accessed:
15th April 2019]; Чурапченко, Евгения, Семашко, Наталья. Энергетика цифры. Коммерсанть, 2 октября
2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3758627?query=smart%20grid [Accessed: 15th
April 2019]; Кодачигов, Валерий. Минобороны отказалось передавать операторам частоты для 5G. Безэтого появление в России связи пятого поколения невозможно. Ведомости, 28 марта 2019 [Online].
Available:
https://meduza.io/news/2019/03/29/minoborony-otkazalos-peredavat-operatoram-svyazichastoty-dlya-5g [Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Балашова, Анна, Сидоркова, Инна. Роскомнадзор выступил
против выдачи частот для глобальной сети OneWeb. РВК, 14 апреля 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/14/04/2018/5ad0ac9d9a794746645fa041?from=main[Accessed: 15th April 2019].
2283 Балашова, Анна, Кирьянов, Роман. Акимов объявил о создании российско-китайского конкурента
OneWeb. РБК, 17.9.2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/17/09/2019/
5d80eea69a794755e1c48c87 [Accessed: 7th January 2020]; Bendett & Kania 2019.
2284 Балашова, Анна, Баленко, Евгения. Операторов 5G переведут на российские серверы. РБК, 2.9.2019[Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/02/10/2019/5d9363d59a7947b1a00cd012[Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2285 Кинякина, Екатерина, Жукова, Кристина. Соседи России раскритиковали закон о предустановке
российского софта. Ведомости, 22 декабря 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/ technology/articles/2019/12/22/819374-raskritikovali-zakon-po [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2286 Правительственная комиссия. План мероприятий по направлению “Информационная безопасность” программы “Цифровая экономика Российской Федерации” (утв. Правительственной комиссией

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The first objective is defined by its indicators to mean reducing the percentage ofdomestic traffic routing through foreign servers to 10% by 2024, the almost total
replacement of foreign produced hardware and software by domestic versions in federal and local administrative organizations, state corporations and corporations connected to state, and the comprehensive implementation of Russian standards of information security by those same actors by 2024. In practice, the resilience and security (ustoichivost’ and bezopasnost’) of ‘the unified telecommunications network of
RF is guaranteed by establishing a ‘centralized system of monitoring and managing
the public communication networks’. This is an organizational and technological project, which is managed by a designated operator, and includes the Ministry of Defence.
It functions in cooperation with NKTsKI. The system should be up and running by
2020. Stability and security also include the creation of standards for domestic cloud,fog, and quantum technology, and for systems of augmented reality and artificial intelligence.2287 As part of the security ‘direction’ the Russian government is ordering
the federal organs to buy Russian office software etc.2288
The manageability and reliability (upravliaemost’ and nadezhnost’) aspect of the firstobjective concentrates on the ‘Russian segment of Internet’ and circuiting(zamykanie) its network traffic exclusively inside the territory of the Russian federation. The objective is achieved by establishing a register of routing-address information (Internet Number Registry), a monitoring system of routing information (Internet Routing Registry), nationally controlled DNS root-servers, a national certificate
authority centre, through blocking of unlawful content, and cooperation with
NKTsKI. These ‘subsystems’ should be managed by a designed operator. Furthermore, the ‘technological independence’ and security of data processing infrastructureand systems should be guaranteed.2289
The second objective of ‘the direction of information security’ emphasises the authentication and identification of the subjects of the national segment. Moreover,
information security is not only a technological issue but also a normative one andcloud service providers’ use of data should be regulated, security standards for big
data management should be enforced, criminal code should be updated, and users ofcommunication networks should be identified. The ‘Digital economy’s’ security concept also reflects the Russian understanding of information threats by including theprevention of the appearance of ‘unlawful information’ (protivopravnaia informatsiia). In practice, information security is based on information sharing and networked systems. One of the systems, probably GosSOPKA, should provide indicators of harmful activity to Central and Regional Coordination Centres of Computer
Incidents (NKTsKI and RKTsKI). The substance of another system called ‘the centralized system of monitoring and managing the public communication networks’ wasunclear until 2019 when ‘the Law on Sovereign Internet’ was approved and a similarlyпо использованию информационных технологий для улучшения качества жизни и условий ведения
предпринимательской деятельности (протокол от 18.12.2017 N 2)) [Online]. Available: http://static.government.ru/media/files/AEO92iUpNPX7Aaonq34q6BxpAHCY2umQ.pdf [Accessed: 16th May 2019].
2287 Ibid.
2288 Жукова, Кристина. Росгвардия купила российский офисный софт на 60 млн рублей. Ведомости, 30октября 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2019/10/30/815092rosgvardiya [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2289 Правительственная комиссия 2017b.

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named national system of traffic filtering operated by the Minkomsviaz’ was established.2290 There is also a plan to enforce domestic anti-virus software on all personal
computers in Russia—this software would probably send data on the hosts to centrally controlled system.2291
The third objective of information security has a definite foreign policy character,although exporting Russian IT-solutions is at the forefront. The term ‘cyberphysical’(kiberfizicheskii) system is introduced and it is connected to IoT (Internet of Things)
and to critical information infrastructure. The term’s definition is left open, but it ispreliminary put into a legal-normative framework where unauthorized interference of‘cyberphysical’ systems should be prohibited. This new term has a clear connection
to the previous Russian endeavours in the United Nations to ban the hostile use of
ICT. The foreign policy element is emphasized by stating that the international information security standards should be developed in accordance with Russian interests,
cooperation within the Eurasian Economic Union should be advanced2292, and theRussian norm proposal on international information security should be approved by
the UN by 2020.2293 Thus, the Digital Economy Programme has also incorporated theRussian cyber diplomacy initiative.
A document stating the specific targets and indicators of the Digital Economy was
released in December 2018.2294 It redefined ‘the directions’ for projects for the normative regulation of the digital environment, information infrastructure, cadres forthe digital economy, information security, digital technology, and digital governmental
services. There were some changes and adjustments. For example, the government
and presidential administration should acquire a network of distributed situation centres, and the communication satellite network Ekspress-RV and the secure government segment RSNet should be operational by 2024. Rostelekom and Rosenergoatom
should build a distributed network of catastrophe resilient datacentres by 2021. The
project concerning cadres included the education of over a hundred thousand specialists and the creation of tens of ‘digital universities’ to teach mathematics, informatics, and technology. GosSOPKA should be operational and the CII categorized
by 2021. Moreover, a national fibre optic network should be secured by quantum
cryptography by 2021.2295 The digital economy and technology parts of the programme now concentrated on identifying a group of leading Russian research institutions and companies and providing state support for them to pursue the so-calledcross-cutting (skvoznyi) technologies.2296 Consequently, in February 2019 Vladimir

2290 Федеральный закон 2019.
2291 Правительственная комиссия 2017b.

2292 In this context common normative regulation and standards, joint exercises, and ‘a zone of digital trust’ arementioned.
2293 Правительственная комиссия 2017b.
2294 Президиум Совета при Президенте Российской Федерации 2018.
2295 It is unclear if this means the deployment of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) or quantum key distribution(QKD).
2296 These were big data, neurotechnology and artificial intelligence, distributed registry systems, quantum technologies, new manufacturing technologies, industrial internet, components of robotics and sensorics, wirelesstechnology, virtual and augmented reality technology.

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Putin ordered the government to come up with a national strategy on artificial intelligence which it did in October 2019.2297 For Putin the development of AI technology
is the key to ‘technological dominance and technological sovereignty’, but Russia’sability to create an ecosystems that supports the adoption and adaptation of AI technologies is suspect.2298 Furthermore, the Security Council has taken part in the policy
formulation related to the Digital Economy which demonstrates that digital economy
and sovereignty really are a national security issue.2299
The ‘Digital Economy’ is being implemented initially through laws. The so-called‘Law on the Sovereign Internet’, was adopted in April 2019 and entered into force inDecember 2019.2300 The law draft claimed it ensured the autonomous functioning of
the Russian segment of Internet against the threat of disconnection from the outside,i.e. the threat which the new ‘active-defence’ based Cyber Strategy of the United Statespresented. Basically, the law requires ISPs to install DPI -equipment controlled by the
Roskomnadzor into their networks. This equipment will be used to filter traffic basedon the ‘Unified register’ or blacklist of banned sites and to cut the Russian segmentof Internet from the global Internet if Russian critical information infrastructure is
faced with a critical threat. These measures will ensure the resilience (ustoichivost’),security (bezopasnost’), and integrity (tselostnost’) of that part of the Internet thatfunctions on the territory of the Russian Federation.2301
The law mandates the duplication of critical services, i.e. the national system of domain names, envisioned by the Minkomsviaz’ already in 2015. It prohibits the use offoreign databases or equipment by state organs or corporations. Moreover, it dictatesthat state organs and corporations must ensure the possibility of using state sanctioned encryption.2302 The Committee of Information Politics of Duma tried to getmandatory national SSL certification into the law but did not succeed.2303 The law isalready being implemented as the government has approved the funding of the Centre

2297 Рябова, Вика. Владимир Путин поручил правительству обеспечить разработку национальной стра-тегии в области ИИ. D-Russia.ru, 27.2.2019 [Online]. Available: http://d-russia.ru/vladimir-putin-poruchilpravitelstvu-obespechit-razrabotku-natsionalnoj-strategii-v-oblasti-ii.html [Accessed: 16th May 2019];
Указ Президента РФ от 10.10.2019 N 490 “О развитии искусственного интеллекта в Российской Федерации” (вместе с “Национальной стратегией развития искусственного интеллекта на период до 2030
года”) [Online]. Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_335184/ [Accessed: 7th
January 2020].
2298 Путин, Владимир. Совещание по вопросам развития технологий в области искусственного интеллекта. Kremlin.ru, 30 мая 2019 года [Online]. Available:
http://www.kremlin.ru/events/ president/news/60630 [Accessed: 9th July 2019]; Dear, Keith. Will Russia Rule the World Through AI?, The RUSI
Journal, Vol. 164, No. 5-6 (2019), 36-60; Bendett, Samuel. Handicaps: weak private sector, Soviet-style bureaucracy. Helps: Great STEM education — and history. Defense One, 25 November 2019 [Online]. Available:
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/11/russias-ai-quest-state-driven-even-more-chinas-can-itwork/161519/?oref=d-topstory [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2299 Совет Безопасности РФ 2017.
2300 Мартынов, Кирилл. Откуда втекает интернет Парламентарии Клишас и Луговой предлагают россиянам самоизолироваться от глобальной сети. Новая газета, 15 декабря 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2018/12/15/78947-otkuda-vtekaet-internet [Accessed: 28th February2019].
2301 Федеральный закон 2019.
2302 Ibid.
2303 Коломыченко 2019.

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of Monitoring and Managing of the Public Communication Networks (Tsentr monitoringa i upravleniia setiu sviazi obshchogo polzovaniia) (TsMUSSOP).2304 This Centre is planned to be operational in January 2020 and its task is to ensure the securityof the Russian segment of the Internet.2305 In the autumn of 2019 Russia began testingand exercising the disconnecting of the national segment from the global Internet,
although, at that time these test had an experimental and technical nature.2306 Additionally, a set of national cyber security exercises have been planned for 2020.2307
These annual exercises are required by a government degree.2308 Additionally,
Minkomsviaz’ awarded Rostelekom a contract to construct a ‘cyber-poligon’, or an
exercise platform, for nation level cyber exercises and training of specialists.2309
Minkomsviaz’ presented a draft law in May 2019 “On the approval of the procedure
for centralized management of a public telecommunications network.” It is meant toregulate how the threats permitting the activation of the ‘centralized management’ will
be defined and when individual ISPs (actors operating lines of communication orautonomous systems crossing state borders) are required to act. The mandate to define the relevance of threats is given to Minkomsviaz’ and the FSB, the probability of
threats to Rozkomnadzor, and the operation of the system when the threat is deemedhigh to the Radio Frequency Service which belongs to Rozkomnadzor. Perhaps themost important part of the legal draft are the three definitions of threats to integrity,
resilience and security to public networks which basically defines the official Russianview on cyber security. Integrity is about the ability of communication networks tointeroperate and connect clients to resources, resilience is the ability of networks tooperate under internal and external disturbances and to return to their initial state,and security is the ability to deny unauthorized access and intentional disruption ofcommunication networks.2310 In addition to Minkomsviaz’s draft, multiple other ad-2304 Постановление Правительства Российской Федерации от 30.04.2019 № 528 “Об утверждении Пра-вил предоставления из федерального бюджета субсидии на создание и функционирование Центра мониторинга и управления сетью связи общего пользования, а также создание, эксплуатацию и развитие
информационной системы мониторинга и управления сетью связи общего пользования” [Online].
Available: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_324051/ [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2305 Панов, Павел, Галанина, Ангелина. Написано связью: правительство начнет контролировать интернет. За трафиком будет следить специальная государственная структура. Известия, 22 февраля 2019
[Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/848412/pavel-panov-angelina-galanina/napisano-sviaziu-pravitelstvo-nachnet-kontrolirovat-internet [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2306 Роскомсвобода. Чему научили учения по Суверенному Рунету? Роскомсвобода, 24.12.2019 [Online].
Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/53902/ [Accessed: 7th January 2020]; Стадник, Илона. Ошибка сети:что показал учебный запуск «суверенного Рунета». РБК, 26.12.2019 [Online]. Available:
https://www.rbc.ru/opinions/technology_and_media/26/12/2019/5e046d649a794756d9e55596 [Accessed:
7th January 2020].
2307
2308 Приказ Министерствa цифрового развития, связи и массовых коммуникаций оссийской Российской

Федерации от 12.12.2019 № 839 ”Об утверждении графика проведения плановых учений” [Online].
Available: https://digital.gov.ru/ru/documents/7002/https://digital.gov.ru/ru/documents/7002/ [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2309 Роскомсвобода. Ростелеком создаст киберполигон, 06.12.2019 [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/53137/ [Accessed: 10th January 2020].
2310 Минкомсвязь. Об утверждении Порядка централизованного управления сетью связи общего пользования [Проект] 23 мая 2019 г. [Online]. Available: https://regulation.gov.ru/projects#npa=91558 [Accessed: 15th May 2019].

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ministrative orders are being drafted which aim to create multiple registers and regulations.2311 Many of these orders will not be subjected to a public discussion or parliamentary overview.
The developments of 2012–2019 can be summarized as follows. The laws adopted in
2013–2016 were primarily a reaction to the events of 2011–2012 but by 2016 the needfor direct control over the national Internet and information in it and its protection
from outside influence became pronounced. By 2017 the concept of the CII had matured to provide the basis for the Russian understanding of national cyber security.
After the of Digital Economy Programme was approved, laws were used to define
what was meant by the national segment of the Internet. On the strategy level adefinite change occurred between 2015-2017 following the reorientation of 2014 withthe release of the new Information Security Doctrine in 2016 and Strategy of theDevelopment of Information Society in 2017.2312 This changed much of the language
and made national security a priority issue in building information society and economy. The Doctrine and Strategy were reactions to the events of 2014, not 2011, but
combined many of the parallel developments: the Internet as a source of politicalchallenge to the regime, the influences from the Chinese state control over the Internet, the militarization of cyberspace, the growing importance of the CII, the fear of
new threats towards the vulnerabilities of the Russian Internet, and the new overallgeopolitical situation. Elite reactions to these developments were guided by the strategic cultural ideas. Digital or information sovereignty is a central concept guiding the
2015–2017 documents. The information space as a sphere of politico-military action
is connected to strategic deterrence and the great power balance. An asymmetric response due to new technologies and by denying opponents the ability to exploit Russian vulnerabilities. Information superiority on the strategic level is ensured throughscientific-technological and educational potential and on operational level by multiple
systems of information collection, analysis and response. The EIP will become thenational segment of the Internet and will be populated by ASUs in the form of systems and systems-of-systems. The CII provides the framework for national information-technological security, i.e. cyber security.
The National Programme of the Digital Economy synthesised these developments
and ideas into a single whole although the regulation of the CII and cyber diplomacy
efforts remained largely independent vectors. A strategy for controlling the national
information space was thus planned and implemented, and continuously updated as
the change of policy level documents have demonstrated. This strategy has been used
to shape the national cyberspace to increase state control over a bottom-to-top developed network. However, it is important to note that the making of strategy is not
unidirectional process and the National Programme of the Digital Economy has already faced serious doubts concerning the ability of the Russian economy to reachРоскомсвобода. «Суверенный Рунет» продолжает обрастать подзаконными актами, 29.05.2019[Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/47342/ [Accessed: 30th May 2019]; Эшер II. Проекты нормативных правовых актов по устойчивому Рунету [Online]. Available: https://usher2.club/ helpers/stablerunet-npa-list [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2312 This view is supported by Leonid Levin, the Chair of the Information Policy, Technology and Communications of the Duma (Левин, Леонид. О законодательных мерах по обеспечению информационной безопасности Российской Федерации. Федеральный справочник 2015 [Online]. Available: http://federalbook.ru/files/BEZOPASNOST/soderghanie/NB_2/NB2-2015-LevinLL.pdf [Accessed: 17th May 2019].)
2311

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the objectives set to it.2313 Moreover, in 2018 the direction of security reportedly received only 5% of the planned financing.2314 However, as the last minute implementation of the last May Edicts in January 2018 demonstrated, financing is only a question of political will.2315
6.4

The systems

This chapter examines what kind of civilian and military information systems andnetworks the Russian regime has built and is building or directing the private sector
to build. It introduces the systems which, in principle, form the Russian segment ofInternet and which will be used in Chapter 7 to construct the model of system ofsystems of information security and defence.2316
6.4.1 Civilian systems
The strategies, doctrines and policies drafted and adopted by the Russian regime haveproduced multiple information systems, although the first 2002 eGovernment policy
had a halting start and produced few results. As part of Medvedev’s liberalization andinformatization agenda, the Russian government established its public portal for electronic services in 2009 which began to support services requiring authentication in2010. These developed in 2011–2013 into the Single System of Identification andAuthentication (ESIA) and the Single Portal of State and Municipal Services(EPGU).2317 70.5 million people had registered to ESIA in 2017 and 46.6 million had
used electronic public services in 2017. The number was up from 20.3 million in 2015
and 31.7 million in 2016. Since 2012 the number of citizens using the EPGU had
increased twenty-fold.2318 Thus, Russian e-governance did not start to develop, despite
official declarations, until during Putin’s third term.
In 2015 President Putin ordered federal government institutions to connect their information resources to ‘the Russia government segment of the Russian informationtelecommunications network Internet’ (known as the GIS Internet). The task to establish this segment was given to the FSO.2319 In 2016 the FSO gave an administrative
order to develop a governmental segment named RSNet. The idea of RSNet was to2313 Российский союз промышленников и предпринимателей. На заседании Комитета РСПП по циф-ровой экономике обсудили меры господдержки импортозамещения программного обеспечения. 23
апреля 2019 [Online]. Available: http://www.rspp.ru/cc/news/60/16247 [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2314 Бодрик, Александр. Кибербезопасность в России: итоги 2018 года и стратегии для 2019-го. IT-Week,
4.2.2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.itweek.ru/security/article/detail.php?ID=205189 [Accessed: 17th
May 2019].
2315 OSCE. Russian Federation Presidential Election 18 March 2018. ODIHR Election Observation Mission
Final Report [Online]. Available: https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/383577?download=true [Accessed:
17th May 2019].
2316 This chapter is partly based on Kukkola, Juha. Civilian and Military Information Infrastructure and theControl of the Russian Segment of the Internet. Presented in the International Conference on Military Communications and Information Systems (ICMCIS) Warsaw, Poland, May 22.-23., 2018.
2317 РАЭК. Интернет в России 2014: Состояние, тенденции и перспективы развития. Москва, 2015
[Online]. Available: http://www.fapmc.ru/rospechat/newsandevents/newsagency/2015/08/item1/main/
custom/00/0/file.pdf [Accessed: 10th April 2019].
2318 РАЭК 2018.
2319 Указ Президента РФ 2015.

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connect state information systems to the Internet and to offer public services to citizens through a web-portal. RSNet is operated by the Spetssviazi of the FSO. It isconnected to Internet through a gateway and has its own IP-address space and domain zone (gov.ru).2320 Basically then, RSNet is a Russian government secure Intranet
with an Internet gateway. However, at the same time, Minkomsviaz’ together with
Rostelekom have been developing a Unified Data Network (ESPD) for government
agencies which is also a data network.2321 Its technical monitoring and administrationis the responsibility of the Federal Situation Centre of the Electronic Government.2322
It would seem that RSNet and ESPD are supposed to be part of the same government
backbone network with data-centres and multiple layers.2323 ESPD and RSNet support
the System of Interdepartmental Electronic Interaction (SMEV) which is basically aservice platform based on a network of seven data centres hosting the services anddata for the federal government, agencies and subjects.2324
As was noted in Chapter 6.2.3, the Russian government began to develop the Upravlenie system in 2002 which was at first an information sharing platform.2325 However,Upravlenie was redefined in 2015 as the digital platform for strategic planning together with multiple other information systems like the Unified Intradepartmental
Information-Statistical System, the Electronic Budget, and the information-analyticalsystem for monitoring the national security of the Russian Federation. Upravlenie
would be based on sharing data between authorities and it would provide a digital,

2320 Приказ ФСО России от 07.09.2016 N 443 “Об утверждении Положения о российском государствен-ном сегменте информационно-телекоммуникационной сети “Интернет” (Зарегистрировано в Минюсте России 14.10.2016 N 44039) [Online]. Available: http://www.gov.ru/ rsnet/pr_fso_443_07092016.pdf[Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Правительство Российской Федерации. Временные правила администрирования домена gov.ru 2018. [Online]. Available: http://www.gov.ru/ main/rsnet/page541.html. [Accessed 11
January 2018]; Правительство Российской Федерации. Информация администрации сети RSNet[Online]. Available: http://www.gov.ru/main/page5.html [Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Указ Президента РФ
2015.
2321 Минкомсвязь. Единую сеть передачи данных в 2016 году будут использовать 14 госорганов, 20 января 2016 [Online]. Available: https://digital.gov.ru/ru/events/34535/ [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
2322 Приказ Министерства связи и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации от 16.08.2017 г. №
422 “О порядке функционирования и подключения к федеральной государственной информационной
системе “Федеральный ситуационный центр электронного правительства” и признании утратившим
силу приказа Министерства связи и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации от 1 июля 2014 г.
№ 184” [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2017/10/04/minsvyaz-prikaz422-site-dok.html [Accessed: 15th
April 2019].
2323 Минкомсвязь. Единая информационнотелекоммуникационная инфраструктура органов власти
[Online]. Available: https://digital.gov.ru/uploaded/presentations/prezentvopros-2tebenkovedinaya-informtelekinfr.pdf [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
2324 Udomlia, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Nizhnii Novgorod, Khabarovsk and Rostov-na-Donu.
These are the data centres envisioned by the Digital Economy program (Минкомсвязь. Система межведомственного электронного взаимодействия (СМЭВ) [Online]. Available: https://digital.gov.ru/ ru/activity/directions/49/ [Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Ростелеком. Облачные сервисы в Цифровой трансформации,20.2.2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.rtk-dc.ru/upload/iblock/66b/66b7243122a76c89f8f1be681cc5f0fb.pdf [Accessed: 15th April 2019]; Tadviser. Система межведомственного электронного взаимодействия (СМЭВ) [Online] . Available: http://www.tadviser.ru/a/71478 [Accessed: 15th April 2019].)2325 Постановление Правительства Российской Федерации от 27 ноября 2015 г. N 1278 О федеральной
информационной системе стратегического планирования и внесении изменений в Положение о государственной автоматизированной информационной системе "Управление" [Online]. Available:
http://pravo.gov.ru/proxy/ips/?docbody=&prevDoc=102134940&backlink=1&&nd=102383211[Accessed: 13th May 2019]; Постановление Правительства РФ от 2009b.

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cross departmental platform for cooperation.2326 Consequently, it would make regional and local administration more transparent and controllable to the federal centreof power.
‘Upravlenie’ operates over the SMEV and consists of an open Internet portal, a semiclosed portion based on the RSNet, and secure (Kontur) parts, an information-analytical subsystem for monitoring, analysing and manipulating information, a subsystem for data management (registers, directories and classifiers) and the central information subsystem ‘Federatsiia’ which includes databases and modules for collecting
and storing data.2327 The secure Kontur part is reserved for the presidential administration and the government and is not directly connected to the Internet. However,it enables the regime to access all data entered into the ‘Upravlenie’. A subsystem of‘Federatsiia’ is used to securely input situation data from federal and regional organs
into shared databases.2328 Upravlenie is based on a network of territorially distributed
data centres.2329 Its current operational status, besides official declarations, is unknown. The Digital Economy Programme has added the National System of Information Management (NSUD) to the above described system of systems. It should
integrate different government databases and provide interfaces to them by 2024.2330
In 2019 it was announced that a secure intranet ETsP OGV would be created for the
Presidential Administration, the Security Council, the Government and the Federal
Assembly in the context of Digital Economy.2331 Moreover, in December 2019 thegovernment degreed that a ‘national information management system’ would be created which would, in effect, be a national, unified and single statistical service.2332
It is quite possible that Upravlenie is envisioned as the basis for the system of situation
centres highlighted by Julian Cooper. In 2012 Cooper claimed that 100 of these centres from the presidential down to the regional level were in existence, their function
being the monitoring of the socio-economic and national security situation of thecountry for the interests of strategic planning.2333 In 2013 a system of distributed situation centres was set up which was supposed to improve the current system withintegrated and coordinated information systems (SRSTs) and services.2334 The responsibility of this system was given to the FSO and its most important centres currently
2326Постановление Правительства РФ 2009b.

2327 ГАС Управление. Государственная автоматизированная информационная система “Управление”Прикладное программное обеспечение государственной автоматизированной информационной системы «Управление» Регламент подключения и интеграции с ГАС «Управление» [Online]. Available:
http://gasu.gov.ru/rest/documents/file/download?fileId=9681 [Accessed: 26th March 2019].
2328 ГАС Управление. Государственная автоматизированная информационная система “Управление”[Online]. Available: http://gasu.gov.ru/about [Accessed: 26th March 2019].
2329 ГАС Управление. Прикладное программное обеспечениегосударственной автоматизированной информационной системы «Управление» [Online]. Available: http://gasu.gov.ru/preview?fileId=9681 [Accessed: 15th April 2019].
2330 Краснушкина, Надежда. Госданным прописали архитектуру. Единая информсреда объединит сотни
ГИС. Коммерсантъ" №221 от 30.11.2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3814604[Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2331 Королев, Игорь. ФСО и ФСБ получат 1,8 миллиарда на цифровую поддержку Путина и Медведева.
Cnews, 21.10.2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2019-10-18_fso_i_fsb_poluchat_
18_milliarda [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2332 Распоряжение Правительства РФ от 17 декабря 2019 года №3074-р “Концепция создания цифровой
аналитической платформы предоставления статистических данных” [Online]. Available: http://static.
government.ru/media/files/4YejV8mvcCSeGWTg2kXprmthtNbWyfrU.pdf [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2333 Cooper 2012, 6-7.
2334 Cooper 2018a.

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include the Presidential Administration’s and Security Council’s centres and the National Defence Management Centre. In 2018 Cooper argued that the SRSTs were an“echo of past Soviet aspirations.”2335
Federal systems are supplemented by sectoral systems. One of these is the State Information System of Fuel and Energy Complex which, according to the law, should
automate the collection and distribution of information on the status of the state
owned fuel and energy industry and provide forecasts on its development.2336 The
system’s development began in 2011 and was still incomplete in the spring of 2019.
It could, at least in theory, enable Soviet like micromanagement of the energy sector.2337 Another system was developed as a response to the fears of Russia being disconnected from the global financial system. In 2014 Russia deployed its own nationalversion of the SWIFT financial messaging service—the Financial Reporting System(SPFS). In 2018 it had 396 Russian customers whereas SWIFT had 398.2338 SPFS acquired its first foreign customer bank in late 2018 from Belarus and in 2019 Russia
negotiated with China, India, Iran and Turkey about the joint use of the system.2339
The grandiose plans of the Russian e-government are, however, faced by the multiple
challenges posed by Russia’s vast territory, legacy systems, bureaucratic stove piping,and corruption. Starting from 2009–2010 the governmental systems have largely been
built and probably operated by the stated owned Rostelekom. It has acquired smaller
private companies as their services and products have become critical for the government networks.2340
The government also supports the domestic production of software to create a truly
Russian information ecosystem. In 2015, the Register of Russian Software was established to control computer programs and services, which could be used by the federal
and regional administration and be promoted as domestically produced products. The
Register was part of an import substitution programme but also an intentional effort
to create competitors to Western (and perhaps Chinese) products.2341 Officially, theRegister included by 2019 over 5,000 programs and supplied 65% of government
2335 In principle, the situation centres might connect all the power ministries and their regional and verticalorganizations. The system is supported by multiple information-analytical systems which monitor developments, conduct multifactor analyses of situations, model, forecast and plan, build scenarios, and offer support
for effective and timely management. Cooper claimed that this kind of ‘automated’ system of monitoring andanalysis could lead to economic. (Cooper 2018a).
2336 Федеральный закон от 03.12.2011 N 382-ФЗ (ред. от 5 июля 2018) “О государственной информационной системе топливно-энергетического комплекса” [Online]. Available: http://pravo.gov.
ru/proxy/ips/?docbody=&nd=102152618 [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2337 Tadviser. Государственная информационная система топливно-энергетического комплекса [Online].
Available: http://www.tadviser.ru/a/248699 [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2338 Михеева, Анна. ЦБ снизит тарифы в своем аналоге системы SWIFT. РБК, 13 фебраля 2018 [Online].
Available: https://www.rbc.ru/finances/13/02/2018/5a82f3019a79472864bb5ada?from=main [Accessed:
17th April 2019]; Чернышова, Евгения, Михеева, Анна. В российском аналоге SWIFT появился первый
зарубежный участник. РБК, 22 ноября 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/finances/
22/11/2018/5bf6bbd09a79476d3e8100d5?from=main [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2339 Reuters. Russia backs global use of its alternative SWIFT system. Reuters, March 19, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://uk.reuters.com/article/russia-banks-swift/russia-backs-global-use-of-its-alternative-swift-system-idUKL8N2163BU [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2340 РАЭК 2015; Ростелеком. Роль ПАО «Ростелеком» в цифровой экономике. Май, 2017 [Online]. Available: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regional-Presence/CIS/Documents/Events/2017/06_Saint_ Petersburg/Presentations/ITU%20Workshop%2019.06%20-%20Alexei%20Borodin%202.pdf [Accessed: 17th May
2019].
2341 Воейков 2018.

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orders.2342 In 2018 Rostelekom announced that it would develop a smartphone OS
Sailfish for the Chinese Inoi R7 phone for secure use for public officials.2343 Moreover, Astra Linux has been developed and approved in 2019 as a secure operating system for the federal government and other public officials.2344
National information security is provided by SORM (Sistema tekhnicheskikh sredstv
dlia obeshpecheniia funktsii Operativno-Rozysknykh Meropriiatii), GosSOPKA andthe still incomplete system centralized management of the public telecommunications
network. SORM consists of multiple systems. SORM-1 was deployed during the Soviet era and captures landline and mobile phone communications. SORM-2 was deployed in 1998 and intercepts TCP/IP traffic. SORM-3 was deployed officially by
Minkomsviaz’ in 2015 and “collects information from all forms of communication,
providing long-term storage of all information and data on subscribers, including actual recordings and locations.”2345 The FSB uses the system for targeted monitoringand intercepting data traffic in the national segment of the Internet. According toAndrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, SORM is based on control centres that are connected directly to ISP’s and telecom operators’ computer servers. Control centres issue commands to intercept certain traffic, which the operators implement automatically. “This system is replicated across the country. In every Russian town, there areprotected underground cables, which connect the local FSB bureau to all Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) and telecoms operators in the region.”2346 SORM-3 has DPI
functionality and can track traffic in all generation mobile networks.2347 FSB requires
a court order to eavesdrop on traffic but does not have to present the order to the
ISPs.2348 Soldatov and Borogan claim that Belarus, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan have similar systems.2349 According to the law, the ISPs are responsible for paying for the
SORM equipment and for installing it, and the two biggest manufacturers of the
SORM equipment earn 5-6 billion roubles per year (the total business is around 10
billion roubles).2350 According to some sources, Tsidatel’, a company owned by theholding corporation USM of oligarch Alisher Usmanov, owns MFI SOFT, Signatek
and Tekhapros Spetssistemy which together are the main producers of the SORM
equipment—other companies being Norsi-trans and Orion.2351 The SORM system
has been deployed to gather data on mass events like demonstrations with blanket
2342 РБК 2019.
2343 Жукова, Новый & Скоробогатько 2018.

2344 Tucker, Patrick. Russia’s Would-Be Windows Replacement Gets a Security Upgrade. Defense One, May

28th, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/05/russias-microsoft-knockoff-gets-security-upgrade/157310/?oref=d-skybox [Accessed: 9th July 2019].
2345 Приказ министерства связи и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации от 16 апреля 2014 г.
N 83 Об утверждении правил применения оборудования систем коммутации, включая программное
обеспечение, обеспечивающего выполнение установленных действий при проведении оперативно-розыскных мероприятий. часть iii. [Online]. Available: https://rulaws.ru/acts/Prikaz-Minkomsvyazi-Rossii-ot16.04.2014-N-83/ [Accessed: 14th May 2019]; Susiluoto 2006, 303.
2346 Soldatov & Borogan 2012, 25.
2347 Приказ министерства связи и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации 2014.
2348 Ibid.
2349 Soldatov & Borogan2012, 30.
2350 Ermoshina & Musiani 2017.
2351 Кантышев, Павел. Партнер Усманова по киберспорту поучаствует в законе Яровой. Ведомости, 31января 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2018/01/31/749576-partner-usmanova [Accessed: 17th April 2019]; Ястребова, Светлана. Партнер Усманова может контролироватьеще одну компанию для исполнения закона Яровой. Ведомости, 13 июля 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2018/07/13/775384-sorm-yarovoi [Accessed: 17th April2019].

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authorization.2352 It is somewhat unclear how SORM is connected to the data retention and localization requirements of the so-called ‘Iarovaia laws’, nevertheless, the
FSB needs an interface to the data maintained by the ISPs.2353 The system is developing and in 2019 Minkomsviaz’ proposed to expand SORM to IoT devices and their
databases and data flows.2354 Despite the slightly mythical reputation of SORM, its
implementation has been sometimes haphazard and ineffectual mainly because thetelecoms companies have tried to cut costs or otherwise circumvent the regulations.2355 The FGUP TsNIIS is responsible for analysing, monitoring and, developing
the SORM system.2356
The GosSOPKA system has been officially described as “a unified state system fordetecting and preventing computer attacks on critical information infrastructure andassessing the level of objective and real-time security of its elements which include a
centralized, hierarchical, geographically distributed structure that includes the forces
and means of detecting and preventing computer attacks, as well as organs of control
at various levels, whose powers include the ensuring of the security of the automatedcontrol systems of the elements of the critical information infrastructure.”2357 The order for the creation of GosSOPKA and its delegation to the FSB was given by President Putin in 2013.2358 The structure of GosSOPKA was defined in 20142359 and its
final conceptual form was specified in the Law on Critical Information Infrastructure
adopted in 2017.2360
GosSOPKA is basically a nation-level System of Incident and Event Management(SIEM) combined with protection systems, threat intelligence databases, and information sharing platforms designed to protect information systems, information-telecommunications systems, and ASUs designated as objects of CII by law and basedon the evaluation of their importance.2361 Although the FSB was given the authority
over the GosSOPKA, the FSTEK was later given the responsibility to manage theregulation and licensing related to the CII. The roles of the FSB and FSTEK have
Freedom House. Freedom on the Net 2014 - Russia [Online]. Available: https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/resources/Russia.pdf [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2353 Роскомсвобода. Итоги госрегулирования Рунета в 2018 году. Роскомсвобода, 28.12.2018 [Online].
Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/44118/ [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2354 Роскомсвобода. Интернет вещей подключат к СОРМ. Роскомсвобода, 27.03.2019 [Online]. Available:
https://roskomsvoboda.org/46080/ [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2355 Коломыченко, Мария, Линделл, Дада. Вне прослушки: почему Роскомнадзор и ФСБ судятся с операторами связи. РБК, 09 ноября 2017 [Online]. Available: http://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_ media/09/11/2017/5a03187e9a7947d88f988f53?from=center_1 [Accessed: 17th April 2019].
2356 Центральный научно-исследовательский институт связи 2019.
2357 Ibid.
2358 Указ Президента РФ от 15 января 2013 г. № 31с “О создании государственной системы обнаружения,предупреждения и ликвидации последствий компьютерных атак на информационные ресурсы Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: http://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/70199068/ [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
2359 Выписка 2014.
2360 Федеральный закон 2017a.
2361 Ibid. Кобцев, Роман. Подключение к ГосСОПКА. Оргвопросы. 22 марта 2018 [Online]. Available:
https://infotecs.ru/webinars/archive/?show=11428 [Accessed: 18th April 2019]; Васильев, Алексей.
Подключение к ГосСОПКА. Техвопросы. 3 апреля 2018 [Online]. Available: https://infotecs.ru/webinars/
archive/?show=11430 [Accessed: 18th April 2019]; Дрюков, Владимир. ГосСОПКА: то, о чем обычно
молчат. Задачи операционной безопасности объектов КИИ в рамках функционирования центров ГосСОПКА: то, что забывают сказать. ВПК, 05 декабря 2017 [Online]. Available: https://vpk-news.ru/ articles/40284 [Accessed: 15th May 2019].
2352

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become somewhat blurred, and thus, there has been some confusion on how CII and
GosSOPKA relate to each other and who has the overall authority over them.2362
GosSOPKA consists of main, regional, and territorial centres that are managed by
the FSB and are connected to government department centres and corporate centresof state corporations, operators of communications networks, and private companies
licensing GosSOPKA equipment. Licensing is based on the responsibility to protect
certified objects of CII as the Law on Critical Information Infrastructure dictates.2363
The operators etc. are required to connect their networks to the main, regional and/or
territorial centres of GosSOPKA, thus enabling the monitoring of their networks by
the FSB (limited due to the available incident data). Failure to protect the CII will lead
to legal consequences (up to six years in prison). GosSOPKA enables a centralized,
nation-level response to cyber threats and facilitates technical information sharing
with corporations, the state administration, the FSB, and the CERTs.2364 The main
centre of the system is the FSB’s NKTsKI.2365 The Solar Security and Positive technology companies will develop the departmental and state-corporation corporate centres of GosSOPKA but other private firms offer technological solutions to private
actors for connecting their networks to the GosSOPKA.2366 In March 2018 Rostelekom bought Solar Security.2367 An equivalent to GosSOPKA might be the American
Einstein E3A, although the Russian system, due to its connection to the federal law,
incorporates both the public and private sector and includes all strategic sectors of
the economy, and is mandatory in its approach.2368 Thus the borders between the
public and private sectors are hazy and indirect state ownership and control of thewhole system is much wider than it would seem at the first glance.
The system for the centralized management of the public telecommunications network is still under development. It will be controlled from the Centre of Monitoringand Managing of the Public Communication Networks (TsMUSSOP) by the Radio
Frequency Service. ISPs are required to install certain equipment into their networks
which can monitor and filter traffic and if needed completely block it. This would, in

2362 Федеральный закон 2017a; Приказ Федеральной службы по техническому и экспортному контролю

2017; Указ Президента РФ от 22 декабря 2017 г. № 620 “О совершенствовании государственной системы
обнаружения, предупреждения и ликвидации последствий компьютерных атак на информационные
ресурсы Российской Федерации” [Online]. Available: https://www.garant.ru/products/ ipo/prime/doc/
71740924/ [Accessed: 18th April 2019]; ГосСОПКА. В 2019 году планируется уточнение нормативной
базы в области кии, в том числе. 16.01.2019 [Online]. Available: http://gossopka.ru/ 2019/01/16 /в-2019году-планируется-уточнение-нормат/ [Accessed: 18th April 2019].
2363 Постановление Правительства Российской Федерации 2018a.
2364 Григорьев 2017; Кобцев 2018; Васильев 2018; Positive Technologies. Построение центра ГосСОПКА
— краткое описание решения [Online]. Available: https://www.ptsecurity.com/upload/corporate/ruru/solutions/center-gossopka/PT-GosSOPKA-PB-rus.pdf [Accessed: 18th April 2019]; Торбенко, Елена.
Практика категорирования объектов КИИ. SOC форум 27 ноября 2019 [Online]. Available: https://socforum.ib-bank.ru/files/files/SOC%202018/05_Torbenko.pdf [Accessed: 18th April 2019]; Грач в 2019.
2365 Приказ ФСБ 2018; Agentura.ru. 2018.
2366 One of these is the firm Infotecs whose solution is composed of ViPNet family of products (Жукова 2017.)
2367 Ведомости. “Ростелеком” купил компанию в сфере кибербезопасности за 1,5 млрд рублей.
Ведомости, 22 мая 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.vedomosti.ru/business/news/2018/05/22/
770293-rostelekom [Accessed: 18th April 2019].
2368 The United States Department of Homeland Defence. Privacy Impact Assessment for EINSTEIN 3 Accelerated (E3A) April 19, 2013 DHS/PIA/NPPD-027 [Online]. Available: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/ default/files/publications/PIA%20NPPD%20E3A%2020130419%20FINAL%20signed-%20508%20compliant.pdf [Accessed: 18th April 2019].

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theory, disconnect the Russian segment of Internet from the global Internet. In addition to protecting the segment from outside attacks it will be used to centrally implement and enforce the blacklist maintained by the Roskomnadzor.2369
Foreign and international LEO massive satellite constellations threaten all the controlling systems the Russian regime has been developing. In 2019 it seemed that theRussian regime was prepared to sponsor its own constellation. From the perspectiveof digital sovereignty, the location of satellite ground stations is more important thanthe orbits of the satellites and this will be a challenging issue to resolve in the future.
Perhaps an even more pressing issue is that the constellations of LEO satellites may
be used for military purposes.2370 In addition to satellites, SORM, GosSOPKA,
TsMUSSOP and other similar systems will have problems with technologies like 5G,
LPWANs, an IoT where systems connect and communicate autonomously—whichjust shows that the ability to control and shape cyberspace is always tempered bytechnology.
The systems described in this chapter demonstrate that the strategic cultural ideas ofunified information space, information-technological warfare, and automated command and control systems resonate with the concrete ways in which the Russian elites
strive to shape cyberspace and control the national segment. Kibernetik ideas provide
reason to construct centralized, vertically controlled, and horizontally integrated system of systems. Information is collected and forwarded to the centre and decisions
are transmitted down to the subsystems. As such there is nothing particularly ‘Russian’ in the technological systems themselves—it is the scope and the state-centric
political, social and economic agenda which defines these systems and gives them
purpose.
6.4.2 The Military
The concrete policies, procurement, and construction concerning military information networks and systems are largely secret. However, some information can begained from public sources. The only official public conceptual document on cyberand information warfare produced by the military is titled: Conceptual Views on the
Activities of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation in the Information
Space and was released in late 2011.2371 Arguably, the document may not genuinely
2369 Минкомсвязь. Об утверждении Порядка централизованного управления сетью связи общего поль-зования [Проект] 23 мая 2019 г. [Online]. Available: https://regulation.gov.ru/projects#npa=91558[Accessed: 15th May 2019]; Приказ Федеральной службы по надзору в сфере связи, информационных
технологий и массовых коммуникаций от 31.07.2019 № 225 “Об утверждении Положения о Центре
мониторинга и управления сетью связи общего пользования” [Online]. Available: http://publication.
pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001201911250011 [Accessed: 7th January 2020].
2370 del Portillo, Inigo, Barrios, Cameron, Bruce, Crawley, Edward. Ground segment architectures for large
LEO constellations with feeder links in EHF-bands. 2018 IEEE Aerospace Conference [Online]. Available:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326072504_Ground_segment_architectures_for_large_LEO_constellations_with_feeder_links_in_EHF-bands [Accessed: 17th May 2019]; Erwin,
Sandra. Air Force laying groundwork for future military use of commercial megaconstellations. SpaceNews,
February 28, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://spacenews.com/air-force-laying-groundwork-for-future-military-use-of-commercial-megaconstellations/ [Accessed: 17th May 2019]; Роскомсвобода. Спутниковый трафик под надзором ФСБ. Роскомсвобода, 26.2.2019 [Online]. Available: https://roskomsvoboda.org/
45251/ [Accessed: 17th May 2019].
2371 Министерство обороны Российской Федерации 2011.

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reflect the views of the MoD or the Armed Forces as it is related to Russia’s international efforts to ban or restrict the use of information weapons.2372 The document
adopts the language and terms of information space (prostranstvo), information
weapons (oruzhie) and information war (voina). It associates the military aspects of
information issues to the use of information weapons and defines information war
as: “A confrontation between two or more states in the information space in order todamage information systems, processes and resources, critical and other structures,
undermine the political, economic and social systems, to massively psychologicallyaffect the population to destabilize the society and the state, as well as forcing thestate to decisions in the interests of the opposing side”2373 The document defines theactivities of the Armed Forces in the information space to consist of intelligence,maskirovka (deception), electronic warfare, communications, covert and automatedcommand and control, as well as the protection of Russia’s own information systems
from electronic, computer and other attacks.2374 The activities of the Armed Forces
are part deterrence and prevention of conflicts as well as the resolution of conflicts.
These tasks have an active information-psychological aspect on the part of the Armedforces.2375 Despite its ‘diplomatic’ approach, the Conceptual View succeeds to resonate with all the strategic cultural ideas, with the exclusion of asymmetric response.
The Conceptual Views document is in line with the current strategic planning documents.2376 Perhaps the most important aspect of all of these documents is that theyrecognize a distinct sphere of military information warfare, i.e. the military-politicaluse of ICT—although with fuzzy borders because of the increased emphasis on intragovernmental cooperation, the whole-of-government approach, and mobilization
issues. The distinct EIP of the military mentioned by multiple sources forms conceptual borders for the military’s authority and responsibilities—it is a special network ora collection of them recognized by Russian law. Nevertheless, as was argued in Chapter 6.2.1 the mandate of the FSB and the FSTEK also reach into military networks.
The MoD has influence outside its own information infrastructure. It has, for example, blocked the opening of some frequency bands to 5G networks.2377 It has also
strived to regulate the use of mobile phones and social media of the conscripts andthe military staff to maintain operational security.2378
The drive to create an NCW capable force which was noted in Chapter 5 has affected
the organization of the Armed Forces and EW troops were established in 2009.2379

2372 Cf. Eneken 2016; Eneken & Kerttunen 2017.
2373 Ibid., 5. This definition corresponds to the one Russia has been promoting in the UN and is the same as

the one offered in the SCO Agreement on Information Security (Костюхин А.А. и др. Словарь терминов иопределений в области информационной безопасности. Москва: ГШ ВС РФ, 2008, 255 ft. 117; ШОС2009)2374 Ibid., 8.
2375 Ibid., 10-13.
2376 Cf. Chapter 5.
2377 Кодачигов 2019.
2378 ТАСС. Госдума запретила военным пользоваться смартфонами на службе. ТАСС, 19 фебраля 2019
[Online]. Available: https://tass.ru/obschestvo/6132986?... [Accessed: 18th May 2019].
2379 Известия. В российской армии будут созданы войска РЭБ, 17 апреля 2009 [Online]. Available:
https://iz.ru/news/449161 [Accessed: 9th March 2019].

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The drive towards jointness, integration, and synergy led to the creation of the Aerospace Defence Forces in 20112380 and then the Aerospace Forces in 2015.2381 Furthermore, as Professor and Retired Lieutenant General V. V. Barbinenko argued in 2015,
these new organizations also required networks, ASUs, and technological support tooperate in accordance with the principles of the NCW.2382 Thus, already by 2011 theRussian Ground forces allegedly had two ASUVs in experimental use: ESU TZ on atactical level and Akatsiia-M on an operative-strategic level. Airborne troops developed Andromeda-D. Furthermore, there were branch-based systems like the air defence force’s Poliana-D4 and Barnaul-T. Many of these systems, however, were notcompatible with each other.2383 The progress in the development of ASUs has beenslower than was hoped for but they remain a high priority for the Armed Forces.2384
According to General Gerasimov, the long-waited ESU TZ was being distributed to
the forces in 2018.2385 Moreover, in 2019 a new army (operational) level ASUV basedon Akatsiia was allegedly deployed which doubled the speed of ‘the cycle of command’ and integrated all branches and command levels in accordance with the principles of the NCW.2386
On a more strategic level ‘the military Internet’, i.e. ‘closed data segment’ (Zakrytii
segment peredachi dannykh) was declared operational in 2016.2387 Its infrastructure ispartly leased from Rostelekom and partly based on the infrastructure of the MoD.
Military units have their own servers and routers which encrypt information andtransmit it using packet-based protocols. The network is air-gapped from the Internet
and hosts are special workstations certified and controlled by the MoD. The use of
flash drives is restricted. The ‘military Internet’ has its own second and third level
DNS domains (domain.mil.zs).2388 It is possible that the operating system, at least on

2380 РИА Новости. Войска Воздушно-космической обороны заступают на боевое дежурство в РФ, 1декабря 2011 [Online]. Available: https://ria.ru/20111201/503030677.html [Accessed: 9th March 2019].
2381 Интерфакс. Воздушно-космические силы РФ приступили к службе, 3 августа 2015 [Online]. Available:
https://www.interfax.ru/russia/457604 [Accessed: 9th March 2019].
2382 Барвиненко, Владимир. Война на опережение — часть I. Как противостоять сетецентрическим действиям противника. ВПК, № 24 (590) за 1 июля 2015 года; Барвиненко, Владимир. Война на опережение
— часть II Как противостоять сетецентрическим действиям противника. ВПК, № 25 (591) за 8 июля2015 года.
2383 Богданов, Константин. Всю систему менять надо. ВПК, № 16 (382) за 27 апреля 2011 года.
2384 Костюкевич, Н.Е. Предложения по изменению подходов к созданию (модернизации) систем и комплексов средств автоматизации управления военного назначения. Вестник академии военных наук, №
1 (54) 2016; Фаличев, Олег. Закодированы на отставаниею Проблемы отечественной микроэлектроники
приходится решать с помощью «Шилки»ю ВПК, № 41 (754) за 23 октября 2018 года; Гaреев 2015b;
Рамм, Алексей, Козаченко, Алексей, Степовой, Богдан Код в сапогах: военные разработали боевой антивирус. Известия, 31 октября 2019 [Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/937787/aleksei-ramm-alekseikozachenko-bogdan-stepovoi/kod-v-sapogakh-voennye-razrabotali-boevoi-antivirus [Accessed: 7th January2020].
2385 Герасимов, В.В. Влияние современного характера вооруженной борьбы на направленность строительства и развития Вооруженных сил Российской Федерации. Приоритетные задачи военной науки вобеспечении обороны страны. Вестник академии военных наук, № 2 (63) 2018, 16-22.
2386 Рамм, Алексей, Козаченко, Алексей. Командир на автопилоте: управлять армиями поможет компьютер. В Санкт-Петербурге открывается «Штаб звездных войн». Известия, 5 июня 2019 [Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/884970/aleksei-ramm-aleksei-kozachenko/komandir-na-avtopilote-upravliat-armiiami-pomozhet-kompiuter [Accessed: 9th July 2019].
2387 Зыков, & Рамм 2016a.
2388 Ibid.

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a tactical level, is Astra Linux and some of the hardware is based on Russian components manufactured by Voentelekom.2389 The main provider of communications andcontrol systems to the Armed Forces is the United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation (under state corporation Rostek) which includes, for example, the TSNII
EISU.2390
The infrastructure of ‘the military Internet’ most probably refers to the ‘Integrated
Automated Digital Communication System’ or OATsSS which was discussed in
Chapter 5. It is characterized as an integrated system of communications for military
purposes. According to sources, it ensures the resilience, continuity, operationality
and secrecy of the operations of joint forces. It provides the Armed forces and the
MoD with information-telecommunications services on a global scale under any adverse conditions. Additionally, it ensures the security, reliability and integrity of theinformation circulating in the system during its transmitting, storage and processing.2391 In 2014 the system was characterised by Colonel General Khalil Arslanov,the Chief of the Main Directorate of Communications of the GS, to be composed ofdigital satellite, radio, radio-relay, tropospheric and optical communications systems.
It was based on standardized and secure solutions. The role of domestic components
was highlighted.2392 Arslanov repeated his characterization word-to-word in 2018.2393
Civilian academicians Likhachev, A. Abramovich and A. Prisiazhniuk wrote a paperin 2016 proposing a conceptual solution for the automated control system (ASU) of
OATsSS.2394 It would control OATsSS’ technical parameters, manage its stability andsecurity and offer information-analytical services during different phases of conflict.
The authors argued that the system should be based on the principles of centralizationand specialization of management, unification, constant monitoring and direct control. The ASU OATsSS would be a system of systems, and different systems could
be further divided into subsystems, some of which could be regionally distributed, forexample, on the basis of military districts.2395 In 2018 the OATsSS was characterized
by its developers as a communications system that would unite all functions, echelons,i.e. domains (air, sea, land, space), and commands of the Armed Forces under a unified information-telecommunications space. It would have a unitary management andits structure would be flexible.2396 According to the representatives of Voentelekom,
the fixed component of the OATsSS was envisioned as quite similar to other modern
WANs where the data traffic of the Armed Forces was virtually routed over leased
2389 Зыков & Рамм 2016b; ЗВЕЗДА. Военный Интернет: как работают закрытые технологии министер-ства обороны. ЗВЕЗДА, 9 априль 2017 [Online]. Available: https://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_ i_mire/content/201704091018-4ygi.htm [Accessed: 18th April 2019]; Tucker 2019.
2390 Рамм 2014.
2391 Мейчик, Евгений Робертович. Перспективы развития системы связи и автоматизированных систем
управления вооруженных сил. Российской Федерациию Федеральный справочник. Оборонно-промышленный комплекс России, Том № 3, 2009, 379-384 [Online]. Available: http://federalbook.ru/
files/OPK/Soderjanie/OPK-6/III/meychik.pdf [Accessed: 6th March 2019].
2392 Арсланов2014.
2393 Арсланов, Халил. На острие технического прогресса. Красная звезда, 19 октября 2018 [Online]. Available: http://redstar.ru/na-ostrie-tehnicheskogo-progressa/ [Accessed: 6th March 2019].
2394 Лихачев, А. М., Абрамович, А. В., Присяжнюк, А. С. Концептуальные основы создания и развития
автоматизированной системы управления ОАЦСС ВС РФ. Информация и космос, №2 (2016), 6-21.
2395 Ibid.
2396 Элькин, Г. И., Казанский, А. Г. Перспективы развития системы связи Вооруж нных Сил Российской
Федерации. Итоги деятельности Совета главных конструкторов системы связи ВС РФ. Связь в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации 2018. Москва: Информационный мост 2018, 28-29.

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information-telecommunications infrastructure to nodes controlled by the Armed
Forces.2397
When fully developed, the OATsSS should provide automated command and control
of communications for the Russian Armed forces in space, air, ground, and sea environments. It interconnects all military command posts from the battalion level up to
the NDMC and is based on standardized digital technology. Its core is a fixed encrypted packet-routing based backbone network probably partially built upon theleased transport networks of state and private ISPs. The core networks are connected
to military field networks and other special communication networks. Military districts are very likely the administrative organizations of this network.2398 The network
is probably protected by a system developed specifically for the MoD.2399 Some of themain developers based on articles written about the OATsSS are the 16th TSNII,
Voentelekom and NII Rubin. OATsSS should provide centralized command andcontrol of forces from the MoD through the military districts down to the formationlevel, and the decentralized control of networks if needed. It is part of the effort of
the Russian armed forces to homogenize the communications and command andcontrol systems of armed forces.
In addition to leased capacity, the communications infrastructure of the Armed
Forces is based on optic fibre, satellite, and microwave relay networks operated by
the MoD. By 2017 the T8 corporation claims to have laid 67,000 km of fibre optic
cable, of which 15,000 km is based on the 100 Gbit/s DWDM system “Volga”, although it is unclear how much of this is dedicated to the Armed Forces.2400 The Armed
Forces plan to lay 24,000 km of optic cable as part of GPV 2018-2024.2401 The MoD
is also constructing its own network of data centres called the Territorial DisasterResistant Data Centres (TrKTsOD) which should offer secure cloud services for the
Armed Forces. The services of ‘the military Internet’ will be transferred to the
TrKTsOD when it becomes operational in 2020.2402 It seems that the above mentioned physical and logical solutions are to be combined in a multiservice transport
network (MTSS) which will be operational in 2021. The MoD claims that the system
will be detached from the Internet traffic exchange points and will have dedicated2397 Сухотеплый, А. П., Жилков, Е. А. Цифровая экономика. Цель номер один — технологический ицифровой суверенитет. Связь в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации 2018. Москва: Информационный мост 2018, 112-114. Also, Харченко, Сазыкин & Лысенков 2017.
2398 Мейчик 2009; Арсланов 2014; Лихачев, Абрамович & Присяжнюк 2016; Элькин & Казанский 2018;Сухотеплый & Жилков 2018; Харченко, Сазыкин & Лысенков 2018; Арсланов, Халил, Лихачев, Александр. Актуальные научно-практические проблемы развития ОАЦСС ВС РФ. Связь в Вооруженных
Силах Российской Федерации 2015. Москва: Информационный мост 2015, 29-36.
2399 ТАСС. Система защиты Минобороны РФ от кибератак завершила тестовые испытания и будет расширена. ТАСС, 24 октября 2016 [Online]. Available: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/3728399 [Accessed: 18th
April 2019].
2400 Слепцов, Михаил. DWDM-системы связи для Вооруж нных сил РФ. Связь в Вооруженных Силах
Российской Федерации 2017. Москва: Информационный мост 2017, 124.
2401 Независимое военное обозрение. Тыл становится передним краем Минобороны. В структуре несекретной части расходов социальная часть потеснила военную. Независимое военное обозрение, № 16(947) 2017.
2402 Масленников, Олег. Территориальнораспределенный катастрофо-устойчивый центр обработки
данных Вооруж нных Сил Российской Федерации. Связь в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации – 2018. Москва: Информационный мост 2018, 30-31; Круглов, Рамм & Степовой 2018; Бец, Киселенко, Орлов 2017.

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physical lines of communication—including a new Arctic cable—which will be divided into zonal communication channels.2403 Based on the articles published in scientific and professional journals, the backbone and access networks of the Russian
OATsSS or MTSS are based on NGN IP/MPLS technology.2404 Moreover, by using
field communications the core network can be expanded to other regions of the globe
to support Russian expeditionary operations.2405 This claim rests on signal units withsatellite communication capabilities and a network of high-bandwidth communication satellites.
Communication satellites are necessary for military communications because the Russian geography restricts the operability of nationwide fibre connections. The Russian
military operates its own satellite fleet which consists of at least thirty ‘store-anddumb’ communication satellites and approximately twenty-seven GLONASS -navigation satellites. The Armed Forces probably also use commercial SATCOM satellites.2406 There are also a couple of nuclear strike early warning satellites.2407 The Russian military also uses terrestrial radio relay links on HF/UHF/SHF frequencies
which provide varied data transmission capacity.2408 Because of the multiplicity of systems and the continued use of legacy systems, the Armed Force’s communications
may not be as efficient as Russian commercial systems, but there is, however, a clear
interest in maintaining a distinct, redundant, and resilient military data network.
The OATsSS/MTSS enables the functioning of the National Defence Management
Centre.2409 The Centre analyses the situation in strategic directions and problematic
regions and offers short-term prognoses; it coordinates the activities of federal organs
on the operational level in matters of national defence; and it enables the day-to-day
management of the Armed Forces and their operational command and control including the strategic nuclear forces.2410 To enable these functions, subordinate centres
2403 Рамм, Алексей, Козаченко, Алексей, Степовой, Богдан. Военный, красивый, суверенный: армия РФсоздает закрытый интернет. Вся важная информация будет храниться только на серверах Минобороны.
Известия, 12 марта 2019 [Online]. Available: https://iz.ru/854961/aleksei-ramm-aleksei-kozachenko-bogdan-stepovoi/voennyi-krasivyi-suverennyi-armiia-rf-sozdaet-zakrytyi-internet [Accessed: 18th April 2019];
Рябов 2019.
2404 Легков 2013; Будко, Чихачев, Баринов & Винограденко 2013; Легков К.Е. Организация и модели
функционирования современных инфокоммуникационных сетей специального назначения. T-Comm
Vol.9. #8-2015, 14-19.
2405 Валагин, Антон. Россия испытала в Сирии высокоскоростной военный интернет. RG.RU, 7 апреля
2016 [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2016/04/07/rossiia-ispytala-v-sirii-vysoskorostnoj-voennyj-internet.
html [Accessed: 3rd May 2019].
2406 Union of Concerned Scientists, ”UCS Satellite Database,” 2017. [Online]. Available: http://www.ucsusa.
org/nuclear-weapons/spaceweapons/satellite-database#.Wg0WlUpl9PY. [Accessed 16 November 2017];
Владыкин, Олег. Интернет доступен на российских кораблях. Система действует на девяти судах. Независимое военное обозрение № 23 (954) 2017.
2407 Мясников Виктор. Единая космическая система предупредит о ядерном нападении. Независимое
военное обозрение, № 37 (826) 2014 [Online]. Available: http://nvo.ng.ru/nvo/2014-10-17/1_shojgu.html[Accessed: 18th April 2019].
2408 Малюков, Вадим. Современным войскам — современную связь. Связь в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации 2013. Москва: Информационный мост 2013, 14-16.
2409 Арсланов & Лихачев 2015; Гаврилов, Юрий. Глава Генштаба объяснил, как будет работать Центр
управления обороной. Российская газета, 1.11.2014 [Online]. Available: https://rg.ru/2014/11/01/centersite.html [Accessed: 18th April 2019].
2410 Monaghan 2017, 71; Владыкин, Олег. Путин: Российская армия должна быть оснащена лучше зарубежных. Независимая газета, 20 декабря 2014 [Online]. Available: http://www.ng.ru/armies/2014-1220/100_collegium.html [Accessed: 6th March 2019].

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of command, control and management were being created on strategic, the operational and tactical level and in services and branches in the timeframe of 2015–2018.2411 The Centre is supported by an ASU of national defence, the functions ofwhich would be duplicated in the regional level data centres. The Centre is also connected to the military-industrial complex and monitors the fulfilment of weapons procurement.2412 It physically brings together all Russian security agencies and ministries
and collects information from various secret and public sources to create a common
national situation picture.2413 In 2019 Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu stated thatCentres for the Coordination of Security Agencies in Crisis Situations would be established in all federal regions and these would connect local (municipal) administration to the MoD and the Armed Forces.2414
It is probable that the ‘military Internet’ and most of the networks used by the NDMC
are physically and/or logically distinct from the communication networks used by thestrategic nuclear forces for obvious security reasons.2415 Additionally, there are otherbranch and service specific networks that require special gateways for connecting to‘unified information space’.2416 There is also a ‘unified cosmic system’ (Edinaia Kosmicheskaia Sistema), which refers to the ballistic missile early warning system which
is a network of satellites, long-range radars, and command and control centres.2417
Additionally, the CIS has a partly completed project to create a common air defence
network.2418 Moreover, the CSTO has adopted a resolution to enhance common information (technological and psychological) security.2419 Because there is a theoreticalthreat of penetration of Russian military networks through these allied systems, theconnections are highly probably implemented through controlled gateways—or they
are possibly even air-gapped. On the cross-sectoral side, Voentelekom has been constructing a separated closed network for the needs of the OPK called ‘System of Protected Communications’ (SZS). This should combine the OPK with ministries, agencies, and armed forces during peacetime and in crises situations and can be accessed
2411 Тихонов, Александр. К единому информационному пространству. Красная звезда № 173 (2015);Хомутов 2015, 17-22.
2412 Владыкин 2014.
2413 Тихонов, Александр. К единому информационному пространству. Красная звезда № 173 (2015).
2414 Сидоркова, Инна, Дергачев, Владимир, Антонова, Елизавета. В регионах появятся центры на случай
военного положения. РБК, 09 апруля 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.rbc.ru/politics/09/
04/2019/5caca4919a79475d5519d425?from=center [Accessed: 18th April 2019].
2415 The National Defence Management Centre combines and centralizes the governmental and military command under the General Staff already during peace time to provide unified strategic leadership for national
defence, strategic nuclear weapons, and joint strategic military formations (OSK/military districts) based on
resilient and effective command and control communications and also allows the independent action of military
formations. The system was based on the lessons learned during the Great Patriotic War and on the analysis of
the U.S. ‘instant global strike’ doctrine. (Герасимов 2015). These command and control networks of earlywarning and ballistic missile defence and strategic nuclear weapons are in principle vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
On nuclear forces command and control networks cf. Cimbala 2015; Acton, James M. Escalation throughEntanglement: How the Vulnerability of Command-and-Control Systems Raises the Risks of an Inadvertent
Nuclear War. International Security, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Summer 2018), 56-99.
2416 Ланчев, Василий. АСУ ВКО: модель для сборки. Учебные командные пункты должны лечь в основу
подготовки специалистов ВКО. ВПК, № 39 (605) 14 –20 октября 2015 года.
2417 Мясников 2014; Соколов, Анатолий. Новый космический щит России. Русская Планета, 18 ноября
2015 [Online]. Available: http://rusplt.ru/society/novyiy-kosmicheskiy-schit-rossii-19771.html [Accessed: 5th
March 2019].
2418 Plopsky, G. Russia’s Big Plans for Air Defense in Eurasia: Big plans, indeed, but will they materialize? The
Diplomat (2017, Apr, 7). [Online]. Available: https://thediplomat.com/2017/04/russias-big-plans-for-air-defensein-eurasia/. [Accessed 11 January 2018].
2419 Рябухина, Бондуровского, & Перекопского 2014.

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only by using special equipment.2420 This kind of arrangement should, in principle,
ensure the horizontal and vertical integration of all elements of the mobilization system that some military scientists have called for.2421 Currently, the Russian Armed
Forces operates an ASU of Mobilization Deployment the component systems ofwhich have reached operational status gradually during 2008–2017.2422 Compared to
the United States armed forces’ concept2423 of the ‘military Internet’ the clear difference with the Russian version is that the Russian approach is more rooted in the ideaof total and territorial defence in which all state security organizations are connectedby the same command, control and communications systems.
The Russian military cyber actors have been and still are an ‘open secret’. It is quitedifficult to find information about them in open sources but based on the strategic
cultural ideas analysed in Chapter 5, it is inconceivable (reasonable) that the Russian
military would not have a dedicated cyber force for espionage, sabotage, and subversion and deterrence. In 2014 an anonymous source stated that the MoD had created
information operation forces to defend its own networks from cyber-attacks.2424 In2017 Defence Minister Shoigu declared that information troops had been created,
although their tasks were characterised more as strategic communications than cyber
warfare.2425 Moreover, there are at least five science companies, the 4th, 7th, 6th, 9th, 11thout of sixteen established between 2013–2018 which conduct research and train cybersecurity specialists for the Armed Forces.2426 Then there are the proper scientific-technological institutions under the MoD like 16th, 18th and 27th TsNII.2427 It is also quitepossible that EW Troops have an operational-tactical role in cyber warfare.2428 Information warfare forces have taken part in operational-strategic exercises since 2016.2429
2420 Зыков & Рамм 2016; Воентелеком. Глава “Воентелекома”: технология блокчейн может появиться вармии России. Воентелеком, 22.08.2017 [Online]. Available: https://voentelecom.ru/news/novosti-kompanii/glava-voentelekoma-tekhnologiya-blokcheyn-mozhet-poyavitsya-v-armii-rossii/ [Accessed: 18th April2019].
2421 Легков, К.Е. Основные теоретические и прикладные проблемы технической основы системы управления специального назначения и основные направления создания инфокоммуникационной системы
специального назначения. T-Comm #6 2013, 42-46; Будко П.А., Чихачев А.В., Баринов М.А., Винограденко А.М. Принципы организации и планирования сильносвязной телекоммуникационной среды силспециального назначения. T-Comm #6 2013, 8-12.
2422 Ермаков, А. А., Ткачук, А. В., Мишенев, А. М. Опыт создания единой автоматизированной системы
управления мобилизационным развертыванием Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации. Военная
мысль № 7 2019, 77-80.
2423 Joint Staff J6. The Global Information Grid (GIG) 2.0 Concept of Operations Version 1.1, 11 March 2009
[Online]. Available: https://info.publicintelligence.net/DoD-GIG2-CONOPS.pdf [Accessed: 7th January2020].
2424 ТАСС. Источник в Минобороны: в Вооруженных силах РФ созданы войска информационных операций. ТАСС, 12 мая 2014 [Online]. Available: https://tass.ru/politika/1179830 [Accessed: 18th May 2019].
2425 Независимое военное обозрение 2017.
2426 Thomas 2015; ТАСС. Минобороны РФ: научные роты пополнили 300 призывников по итогам осенней кампании 2018 года. ТАСС, 12 декабря 2018 [Online]. Available: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/5902450[Accessed: 18th May 2019]; Boltenkov, Dmitry. Russian MoD’s “Science Companies”. Moscow Defense Brief,
No. 6 (2017), 10-12.
2427 Cf. Chapter 5 footnotes of descriptions.
2428 McDermott2017; Kjellén 2019.
2429 In 2016 General Gerasimov stated that IW had been part of the Kavkaz-2016 strategic command and staff
exercise. It had been conducted by an Information Warfare Group and its tasks had been akin to fire missions.
The group consisted of the elements of the Operational Directorate of the GS and its subunits, i.e. centres of
information warfare that had been created under military districts, and of the forces of information operations,forces and means of EW, and units of the State Secrets Protection Service ТАСС. Военные РФ впервые
отработали информационное противоборство на учениях “Кавказ”. ТАСС, 14 сентября 2016 [Online].
Available: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/3619816 [Accessed: 12 June 2019].

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Based on Western reports, the Main Directorate of the General Staff or GRU is
mostly responsible for active military-strategic level espionage, sabotage, and subversion operations during peacetime—although it is not the only active Russian offensive
cyber actor.2430 The Russian cyber security company Zekurion Analytics claimed in2017 that Russia had the world’s fifth largest cyber force with 1,000 operators and abudget of 300$ million.2431
Despite of the declarations about the operability of OATsSS and MTSS, it is safe toargue that the Russian military networks remain fragmented in 2019, perhaps excluding some dedicated vertical lines of command. However, the desired end-state is horizontal and vertical integration across the AF according to the principles of NCW.2432
The development of military networks and command and control systems remains apriority in the context of GPV 2018–2027.2433 The idea of information superiority
achieved through the unified information space, information-technological means,and ASUs resonates strongly with the Russian military approach to cyber and information warfare. The military EIP is a prerequisite for national defence and security
and, thus, to sovereignty. Nevertheless, the military also sees the information-psychological aspect of warfare as at least as important as the technological aspects and fully
supports the patriotism and militarism promoted by the regime and is itself an active
participant in shaping the wider information space of Russia.2434 For the military, thetechnological and psychological aspects of information warfare are part both part ofstrategic deterrence. An asymmetric response is present in the ever-continuing information weapon–counter-weapon struggle. The problem is how to keep this process
in the framework of a cost-effective and innovative (cunning) track, and not to fall
into the trap of C4ISR procurement bureaucracy.
6.5

The system of systems of information security and defence

In this chapter I will draw on the previous Chapters and present a model of the Russian national segment of the Internet as a system of systems of information security
and defence in a continuum of interstate relations and in the context of military threats
to understand how a closed national network could function. It was argued in Chapter
2430 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Enhanced Analysis of GRIZZLY STEPPE Activity. Refer-ence Number: AR-17-20045 February 10, 2017 [Online]. Available: https://assets.documentcloud.org/ documents/3469157/Document-12-National-Cybersecurity-and.pdf [Accessed: 18th May 2019]; National Cyber Security Centre. Reckless campaign of cyber-attacks by Russian military intelligence service exposed. October 3rd,
2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/reckless-campaign-cyber-attacks-russian-militaryintelligence-service-exposed [18th May 2019].
2431 Коломыченко, Мария. В интернет ввели кибервойска. Аналитики оценили количество хакеров нагосслужбе. Коммерсантъ, №2 от 10.01.2017 [Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/
3187320?utm_source=kommersant&utm_medium=tech&utm_campaign=four [Accessed: 18 th May 2019].
2432 McDermott, Roger. Russia’s Network-Centric Warfare Capability: Tried and Tested in Syria. Eurasia Daily
Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 154 [Online]. Available: https://jamestown.org/program/russias-network-centricwarfare-capability-tried-and-tested-in-syria/ [Accessed: 18 April 2019].
2433 Connolly & Boulégue 2018; Герасимов, В. В. О ходе выполнения указов Президента Российской Федерации от 7 мая 2012 года N603, 604 и развития Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации. Военная
мысль, № 12 (2017), 7-21.
2434 Golts 2018; Сафронов, Иван, Джорджевич, Александра. На главном политическом направлении.
Генерал Андрей Картаполов возглавит новый главк Минобороны. Коммерсантъ №134 от 31.07.2018[Online]. Available: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3701013 [Accessed: 18th May 2019]; ТАСС. Юнармия
России: для чего возродилось всероссийское военно-патриотическое движение. ТАСС, 22 фебраля
2018 [Online]. Available: 18th May 2019].

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3.5 that the military strategic reasoning behind the shaping and controlling of theRussian national segment of the Internet is that it can provide a decisive advantage.
A closed national network, that is a disconnected but internally functioning national
segment, might even provide an asymmetrical advantage in relation to nations leaving
their networks open. In this Chapter I propose one approach to understanding how
the Russian national network could function in practice as a closed national network.
The approach is based on an abductive interpretation of Russian strategic culturalideas examined in Chapter 4 and 5 and the theories on cyberspace and the closed
national segment presented in Chapters 3.2435
It was previously argued that cyberspace can be understood as a digital territory consisting of functional, normative, and political elements which can be shaped by technology, governance, norms, and politics. Digital territory can be mapped on a caseby-case basis. In this case I choose to map the Russian national segment as a systemof systems. This approach resonates with the ideas proposed by Russian information
warfare scholars who envision the unified information space as a system or a systemof systems, information warfare as a struggle between systems, and the control of thatstruggle as the function of a national system of information command, control andmanagement.2436 This system of systems is composed of subsystems which are notexclusively technological. They should be understood more as political, governance,
normative, organizational, economic, technological, and security and military entities.
These subsystems have been created based on the influence of the strategic culturalideas implemented through strategies and government policies to create a national
segment of the Internet.
The most influential idea is the idea of a national, unified information space controlled
through a system of systems of command, control and management. This EIP isbased on vertical control and horizontal integration, centralization, the delimitationof borders and technological and scientific self-sufficiency. The result is a delineated,
technologically independent, and functionally self-sufficient national segment. Moreover, the idea of information struggle necessitates the ability to control one’s own
information space or system while simultaneously influencing the opponent’s spaceor system. As information has become a part of strategic deterrence there is also a
military strategic logic to denying an adversary’s freedom of action, to deny its objectives through resilient networks, and to threaten it with retaliation from behind “unbreakable” walls. The system’s theoretical rationality to create such a construct is thatto protect one’s own system and to deny the information superiority of an opponent
one can move away from the threat, remove the source of threat, control information
channels including setting barriers, control information itself, and engage in self-modification. Because the first two are not possible to achieve in the short or medium
term, the last three provide strategic solutions.

2435 Most specifically Kukkola, Nikkarila & Ristolainen 2017; Kukkola 2017a & 2018b. The model of system ofsystems was first proposed in Kukkola 2018c.
2436 These scholars include, for example, E. A. Derbin, S. A. Komov, E. G. Shalamberidze, D. Chereskin, G.
Smolian, V. Tsygichko, I. Sheremet, A. Ia Cherysh, V. V. Popov, A. A. Sidak, V. V. Tsyganov, Iu. G. Bochkareva, V. K. Novikov, S. I. Makarenko, Kh. I. Saifetdinov, V. Kruglov, V. V. Tsyganov, S. N. Bukharin, A. V.
Manoilo, S. P. Rastorguev, and Igor Panarin.

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The national segment of the Internet could be examined though many different approaches. It could be considered as a part of larger cyberspace and thus its effects on
this space could be analysed. The subject of analysis could be the alleged asymmetry
created by a closed national network. The segment could be approached as an economic or a cultural system and the analysis could concentrate on the building of technological independence or cultural identity. Moreover, it could be approached as thebasis of information and digital sovereignty and thus political processes would be at
the heart of the analysis. I choose to approach the Russian national segment througha military strategic framework which consists of multiple elements. Firstly, it includes
the continuum of interstate relations as understood by the Russians. Secondly, different national and military security threats and the Russian understanding of them areincluded. Thirdly, a systems thinking approach to information security in applied.
Fourthly, the integrity, resilience and security of national segment, including the CII,
understood as the core of Russian national cyber security thinking, are incorporated
into the framework. Sixthly, the different Russian information and cyber security actors and their responsibilities, are used to examine how the segment could be operated
as a closed national segment.
The continuum of interstate relations is based on the analysis presented in Chapter
5.2 and it includes the phases of peacetime, intensified competition, conflict including
the initial phase of war, and war. The different national security threats are based on
official and unofficial Russian military threats and the basic premises of national security thinking and were analysed in Chapter 5.2 and 5.3. The threats include, on ascale from least to most destructive, espionage and terrorism, local conflicts and internal disturbances, full-scale colour revolutions and regional wars, and great power
wars including conventional, high-tech, non-contact warfare and total nuclear war.
These do not correspond to official Russian threat scenarios but are interpretationsof Russian strategic thinking in the context of cyber and information warfare. The
basic premises of the Russian understanding of national and military security threats
are interpreted through the concepts of strategic planning, territorial defence, and thewhole-of-state management as analysed in Chapter 5.1-5.3. Thus, an approach, which
includes centralized management and control, territorial approach to cyber security
and defence, and all state organs as active participants in information and cyber security, is adopted. The interpretation of the national segment as system of systems isargued in Chapter 3.5. The elements and functions of different subsystems, and explicitly the functioning the whole system of systems, is based on the material presented in Chapters 5 (ideas) and 6 (systems). The Russian understanding of national
cyber security and defence is based on the integrity, resilience and security of the national segment, including its CII. The information-technological element forms thebasis of broader information security as has been discussed in Chapter 6.1.3. Lastly,
the analysis of the Russian security actors and their responsibilities presented in Chapter 6.2.1 provides means to examine who is responsible for the functioning, and command and control of the national segment.
The above defined military strategic framework sets the prerequisites for constructing
a model of the Russian national segment as a national system of systems of information security and defence. It is, thus, a system of systems of information, not cyber,security and defence because it is directed against both technological and psychological threats and its systems have legal, economic, intelligence, law enforcement, and361

military functions, which function through peacetime to wartime. It is arguably aninterpretation and an ideal type, and no claims are made that the model fully corresponds to the thinking of the Russian defence and security elites, but it neverthelessfits the aspirations of many Russian scholars and officers and is reasonable from thepoint of view of strategic cultural ideas. Consequently, my analysis proceeds as follows. First, I will analyse the different subsystems of the national segment. Secondly,
this system of systems is put into a context of a continuum of conflict and different
military threats. And thirdly a synthesis of the functioning of the Russian national
segment as a closed national network is presented.
The subsystems of this system of systems can be grouped in many ways. One way
would be to delineate the systems through their military functions: intelligence, offensive, defence, command and control, support etc. However, this would emphasize
warfare and would not correspond to the Russian ideas concerning the information
struggle. Here, the subsystems are grouped based on their distinct purpose, components, functions, principles, and objectives into seven subsystems. Previous chaptersprovide descriptions of the individual components mentioned below. It is assumed
that the principle relations between the subsystems go through the seventh, monitoring and controlling, subsystem. Thus, the analysis on the interdependencies and interaction between the subsystems is left out of this examination. However, they are
an important subject for further research.
The first subsystem is an economic and scientific mechanism based on import substitution, autarkic economic policies, and investment in education and science. It aims
to replace foreign information technology, i.e. both hardware and software in the
Russian public and private spheres with domestic products and to modernize the Russian information infrastructure with state-led projects. The subsystem is also used tofinance scientific-technological research to discover future, disruptive technologies.
Subsystem’s primary function is to create domestic digital economy and thus to improve the Russian economy and the stability of society, and to shape national cyberspace towards a direction beneficial to the regime. It creates potential cyber power
and the basis for sovereignty. Its secondary function is to find asymmetric responses
in the information-technological sphere if the balance-of-power cannot be achieved
symmetrically. Thirdly, together with the subsystem of national encryption, in principle, it offers national security through obscurity. It limits the threat of supply-chain
attacks and provides tools for the security services to install their own backdoors or
to create secret vulnerabilities in domestic products and services. If successful, it offers a means to project Russian power by exporting Russian ICT solutions and thus
creating dependencies.
The second subsystem is state authentication and encryption. It is based on the mandatory national encryption systems and authentication certificates which make all data
traffic in the national segment transparent to the security services—excluding, perhaps, transiting encrypted foreign data. Web traffic of users residing in Russia, datatransmitted through backbone networks, and data residing in storage is encrypted anddecrypted with keys which are under state control. The subsystem achieves security
through secrecy and inversely through transparency as the security services have access to the crypto keys and certificates. It is an important part of the idea of digital
sovereignty as a state can only be sovereign if it can exercise its powers in relation to362

information. The function of the subsystem is to enable unhindered counterintelligence, law enforcement, political control, and to strengthen national security.
The third subsystem is composed of administrative and technical measures to remove
from and restrict access to unwanted content on the Internet through blacklisting,including banning foreign Internet services. Additionally, ISPs are made legally responsible for the content of their services and the right to disseminate information isrestricted. This subsystem includes the efforts to remove anonymity from the RussianInternet by restricting the use of VPNs, by introducing digital identification and registries of mobile users. It also includes denigrating foreign information sources as‘foreign agents.’ The subsystem includes self-censorship and ‘citizen vigilance groups’
who monitor the national segment for ‘unlawful’ content. This subsystem provides
tools for the information struggle in the national segment. The function of this system
is primarily political control based on removing content and restricting access, andsecondarily law enforcement.
The fourth subsystem consists of the targeted surveillance system SORM2437 and themassive Internet data traffic localization and retention conducted by the ISPs as ordered by the state. This enables traffic and content-based analyses of security threats
and appropriate actions inside and outside cyberspace by the security services. The
subsystem makes the digital information in transit and in store in the national segment
available to the security services and enables advanced methods of big data analysis
and forecasting. It is based on massive, distributed data centres and networked monitoring systems. The information struggle and strategic deterrence requires intelligence on possible threats. The functions of this system are counterintelligence, law
enforcement, and political control as access to data can be used for political purposes.
The fifth subsystem is the critical information infrastructure and its regulation. This
designates and categorises the national information infrastructure that needs to becontrolled by the state either through state-owned companies or through the mandatory responsibilities of private companies supervised by the security services. It is also
based on the national duplication of the critical Internet services, most importantly
DNS, which are supposed to ensure the integrity, resilience, and security of the national segment. Consequently, it enables the functioning of the national segment in
the case it is disconnected from the global Internet, and it ensures the segment’s resilience against information-technological threats. In the future, the CII might even
include ‘information resources’ that is websites and content providers. The CII is an
example of a Russian version of public-private partnership were the state makes theprivate sector pay for its own protection. The CII creates a distinct subsegment of thenational segment where state interests are paramount and transfers the control ofsome parts of the bottom-to-top evolved Russian Internet to the state, thus creating
borders for digital sovereignty. Information superiority in any conflict is only possible
to achieve if the state controls its own information space—in this case its technological, i.e. cyber side. The subsystem’s function is mainly related to national cyber secu-

2437 SORM could be placed in the seventh subsystem as it is a monitoring system. However, SORM is primarily

a targeted eavesdropping system with specific function of law enforcement and, thus, belongs to the systemthat is used to get access to the substance of information.

363

rity as it legitimizes, empowers, and organizes the state control over the Internet, enables its shaping along territorial state borders, orders the social relationships, andprovides a common understanding of security.
The sixth subsystems consist of the various Russian cyber diplomacy efforts and theorganizations promoting them. Its purpose is to advance the Kremlin’s agenda which
is based on making state sovereignty the guiding principle of Internet governance, theuse of information weapons proscribed, and promoting Russia’s status as an international norm-setter. The cyber diplomacy efforts are coordinated on a national level,
have a consistent message and resources to support them. They are advanced on boththe international (UN) and regional level (EEU, SCO, CSTO, BRICS). This subsystem’s function is to shape cyberspace through politics and norms to create internationally recognized territorial borders for the national segment and to prevent information and cyber threats from materializing.
The seventh subsystem consists of feedback, monitoring, control, and management
systems. It includes GosSOPKA2438, TsMUSSOP, the Upravlenie (and other state information systems), the network of CERTs functioning in different public and special
networks, and civilian and the military networks of situation centres. This is the subsystem provides, in principle, the vertical control and horizontal integration of thenational segment. It is admittedly a system of systems but here for simplicity’s sake it
is considered as one subsystem. It provides information on the national segment, andthe whole society, a threat analysis of all information threats, not just cyber, and enables the control of information flows in the segment and its borders. From a cybernetic point of view, it is used to maintain the homeostasis of the whole system. This
subsystem is the materialization of the ideas of the unified information space, information superiority, and automated management systems on a national level. However,
the interconnectivity of its many elements may only be theoretical as organizational
stove-piping and technical incompatibilities are likely. Its functions are related to thenational security in information space through preparation, defence, and the controlof the battlespace.
The system of systems of information security and defence consisting of seven subsystems has different uses and modes in different phases of interstate struggle and in
the context of different threats. All subsystems are active in every phase, but theirimportance differs. The first and fifth subsystems provide the basis for the state’s
ability to function in cyberspace and thus its ability to shape cyberspace as a battlefieldin all phases. They are the source of potential cyber power. During the first phase ofpeacetime or peaceful competition, states primarily use non-violent and non-militarymeans of struggle. The second, third and fourth subsystems provide intelligence andmake espionage and exploitation more difficult and as such increase the costs forwould-be aggressors. They enable the resilience against information-psychological influence operations which might be used to foster colour revolutions or separatist andterrorist actions. The sixth system proactively prevents threats from materializing.
The seventh system is used to resolve everyday cyber security issues and the integrity
2438 GosSOPKA could be placed in the fifth subsystem as it is related to the protection of CII. However, as itis part of a larger network of national cyber security systems and a tool of monitoring and controlling (responding to threats), I choose to place it in the seventh system.

364

of networks. At this point the national segment can be considered ‘monitored’. The
whole system of systems forms part of the strategic deterrence in peacetime as it signals deterrence by denial and possibly punishment. Russia can disconnect itself fromthe global network, protect its strategic systems, and strike back with any means necessary—at least in theory.
During a phase of intensified competition, a clear and present military danger will
have emerged, and operations directed against the elements of the national segmentof the Internet have increased. The means used in the interstate struggle are still covert, indirect, and non-military. The situation might call for ‘a state of emergency’ or atleast increased intervention of the state to enable the functioning of the Internet. The
nature of the threat affects the way in which the state control is deployed. Internal
disturbances and terrorism, local conflict with a smaller state, or imminent attack fromanother great power require different solutions. The second, third and fourth subsystems are probably fully activated to provide maximum intelligence and control overthe substance of the information circulating in the national segment. Moreover, thefifth subsystem is enforced and the seventh is used in a centrally coordinated andcontrolled manner. Its elements are used to monitor, counter and attribute aggressive
operations. Defence-in-depth is used on a national scale and traffic might be restricted
although not yet fully disconnected. This increases the resilience of the national segment but additionally allows Russia to, in the best case, attribute the attackers. This
enables the sixth system to name-and-shame attackers. It is also used to incur diplomatic pressure on the adversary. The ability to monitor rising threats against criticalinfrastructure and to counter exploitation operations—intended to enable future attack—gives the state a definite advantage when individual private sector actors are
not left alone to fend off attacks. This also provides better situation awareness andthus helps the state to prepare for potential future cyberattacks. At this point thenational network is ‘controlled’ and has been prepared to withstand a wider and moreaggressive attack, and both technological and psychological effects are kept in check.
During a phase of conflict, the military danger has become a real threat and the interstate struggle has acquired an overt, direct and military form and the aggressor has
been very likely identified. In the case of a colour revolution or local military uprising,a foreign state or alliance aggressor is most likely indicated with or without any basis
on facts. The phase includes the initial phase of war which will be decisive as it probably includes a massive, high-tech, aerospace attack. If the aggressor is a state, it has
probably shifted from espionage and exploitation to direct attacks against the CII and
the Armed Forces, and the psychological element in the attacks might have lessenedin relation to the technological element. A non-state actor might use sabotage attacks
against the government, the Armed Forces and other security services, or the civilian
infrastructure with terrorist intent. However, a non-state actor would be likely to try
to get external and internal support for its cause through information-psychologicalmeans. At this point all subsystems are functioning at full strength. They produce
information, forecasting, support planning, and enable the control and managementof the mobilized society, economy and military. Cyber diplomacy becomes part of theoverall diplomatic effort to contain and, in the case of a colour revolution, to isolate
the conflict. If the system fails to provide adequate protection or if the aggressor tries
to undermine the basis of the Russian information society by bringing down or disconnecting the whole national segment of the Internet from the outside, subsystem365

seven is deployed to disconnect the segment in a controlled manner. This significantly
reduces the possible attack vectors and outside psychological information operations
are greatly restricted—at least temporarily. Additionally, the traffic inside the segment
is heavily controlled and monitored which increases the protection against insider attacks. Thus, the ability of an internal non-state actor to coordinate its actions or reachforeign audiences is hampered. However, the disconnection is an escalatory measure
and a signal that softer means of deterrence have failed. The state now has full controlof the national segment of the Internet and the private sector is mobilized to sustain
critical services needed for the functioning of the government, the military, and thebasic services for the citizens. Adaptation and recovery are provided by the interactionof all subsystems. At this point the national network is ‘closed’.
During the fourth phase of interstate struggle, i.e. war, the Russian state has been
mobilized for total war. A great power aggressor is using all means available to disrupt,
degrade, and destroy the Russian CII using both non-kinetic and kinetic direct means.
Non-state actors at this point are considered part of the forces of the state aggressor
whatever their motives might be. Some of the subsystems will probably lose theirfunctionality because of the damage inflicted by the aggressor. The first and fifth subsystems enable the Russian state to withstand this phase of confrontation—as theInternet, in fact, was originally supposed to do.2439 Satellites, fibreoptic cables, radio
frequency-based technologies, physically distinct special networks of the government
and the military, and dispersed server farms enable the national segment of the Internet to fragment but still function in a coherent, territorially based manner. The military is provided with connectivity in separate theatres or directions of war and nuclear
weapons can be launched in a controlled manner. Although integrity on a national
level is lost, separated parts of the national segment are still resilient and secure to acertain extent thanks to the modular nature of the subsystems. It is quite possible thatthese fragments will be divided along the borders of military districts or federal regions. At this point the national network is ‘fragmented’ but still resilient in its parts.
After a conflict or war is over, the parts of the segment that have survived can beused to start rebuilding the communications and the nation. A summary of the subsystems and phases of interstate relations is presented in Figure 3.

2439 Kaplan 2016.

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Figure 3. The national system of systems of information security and defence in the context ofinterstate relations.

The system of systems perspective combined with the concepts of territorial defence
and whole-of-state approach helps to understand which state institutions are responsible for the control of the national segment of the Internet and offers insights into
how the state authority in the Russian segment is organized. The military strategic
aspect of this issue is the spatial and temporal border between the security services
and the military. Arguably, during peacetime the FSB is the main national cyber security actor, supported in the government networks by the FSO. The MVD has a limited
role in fighting cybercrime. However, the Roskomnadzor operates important elements of the seventh subsystem and the FSTEK regulates the CII. There is also some‘manual control’ from the Kremlin. During intensified competition and the earlyphases of conflict and especially in the colour revolution scenario the Security Council
manages cooperation between all power ministries. This cooperation requires peacetime strategic planning, exercises, and most importantly information sharing between
multiple special networks and their operators. It also requires well-planned, geographically distributed, and redundant networks and services. The Radio Frequency Service
under Roskomnadzor becomes an essential actor, as it controls the flow of traffic in
the segment, although the threat analysis is still based on the assessment of the security services. War is the domain of the military and its supreme (political) command.
Because a great power war is still a threat guiding the Russian strategic planning, themilitary strives to create separate networks, protects them and uses its capabilities
primarily to support military efforts. The military is also given authority over civilian
networks in a state emergency or war. However, regional and larger wars are a wholeof-state and nation effort, and thus the military might not be able to operate as independently as it wants. It is unlikely that it has the competence and resources to operate
national networks without comprehensive cooperation with the ISPs.
Arguably then, the national segment as a system of systems provides informationtechnological and information-psychological integrity, resilience and security for theRussian national segment of the Internet. In principle, it is quite flexible and enables
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the mobilization of the resources of the whole state to protect the Russian national
interests in cyberspace. The concepts of whole-of-state security, territorial defence,and mobilization give it some of its distinct Russian characteristics. There are someissues though. The governance of the national segment is still fragmented between
different government organs, which will lead to friction. Satellite communications andthe future 5G networks with billions of IoT devices make controlling and closing ahighly connected and geographically vast national segment a challenge. Quantum
technologies, blockchain and AI might provide support, but also produce new vulnerabilities. The civilian government’s mandate to filter and disconnect Internet traffic might damage the operability of military command and control networks domestically and particularly the communications of forces operating abroad, depending on
the technical solution adopted. Moreover, in the Russian political system the authority
given to the state institutions to decide what systems must be used to protect the
networks and by whom may lead to corruption and rent-seeking behaviour. If theprivate sector is forced to protect the CII, the result might not be optimal. Allied
nations who rely on Russian datacentres would lose their services in the event of disconnection—to say nothing about economic damage to international corporations—
so filtering traffic would be a highly political act. In fact, the Russian protectionist
ICT policies are already affecting its allies. The disconnection of the national segment
could even be considered preparation for a surprise attack and thus cause a preventive
counterattack. Lastly, the whole national segment with different networks and elements could be considered a highly complex and tightly coupled system with an accident is waiting to happen—an accident that could disconnect Russia from the Internet
unintentionally and without warning.2440 Moreover, the multiplicity of systems andnetworks will lead to multiple gateways and interfaces that might provide vulnerable
points of attack.
What does the case of the Russian national segment of the Internet tell us aboutclosed national segments when approached as a system of systems of information
security and defence? The most important argument is that closed national networks
are much more than just the ability to ‘shutdown the Internet.’ A true closed national
network should be able to function independently and self-sufficiently. Still, it is nota ‘unified network’ but a collection of relatively separated networks, services, resources, organizations, and policies. Thus, it is beneficial to approach it as a systemof systems with internal processes which may sometimes be contradictory. Most
surely, the network will be centrally and vertically controlled to enable the cooperationand integration of the multiple systems operated by different actors. This seeming
simplicity might, however, result in a complex system as the data flows required forcontrolling a whole nation intertwine.
Closed national networks would probably tend towards homogenised hardware andsoftware solutions as they are required by the implicit economic policies driving theconstruction of the closed networks and the needs of centralized control. Thus, someeffort will be made to develop proprietary or domestic protocols and encryption,
which will make the network and the information in it opaque. These domestic solu-

2440 On these kind of system cf. Perrow. Charles Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1999.

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tions will be offered (or forced) on allies as an alternative to the international commercial and open-source solutions and will, in all likelihood, be forced upon own theadministration and major sectors of industry. The infrastructure will be based on domestic datacentres and backup centres and a national backbone network. Its criticalparts will be operated by state companies. They, and private companies allowed tooperate such resources, will be monitored, controlled, and tightly regulated by thegovernment and the security services. Technologies such as the SDN and the DPI
and protocols such as the BGP offer the easiest way to regulate the data traffic in
those networks. The closing of a national network would not be an all or nothingaffair. It could be based on data traffic type, source, destination, amount, time, andgeography. Some parts of the network could be disconnected while others remained
open to the global network. This manipulation requires the duplication of the basic
infrastructure services of the Internet, so national DNS, time, location, and routing
services are required. It is probable, that the military would have its own logically andphysically separated networks. The complexity of the national or civilian system is too
unpredictable to give the military the reliability needed for its operations. Moreover,connections to strategic allies and forces operating abroad would have to remain open
despite the closing of networks. A closed national network would benefit from theuse of defensive machine or artificial intelligence. Its complexity and security requirements go beyond human capabilities and AI could be used for testing and analysing
the system, forecasting, and for decision-making, in addition to command and control
support.2441
To summarize, a closed national network is not just a piece of territorially segmented
the Internet, or a disconnected network. Its functioning requires multiple systems
and, directly or indirectly, it involves many state and private actors. It requires governance, norms, economic, and technological-scientific and educational policies tofunction. A closed national network requires an industrial information and technological-scientific domestic base. Moreover, it requires a political culture that is willingto limit basic freedoms and still be able to force high levels of cyber security awareness. Furthermore, its complexity means that it will take various forms depending on
the nation deploying it. Here one is reminded of Alfred T. Mahan’s definition of sea
power which included geography and territory, the size and character of the population and the character of the government.2442 Consequently, a closed national network
requires a national strategy to become reality. The Russian version is the product ofSoviet era kibernetik dreams interacting with information era threats and technologies. As a system of systems, it emphasizes the centralized state control of a territorially extensive nation through information, the nation’s preparation for war, and thecontinuous interstate struggle in the meantime.

2441 Cf. Scharre 2018, 220-221.
2442 Mahan, Alfred T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783. Dover edition. Boston: Little,

Brown and Company, 1890.

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7
CONCLUSIONST

he aim of this thesis was to understand why the Russian Federation is creatinga national segment of the Internet and how this segment as a closed national
network could function. I decided to divide this problem into a theoreticaland analytical part. The theoretical part concentrated on the ideas behind the making
of strategy, and on the concepts of cyberspace, cyber power, cyber warfare, cyberstrategy, and closed national networks. The analytical part concentrated on the Russian strategy to control and shape a part of cyberspace into ‘a national segment of theInternet’ as a case of a state creating a theoretical closed national network. I approached the research problem through six auxiliary research questions or subproblems which formed the structure of my thesis. This final chapter provides a summaryof the main findings of the thesis and a conclusion. I demonstrate how the strategic
cultural ideas have developed and interacted with Russian policies in a certain strategic
environment to produce the national segment of the Internet as a reasonable strategic
answer to perceived challenges. I review the composition and role of the most important epistemic communities involved in this process. Furthermore, I summarize
the nature of the national segment of the Internet as constructed by Russia. Additionally, I summarize my interpretation of the national segment as a national system ofsystems of information security and defence, and the relationship of this system ofsystems to the theoretical closed national segment. This is followed by a discussion
on the Russian understanding of cyberspace, power, and warfare, and national segments strategic meaning and possible future. I will end by reflecting upon my own
research and I will present possible avenues for further research.
7.1

Strategic cultural ideas

The strategic cultural idea of an interstate struggle is related to the Russian understanding of the character of war. Its roots reach back at least into the Soviet era andit has acted as a causal or perhaps even a principled belief by providing a framework
for understanding international relations. During the Soviet era it was perceived as acompetition between two different political, economic, and social systems with theultimate form of competition being a total war using strategic nuclear weapons in an
eschatological war. This idea of constant competition or struggle between systems
shifted in the post-Cold War era to a struggle between multiple great powers. In the
1990s ‘information confrontation’ became one of its forms. During peacetime thisconfrontation was considered as a constant struggle to influence the opponent’s political elites, society, and economy with technological and psychological means. If interstate relations had moved into the initial period of war and war proper the technological and more destructive means would gain primacy.
The idea of an information struggle was defined and refined by a group of civilian
and military theorists in the 2000s. Their views were affected by a geopolitics-based371

hope of state control over globalization, a belief in a future eschatological confrontation, and a worldview based on a struggle between political, social and economic‘kibernetik’ systems with the emphasis on historical continuity. For these scholars, theinformation struggle became the defining form of competition between states andgreat powers. Information could have strategic effects and to counter those effects
state-level organizational and technological information security systems must be created. The scholars did not advocate comprehensive security in the sense of broadening the sources and objects of threats but it was comprehensive in the sense of themeans and actors of state power—a whole-of-state, territorial, and strategicallyplanned response was required. Information warfare was divided into technologicaland psychological aspects the importance of which has fluctuated. The interstate
struggle requires the mobilization of all state resources through the vertical of power.
In this view, the reward of the information struggle would be information superiority
which could be achieved even in peacetime. Some theorists argued that future war
would be characterised by indirect means and high tempo and would thus be resolved
already in the initial phase of war. Others emphasised managed chaos or colour revolutions. Whatever the case, the technological and psychological aspects of warfare
would be decisive. There were at least three different approaches to information andwarfare. There were those who studied the issue in its strategic and geopolitical context—they are those whom Western scholars have called ‘holistic’. But there were also
those who approached IW from a systems theory point of view and those who concentrated on the operational and tactical issues—much like their Western counterparts. Furthermore, information-technological warfare has a distinct role in warfare
in the Russian military thought, which is akin to the role cyber means have in Western
thinking, although the Russian version includes a wider repertoire of means.
Although the Soviets had their own ideas about how military force and strategic nuclear weapons could be used to prevent military aggression, only in the 1990s did
Russian and Western theoretical ideas began to converge into policies with similarbasic understandings of the issue of deterrence. The concept of ‘strategic deterrence’
was already introduced in the 1990s but its official elaboration would be left until the
2000s. Initially and preliminary it related to strategic nuclear weapons. However, deterrence had a clear connection to the concept of the interstate struggle and its subconcept of the information struggle. In fact, even the Soviet era ‘deterrence’ thinking
had included the use of information to prevent aggression and denial of information
to protect the regime.
Strategic deterrence was given a more substantial form by General Gareev and othersaround 2006–2008. It was to be a continuum of creating defensive power, preventing
threats from materializing, deterrence through denial and retaliation based on a complex system of state diplomatic, economic, technological, and information measures.
Strategic deterrence involves all state actors. It is based on the idea of total war andthus requires the integrated functioning of strategic intelligence, political leadership,
military-industrial complex, civilian administration of territorial defence, the mobilization system etc. The importance of the ideas of strategic deterrence, strategic planning, and territorial defence stems from current and future military threats, territoriallybound views on security, and whole-of-state responses on a continuum of interstate
struggle. This forms a framework for how the Russian defence and security elites
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understand military security. Most recent definitions of strategic deterrence include
information and cyberspace in its sphere. Threats against the morale of the civilian
population and armed forces need to be deterred. The critical information infrastructure of the information society in addition to conventional and nuclear forces must
be protected. The idea of strategic deterrence thus develops and reflects the way inwhich the idea of interstate struggle changes.
An asymmetric response began as a solution to a strategic problem generated by theinterstate struggle of the 1980s. It was an answer to the United States SDI programme
via more efficient offensive weapons, preventive defensive measures, and diplomaticefforts. Moreover, it reflected the way the Soviets understood military power throughthe measurable strategic balance of power and cost-effective measure-countermeasure dialectics. These components have remained largely unchanged in the Russianstrategic thought. During the 2000s and 2010s, the asymmetric response has beenrevitalized and offered as a kind of miracle cure to the Russian weaknesses contra theUnited States. In the contest of these proposals an asymmetric response can be described as overcoming the adversary’ offensive and defensive systems while at thesame time protecting one’s own systems. It can be a cost-effective solution and/or an
innovative technological breakthrough in the spirit of dialectical weapon–counterweapon progress. An asymmetric response is a prime example of a strategic culturalidea which is carried by epistemic communities and which resurfaces from time totime to be fitted to the current needs and environment.
From a purely military point of view, asymmetric responses have often meant ways
to neutralize an adversary’s superiority through technology or creative, innovative action including deception. The concept of an asymmetric response is usually related topolitical and strategic issues whereas asymmetric actions and the related concept ofindirect means are used on the operational and tactical level. The core of the latter
ideas is to evade direct use of military force against an enemy’s military strengths.
Military objectives can be achieved by multiple different means through the continuum on interstate relations. For most of the Russian military scholars there was little
point in conclusively defining asymmetry as there were no universal asymmetric actions because conflicts differed and opponents adapted to previously used methods.
Therefore, asymmetric responses and actions are not some magical tool to understandRussian strategic thinking. Moreover, the Russians are as inclined to adopt military
theoretical fads as Western militaries are. Lastly, when Russians are somehow seen as
inherently different, cunning, devious, and aggressive there is a fair amount of mirrorimagining, ‘othering’ and enemy-image building going on which does not necessarily
contribute to better academic research or policy making.
The respect for state sovereignty, at least Russian sovereignty, has been a guiding
principle of the Soviet and later Russian political thought. It found its expression in
the information sphere as information sovereignty already in the late 1990s. However,this information sovereignty remained undefined well into the 2000s. Before it became an idea related to Russian internal sovereignty, it developed in the context of
the Russian cyber diplomacy effort to create an international information security
treaty that would have banned both the use of information and information systems
as means (officially ‘weapons’) of an interstate struggle. It was also most probably
discussed in the sphere of the post-Soviet security organizations where the military373

political, terrorist, and criminal threats, and the threats against sovereignty intermingled with realist, geopolitical and even liberal views on state role and sovereignty. By
the beginning of the 2010s the process began to produce definitions of information
sovereignty and then of digital sovereignty. Information sovereignty began to denotethe state’s authority over information and its users on its territory and under its jurisdiction, while digital sovereignty denoted the systems, infrastructure, and economic
and scientific-technological base of information sovereignty—also sometimes called
technological independence. They were defined based on freedom from threats andcontrol over national resources. As digital sovereignty has been adopted as an official
concept in state documents from around 2017 it can be argued that digital sovereignty
has developed from sovereignty over the information space to sovereignty in the information space and in the end to information or digital sovereignty, that is, to oneof the aspects of state sovereignty.
Information and digital sovereignty are based on the idea of a unified information
space and, more broadly, on the kibernetik dreams of Soviet scientists kept alive inthe minds of the Russian siloviki and academicians of the scientific-technological research institutes. The societal and economic system of OGAS(U) and, on the other
hand, the Soviet principles of continuity and uninterruptedness of military command,
control and communications meshed in the 1990s with the Western ideas of RMA,
NCW and the birth of the information society. At the same time, RuNet developed
as a social and cultural space from the bottom to the top with a definite anarchicalcharacter and freedom of user which was unknown in the Soviet system. The EIP
proposed a way to shape and organize these competing and sometimes conflictual
processes into a state-controlled information space. This space should have delineated, controlled and protected borders, a vertical hierarchy and horizontally integrated
networks. It should be a system of systems where information is gathered verticallythrough a feedback mechanism for the governing elites who use the information tocontrol the state and the society. During the 2000s and 2010s the EIP continued to
produce both military and civilian visions of command, control and management networks.
As was already mentioned above, the objective and prize of the information struggle
is information superiority. Information superiority was already a part of the Soviet
theory of a circle of command and control developed sometime in the 1970s and1980s. Like the Western idea, the Soviet and Russian concept was initially about speed
but later it emphasised knowledge and efficiency of command and control. Moreover,the Russians have developed their own theory of command and control warfare basedon denying the NCW its advantage in modern warfare. The concept of information
superiority is important for the Russians because it seems to explain what the West
did to the Soviet Union through psychological operations and is still doing to Russia
and other countries, and so it has offered an explanation and solutions for future
warfare and the broader interstate struggle. Thus, the binary view on information as
technological and psychological has also penetrated the idea of information superiority. However, the official documents of strategic planning or the statements of political leaders do not explicitly use the term ‘information superiority’ in a positive sense.
It is related to domination, which is something that others pursue and can be legitimately challenged. Officially, Russia aims for parity and thus stability.

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The idea of information-technological warfare was recognized by the Soviets as command and control warfare, and later in the 1990s the Russian military theorists becamealmost obsessed with the Western notions of NCW. During the 1990s, information
warfare was generally defined by its novel means, but as time went by, the definitions
began to emphasise the objective, which was the will of the opponent. This highlighted the possibility of a victory without the use of direct force. Thus, the technological component ended up as ‘supporting means’ in the geopolitical struggle forpower. However, the military never gave up on thinking about the information-technological means in the context of preparing and fighting a war.
Arguably, Western views on the Russian understanding of IW do suffer from a certain
bias. The claim that Russian IW is somehow more holistic and systematic than theWestern approach is based on the implicit claim that Western IW is based on individual, fractured operations, directed against specific targets and agendas, and conductedin a relatively uncoordinated fashion. Even a cursory reading of Russian official andunofficial texts shows that this is not how Russians perceives the Western IW. The
claims about the holistic and systematic nature of IW are related to only one of atleast three different ways the Russians understand IW. Arguably, these claims serve
certain political agendas more than an objective, scientific study of the Russian IW.
However, I do not dispute the claim that outside of direct conflict the Russian information-technological activities and warfare are in theory subordinated to the information-psychological objectives.2443 What I disagree with, based on the sources usedin this study, is the claim that the Russians have managed to solve the theoretical andpractical problems of IW and have built a system of perfectly functioning IW uponthem.
The Russian understanding of an information-technological offensive has consolidated around a group of means which by the late 2010s includes kinetic (precision),
software, hacking, electromagnetic, EMP, laser and other exotic means of attack.
Consequently, the discussion has increasingly centred around what institution should
be responsible for information security and what the tasks of the new ‘information’
troops should be. Critical information infrastructure and its resilience, integrity andsecurity have provided substance for the Russian understanding of national information-technological or cyber defence. The concept of resilience is clearly a Westernidea although its component parts were already present in the Soviet thinking. Ultimately, the protection of CII has become part of the interstate struggle.

2443 The Russian emphasis on the psychological aspects of information warfare is the result of at least threedifferent factors. First, as noted in this study, they interpret the fall of the Soviet Union as a result of Western
IW. Secondly, this interpretation is supported by the KGB/FSB culture of ‘active measures’ and psychologicaloperations, which has influenced theorists and especially geopolitically minded writers (Pynnöniemi 2019a &2019b). And thirdly, information-psychological warfare is easier to present as an actual, foreign threat when
one is needed to unite the nation. Thus, it can be argued that because Western ideas (ideology) and identities
were not initially under threat after the ‘victory’ of the Cold War but ‘cyber’ (technology) was something new
and interesting, Western scholars have concentrated on the technological aspects of IW. Conversely, the Russians have adopted the role of the underdog. They have approached information warfare as a Western ‘technology’ of the interstate struggle and, thus, as a weapon of the great power struggle. The legacy of MarxistLeninist material dialectics might have an influence (Lalu 2014; Jonsson 2019). This stance points to one interesting and perhaps highly influential issue at the core of Russian strategic culture; namely its lack of critical selfreflection, fixation with history, and ‘othering’ all negative traits to the West.

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The concept of an automated command and control or management system, understood in its most basic form as a system with inputs, outputs, feedback and controllingsubsystems which is able to produce analysis and foresight and intended to produce
faster and more efficient decisions, was introduced into the Soviet strategic thinking
in the late 1950s. ASU became more than just a calculating machine. It promised to
be a ‘kibernetik’ way of control over the human condition albeit a rigid, hierarchicaland mechanistic one. During the Soviet times and later in the 1990s the idea of ASU
tended to provided solutions based on integration, centralization, and control where
the subject or controller would be the unitary state power.
ASUs have been conceptualized as tools but also as infrastructure and later as universal systems combining control mechanisms with the space in which they are used.
Their function is based on the automation of parts of the ‘cycle of command’ but not
on displacing humans from the loop. Creativity or the human factor has remained
important for Russian military scholars, although their enthusiasm has sometimes
been a bit over-interpreted by some Western scholars.2444 The relationship of ASU tothe concept of AI and related technologies, is still an open question in the sources
analysed in this thesis—although there are reasons to suspect that ASUs might notfare well in future theoretical discussions.
The strategic cultural ideas discussed above for the most part had Soviet roots andwere continuously developed throughout the time period under analysis. The 1990s
were a defining period for modern Russia. The strength of some ideas, like the asymmetric response, has fluctuated over time. There was a period of emulation of Western ideas which was however replaced in the late 2000s with mounting criticism anda search for Russian substance for strategic cultural ideas. It is quite possible thatduring the 2000s and especially 2010s the Russian epistemic communities and elites
turned to other sources than the West for ideas—mainly China. External events, interaction with foreign ideas, and interaction between the ideas themselves shaped thestrategic cultural ideas. The Russian military and security communities did not writein a vacuum but were in constant communication with internal and external influences. When all is said and done, the main source of ideas have been the writings ofAmerican NCW and IW scholars. There might have been something inherently familiar in their texts for the Russian theorists, and, of course, they promised to offer‘a recipe for success’.
7.2

The national segment as a reasonable answer

The development of the relationship of the state and the Russian Internet can bedivided into separate phases. The first phase (1991–1997) was characterized by a basically hopeful, liberal, and hands-off relationship. The Internet and ‘informatization’at large was considered mostly beneficial or the government did not have the will or
the resources to affect its development. The second phase (1998–2002) began whenthe Internet started to develop rapidly, and information warfare became an acute,although marginally understood question, mostly because of the second war in Chech-2444 Cf. Grau, Lester and Bartles, Charles. The Russian Way of War. Fort Leavenworth, KS.: FMSO, 2016, 57-

58.

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nya. Russia’s relationship with the West went through crises and the government became aware of the need to regulate the ‘information space.’ Russia began to experience its information revolution during this time period. The basic tenets of Russianstate policy towards the international cyber and/or information security were defined.
They were based on territorial state sovereignty and ideas borrowed from nuclear
arms control negotiations, and on the views of people affiliated with the security services. The basic forms of all strategic cultural ideas except digital sovereignty werealready present. The Soviet tradition of state surveillance was re-established in cyberspace as SORM-2 was launched. The cybernetic tradition was also reflected in the
proposed projects for national information management and command and control
systems.
The third phase (2003–2010) was characterized by the government’s efforts to manage and benefit from the informatization of the economy and the society. At the sametime the regime tried to control the most negative aspects of the Internet mainly by
updating and introducing new laws. Society and private industry managed to stop themost intrusive regulation and monitoring of the Internet, although other media were
subjugated to the Kremlin or its oligarch allies’ control. The Internet developed
mostly on its own and was guided by private interests, and the state’s development
policies were largely dismissed or failed. The military began to pursue its own visionsof the information space. The Russian regime continued to push state sovereignty as
the basis for international regulation in cyberspace and classified information as aweapon. Sovereignty was also applied to domestic politics as a proto-ideology and theSoviet past began to be rehabilitated. Many of the central concepts of the latter phases,
such as information sovereignty and the national segment of the Internet, were developed during this period in the context of Russian regional cyber diplomacy. The
military developed the concepts of the information struggle, asymmetric response andstrategic deterrence. The concept of critical infrastructure began to develop fromplanning and preparing for emergency situations to the protection of certain criticalobjects and the critical infrastructure. Moreover, Russia chose not to follow the examples set by the other great powers: It resisted the open militarization of cyberspace
driven by the United States and the all-pervasive state censorship driven by China.
The fourth phase (2011–2013) began when external and internal events activated theregime to push for tighter control of the Russian Internet. The increased demand for
new and old ideas grew as the elite searched for creative and innovative ways to makesense of the confusing and threatening environment and adapt to it. By 2011 the Internet had reached a significant portion of the Russian urban population and a distinct
Russian Internet had formed. Before the demonstrations of 2011–2012, RuNet was
mainly a platform of social interaction but it had slowly begun to challenge the regimecontrolled sources of official news. Control was established mainly through laws andwas in principle a vehicle for political control and censorship directed against domestic opposition. It also reflected the worsening great power relationships and the Russian negative view on the open militarization of cyberspace. During this time the ability and will of the Russian private Internet sector to resist government control began
to erode. Those who did not comply were made to leave the country just as in theearly 2000s. The Russian Internet was arguably beyond legal control and this was atime when the elites searched for a Russian approach to controlling it. The politicaldebate on information and digital sovereignty arose and the idea began to be adopted
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into a policy, but sovereign state control was not yet a national security issue. Russia
activated its global and especially regional cyber security norm diplomacy, although,at the same time some representatives of the elite began slowly to adopt Western ideasof cyber security. The increased understanding of cyber threats led to the adopting of
the concept of critical information infrastructure. This trend was countered by the
Chinese model, the appeal of which was partly the result of Putin’s earlier ‘pivot to
the East’. The military pursued the development of communications, command andcontrol systems as part of a military reform and arms procurement programme. Soviet
policies of strategic planning, state mobilization, and state control over the economy
were flexibly readapted.
The fifth phase (2014–) was initiated by the war in Ukraine and a definite change inthe strategic environment, which led the Russian regime to seek a centralized controlof the implicit manifestation of the EIP, ‘national segment of the Internet’, and toprotect it from outside technological and psychological threats and also from internal
subversion. Arguably, Russian actions were influenced by the changing global balanceof power, militarization of cyberspace, their own perceived vulnerability, new technological threats, and the failure to create international cyber security norms to control the emerging threats in line with Russian interests. Multiple threats seemed tomaterialise at once in 2014–2015 and the West seemed poised to punish Russia for its
actions—through isolation if needed. The economic and technological sanctions,stagnating economy and repeatedly failed efforts to initiate state-led growth of the
ICT sector highlighted the vulnerability and weakness of Russian information-technological, or cyber, power.
Ultimately, information reached maturity and acceptance as an aspect of sovereignty,
a sphere of state action and interests, and as politico-military means, ways and ends.
This policy was enshrined in a series of strategic planning documents culminating in
the National Programme of the Digital Economy which includes military, political,
economic, and cultural aspects and which aims to shape into being a truly independent, self-sufficient, competitive, integrated, resilient and secure Russian national segment of the Internet. Russia strives to create international borders for this space
through its ever-continuing cyber diplomacy initiative. In a great power interstate information struggle the national segment provides power, means for information superiority, and perhaps an asymmetric response to balance Russia’s economic and technological weakness. Ideas developed in the Eurasian and Chinese context have gained
influence. The regime continues to adopt laws that strengthen its control of the national information space, now with the aim of controlling information assets and information more than political activity. It has adopted the concept of integrity, resilience, and security of critical information infrastructure as the basis for a Russian understanding of national cyber security. The legacy of kibernetik ideas is merged with
the Western ideas of resilience. The military has continued to develop its systems
while considering both information-technological and information-psychological aspects of information security. The ultimate products of this phase are GosSOPKA,
TsMUSSOP, Upravlenie, the network of SRSTs and other management networks.
Which, if combined and centralized to the Kremlin, will form a modern era
OGAS(U).

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The above presented history raises the question as to why the elites did not really
implement the ideas offered by the security services and others already in the late
1990s or 2000s? A lack of resources and a non-incentive strategic environment might
have been reasons. Moreover, some members of the epistemic communities encouraged the creation of a new institutional power, the ‘Ministry of Information Security’,inside the regime, which the elite might not have preferred. There is no clear single
point in time when the strategic cultural ideas penetrated the policies of the Russian
defence and security elites. They were present already in the unofficial debates andofficial documents of the 2000s, however, they were not acted upon in the domestic
arena in any efficient manner. The events of 2011–2012 provided the first stimulus
which started the search for and reformulation of ideas to more concrete policies.
The elites first deployed the ideas to solve issues of internal security and to secure
their power. After 2014, as the strategic environment changed, the control of the national segment became a national security issue and the elites acted based on perceived
critical security issues informed by strategic cultural ideas. Thus, I disagree with thenotion that the policies of the Russian regime are just meant for internal politicalcontrol. They are part of strategy to create power, prevent war and win it, if necessary.
What is then the relationship between the national segment of the Internet and thestrategic cultural ideas? The idea of the interstate struggle, or more precisely the current version of the information struggle or confrontation guides Russia’s approach to
the national segment of the Internet. The national segment of the Internet is a at least
partly the result of interaction between the ideas of an interstate struggle, digital sovereignty, strategic deterrence, a unified information space, and perhaps also of theasymmetric response. It was formulated as a response to a change in the strategic
environment as the interstate struggle moved into the global information space. Information and digital sovereignty is a normative tool to control the new threats arisingfrom that struggle. Sovereignty requires borders and these have to be defended, so
the information space became the object of national security. The idea of a unified
information space offered substance for this delimited and protected space. The technological protection of this space is related to the ideas concerning the critical information infrastructure and ASUs. Lastly, the unilateral disconnection, protection, andnationalization of a segment of Internet can be considered an asymmetric responseto the perceived Western information-technological dominance.
The segment is directly related to Russia’s national security interests. The politics related to its borders, resilience, and economic, technological, and cultural potential
make sense only in the context of great power competition. Russian cyber diplomacy
incorporated in the Digital Economy Programme is also a civilizational and worldorder project. It is an effort to create an alternative system of Internet governancebased on alternative values and power centres and thus it is an attempt to strengthen
Russia’s power, status, and independence. This is apparent in the way Russia is building regional norms through the CIS, CSTO and SCO. The national segment is a potential source of power as it offers a platform for scientific-technological advances,even breakthroughs, which might affect the balance-of-power between the great powers and offers Russia ways to change the current status quo. However, because theinformation space has so far lacked borders and, thus, juridical and practical state
control, it has also been a source of danger and threats. In the Russian view, this spacemust be shaped and controlled so it can function as a source of power instead of a379

source of vulnerability. The Russian perception of the character of war is changing
ever more towards a version where the borders between war and peace become increasingly blurry, and the potential enemy tries to win conflicts without the use of
conventional force. The will of the population and decision-makers, and the economy
have become military-political targets. Therefore, state control of the national information space and its component part, the national segment of the Internet, is imperative to succeed in the continuous great power, zero-sum struggle.
Information confrontation as part of the interstate struggle thus gives reason to build
such systems as GosSOPKA, TsMUSSOP, and Upravlenie, and to adopt laws restricting the flow of information and ownership of the infrastructure in which that
information resides. Information is power and, thus, critical information infrastructure is either a component part of that power or its source. No great power can leavethis source unprotected or unharnessed. This means also that the 2017 Strategy of theDevelopment of Information Society and the Programme of the Digital Economy asa state-led, national economic project makes sense as a national security strategy. The
development of the national segment cannot be left to private companies, non-governmental organizations, and individuals. Although the information struggle is admittedly more about the information and its consumers than infrastructure, the services
enabling the creation and dissemination of information must still be controlled. If theregulation and its autarkic tendencies improve the competitiveness of Russian ICT
companies, even better—if not, that is the cost of regime security.
The increased measures to protect the national segment of the Internet and the ultimate option of disconnecting it from the global Internet are quite reasonable meansof strategic deterrence. If future wars will begin with delegitimizing the enemy alreadyin peacetime—and this includes the delegitimization of the regime in the eyes of its
citizens—disconnecting the Internet makes sense. Enemy propaganda and attacks
against critical infrastructure are thus denied their main attack vector. A successful
deterrence by denial includes the communication to the potential opponents that theiruse of force and threat of it will not succeed. Moreover, as China has demonstrated
with its ‘Great Cannon’, a state-controlled Internet, especially as interconnected as
the Russian segment is, can be used to launch massive attacks against individual services or infrastructure of the Internet.2445 These kinds of attacks and attacks launchedfrom third countries can be combined with kinetic precision strikes and special forces
operations to achieve strategic effects. The Russian leadership most certainly understands that the Internet can be weaponized. As informatization and digitalization proceed, Russia becomes as vulnerable to these attacks as any other state.
The current Russian understanding of avoiding war as a continuum of creating defensive power, preventing threats from materializing, and deterrence through denial
and retaliation in a whole-of-state approach combining diverse means at the state’s
disposal provides good reason for shaping cyberspace. It is based on strategic level
preparation of battlespace and deterrence signalling. The information space and its
infrastructure need to be controlled already in peacetime because that is when information superiority is achieved on a strategic level, or at the latest in the first moments
2445 The Citizen Lab. China’s Great Cannon. Research Brief, April 2015 [Online]. Available: https://citi-

zenlab.ca/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/ [Accessed: 20th May 2019]; Demchak & Shavitt 2018.

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of the initial phase of war. The strategic deterrence fails if the potential enemy’s superiority is not already denied in peacetime. This idea is present in all strategic planning documents from the Information Security Doctrine to the Digital Economy programme. The building of deterrence requires the education of cadres, building of infrastructure, improving security and management, scientific-technological research,
economic development, and international normative regulation to prevent threats andto legitimize Russian countermeasures in the case of ‘the hostiles use of ICT.’ Furthermore, this deterrence must be projected to outer space as the information spaceis ever more reliant on satellite communications. Different spheres of human action
intermingle in the context of strategic deterrence.
The military-strategic reorientation of the Russian regime regarding the Internet in2014 was not only defensive in nature. As the idea of an asymmetric response can be
described as overcoming an adversary’s systems while at the same time protecting
one’s own systems in an innovative and cost-effective manner, the control of the national segment and its disconnection from the global Internet makes sense. This is a
way to shape the battlespace in such a way that a potential enemy loses its advantage
and remains vulnerable. In fact, the current United States cyber strategy argues thatwhile the United States is a superpower it is also vulnerable to cyber threats.2446 An
asymmetric response also resonates with the scientific-technological and high technology import substitution programmes and policies the Russian regime has initiatedin the context of the 2014–2018 strategies and programmes. Future and disruptive
technologies are at the forefront of the agenda of national scientific research. Similar
efforts have been undertaken in the military sector, which proves that the Russian
regime is searching for disproportionate advantages in the security sphere. The ideaof an asymmetric response has thus at least two dimensions: the denial of the use of
information space from advanced opponents and the search for counter-weapons.
This is almost the same ‘recipe’ that the Soviet Union implemented in 1986-1989.
However, as the history of the idea of asymmetric response has shown, it is both atactical and political tool, promising decisive impact on the battlefield or on the balance of power. The latter can be discarded when other solutions present themselves—either a secure defence or a comfortable balance of power. Therefore, if the national
segment proves to be an inefficient solution or the strategic environment changes, it
might be abandoned.
The idea of information sovereignty was codified as the policy of digital sovereignty
in 2017 at same time the national segment of the Internet became to denote the territorial borders of the Russian state in cyberspace. However, as was noted above,
information and digital sovereignty are not synonyms. Digital sovereignty centres
around the national control of the information infrastructure and technological independence. Information sovereignty requires both but is not limited to them. Information sovereignty is about the state control of information and the integrity andinviolability of the space in which that information circulates. Thus, the building
blocks of information sovereignty include all the international treatises and initiatives,
domestic censorship laws, doctrines, strategies, concepts and programmes adopted
2446 The President of the United States. The National Cyber Strategy of the United States of America, Septem-

ber, 2018 [Online]. Available: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/National-CyberStrategy.pdf [Accessed: 20th May 2019].

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after 2011, and particularly after 2014, and their political, cultural, economic, societal,
and military results. Perhaps the difference between external and internal sovereignty
clarifies the roles of information and digital sovereignty. Information sovereignty ismore about the right of the state to be free of outside interference whereas digital
sovereignty is more about the state’s i.e. the ruling elite’s right to exploit its ‘natural
cyber resources’. State sovereignty is the one idea that resonates through all Russianpolicies and gives them undeniable reason. Information sovereignty legitimizes the
top-to-bottom state control of the bottom-to-top evolved Internet. Thus, information sovereignty becomes a new aspect of state sovereignty, and the national segment anchors it to a ‘physical’ space.
Information sovereignty has legitimized the state-led development of the national
segment of the Internet. As sovereignty is based on the balance-of-power thinking,the increased sovereignty of some implicates decreased sovereignty for others. It isthen reasonable that Russian policies promote information security, and the development of infrastructure and the domestic ICT sector. A state without certain information technological resources such as a national system of encryption, domestic operating systems, and communication satellite fleet is not truly sovereign. Any dependency is a possible disproportionate and exploitable vulnerability, and thus a potential
source of asymmetry. It needs to be emphasised that this aspect of information sovereignty was not always as strong as it currently is. During Medvedev’s era and wellinto Putin’s third term, Russia’s dependency on foreign technology grew—and is still
growing in some sectors as Chinese products enter Russian markets. Clearly then,sovereignty must be understood in a context of a question: sovereignty in relation towhom, and, thus, how much?
The development of the national segment is not only based on technological andeconomic potential. As Ristolainen and I have argued, through ideas presented by
Russian scholars, digital sovereignty requires the delineation, control, and protectionof digital borders.2447 These functions are present in the Russia’s cyber diplomatic
norm-building efforts, the Information Security Doctrine, the Law on Critical Information Infrastructure and in the new so-called Law on the Sovereign Internet. Their
implementation can be observed in how the state-owned companies acquire criticalinformation infrastructure and in how the part of the infrastructure left in private
hands is put under mandatory regulation and state surveillance. Moreover, data sovereignty is constructed through data localization and retention laws, and with TsMUSSOP, GosSOPKA and SORM, the borders are finally erected. In this scheme, criticalinformation infrastructure is the physical element of the national segment of the Internet which itself is the basis for digital sovereignty. Therefore, to summarize thecurrent Russian approach to ‘digital sovereignty’, it can be understood as the extension of the authority and control of a territorial state to the national segment of theInternet, which consists of the infrastructure of the Internet and other network related ICT systems located on its territory or under its jurisdiction. A wider concept is‘information sovereignty’ which additionally includes the information residing or
flowing through those ICT systems and the interaction of its users, i.e. a sphere ofactivity.
2447 Kukkola, Juha and Ristolainen, Mari. Projected Territoriality: A Case Study of the Infrastructure of Russian‘Digital Borders’, Journal of Information Warfare, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2018), 83-100.

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The national segment of the Internet replaced the unified information space as a central term as the importance of digitalization and the Internet grew. The EIP was nevertruly defined in the official documents and it variously included both technologicaland psychological aspects of information. Somewhat surprisingly, ‘information space’
was first defined in the international agreements in the late 2000s and early 2010s andthose definitions included infrastructure, information as well as the consciousness ofusers. The distinction was the lack of the term ‘unified’ which referred to a certain
way of arranging and delimiting space. Thus, the need to establish state sovereignty
over a certain part of the global information space and the technology-infrastructureoriented policies of the 2010s required a more precise concept than the EIP. The
national segment of the Internet, which had first referred to the domain name systemand then been developed in the framework of CIS/CSTO into a political concept,
was adopted for official use in the 2017 Strategy. The national segment of the Internet
combined the internal way of shaping national cyberspace and the external necessity
to define its borders. This is also the reason RuNet was not accepted as an official
concept as it does not follow Russian territorial state borders. The national segmentof the Internet is not an exclusively technological or material concept because it isalso a place or sphere of activity. Therefore, the arguably Russian way of understanding infrastructure, information, and its users as a system is also present in the conceptof the national segment. Thus, both digital and information sovereignty can be understood to function as systems. The idea of EIP still influences the way the optimal
way of controlling and structurally arranging the national segment is understood. The
technological and psychological nature of the EIP is apparent in the way that strategicplanning and policy documents incorporate diplomacy, strategic communications,public affairs, economy, education, science, security and infrastructure under the concept of information. Consequently, the EIP is about the shaping of information space,
not just about how the infrastructure or organizations should be arranged. This approach enables effective resilience against all information threats and enables the mobilization of the society and economy to produce potential power.
The ‘unified, vertically integrated, automated, state information system’ Upravlenie
and the networks supporting it are the concrete manifestation of EIP and ASUs. It,
and other more recent systems such as TsMUSSOP, GosSOPKA, ESPD, NSUD, theenergy-sector and OPK information systems, and networks of NKTsKI and
RKTsKIs, as well as national situation centres, follow the same principles of verticalcontrol and horizontal integration. Information flows towards the national decisionmaking elites to establish total situation awareness and knowledge, and orders flow
downwards in accordance with strategic planning and control. These systems form asystem of control, not only of the information space, but also of the Russian state.
The EIP and its Soviet roots resonate strongly with how these systems are being envisioned and built, although the results might deviate somewhat from the ideal.
The efforts to build the OATsSS or MTSS, and the whole system of military command and control with its hierarchical structure of command centres, a system formobilization and territorial defence, and a system for controlling the OPK are quite
reasonable if understood through the idea of EIP. Both the civilian and military solutions have definite similarities with the concepts proposed by the Russian information
security theorists already at the beginning of the 2000s. A system, or more precisely asystem of systems, is being built to control political, military, and economic aspects383

of the state and society. The systems are used as a tool for forcing the ‘power vertical’
onto cyberspace as the separated networks of different ministries and agencies arecollected under one management. A national system of cryptography, domestic operating systems and other software solutions, and a control system over the borders of
the national segment of the Internet would enforce the unity of Russian information
space contra other segments of Internet.
Aspirations, intent and reality should be separated from each other. Unity is an idea,
an aspiration. Any computer network where information flows freely is by its nature
unified and single. The ‘Russianness’ of the EIP is thus a complex question. The‘shutting down’ of the Internet was debated in the United States already in 2010, as
has been a national monitoring systems, and the Clipper chip, i.e. a national encryption system was proposed already in the 1990s.2448 China’s ‘Great Firewall’ has been
operational since the late 1990s.2449 Furthermore, the idea of increasing intragovernmental cooperation, information sharing, resilience of national systems, and thewhole-of-government approach all sound much like the ideas that circulated in theWestern policy circles in the 2010s. The argument however is that the EIP is something more. ‘Upravlenie’, OATsSS etc. are more than computer networks offering
information sharing and services—they are a means to control and shape cyberspace
into a national segment or kibernetik system of state management. They have a distinct political, economic and social function. Furthermore, they are based on different
ideas.
One reason to control and shape cyberspace according to the EIP is information
superiority. This intertwining of the ideas of the EIP and information superiority was
noted in Chapter 5. The information-technological and psychological aspects of thissuperiority are both present in Russian policies from 2011 onwards. The laws adopted
against foreign media holdings, foreign supported NGOs, registration of ORIs andstate blacklisting are proof of the psychological, or moral, cultural and political aspects. The technological aspect is present in import substitution and domestic production support policies, state ownership of critical information infrastructure, and in
the search for scientific-technological breakthroughs. The search for superiority andits denial from potential opponents legitimizes state investment in the backbone networks, satellite communications, super and quantum computers, AIs, and encryption.
It also makes it reasonable to search for allies and to create networks with them whichenable the sharing of information, common situation awareness, and the joining andsynchronization of assets. Information superiority has its geopolitical characteristics
which become ever more important as the idea of information sovereignty spreads.
The idea of information superiority is related to military issues and the doctrine, paradigm or theory of NCW. According to this doctrine, no future conflict or war canbe won without information superiority. The arms procurement programme showsthat the Russian military has accepted this idea although with its own national characteristics.2450 The idea of information superiority emphasises the need for real-time,processed knowledge made available to the decision-makers at the highest levels of
2448 Rid 2016, 274-276.
2449 Inkster 2016.

2450 Cf. Persson 2016; Westerlund, Fredrik and Oxenstierna, Susanne (eds.) Russian Military Capability in a Ten-

Year Perspective – 2019. Stockholm: FOI, 2019.

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national and military command. NDMC, OATsSS and MTSS are a proof of how thisidea has reached the Russian military and security elites. Because of the criticality of
information superiority, it makes sense for the military to construct its own networks
from the physical level upwards. On the issues of national security, public-private
partnerships can only be a temporary solution. The military of a great power needs tocontrol its own networks, like it has its own blue water navy, nuclear weapons andsatellites. It can be argued that the urgency of information superiority can be confusedwith the prestige, status, and the trappings of a great power. A more critical issue isthat there is a certain tension between constructing a delineated national segment of
the Internet and the requirements of strategic military communications. What will
happen to military communications, to a state’s own and allied forces, if the national
segment is disconnected? It is therefore understandable that the military has beeninterested in the implementation of Digital Economy Programme.
The technological and psychological aspects of the information space and warfare
appear side-by-side in Russian policies, which has made it difficult to analyse the national segment as a purely technological phenomenon. However, they are distinct aspects of the same phenomena producing distinct policies and state behaviour. The
concept of information security (informatsionnaia bezopasnost’) in the informationsociety and economic policies refers in part to the same real issues as the Westernconcept of cyber security. The Russian laws on the ensuring of integrity, resilience,and security of the CII can be read by any Western cybersecurity expert and be understood to concern cyber, not information issues. This version of cyber security hassome Russian characteristics. It is state-led and controlled but depends on a Russian
version of public-private partnerships. The ISPs are required by law to protect theirinfrastructure, share all relevant information with the state, and release control of theirsystems and networks to the state if the situation so requires. Moreover, they will pay
for this protection themselves. The main information and cyber security actors are
however the FSB, the FSO, the FSTEK and the Minkomsviaz’ with its agencies. They
monitor, supervise and control the federal subjects and private actors. This is cybersecurity with mandatory compliance and state verification.
The Russian military recognises information-technological warfare as a collection oftechnologies and means of using them. This mixture of more conventional means,such as computer attacks and EW, and exotic and future technologies is a distinctly
Russian approach. It might produce interesting combinations, unexpected synergy,
and new paths of thinking. However, military power is used based on available technology, organization, and doctrine. Based on the examination of military issues above
it is safe to argue that the military has its strategic cyber forces in the GRU, and operational-tactical forces under the General Staff in the directorates, scientific institutions and the EW troops, and tactical forces in troops of various services. The Armed
Forces also have psychological warfare directorates and troops which are ever morepervasive in the military organizations and resembling the Soviet era political commissar system. The ideas of information-technological warfare promoted by the military academicians resonate with how the military conducts itself. The OATsSS,
MTSS, satellite communications, and field communications are built upon the principles of resilience, continuity, efficiency, and secrecy. Moreover, instead of adopting apassive defensive doctrine the Russian military has experimented with the denial of
information space with its electronic ‘A2/AD’ capabilities and anti-satellite weapons.
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Moreover, information-technological warfare has its role in mobilization, strategic deployment, and the initial phase of war—and in extraterritorial operations. It can havestrategic effects, comparable to nuclear weapons, and needs to be incorporated instrategic and operational planning. Although the Armed Forces have their own tasks
and probably concentrate on protecting military networks and services, the whole-ofstate and government approach manifested in strategic planning and the concept ofterritorial defence gives reason to suspect that the military could take part in protecting civilian or at least military-industrial objects. However, the FSB’s role is dominant
in the peacetime.
The way the Russian decision-makers seem to promote systems and systems of systems in the area of information security becomes understandable through the Soviet
tradition of ASUs. The idea of centralized systems of control is a repeating theme in
the way the Russian regime has tried to shape the cyber and information space in the
2000s. After 2011, information became an object of control and automated or semiautomated systems began to be built to enable the subject, i.e. the state, to exercisethat control. Networks of information collection (more than sharing) and situation
centres were envisioned to manage society and the economy. A system of systems has
started to take shape. Arguably, it might be just a result of a common, but not shared,
idea pursued by different sectors of the government for their own ends. However,
the idea has been carried over from the Soviet times by the scientific institutions now
with new resources, financing, and avenues of influence at their disposal. The principles of efficiency, continuity, readiness, stability, reliability (resilience), and secrecy
characterize this system of systems. It is goal-oriented and constructed for a purpose.
There is friction between these principles and others upon which an information society could be built such as the efficient flow and sharing of information and thecreative formation of knowledge.2451 The dialectics of Soviet ideas and modern technology and values will most probably produce novel and unpredictable results.
The ASUs and kibernetik thinking behind these aspects have promoted the idea ofsystemic confrontation. Although it is difficult to find traces of this kind of theoreticalthinking in the Russian policies of the 2000s and 2010s, it is arguably present in theway the defence and security elite have promoted Russia or Eurasia as a distinct entity.
This entity should have its own norms, systems and information flows, and a united
stance against others (the West) on how the international cyber and information spaceshould be shaped. In practise, the borders of this system are fuzzy and the component
parts i.e. states have had their own contradictory agendas. Systems theory might help
to understand how the Russian elite sees the Post-Soviet space and tries to control it.
If the EIP is understood as a system, then it should be defended as a system. In thiscontext, systems theory might help to explain the Russian active and offensive actions
as the interaction between systems. However, to characterize the Russian policies asbased on an already ongoing information war where the borders of war and peace
have blurred is at least slightly doubtful.2452 This view excludes the presence, nature,and interaction of the other systems (great powers) in the international system. Moreover, the view offers a very particular interpretation of ‘war’ and interprets Russian
elites’ rhetorical statements as true beliefs.
2451 Castells 2010.

2452 As Oscar Jonsson does (Jonsson 2019, 157).

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Based on the above summary of the interaction of strategic cultural ideas, strategic
environment and Russian policies I argue that the national segment of the Internet isa reasonable strategic answer to perceived challenges. However, it is necessary topoint out that the group of strategic cultural ideas I have chosen to analyse in thisstudy was not exhaustive. At least the idea of geography or territoriality and the ideasof how the Russian state should be organised, governed and secured have had an
influence. The information security policy, territorial defence and strategic planningare policy prescriptions derived from these. Moreover, history is itself an idea which
has been constantly used to legitimize policies. These have now been included in theanalysis implicitly. Moreover, politics, and history can be considered more as
worldviews than causal and principled beliefs, although the borders are admittedly
fuzzy. There have also been ‘fads’ or ideas that have come and gone out of favour,
like the liberal economic ideas. Their influence has been perhaps more important inareas which were not the focus of this thesis.
7.3

Epistemic communities

Where did the ideas for the national segment of the Internet come from? Many of theideas examined in Chapters 4 and 5 have long historical roots and their influence on
the decision-making elites has waxed and waned over time. However, as Andrei Soldatov and Michael Rochilitz have demonstrated in one of the latest analysis of the security services’ influence on Russian politics, it is quite difficult to tell when the actionsof the Russian elites fit the ideas kept by certain communities.2453 Did the elites reallyhold the same ideas or did the events and actions just support the views of thosecommunities? The importance of ‘the siloviki’ cannot be dismissed, but there havealso been many other sources of reasons for action. Some of them reside outside
Russian borders and outside the purview of any one group or community of people.
Liberal economic ideas have, for example, constantly challenged strategic culturalideas in national planning documents. This might explain why the idea of controlling
the Internet did not break through around 2006–2009 during Putin’s patriotic, sovereignty-based and traditionalist great power policy and the high tide of the power ofthe siloviki. Although, it might have been the case that in the 2000s the Russian Internet was not yet perceived by the elites as a significant political space or a source ofpower and welfare. Perhaps the Russian elites were still reluctant to identify with the
Chinese ‘Eastern choice’. It is also possible that the Russian ideas interacted with theideas held by epistemic communities and elites of other post-Soviet countries. In thissense the 2000s were a kind of incubation period of old Soviet ideas. During this time
the Russian reactions to Western ideas, their assimilation or refutation, was the mostimport source of new ideas. This process made it possible to define what was meantby sovereignty and the national segment by contrasting them with Western ideas. As
Russia turned away from the West, Chinese ideas and deep-rooted Soviet memories
were ready to provide answers. Although, it must be pointed out, that evidence of thepresence of Chinese ideas in the texts of epistemic communities chosen for this study
was hard to find.
What about the people with the ideas? The most obvious case of an epistemic community providing ideas for the elites is the establishment of the cyber diplomacy team2453 Soldatov & Rochlitz 2018.

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and the composing of the first Information Security Doctrine. Here, ex-FSB/KGB
officers and military men brought with them Soviet era ideas, and by fitting new andold ideas together a reaction to the changing environment the Russian understandingof information space was established. These people were incorporated into the elitethemselves in the 2000s. A second, but a related group of people were the information
theorists, many with security services backgrounds, but also including civilian cybernetists, who promoted systems theoretical approach for the control of the new information space. They were also partly incorporated into the elite. A third distinct groupare the military academicians, whose ideas about the changing character of war havebeen highly influential. Some of them have risen from the institutions to the Security
Council. A fourth group are the (legacy) nuclear arms control people like Andrei Kokoshin who brought with them the idea of the asymmetric response as they became
part of the decision-making elite or leading academicians in the 1990s. There have, ofcourse, been other groups influencing Russian policies directed at shaping cyberspace.
The civilian institutions, economic think tanks and forums, and lobbyist organizationsquite probably have had their effect. Perhaps a cross simplification would be to argue
that the siloviki carried ideas about state security and struggle, information theorists
ideas about systems, military academicians ideas about deterrence, warfare and superiority, and nuclear arms control people ideas about balance and asymmetry.
Epistemic communities provided a theoretical device to legitimate the selection ofsources for this thesis. They also provided a theory of how ideas held in a society
transfer into the policies of the ruling regime. Although, it has not been in the centreof the thesis I have been able to demonstrate that there have been definite ‘circles’ of
people who have offered their ideas concerning information security to the elites.
Although others have pointed out the role of cybernetists, kagebists, gereushniks andinstitutchikis my analysis highlights the group of ex-KGB/FSB cryptologists and IW
operators, some ex-military officers, and the cybernetists in the surviving military andcivilian research institutes who have penetrated the Security Council, the diplomatic
corps, and academia. Still, the secrecy of the world these men (and men they mostly
are in Russia) occupy makes it difficult to claim anything specific about their influence.
Moreover, it is difficult to define where an epistemic community ends and a state elite
begins when the people, in addition to ideas, move back-and-forth between the academia and the halls of power. These observations point out the need to tailor any
cultural approach to the political system under study.
What can be claimed is that the Russian military and civilian security communities
have been in constant communication with internal and external influences. They
have been quite ready to adopt foreign ideas at least in the security and defence
spheres. They have been highly interested in American operations, doctrines and theories and have drawn their own conclusions from them. Sometimes Western ideas arepresented as Russian ideas. On the other hand, there are those scholars who use Western primary sources and, in fact, manage to refer to somewhat obscure Western works
to make their point. Thus, they offer a venue for studying the West through foreign,and sometimes revealing, eyes. Overall, there has been a constant flow of Westernideas into Russia. Some of these have been adopted, others adapted, and the rest
discarded. Interestingly, Chinese ideas (expect Sun Tzu’s) are rarely if ever mentioned.
The same issue can be observed with ideas from post-Soviet countries. This does not388

mean that there are no influences. Just that the sources used in this thesis rarely mention Chinese or post-Soviet sources. As the interest in the Russian military strategic
thinking has reawakened, it is quite possible that the tide of influence of ideas is yet
again turning, this time from Russia to the West.
It must be noted that only a few of the texts analysed in this thesis are critical of theofficial policies or offer something that is not initially based on official concepts.
Moreover, the border between independent epistemic communities and the elite issomewhat vague in the area of security policy where the political allegiance to theregime is a source of resources and legitimacy and many scholars and journalist areserving or ex-officers. However, Russian scholars and officers have been left withplenty of room to discuss the substance of the officially adopted ideas at least up until
2014. It needs to be also highlighted that the adoption of ideas by the elites, understood as their appearance in strategic documents or speeches of national decisionmakers, does not mean that the Russian state has acted upon those ideas. It is possible
to argue that everything the strategies and programmes of the late 2010s include werealready proposed in earlier documents. Therefore, the relationship between the epistemic communities, elites, policies, actual state behaviour and its efficiency is highly
complex and affected by the states’ ability to mobilize resources, by the elite’s twolevel games, and the strategic environment, among other things.
7.4

The segment as a closed national network

The national segment of the Internet is being implemented through the Doctrine ofInformation Security, the Strategy of the Development of Information Society and
the National Programme of the Digital Economy influenced by strategic cultural ideas
carried by the epistemic communities and, consequently, by the Russian security anddefence elites. The deadline for ‘digital sovereignty’ is 2020, and for a state-controlledInternet and ‘digital economy’ it is 2024. Currently, the interaction of strategic culturalideas, technology and the bottom-to-top evolved Russian Internet has produced theRussian segment of Internet which is based on a resilient, highly connected and interconnected national network with increasing state control over infrastructure. A topto-bottom control is being forced on the bottom-to-top evolved Internet. State control consists of multiple systems to monitor, protect, and control the national networks, and systems for providing the state the means to gather information and touse that information to control the society and the economy. The systems are used asa tool for forcing ‘power vertical’ on cyberspace as the separated networks of different
ministries and agencies are collected under one management scheme. Moreover, state
owned firms are building a network of state datacentres and acquiring the CII of theRussian Internet. The Armed Forces and the MoD, together with other power ministries, are building a network of nationwide, whole-of-state situation and commandcentres. In principle, this project has similarities to the one unsuccessfully pushed by
the Soviet cybernetists from the 1960s to 1980s.
However, this system of control is being planned and implemented by a multitude ofactors with the security services in the lead—thus security overrides economic concerns. The segment is in practise a collection of barely interconnected networks, andsystem and services, regulation, and policies. Some of them have been in the works
from the 1990s onwards. Overlapping functions, friction from trying to force control389

over already established networks, problems with integrating non-compatible legacy
systems, crippling secrecy based on the influence of the security services, rent seeking
and organizational rivalries all hinder the achievement of the ‘kibernetik’ dreams. The
result is a Russian way to shape cyberspace, and thus it might be unique. As wasargued in Chapter 3.2.2, the space Russia is shaping is malleable, but it is also resistantand contested. No single state can impose its will and power upon the whole of cyberspace for an infinite time. Soviet ideas cannot be applied in their exact old forms
in the context of new technology and post-industrial economic systems. There are,however, no theoretical obstacles for building national territorial political, military,and economic management networks based on the Internet. The critical issue iswhether these systems provide any kind of advantage. Can the Russian concept ofASUs, for example, provide a breakthrough synthesis with modern AI technology?
Because the interplay of ideas, technology and power in the context of cyberspacecontinues, it is safe to argue that the policies and systems described in Chapter 6 willchange and evolve in the coming years.
In Chapter 6.5 I interpreted the Russian national segment of the Internet as a national
system of systems of information security and defence based on the Russian strategic
cultural ideas. This segment does not yet fully exist. It is currently being shaped into
being by Russian strategies, policies and laws. This approach resonates with the ideas
proposed by Russian information warfare scholars who envision information space
as a system, information warfare as a struggle between systems, and the controllingof that struggle as the task of a national system of command, control and management. This system of systems is composed of subsystems which are not exclusively
technological. They should be understood more as technological, governance, norms,
organizational, economic, and security and military instruments and functions to control and shape the technological and psychological aspects of the whole system. Admittedly, such a system of systems is an interpretation and an analytic concept, but aswas argued in Chapter 6, it is something that the scholars whose writings have been
analysed in this thesis, and perhaps even the elites informed by them, would recognize
and understand.
I have analysed the Russian national segment as a system of systems of information
security and defence through the continuum of interstate relations and threats. The
system consists of seven subsystems each with their own elements, functions, andobjectives. These systems include the scientific-technological basis, the national authentication and encryption system, the administrative and technical measures to remove from and restrict access to unwanted content on the Internet, targeted surveillance systems and massive Internet data traffic localization and retention systems,
critical information infrastructure and its regulation, and the Russian cyber diplomacy
efforts and its organizations. The seventh system controls all the others, so the system
is centralized and hierarchical. I have left the analysis of the interaction between thesubsystems beyond the scope of this study.
Based on my analysis I argue that the system of systems could provide a flexible andcentralised way to ensure information-technological and information-psychologicalintegrity, resilience and security of the Russian segment of Internet, and that it mighteven work as a deterrent. The systems theoretical logic behind this argument is thatas Russia cannot move itself or destroy its opponents, it can only protect itself by390

building borders and by modifying itself. Systems thinking also highlights that thesystem of systems is a constant and fundamental part of Russian state security operating already in peacetime. Information threats can be controlled and prevented frommaterializing as the elite sees necessary. The system’s defensive importance is notdiminished if others adopt similar systems as its borders are only territorial representations in the constantly changing cyberspace which cannot be conquered. Most importantly, once this system has been planned, constructed, tested, and exercised it isbasically an autonomous and independent part of the Internet. Its partial or full disconnection can be achieved with known, controllable, and acceptable risks. In 2020
Russia underwent a phase of testing and preliminary exercising.
It is important to consider this model against the reality of the Russian national segment. Thus, it becomes obvious, that there are many ways in which this Russian system of systems might fail or be vulnerable. It is also important to set this system ofsystems in its international context and in the context of global cyberspace. Russian
cyber strategy, even its military part, cannot be disconnected from its political andeconomic alliances or the ways the cyberspace constantly evolves. Thus, it becomes
obvious that the national segment cannot be equated with total isolationism or that
Russia will not find a lasting solution to protect its information space. The way inwhich I have conceptualized the national segment in this thesis always leaves something outside the controlled segment. There are parts of the Russian Internet that theseventh subsystem of information security and defence system will never reach.
I have argued in Chapter 6.5 that if the Russian national segment is considered as arepresentation of the theoretical closed national network, a state controlled segmentof the Internet that can be technically disconnected from the global Internet, that
network should be able to function independently and self-sufficiently. Moreover, tofunction properly this network needs to be centrally and vertically controlled. However, if we compare the Russian system of systems of information security and defence to the arguments presented in Chapter 3.5 it is clear that closed national segments cannot be understood only as static technological cyber security or defence
systems and technical models. They help us understand the military strategic logic ofconstructing them but our analysis of them will be very limited if it excludes political,
normative, organizational, cultural, economic structures, elements and functions.
These systems produce the substance of independence and self-sufficiency of the networks and the practical advantages or disadvantages in situation awareness, decisionmaking, freedom of action, and resilience. They are mobilization systems as much as
they are cyber and information security systems. Moreover, closed national networks
need to be analysed in the context of time, as flexible, changing, controlled and contested constructs. It is then useful to analyse them as systems of systems and to compare models between cases. Arguably, every case has its own framework which conditions the systems and their functions. From a military point of view, it is, however,important not to lose sight of the strategic issues at play. Whatever the compositionand character of these systems are, the objective is to understand their military implications.

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7.5

Russian cyber strategy

Based on my theoretical approach which is based on analytic realist pragmatism andmodified neoclassical realism I have claimed that the ways in which a state uses power
to pursue its interests, including creating more power, are influenced by ideas and itis thus that ideas shape reality through power. In other words, ideas shape the understanding of the environment, give meaning to material power, indicate acceptable andunacceptable strategic choices, and affect the interpretation of one’s own and others’
use of power. They give reasons for certain courses of action. Elites get their ideas
primarily from epistemic communities who are the carriers of ‘all knowable and proposed ideas’ in a society. This system of ideas is open and changing. Furthermore,
new ideas must be ‘fitted’ to old ones—they must make sense in the context of theold. The elites can choose the ideas which they make use of but are at the same time
prisoners of their previous choices. The strategic environment might present new andthreatening situations which requires the elites to find new ideas and solutions.
Cyberspace is an environment in and through which power informed by ideas can beused. It is a new environment with unknown or poorly understood potential threats.
It is a man-made and governed global domain within the information environment
whose distinct and unique character is framed by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to create, store, modify, exchange, and exploit information via
interdependent and interconnected networks using information-communication
technologies. Human action can change cyberspace in ways it cannot change the land,
air, sea or outer space. Because the object of study of my thesis was a certain way touse power, I decided to define cyber power as an ability that empowers an actor to
influence others in or through cyberspace and to control and shape cyberspace to its
advantage according to its preferences. This power is relative and contextual. Cyber
power is defined by its resources and the environment through which it is used. It is
not in any inherent way ‘military’ power, and only the way it is utilized, and its effects
and outcomes give it a military character. Through strategy certain resources at thestate’s disposal can be used, among other things, to control and shape cyberspace.
This strategy is a process and a policy with emergent properties as it is carried out incyberspace and against cyberspace and other actors in it through the continuum ofinterstate relations. Therefore, even though a cyber strategy is not inherently military
it can have intentional and unintentional military effects.
There are multiple ways that cyber power could be used in state to state relations in a
military context. I tentatively defined cyber warfare as the use of force based on cyber
power in or through cyberspace with a coercive intent to make political gains in thecontext of the continuum of interstate relations. In this thesis I chose to concentrate
not on the more traditional compelling, coercive, deterring and brute force aspects
but on the shaping of cyberspace as a strategic-level battlefield. More precisely, I wasinterested in the utilization of cyber power to control and shape cyberspace into a
closed national network. A closed national network has the potential to provide a
disproportionate and exploitable military advantage in cyberspace as the battlefield isshaped to favour one side or state. The military strategic importance of the shapingof cyberspace through national segments is based on the possibility of creating asymmetry. Without asymmetry, national segments would be only instruments of domestic
political control and protectionist economic policies. Therefore, the connection of392

cyber power to warfare is two-fold: it is the potential to use force and it is also thepotential to shape the space in which that force is used.
How do the Russian ideas and policies examined in Chapter 4, 5 and 6 fit the theoretical understandings of cyberspace, cyber power, cyber warfare and strategy? The
drive to control and shape the national segment of the Internet, its structure, borders
and the information in it conforms to the characteristics of Russian cyber power presented in Chapter 5.10. By shaping and controlling cyberspace in a technologicallyindependent national segment, Russia, in principle, would create a measurable potential for power, negate its own vulnerabilities and weaknesses and exploit the vulnerabilities of its opponents. Power is created through the creative use of power. If theUnited States controls the global cyberspace, Russia must create its own space. No
great power can survive in the future interstate information struggle and warfare without its own information society and economy, the ability to protect it and, conversely,
without challenging the United States in its own space. The national segment of theInternet must be ordered and controlled in accordance with the principles of management, vertical control and horizontal integration ensuring the state sovereignty andpower. Inside delineated, protected, and controlled information space a scientific,
technological, economic and human potential can be fostered. This is a cyber strategy
to create power by controlling and thus shaping cyberspace. Parity or even superiority
is achieved already in peacetime which provides a deterrent and a decisive advantage
in a possible, future conflict. Thus, in the light of strategic cultural ideas and policies
analysed in this thesis, what Russia is currently doing in the framework of its strategies
and programmes, makes sense.
The Russian ideas related to the phenomena called cyberspace, cyber power, cyber
warfare and cyber strategy are ultimately not so different from the Western ones. The
information infrastructure is composed of information, systems, and resources, andsometimes of users. It is as material as electromagnetic emissions can be. It forms thebasis of an information space which includes the substance of information, humanminds, and societies. Power in information space is measurable, relational, and can becreated through human action. Power lies in the control over systems, flows, information and the opponent. It is characterised by effectiveness, efficiency, resilience(reliability and stability), flexibility and secrecy. It is based on scientific, technological,
creative, spiritual, economic, and human potential. It is state power related to thecontinuous interstate struggle. Russian views of information-technological IW aresomewhat different from the Western ones as there are at least three ways to understand IW: geopolitical, systemic, and operational-tactical. These understandings are
informed by the persistent measure-countermeasure logic, derived perhaps from material dialectics. Moreover, the Russian views on IW rely on the same approach as
most of the Russian public thinking on warfare as a total great power war either prevented or fought based on geography for the defence of the Motherland. In this context, the idea of plain cyber strategy is nonsensical as it is better understood and served
as a part of strategic planning process.
Based on the effects of the strategic environment and the influence of strategic cultural ideas, I disagree with the interpretation that Russian policies are just tools ofcensorship or political control. The national segment is a response to at least the following threats: the use of the information space for terrorist and criminal purposes,
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interference into the internal affairs of states, the military-political use of the information space, attempts to dominate the information space and to limit the technological sovereignty of other nations. Therefore, Russian policies include aspects ofbuilding sovereignty in a new space, or sphere of activity, and thus shaping the international environment. This occurs through new digital borders, through the conceptof a critical information infrastructure and resilience, through shaping and controllingthe national information space in a certain way and creating military capabilities for
future conflicts and warfare. It was the change in the strategic environment which
made Russia strive to shape cyberspace to protect itself and to even-the-odds withmore powerful adversaries supporting different political and cultural worldviews. Thechange of policy was not simply an autocratic reflex of Vladimir Putin and his supporters in the face of political opposition.2454 Consequently, Russia has shifted toshaping its own national cyberspace to create power while still pursuing changes of
the rules through international norm building after 2014. However, it is quite possiblethat the same process would have taken place without the war in Ukraine, althoughmore slowly.
The Russian approach leads to a certain amount of friction between civilian and military strategies. As was argued above, a closed national network requires the mobilization of a wide range of state institutions and multiple different sources of potential
power. Its effects are so broad that a purely military approach will fail. Conversely, apurely civilian approach will also fail as military networks are part of cyberspace, ormore precisely, part of the information infrastructure that forms the backbone of thedigital territory. If the battlespace changes unexpectedly under the feet of friendly
forces a catastrophic failure awaits. Moreover, every closed national network is shaped
into being in accordance with nation-specific strategic cultural ideas. If the ideas ofthe military and the defence and security elites correlate and support each other all iswell. If not, then the civil-military relationships start to affect the way a closed national
network is constructed and functions.
Although the Russian cyber strategy utilizes a whole-of-state approach it also has adefinite military aspect. The creation of an EIP for the Armed Forces is at the heartof Russian military policy. Additionally, an asymmetric response is present in the understanding of an ever-continuing information weapon counter-weapon struggle.
New technologies and creativity will hopefully provide positively disruptive solutions.
The problem is how to keep this process in the framework of a cost-effective andinnovative policy. Without an information-technological industrial base, it is difficult
to produce cheap, secure and game changing military technologies. Moreover, without ‘cyber wars’ to prove testing fields for new weapons and defences on the strategiclevel their development is necessarily based on visions and conjecture. All this demonstrates that the use of cyber power for warfare, either as force or to shape the battlefield, is a complex issue. The Russian approach may be the new doctrine of deep
battle and operations or it might be another Maginot line.

2454 Furthermore, it shows a certain lack of imagination to think that a state’s way to prepare and fight a war in

the age of cyber warfare can be derived from how its secret services conduct espionage, subversion and sabotage operations.

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Although, the Russian policies are for the most part threat-based, as are by definition
all security policies. To approach them as an expression of a Soviet fortress mentality,
or interpreting the national segment as a besieged fortress, risks missing some important features of the Russian strategy. Firstly, it is possible that Russian policies are
directed by ideas with roots much farther back in history than the Soviet times. The
ways to arrange state power in Russia have developed in the context of a vast, multiethnic, imperial Russia over hundreds of years. Secondly, to argue that Russia sees
itself in a constant state of warfare or in active containment by the West restricts theunderstanding of the many directions and interests of Russian foreign and security
policies. Thirdly, Russian cyber strategy has an outward directed aspect which is not
focused on the West. It aims to shape the cyberspace on a global scale. The strategy
is inclusive as it is expanding to Eurasia and China, possibly beyond. It promotes
regional norm-building. In addition to security issues this aspect is related to the cultural, economic and social interests of a great power. Fourthly, the national segment
is not only a space but a system of integrated and standardized communication networks and data resources, a system of security and management, and a system ofoperational, political, social and or economic control and management. It is a way toorganize state sovereignty in cyberspace and, therefore, it is no more isolationist than
any claim of sovereignty.
There are thus many reasons why the dreams of John Perry Barlow never came to be.
In addition to the suspicion of authoritarian leaders towards the free flow of information, and the arguably Western desire to make cyberspace a domain of war, theSoviet ‘kibernetik’ dreams of hierarchical and centrally state controlled networks
where power flows in the form of information provide one further explanation. I do
not claim that Berg, Kitov, Liapunov and others dreamed of complete totalitarian
control, just that their ideas have been finally adopted by those in power and fitted totheir own needs. Based on the research conducted in this thesis I argue that Russia iscreating a national segment of the Internet because it makes sense for the epistemic
communities and the security and defence elites in the context of the current strategic
environment to create a system of systems of information security and defence tomanage and control their society and economy and to protect the state against internaland external threats. This system aims to produce cyber power and possibly military
strategic advantages. Although the system is being built in the 21st century, it is stillbased on the dreams, memories, and beliefs of the people who witnessed the unexpected and unfair demise of the Soviet Union. The Russian national segment is then,at least partly, an effort to right a historical wrong with new tools—to create a digital
Soviet Union that will survive the machinations of its enemies.
7.6

Reflections

How do the findings in this thesis add to or differ from the findings in previous studies on Russian information warfare? First, I have produced substance for the claim of
Demchak and Dombrovski who have argued that the fragmentation of the Internet
has a military aspect and that this fragmentation might benefit states seeking sovereignty. I have analysed some of the reasons behind Russia’s policy of promoting information sovereignty and I have dug deep into the concept of information sovereignty to add to the research of, among others, Eneken Tikk, Mika Kerttunen andJulian Nocetti. I have shown that although the ideas of the siloviki have had a major395

impact on Russian cyber policies, as Soldatov and Borogan argue, the living legacy of
cybernetics has had at least as powerful an influence. I have further developed theideas of Katri Pynnöniemi on the Russian critical infrastructure. I argue that the integrity, resilience and security the CII now forms the basis of Russian understandingof state cyber security. I have added a new way to use cyber power on a strategic level,
the controlling and shaping of cyberspace, to the theories advocated by Nye, Libicki
and others. Furthermore, through the analysis of strategic cultural ideas I have complemented the research of Gerovich, Peters, Adamsky and Forsström by demonstrating continuity, filling in some gaps and introducing new ideas. Finally, through thestudy of strategic cultural ideas and theory of cyber power I have produced an alternative and more comprehensive explanation of Russian defensive cyber policies thanMartti J. Kari.
It is either a sign of insightful scholarship or a sign of persistence in Russian strategic
thought that in 1998 Timothy Thomas could list ten characteristics of Russian IWthat are still more or less present.2455 Thomas, however, studied ideas almost exclusively, not their implementation. Moreover, the claims by scholars like Giles, Adamsky, Heickerö, Jonsson, Blank about the ‘holism’ and constant continuity of theRussian IW have some truth in them but should not be taken as the whole truth. As
this study brackets Russian offensive operations, I do not claim that Russian offensive
information policies might not be ‘holistic.’ However, on the defensive side the multiplicity of actors and agendas make this claim highly suspect. Moreover, by claimingthat some state thinks that it is at war with us based on the writings of academia is aclaim based on false evidence. I also argue, that only by looking at Russian aggressive
actions against the West, we fall prey to a multiple biases and errors of judgement.
My aim has been to capture as broad a picture of the Russian strategic cultural ideas
as is possible in the context of available sources. I claim that I have succeeded wellenough, but some difficult choices had to be made. For example, I have almost completely left out the statements and speeches of the elite. They are a legitimate source
but would have broadened the already extensive source material even further. Thereis also the issue of translation. All the translations presented in this thesis are mine.
There have been some difficulties in translating certain terms and I might have erredon the side of expediency—a case in point being the use of the terms struggle andconfrontation. However, I believe that I have offered a more precise and comprehensive approach to these terms than previous studies.
I have tried to challenge some of the prevailing Western understandings of Russian
cyber strategy or actions. The Western approach has been based on what Russia isdoing to others, not on what Russia is doing to information or cyberspace or to protect itself. This ‘active’ and ‘offensive’ approach has obscured the Russian perceptionof ‘deterrence’ as constant struggle and competition. When half of the picture is missing there can be no full knowledge of the issue. Moreover, the premises of the Russianuse of information security terms needs to be understood. There is a lot of intentional
political maskirovka but also issues related to how the Russian scholars and the elite
perceive the Western use of information against themselves.

2455 Thomas 1998b.

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Although I have claimed that the Western and Russian thinking on cyber security isquite similar, I do not claim that they are the same. For example, Russian ideas about
information-technological warfare might produce interesting combinations, unexpected synergies and new paths of thinking. What is clear is that the Russians are
susceptible to Western theoretical fads. The NCW and hybrid wars are a case in point.
When reading Russian military and civilian journals one needs to always bear in mind
that as the Russians are discussing themselves through Western examples they might
get caught up in double mirror-imagining themselves.
The texts analysed in this thesis refer to China only passingly. In the 2000s someRussian authors recognized China as a possible adversary, but in the 2010s it has been
mentioned only as a partner, if mentioned at all. On the official side Russia presents
itself as belonging to the same political and cultural bloc with China when it comesto international information security. This would suggest some additional affinity with
China in addition to rational realpolitik calculations. The problem with pointing out
the Chinese influence is that the sources chosen for this study are silent on the issue.
I have taken the liberty to mention China perhaps more often than the sources permit
because there is enough circumstantial evidence presented in Chapter 6 of information security cooperation between the two countries. The reality of that relationship aside, I have come to believe that the Russian understanding of cyber issues
cannot be understood outside the triad of the United States, China and Russia relations, and thus this thesis should be complemented with comparative studies.
I have legitimized my methodological approach in Chapter 2. The main theme characterizing my choices is the bracketing of Positivist causality. The theoretical andmethodological framework of this thesis is by its nature ‘eclectic’. It combines different theories and concepts of IR and Strategic Studies to study a specific problem. As
such, it is vulnerable to criticism, for example, about parsimony and underlying assumptions. My answer to this challenge is an analytic realist pragmatic approach tothe subject of my thesis. Thus, I take a pragmatic approach to my inquiry: I haveinitially engaged the subject of my study to construct a theory that has descriptive
relevance to the problem at hand. I have engaged in self-reflection through dialogue
with previous theoretical literature—including ontological and epistemological discourses. Furthermore, I have been open about my normative assumptions and professional interest in the subject of this thesis.
My interpretive epistemological and methodological approach can also be criticized.
One could ask, what is it that makes strategic cultural ideas so enticing that they havehistorical staying power and have such an influence that Russia tries to shape cyberspace in a distinctly different way than other states? The problem with this approachis that there are any number of answers as previous research on ideas has shown.
Russian actions could be related to, for example, Russian authoritarian political system, geopolitical factors, historical experiences or economic incentives. My approach
can be challenged by all of these through empirical study. My humble goal is to understand how a set of strategic cultural ideas resonates with the policies of Russian
security and military elites to create power in cyberspace by shaping the cyberspace
itself.

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I am cognisant of the way that I have used abduction to build a synthesis of Western
and Russian ideas. Perhaps my interpretation has been distorted by the Western theories and concepts used to build my theoretical framework. Perhaps there is no systemof systems of information security and defence—only fragmented bureaucratic projects informed by similar historical ideas. However, after analysing over 1,000 Russian
articles I believe that there is something that makes sense in theorizing about systems
and control. Moreover, I have referred to sources in Chapter 5 which explicitly referto such systems. I do not claim that the interplay of ideas and material reality will
provide a certain result, only that it makes sense from a point of view of the strategic
cultural ideas to approach the Russian national segment as a system of systems of
information security and defence.
Furthermore, making generalizing claims about such ideas as power is, of course, fullof challenges, starting with the validity of such claims. Ideas must be understood intheir temporal and political context, and the fact that they are ultimately carried andacted upon by human individuals must be recognized. The interpretations I have offered in this thesis are based on immersing myself on Russian ideas though texts produced by a distinct collection of people. My interpretations are subject to the judgement of the scientific community.
There might exist some important ideas I have left out of the analysis or incorporated
incorrectly in other ideas in Chapters 4 and 5. For example, the interstate struggle
includes the character of war, continuum of conflict, comprehensive security, territorial defence, and strategic planning. I have presented these as components of policy
prescriptions, but they might be strategic cultural ideas of their own. I have bracketedideas I have deemed to represent ideologies or worldviews, such as the ‘besieged fortress’ complex. Additionally, I have left the Russian theory of command and control
largely unexplored as it is a subject of study on its own. The concepts of surprise andmaskirovka as the roots of asymmetry have been studied by others, although only
briefly and superficially. My thesis is not a comprehensive study of the Russian strategic thought, but I hope I have captured some important aspects of it.
I have had to leave some important issues concerning closed national networks andasymmetry beyond the scope this thesis because there was no room for them. A critically important issue for further study is the concept of structural cyber asymmetry
and its analysis. Additionally, the development of the multitude of civilian systems
and the vulnerability of the EIP of the Armed Forces to the possible disconnection
from the global Internet of the national segment must be studied. The possibility toshape into being a closed national network with national characteristics raises multiple
military strategic questions related to deterrence and escalation control which are beyond this thesis. The model of the Russian national segment as a system of systems
of information security and defence provides a tool for pursuing comparative studies
of other national segments. Moreover, the themes explored in this thesis should guideIR and Strategic Studies to pay more attention to the political, economic and military
aspects of the shaping of cyberspace by state actors. Dominating narratives should bechallenged and hidden, silent processes should be brought into the daylight.

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National Defence University
Series 1: Research Publications No. 40

Digital Soviet Union
Juha Kukkola

National Defence University
PL 7, 00861 HELSINKI
FINLAND
Tel. +358 299 800
www.mpkk.fi
ISBN 978-951-25-3131-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-951-25-3132-5 (PDF)
ISSN 2342-9992 (print)
ISSN 2343-0001 (web)

Series 1, No 40

The Finnish Defence Forces

Digital Soviet Union
The Russian national segment of the Internet as a closed
national network shaped by strategic cultural ideas
Juha Kukkola