International Security and the role of the Russian Federation

Since the end of the Cold War, the key threat to humankind’s survival - the probability of a global nuclear war between the United States and Russia - has almost vanished: whether through common sense or by chance, the international community managed to see out this threat.

In its place, new threats and challenges have moved to the forefront of the international stage: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery; international terrorism; ethnic and religious conflicts; transnational crime; climate; the environment; shortages of resources; and demographics.

Since the end of the Cold War, the key threat to humankind’s survival - the probability of a global nuclear war between the United States and Russia - has almost vanished: whether through common sense or by chance, the international community managed to see out this threat.

In its place, new threats and challenges have moved to the forefront of the international stage: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery; international terrorism; ethnic and religious conflicts; transnational crime; climate; the environment; shortages of resources; and demographics.

Overall, humankind has, so far, failed to address these issues. Even worse, in the two decades since the Cold War the international community has been less and less effective in delivering the much-needed cooperation on these issues.

1. Structure of International Relations

After the United States failed to ensure unipolarity, the bipolar world was replaced by a polycentric system in international affairs, with several global centers of power (the United States, China, the EU and Russia) and a few emerging regional leaders, some of which (India, Japan, Brazil, South Africa and ASEAN countries) boasted good prospects for becoming global leaders. However, while their economic, science and technology, military and political powers are currently distributed unevenly, their military and political role will be gradually redistributed in line with their economic and science and technology (innovation) potential.

Multinational political and economic agents and institutions, both formal (UN, IAEA, World Bank, IMF) and informal (G8, G20, Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), regional institutions) appear to be playing an ever-growing role. Non-state actors with growing potential in funds and violence (terror organizations, transnational crime, drugs trafficking, and piracy) are also playing an increasingly important role in international affairs. All these trends will continue into 2020 and beyond.

The 21st century’s polycentric world is so radically different from the 19th century’s “Concert of Nations.” The key centers of power are not equidistant: the United States and NATO, the EU and Japan share military and political alliances, with India gravitating towards them, while Russia and China are increasingly in conflict with them and have been moving closer to each other. Domestic political factors, economic interdependence, and shared vulnerability to new security threats are much more important to relations between states and unions.

In this polycentric world, the key divide in international politics through 2020 and beyond clearly runs between the United States and China, despite their vast economic links. A localized conflict could emerge between China and the United States over Taiwan, and both parties have been quietly getting their armed forces ready for such a scenario and, going forward, for global rivalry. For domestic and foreign policy reasons Russia is currently gravitating towards a strategic partnership with China, both bilaterally and through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (also with Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Myanmar). Striving to consolidate its own international coalition, Moscow has focused on its union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

However, despite all these current trends, it is in Russia’s objective interests to do everything within its power to oppose this emerging new bipolarity and to support a polycentric world. Its long-term imperatives for economic and political modernization, as well as national security concerns, all dictate that the priority should be cooperation with the United States, the EU and Japan. This in no way contradicts Russia’s interest in cooperating with China and other Asian countries, as supported by the scope of China’s economic relations with the United States, Japan and the EU, which is higher than that with Russia by an order of magnitude.

2. Armed Conflicts

Photo: zn.ua
A conflict on the Korean Peninsula is quite likely
should the North Korean regime collapse, which
itself seems quite likely to happen at some point
in the next 10 to 15 years

In the foreseeable future, the likelihood of armed conflicts or wars between world powers will remain low. The growing interdependence between the key players in world affairs that results from globalization, and their increasing vulnerability even to a limited use of conventional (let alone nuclear) weapons, make the inevitable damage from any such war completely incommensurate with any economic, political or other gains which they could hope to achieve through conflict. Common threats and shared interests make cooperation between great powers imperative in the international security sphere.

However, their effective cooperation is not a forgone conclusion. While a new cold war in a polycentric and interdependent world is unlikely, failure in the cooperation between the United States and Russia or China could be quite conceivable, with their resulting failure to counter new threats and challenges of the 21st century together.

Conflicts between major regional powers are, relatively speaking, more likely. India and Pakistan will face this kind of serious threat throughout the next decade. The near future will continue to see the ever-present danger of an armed conflict between Israel (with or without the United States) and Iran triggered by the latter’s decision to continue with their nuclear program.

A conflict on the Korean Peninsula is quite likely should the North Korean regime collapse, which itself seems quite likely to happen at some point in the next 10 to 15 years. The danger of these three conflicts is further compounded by the probability that they could escalate – up to the point of the parties involved resorting to nuclear weapons.

In addition, there could be local or regional interstate clashes over access to resources or fresh water, or caused by drug trafficking transit routes, extremist or criminal gangs, environmental damage or forfeited cultural heritage. This is true of some Latin American countries, numerous African states, and some countries in Central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula or Southeast Asia.

Because of the limited military potential or low stakes in such conflicts, these clashes are likely to be limited in scope or duration. The exception could be any possible conflicts in the Persian Gulf or South China Sea, which could potentially involve key regional or even world powers. China and India will see their competition grow, with possible conflicts over energy transportation routes (primarily in the Indian Ocean).

However, the key and comprehensive threat to international stability will come from incidents of trans-boundary or “mixed” violence. These involve domestic ethnic, religious or political conflicts in failing states, which are bound to draw in neighboring states, countries further afield, or their allies. The allies’ interference will aim to support either the rebels against the central government, or help the central government to quell the armed opposition in order to prevent a range of scenarios including humanitarian disaster, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The trend will be towards direct military resistance by states (their alliances and coalitions) to non-state actors: trans-national terrorist networks or groups involved in drug trafficking, piracy, poaching, human slavery, smuggling hazardous materials and technologies both at a regional and global level.

With the further evolution of Islamic states following the 2011/2012 revolutions, conflicts between Shia and Sunni will become increasing likely both domestically in particular countries and at interstate level. Depending on which course this confrontation takes; Islamic nations may establish transnational ideological alliances based on confederations or federations (new types of “caliphates”) that spring up in a new amorphous center of a regional or global scale. The ideological or military expansion of any such new power center may trigger another wave of armed conflict, terrorism or WMD proliferation.

International terrorism not just an international political and ideological movement aimed primarily against European civilization (including the United States and Russia) – it is a huge transnational business. Some estimate this “emerging economy of terror” to be worth around $ 1.5 trillion in 2005 (5 percent of global GDP), and by 2050 it could grow to exceed the GDP of numerous combined G8 powers, let alone the G20.

The greatest danger comes from “super terrorism” or “catastrophic terrorism” i.e. terror acts involving the use of (or threats to use) weapons of mass destruction (WMD): nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological.

Cyber terrorism is also on the increase, with terrorists attacking computer networks seeking to destabilize the vital systems that underpin life in modern society.

3. Military Force in World Affairs

Photo: army-reporter.livejournal.com
Russian peacekeepers in Sudan

Military force will remain an instrument of politics. However, with the growing globalization and countries’ increasing interdependence, its role will be relatively smaller compared to other factors of power. The latter include economic and financial might; pace of innovative development; the ideological appeal of states and their alliances; their level of IT or environmental security; scope of investments abroad; the weight they enjoy in multilateral economic, financial or political organizations and institutions; the extent to which they are involved in peacemaking and humanitarian interventions, and their effectiveness at conflict management diplomacy.

In the military area large-scale wars, or the role of large conventional armies and their mode of deployment, will lose significance, as the role of selective military campaigns and surgical non-nuclear strikes at long distances increases (“contactless wars”), with an associated increase in importance of smaller mobile units, highly trained and equipped for special operations to tackle particular new challenges.

These include: pressure brought to bear on some states, depriving them of their vital economic or military assets (including nuclear facilities or nuclear weapons); enforcing sanctions, disrupting communications, or establishing a blockade.

Through 2020 such actions are deemed to be more likely in conflicts caused by radical Islamic units, or between particular regimes and armed non-state actors; both parties could resort to support from the United States and their allies, or Russia, China, Iran or Saudi Arabia.

We can also expect to see an expansion of military peace enforcement or peacekeeping operations, interventions to prevent genocide, ethnic cleansing or humanitarian crises. The anticipated rise in international terrorism and trans-border crime will understandingly lead to an increase in military contingents and campaigns to disrupt them. A separate area involves the use of force against nuclear proliferation or to prevent terrorists from gaining access to nuclear weapons.

The degree of international influence enjoyed by the “great powers” and their alliances will increasingly depend, not on their conventional armed forces designed to wage large-scale conflicts similar to the wars of the 20th century, but on the scope of their involvement in this new type of intervention.

The UN Security Council’s role in resolving interstate, domestic or mixed conflicts will remain high through 2050, as regional organizations become increasingly active.

Since the mid-2000s, Russia’s contribution to international peacekeeping efforts has significantly dropped. Today, Russia is the eleventh largest contributor to the UN campaigns budget, trailing behind the United States, Japan, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, China, Canada, Spain and South Korea. Russia’s two percent share in 2010–2012 is only slightly higher than its contribution to the UN’s total budget (1.6 percent).

In the next decade, peacekeeping interventions will undoubtedly grow to become a crucial instrument of international security management at all levels. The real-time situation and the need to maintain Russia’s role and influence in international security call for it to be more active in decision-making on undertaking any such interventions and on their practical implementation.

4. Nuclear Weapons in State Policies and Strategy

Photo: Vzglyad, Infographics.
Nuclear weapons, 2009 (in russian)

In the two decades that followed the end of the Cold War, the amount of nuclear weapons in the world reduced practically by one order of magnitude, both as part of the treaties adopted by the great powers and as a result of their unilateral steps. The number of nuclear states has increased from seven to nine (the five original nuclear states, and Israel, are now joined by India, Pakistan and North Korea – while South Africa has renounced its nuclear weapons).

With the burgeoning of atomic energy and dual-purpose technologies, the thin line between the “peaceful” and “military” atom is being eroded even further. The number of ‘threshold” countries capable of converting their “peaceful atom” to nuclear weapons will continue to grow (first and foremost this includes Iran, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and they will be joined by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Myanmar among others).

All great powers are, openly or tacitly, planning to maintain and upgrade their nuclear forces in the near future. However, at the same time, they will face a process of devolution of the military and peaceful “nuclear factor” from a central and global level to the regional level of relations among third countries and their interaction with the world powers.

During the Cold War, the key tool to prevent a nuclear disaster was nuclear disarmament (between the USSR and the United States), with non-proliferation playing second fiddle. Now and going forward, they seem to be in the process of trading places: nuclear and missile non-proliferation is moving to the forefront, while disarmament is increasingly playing the role of a secondary incentive and serves as a condition underpinning cooperation between world powers.

Any further progress in the reduction and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and strengthening of international security based on international cooperation will, by definition, undermine the role of nuclear weapons in world affairs.

However, nuclear negotiations between the great powers could stall again if they are incapable of addressing the ever more complex problems of disarmament (missile defense, tactical nuclear weapons, high-precision conventional means). The nuclear arsenals in the Russian and U.S. armed forces could pick up again after the new START Treaty expires in 2020, contributing to a breakdown in cooperation in nuclear non-proliferation.

In such an eventuality, there is a high likelihood that China, India, and Pakistan will accelerate the build up of their nuclear arsenals, and that North Korea and Iran will finally join the nuclear club. Under this scenario, the number of threshold countries will grow, and terrorists would get access to nuclear weapons. This will result in the collapse of the NPT and non-proliferation regimes, and an expanded risk of nuclear strikes or the detonation of a nuclear explosive device in a local conflict or as a result of a terrorist attack.

The security of the United States, Russia and other world powers would suffer, but the value of nuclear weapons for their national interests would even then be unlikely to rise. The “nuclear asset” will be diluted as the “nuclear club” expands, making the effectiveness of deterrence against extremist regimes or movements doubtful.

In the foreseeable future, contrary to what was seen in the later 20th century, nuclear weapons will lose their function as a status symbol and basic guarantee of the leading powers’ security.

The prestige and status of the great powers, their relations with each other and conflicts with third countries and movements will depend not on their nuclear potential but rather on the efficiency of their general-purpose forces in the new intervention format, their cutting-edge arms, and supremacy in combat command and telecommunications.

5. Cutting-Edge Non-Nuclear Systems

Today, missile defense is the most rapidly developing area of strategic weapons. With the end of the Cold War, global proliferation of missiles and nuclear weapons, technological progress (revolutions in IT, microchips, sensors, composites, special fuels, etc.), the United States had to rethink the role of missile defense in their military policies and military posture. U.S. programs have been refocused along the lines of a non-nuclear, target-contact intercept (one of the SDI successes) that protects against missile strikes from third countries and, possibly by default, from China’s nuclear missile forces.

Russia treated this as a threat to its own deterrence potential in the context of bilateral strategic balance. After a few years’ delay, it followed the military technology example with its own aerospace defense, aiming to protect itself less from third countries and more from U.S. aerospace strikes.

At the moment, having failed to agree on a joint missile defense program, the two parties have embarked on developing and deploying their own defense systems covering their national territories (and that of their allies). In the foreseeable future (the next 10 to 15 years), the U.S. program, complete with its global, European and Pacific segments, will make it possible to intercept individual missiles or small groups of missiles launched by third countries (in one possible scenario, by China), but will pose no serious challenge to the Russian nuclear deterrence.

Similarly, the Russian aerospace program, which, judging by the official announcements will be superior to the U.S.-NATO one in a number of regards, does not challenge the United States’ nuclear deterrence.

The same conclusion is equally true for the world powers’ strategic balance under the new 2010 START treaty, or for the hypothetical ceiling reduction to around 1,000 warheads, provided both countries maintain the appropriate strategic forces’ resilience.

Photo: The Missile Defense Agency
Ten years without ABM Treaty. The issue of
missile defense in Russia-US relations.

What is unusual is that the U.S. welcomed the Russian aerospace program, despite its apparent anti-American focus, while Russia has spoken vehemently against the U.S.-NATO program, apparently aimed against third countries. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Russia is much more vulnerable than the U.S. to a missile threat from third countries or terrorists (in particular by cruise missiles); however it has focused exclusively on the bilateral strategic balance, and against the U.S. achieving military superiority.

However, despite this failure to improve missile defense cooperation between Russia and NATO, this interaction will become increasingly necessary and possible in the foreseeable future. Missile technologies continue to be developed in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and a few dozen other states, some of which are domestically unstable or party to external conflicts. In some cases this is accompanied by the proliferation of dual-purpose nuclear technologies opening the way to the acquisition of nuclear weapons, whilst in others, nuclear weapons have already been acquired. However, missiles alone, even with a conventional payload, complete with the modern navigation systems, could be a serious threat to atomic power stations or other facilities.

The proliferation of missiles and missile technologies will remain one of the key threats to international security. This process is further enabled by inefficiencies in the current missile non-proliferation regimes. Many states will not only import missiles and missile technologies, but will also set up their own R&D and production facilities, and develop stable international cooperation in this area.

Current non-proliferation agreements covering missiles, nuclear weapons, critical materials and technologies will not be able to reverse these dangerous trends unless the great powers and rational regional powers work together to radically enhance the efficacy of these agreements. Given the existing trends, we can expect to see further efforts to strengthen the missile technology control regime (MTCR), lending it a status similar to that of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, by 2020.

Along with this, the missile defense systems and technologies, once solely present in the USSR/Russia and the United States, seem to be proliferating ever more rapidly. National and international missile defense programs are being developed under NATO’s auspices, but also in Israel, India, Japan, South Korea, China and Australia. This is, no doubt, one of the crucial long-term tendencies in the development of military technologies.

Another important tendency (also U.S.-led) is the development of high-precision, long-distance strike missiles with conventional warheads, based on state-of-the-art control and communications systems, some based in space. In the foreseeable future, one can expect to see the development of orbital or fractional orbital boost-glide high-precision strike systems. Weapons like this, with a conventional payload, would trigger countermeasures in the form of innovative missile defense systems.

Nuclear deterrence is likely to remain an element in the strategic relationship between the great powers, and a security guarantee for their allies. However, its relative importance will wane as non-nuclear precision defensive and offensive weaponry is introduced. These new systems will be increasingly important in mutual deterrence and ensuring strategic stability among the great powers. It is in their mutual interests that this process is orderly and coordinated, rather than spontaneous and conflict-prone.

While impacting the global and regional strategic situation, the development of MD systems alone has little effect on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and means of their delivery (including ballistic and cruise missiles) although occasionally it may boost it. Better MD systems and technologies may disrupt the proliferation threat, but only in the event that great powers and major regional states cooperate on developing defense systems. This will foster unanimity in their direct political, legal, economic and military resistance to missile and nuclear proliferation.

Otherwise, the broad implementation of missile defense systems will only exacerbate the military and political tensions between the great powers, undermine their cooperation in nuclear non-proliferation and disrupt the arms control system.

The same is true of the newest high-precision non-nuclear strike systems. Any scenarios predicting a large-scale war between world powers based on these systems are highly unlikely. But should this weaponry continue to develop without control on a nation-by-nation basis, it will inevitably be perceived as a new threat to strategic relations between world powers, and will serve to undermine their arms cuts agreements (this is especially true of the orbital or fractional orbital missiles).

These weapons systems must therefore become the focus of further negotiations and arms control agreements. The new 2010 START treaty has established a useful precedent: ballistic missiles with conventional warheads are treated as nuclear missiles, thus restricting their potential deployment. In as much as the treaty’s preamble recognizes the implication for strategic stability, it is possible to envisage further additional arrangements on this issue, and on trust-building and transparency measures.

This could be an efficient basis for a joint or coordinated intervention by forces seeking to prevent nuclear missile proliferation, to provide peace enforcement support or carry out peacekeeping operations in line with international law.

Given the current deadlock in U.S.-Russia discussion on joint MD development, the very first step, in line with Russia’s demand for equitable cooperation, could be to pool Russian and U.S. early warning systems and anti-missile radars belonging to Russia and NATO in Europe. In future, such a center should be transformed into a Global Missile Launch Monitoring and Missile Attack Warning Center operating online and based in Moscow and in Brussels.

A joint information system servicing this Monitoring Center would help address the joint tasks without making the parties dependent on each other. It would also be useful to set up another center, manned by Russian and NATO officers charged with planning and coordination between the two MD systems.

Each participant would be protecting their own territory, aided by agreed operational procedures that allowing any of the parties to intercept missiles flying over its territory and heading towards the other party (thus interceptors from different countries will not interfere with each other). The initial stage of this cooperation will not require any formal military or political alliance.

Joint computer exercises with the U.S.-NATO on the theatre missile defense scenarios should be resumed and subsequently expanded beyond theatre MD and relocation to the field. It would be a crucial confidence-building measure and indirectly a technical safeguard against the MD systems targeting each other. It might subsequently be possible to launch joint development and deployment of combined new strategic missile defenses.

Notably, if we are to achieve any progress, it should not be limited to organizational measures or technical steps. This misunderstanding lay at the root of the failed negotiations in 2010–2011. Even initial steps should assume future readiness to radically transform military and political relations between the powers.

China’s response to the U.S. and their allies’ missile defenses will depend both on the country’s defense potential and on the progress made in U.S.-Russia cooperation on missile defense. In contrast to U.S. strategic relations with Russia, the country remains unclear as to whether mutual nuclear deterrence with China is acceptable. The 2010–2011 Russian Project aiming to establish a single (“sectoral”) MD with the U.S.-NATO and protect each other against third party missile strikes caused understandable concern to Beijing, whereas the breakdown in their negotiations was received with clear, if unofficial, satisfaction.

In their response to the U.S. missile defense, China initially, like Russia, resorted to asymmetrical measures (MD penetration, MIRV, development land-mobile and submarine-based missile systems). Later, the focus shifted to counter satellite weapons and their own anti-missile programs aiming to strip the U.S. of their political pressure tools and acquire a trump card in relations with both superpowers. However, China’s missile defense program is only in its initial phase of development.

In the next decade, should tensions between Russia and the U.S. over missile defense continue to grow, China will be well positioned to avoid disarmament negotiations and continue to build up its offensive, defensive and counter satellite means without any restrictions (although officially Beijing has denied any plans to achieve parity with these superpowers).

Conversely, any progress made in Russia-U.S. cooperation on developing MD and aerospace defenses would encourage China to join this collaboration as it sees fit. Military and technical safeguards against a scenario in which both superpowers target their defenses against China and attempts to involve it in MD cooperation may also make Beijing agree to transparency and predictability measures for its nuclear forces.

6. Exotic Weapons

Photo: The Missile Defense Agency

Using open space for ancillary purposes (the number of peaceful, military and dual-purpose satellites will soon reach between 2,000-3,000) remains the key area for military space activities and is largely deemed legitimate and inevitable. Space is unlikely to become a permanent deployment location for space-launched missiles, but the development of counter satellite systems is virtually inevitable. This trend can only be disrupted by an international agreement to outlaw counter satellite systems.

Many advanced countries are actively engaged in R&D research and development activity on new arms that can be broadly labeled as “weapons based on new physical principles.” There have been renewed attempts to produce plasma weapons as a promising area within missile defense. Lasers are still viewed as one of the more promising new weapons, specifically to destroy airborne and space targets. However, these weapons are not expected to be rolled out before 2020–2030.

IT weapons have also been on the rise. As part of the information war, potential targets could include missile warning IT systems or combat control systems. One of the examples of such attacks was computer virus Stuxnet1 that penetrated the control systems at one of the Iran’s nuclear facility in April2011.

7. Prospects for Military-Technical Cooperation*

In the next decade, the arms trade will continue to be a key tool of foreign and economic policies pursued by the major powers but will also be a means to impact the military and political balance of forces in various regions around the world. In the foreseeable future, economic globalization and the emergence of a single technological and information space are bound to impact also the global arms trade. The arms trade will be an ever-growing factor directly impacting international security, including the number and intensity of regional conflicts involving an increasing number of states. Resolution of conflicts would pass on to another technological level.

Debates over the possible implications of arms supplies for regional and international stability are becoming a permanent feature of discussions in the UN Security Council. However, the UN Register of Conventional Arms is unlikely to experience any sudden rise in efficiency. Discussions of the need to draft and adopt a legally binding international treaty on arms transfers will continue long term.

High-precision airborne and sea-based systems, anti-aircraft and tactical missile defenses, and IT systems will enjoy the demand. The type and nomenclature of conventional weapons and military equipment will be reduced and concentrated in three elements: creation of uniform combat platforms: high precision weapons, intelligence and reconnaissance, and control. Competition on the world arms market will grow as a result of emerging economies’ higher export capacities.

Photo: Small Arms and Ammunition Trade Data

In the next decade, annual turnover in the arms trade will rise to around $ 55–75 billion, of which 40–50 percent will be in aviation, 20–30 percent in the navy, and10–15 percent in anti-aircraft defense. The demand for ground force armaments (tanks, light armored vehicles, artillery shells and light weapons) will wane.

The U.S. share in these sales will account for about 30–40 percent, rising to 70–80 percent taken together with its NATO allies. Russia’s share in world supplies will diminish due to the lower competitiveness of its military goods (from current 12–15 to below 10 percent). New large arms and armaments suppliers will emerge, led by China which is currently poised to overtake Russia.

There will be changes in the ratings of key buyers of arms and armaments as states with stable and/or growing economies to re-arm, increasing their overall budgets and defense spending. The general trend towards rising military spending will continue, despite regular financial crises. In terms of military spending, Asia will be dominated by China, India, South Korea and the ASEAN countries; in the Middle East, this will be Algiers, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran; in Africa, South Africa and Nigeria; and in Latin America, Brazil, Venezuela and Columbia. Leading regional arms importers will also build up their military exports too. There arms and armaments sales change will also change, shifting from finished products to the acquisition of technologies and/or joint ventures.

Russia’s military export policies are facing growing difficulties. Their strategic goals and prospects are unclear, as is their interrelation with the long-term defense policy and force development, armed force rearmament programs and defense industry upgrades. Over the past two decades, any attempts to use exports to finance defense industry modernization to meet Russia’s defense requirements proved largely unsuccessful.

Russia will gradually be pushed off to underdeveloped markets in countries with limited resources and/or to volatile regions. This will bring additional threats to national security as Russia (through its arms supplies) is sucked indirectly into regional military and political conflicts.

This tendency is reversible. Apart from the defense industries upgrading and rearmament of Russia’s Army and Navy, the acquisition of technologies, some armaments and hardware from foreign suppliers could incentivize Russian defense industries to achieve a higher development level. This will make it possible to integrate with major arms and hardware producers from the advanced Western economies, should relations with them evolve from enmity and alienation to partnership. In such an eventuality, by 2020, they could agree on legal rules to regulate the arms trade.

8. UN as a Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Instrument**

Due to political differences between the great powers, the powers of the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to enforce non-proliferation have so far failed to be fully implemented. At the same time, Russia and China have opposed attempts to transfer the prerogative powers of the UN Security Council (peacekeeping and enforcement) to institutions outside the UN (NATO, the EU, the “coalition of the willing”).

In this situation, new shared security threats can only be effectively counteracted if the UN Security Council is directly involved in the fight against nuclear proliferation, including procedures to trigger Articles 41 and 42 of the UN Charter (sanctions and the use of force) to deter and punish apparent violators of non-proliferation regimes, IAEA safeguards and MTCR rules. This requires closer cooperation among permanent Security Council members and especially Russia, the U.S. and China.

Every permanent UN Security Council member, including Russia, is required to prioritize policy actions to strengthen disarmament and non-proliferation regimes, and multilateral interventions, and also to rely exclusively on the UN’s arsenal of tools in international enforcement operations. This is the only alternative to international chaos or the arbitrary use of force by the world’s leading military powers and their allies in the coming decades.

There is a need for reasonable and proper reform of the United Nations that brings it up to speed with the new international realities and security threats of the 21st century. In the next decade, the great powers will escape the lingering shackles of the Cold War and come together in their efforts to address new threats which will in turn facilitate UN reform and help boost the role of regional collective security organizations.

***

The current state of affairs, for the first time after the end of the Cold War, shows a clear trend towards a new global bipolarity emerging around the United States and China as centers of power. This process may carry rather unpleasant implications for international security and for the prospects of states’ collective efforts against the new threats of the 21st century.

The implications would be even more negative for the prospective modernization of Russia’s economic and political systems, its transition away from the mineral resources exports (economic and export diversification) to a high-tech innovative paradigm of growth, even for its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

It is in Russia’s interests to support the existence of a dynamic polycentric system in world affairs, boost processes of globalization and interdependence, and to strengthen international cooperation in addressing new security threats. It is in this context that Russia will find the best prospects to embrace its final and irreversible transition to the European ways of development, and take its deserved place among the great powers of the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific community.

*This section draws on work by Dr. N.I. Kalinina.

**This section draws on work by Dr A.N. Kalyadin.