"Staying On The Watch": How Russia Should Respond to NATO Activity Near Its Borders

Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov made a statement regarding NATO activity near the Russian borders. According to him, Russia will take all measures required to ensure its own security.


- noted Peskov.




- he added.

Risk hedging is a term that is more inherent in the financial sector and denotes risk insurance in the event of unfavorable market developments. However, in this case, its use is quite justified. NATO's actions towards Russia are too reminiscent of a planned strategy, too persistently it seeks to re-escalate the conflict between Russia and the West to the critical level of the Cold War in order to rely on one or two options for the development of the geopolitical situation, which is becoming less and less predictable.

The problem of NATO-Russia relations

The number of provocations on the part of the NATO grouping is indeed increasing, and this cannot but be worrisome. As well as, in fact, the complete rupture of diplomatic interaction with Russia, to which the bilateral relations of the North Atlantic Alliance led. Moreover, this was done deliberately, hypocritically and with a peculiar political "Mockery". On October 4, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made a proposal to resume negotiations in the Russia-NATO format, and on the sixth of the same month the organization's press service announced that the Russian mission to the Alliance would be cut in half: from twenty to ten people. And she did it without announcing specific reasons. As Stoltenberg himself later explained, "This decision is not related to any specific events, but we have seen an increase in Russian malicious activity for some time now." In diplomatic language, sensitive to all kinds of formalities, it sounds something like "we wanted to find a reason, but could not, so we decided to do it just like that." Needless to say, Russia after that absolutely rightly severed all existing ties with NATO. And it cannot be said that this was a surprise, on the contrary, in recent years everything has been going exactly towards this.

The key problem in contemporary relations between Russia and NATO is that the North Atlantic Alliance needs a Russia that no longer exists. Weak, suffering from a crisis of national identity and hardly able to bring even a semblance of order in domestic and foreign policy. It is with such a Russia of the 90s model, which has not recovered from the collapse of the USSR, the collapse of the social bloc and perestroika economics, NATO would very much like to do business. It was with such a Russia that the functionaries of the Alliance were ready to negotiate on what terms it was clear. By the way, by a strange coincidence, it was during the formation of the post-Soviet Russian statehood that the attitude of the North Atlantic Alliance towards Moscow was most favorable. However, even then, NATO understood that this state of affairs was unlikely to last long, actively paving the way for expansion to the East and the inclusion of former members of the Warsaw Pact Organization and the post-Soviet republics into the Alliance. The actively promoted myth that NATO is a purely defensive bloc, occupied only with maintaining existing positions and maintaining the current balance of forces, was crumbling right before our eyes. Nevertheless, the countries of the collective West did not seem to notice this.

NATO is an offensive military bloc

Speaking about the threat of NATO provocation against Russia, it should be noted that the factor of mutual destruction, which is a key element of the strategic security of the nuclear powers, may be overestimated. And if a direct military conflict between nuclear powers is a situation that the parties will ultimately try to avoid (take, for example, the Caribbean crisis of the Cold War), then all kinds of "proxies" and "hybrid" attacks can certainly be regarded by NATO as quite a suitable scenario.

After all, it is through the efforts of the North Atlantic Alliance that there are more and more hotbeds of tension near the borders of Russia. It is NATO that seeks to continue its expansion to the East, approaching Russia's borders both in the western and southern directions. The inclusion of several other former Soviet republics into the Alliance, which is increasingly discussed at NATO meetings, demonstrates the true intentions of its members: not to contain, but at least to surround Russia. It is hardly worth explaining why the encirclement is usually carried out in military affairs.

In fact, this is precisely the key difference between defensive and offensive military doctrines. Defensive is always focused on strengthening and protecting existing positions, while offensive strives to expand and form new outposts. So NATO today is by no means "a military-political alliance whose main task is to ensure the protection of the citizens of its countries and to contribute to the strengthening of security and stability in the North Atlantic region," as emphasized in its provisions. Today NATO is, first of all, an offensive military association, the purpose of which is precisely to destabilize the situation in Russia and undermine its foreign policy positions, almost to the point of direct confrontation. And this has absolutely nothing to do with the defense of the Alliance countries. But to the threat of the Russian Federation - it is quite direct.

The reaction of Russia

Thus, Russia needs to soberly analyze the current situation and take into account that the degree of tension that has changed since the collapse of the USSR does not mean at all that the goals and methods of NATO have changed for the better. And it will act the more actively the stronger Russia becomes. That is why it would be fundamentally wrong to rely on a single correct strategy in the defense sphere. Paradoxically, the presence of nuclear weapons protects, first of all, from large-scale strategic strikes from a potential adversary who understands that there can be no winners in a world nuclear war simply by definition. Nevertheless, no one is insured against seemingly petty provocations with far-reaching consequences. Today, similar incidents occur at the borders of Belarus - in every sense of a state allied with Russia. It is not known what will happen tomorrow, taking into account the increasing activity of NATO near the Russian borders.

This is why Moscow needs to expand its defense strategy. Strengthen cooperation through the CSTO, create a fundamentally new military bloc with China, look for opportunities to somehow influence European partners (after all, the collective West is only seemingly so united and monolithic, but in fact its countries have many mutual contradictions). In fact, Russia has many options, it is only important to choose the most correct one and be prepared for the fact that it will have to be constantly changed and adapted. Only in this case it will be possible to truly "insure the risks" - that is, to consider all possible scenarios for the development of events, including the most unfavorable ones. For a direct clash between NATO and the Russian Federation looks more and more likely, not every year, but every day. And with a high degree of probability the trigger for such a situation can be precisely the military provocation of the Alliance near the borders of the Russian Federation.

The Baltic states, the Black Sea, the Far East - border incidents involving NATO planes and ships have been repeated too often lately to be just a coincidence. As well as increasingly large-scale exercises to combat a "conditional" enemy, for some reason distinctly reminiscent of the Russian Federation, taking place near the Russian borders. The alliance is clearly working on something, preparing for something, so the Russian side must be ready to repel not only a direct, but also a "hybrid" attack. Alas, there are fewer and fewer doubts that it can follow.