Russia’s “New Look” Military Reforms and Their Impact on Russian Foreign Policy

On August 12, 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an end to the peace enforcement operation in Georgia, effectively ending the Russo-Georgian War that had begun only five days earlier. The Russian Armed Forces had quickly seized their objectives in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and pushed into Georgia proper, but an internal review conducted by the Russian military highlighted many failings during the campaign. Three months after the Russo-Georgian War concluded, General Nikolai Makarov, then chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, proposed a massive overhaul of the Russian military titled “The Future Look of the RF [Russian Federation] Armed Forces and Top-Priority Measures for its Formation in 2009-2020.” These measures soon became known as the “New Look,” and Russia quickly adopted and put them into motion in early 2009.

These reforms represented a complete change in the Russian Federation Armed Forces military structure. In contrast to the mass-mobilization strategy that guided Russian Military doctrine since the nineteenth-century, the “New Look” reforms placed an emphasis on a smaller, more professional military. To accomplish this transformation, the Russian military restructured its six military districts into just four, eliminated cadre units, converted all remaining units to Permanent Readiness Forces, drastically cut the officer corps, reorganized the command structure into a three-tier system of military district-to-army-to-brigade, and promised a massive modernization of military weapons and equipment. According to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency:

The Russian military today is on the rise…a smaller, more mobile, balanced force rapidly becoming capable of conducting the full range of modern warfare. It is a military that can intervene in countries along Russia’s periphery or…the Middle East. The new Russian military is a tool that can be used to underpin Moscow’s stated ambitions of being a leading force in a multipolar world.

These reforms have transformed the Russian military into a more professional fighting force and prepared it for twenty-first century engagements.

Moscow has already taken a more aggressive foreign policy stance due to the success of the “New Look” reforms. From the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the announcement of the “New Look” reforms in 2008, the Russian Federation only had one direct military intervention, the Russo-Georgian War. Since the “New Look” reforms began, Russia has engaged its military in three international conflicts.

First, in 2014, under the cover of a large military exercise at the border of Russia and Ukraine, Russian special forces and airborne troops infiltrated Crimea. There they systematically seized control of political offices and Ukrainian military bases. Russia annexed Crimea after a referendum in March of that year. Second, in 2014, Russia fomented a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine with weapons, supplies, and “volunteers” before twice intervening with troops to shore up the separatist defenses that were on the verge of collapse. Third, starting in 2015, Russia deployed part of its air force to aid Bashar al-Assad in Syria and began a bombing campaign against both ISIS and Syrian opposition forces.

The Russian government considers all these interventions successes. The annexation of Crimea and support of the separatists in the Donbas have both protected Russia’s greater military interest in the region and indefinitely delayed the possibility of Ukraine joining either the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the European Union. Russia’s strategic bombing has turned the tide of the Syrian Civil War and has allowed Assad’s forces to go on the offensive for the first time since the early stages of the conflict.

After three successful or ongoing military interventions, in December 2014, the Kremlin updated its military doctrine and in December 2015, updated its national security strategy. The European Parliament reviewed the Russian military doctrine and its national security strategy and concluded that both documents “emphasize the importance of the role of military force in international relations.” Putin is obviously willing to use the modernized Russian military to restore Russian prestige and to reaffirm its status as a great power. Expect Putin to continue to use the Russian Armed Forces to exert Russian power and influence in the region, particularly to prevent further eastward encroachment of NATO. Moscow’s reliance on its military as a tool of foreign policy will grow as its economic power wanes. While Russia will continue to employ political and non-military solutions to international problems, its improved military capability will make force an attractive option, especially in regional disputes.