New national security strategy highlights Arctic
A new Russian national security strategy will be adopted in February, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev confirms. The new strategy, which will cover the period until 2020, includes a high level of focus on the energy potentials of the Arctic.
Speaking in a recent meeting with the Russian Academy of Sciences Presidium, Mr. Patrushev said that the new strategy is planned adopted in February this year, Interfax reports.
According to newspaper Kommersant, which has obtained a copy of the document, the new strategy presents the USA as Russia’s continued main competitor in global affairs. It also concludes that Russia has overcome the political, social and economic crisis of the 1990s and that it thus has “restored the possibility to protect its national interests” and that is now “a key player in a world of multi-polar international relations”.
The document underlines that Russia will protect its national interests with “a pragmatic foreign policy, [and] without engaging in expensive confrontation, including a new arms race”.
Despite the stress on averting armed confrontation, the strategy does however not exclude that the use of armed force is applied in the international fight for hydrocarbon resources, and that this could disrupt the power balance in areas near the Russian border.
According to Kommersant, the new security strategy reads that the main attention of international politics in the period will be on the countries’ access to energy resources, and first of all in the Middle East, on the shelf of the Barents Sea and other parts of the Arctic, the Caspian Sea and in Central Asia.
The strategy also highlights that the Russian Armed Forces will get the necessary financial and material support, as well as other resources, and that the Army will be reformed and the power of the strategic missile forces preserved. In addition, new highly qualified special forces are to be formed, which will help the country strengthen both its foreign and domestic security.
Consultations over the new security strategy have been held all over the country. In December, Mr. Patrushev met with leader of the Northwest Russian Federal District Ilya Klebanov and all the Northwest Russian governors to discuss the document, the website of the Russian Security Council informs.
The previous Russian National Security Strategy was adopted in year 2000. With the coming to power of President Dmitry Medvedev, several key federal documents have been updated. Among them is also the country’s Foreign Policy Concept.
