A nation must think before it acts.
In May 1992, Military Thought, the main theoretical journal of the Russian Armed Forces, published a draft of Russia’s new military doctrine. This draft was based on “defense documents adopted by the Russian president and Supreme Soviet, as well as by the CIS Council of Heads of State.” According to the draft, “Russia guarantees the unconditional implementation of all of its provisions.”
Five of these provisions are particularly notable. First, the doctrine assigns priority to preparing for wars fought with existing and emerging conventional weapons. Secondly, the doctrine views the Gulf War as the paradigm of future conventional wars. Consequently, for the near term, the doctrine calls for the rapid-response forces to be used in local conflicts; for the long term, it requires the development of emerging combat technologies in order to prepare for “technological war.”