ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development and implementation of Russia's warfare theories and concepts since the beginning of the 20th century.
This chapter studies the emergence of using asymmetric warfare methods and focuses especially on the asymmetry of strategic interaction in contemporary Russian military thought. It reviews Russian military scholars’ thoughts on warfare and their understanding of asymmetric warfare, its strategies, and techniques. The chapter analyzes how these thoughts influenced the formation of Russia's external security policy. It reviews the discussions among the Russian military elite regarding the future of the Russian military and the forms of warfare it should—and eventually would—use since the 1990s.
The chapter concludes that the common thinking was that such solutions needed to be economically affordable and therefore the use of asymmetric approaches rather than symmetric ones was important. Although many Russian scholars confirm the role of conventional military power in contemporary wars, the increasing role of non-military methods in future conflicts was stressed. In purely military terms, most Russian scholars advocated for the use of asymmetric strategies in conflicts with an adversary with superior military, economic, and technological power.
