Political-Legal Assessment of Post-Soviet Russia’s First Military Doctrine (1993)

Abstrakt

This article analyzes the first military doctrine of the Russian Federation (1993) through a rigorous political-legal framework, identifying it as the foundational normative document shaping three decades of Russian strategic behavior. Rather than viewing the document as a military guideline, the research conceptualizes it as a constitutive act of state-building that emerged from the severe constitutional crisis. The paper demonstrates that the doctrine served as a central legal instrument for consolidating power within the executive branch. This security document effectively removed the conventional distinction between external defense and internal security, thereby authorizing the use of military force against domestic political adversaries. A strategic shift is apparent in nuclear strategy; the abandonment of the “No First Use” commitment has transformed the nuclear arsenal into a formidable instrument of global and regional coercion. The article also argues that the doctrine, validated by the 1995 Constitutional Court ruling, consolidated a strategic culture rooted in the primacy of force and in claims to exclusive spheres of influence. Central to this study is an examination of the doctrine’s international legal dimensions. The 1993 doctrine framework institutionalized a systematic subversion of the UN Charter by appropriating peacekeeping terminology to mask unilateral interventions in the “Near Abroad.” Through empirical analysis of conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan, the article demonstrates how legislative innovations such as “compatriot protection” and “passportization” served as instruments of jurisdictional displacement. Finally, the research traces the normative continuity of these principles across subsequent security documents (2000–2021), concluding that the 1993 doctrine established strategic and legal precedents for Russia’s later military campaigns, specifically the 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, thus ultimately fueling a self-reinforcing cycle of confrontation with the rules-based international order.