Putin Signs New Military Doctrine: Names NATO, US As Main Foreign Threat; Test Fires New ICBM

Last week, after the unanimous passage of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 in Congress, which made legal the provision of US “lethal aid” to Kiev and which Russia blasted as an act of aggression and promised that it would merely accelerate the deterioration of relations between Russia and the west, we wrote that “World Awaits Russian Response As Obama Makes “Lethal Aid” To Ukraine Legal.” We didn’t have long to wait: one short hour ago, Putin adopted an updated version of its military doctrine, which “reflects the emergence of new threats against its national security” and which names both the NATO military buildup on Russia’s borders, as well as the US and the destabilized situation in some regions (read Ukraine) as the main foreign threats to Russian security. The doctrine update also, for the first time, put protection of Russian national interest in the Arctic (read oil and nat gas) among the key priorities for Russia’s armed forces.
In other words, Putin is not only not backing down, but has once again explicitly warned NATO that any western action, either in Ukraine or elsewhere, will have a proportional response.
Among the highlights of the new doctrine:
Russia’s military doctrine names NATO military buildup, destabilized situation in some regions among main external threats to security Russia’s new military doctrine puts protection of national interests in Arctic among priorities for Armed Forces for the first time Territorial claims to Russia and its allies, intervening in domestic policy main military threats Likelihood of large-scale war against Russia decreased, but some security threats continue to grow Anti-missile shields, ‘global strike’ concept, plans of placing weapons in space are external military threats to Russia Attempts to destabilize situation in Russia, terrorist activities are country’s main internal threats

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/26/2014.