It was expected that Mr. Medvedev would approve the new National Security Strategy when he today met with the Security Council. The adoption of the document is instead postponed with one month, RIA Novosti reports. The postponement is not the first. The Security Council and its secretary Nikolay Patrushev originally said the document would be approved in February this year.
The document has been elaborated on since 2004, lately under the leadership of Security Council Secretary Patrushev.
“The document includes strategic priorities and measures in the field of domestic and foreign policy, aimed at providing national security and sustainable development”, Interfax reports. It is divided into sections, among which focus are on economic growth, better living standards, healthcare, science, technology, culture, national defence and state and public security.
According to Prime Tass, the strategy highlights the need for further professionalization of the armed forces and the special services, as well as the enhanced authority of the country in international affairs. Is also warns against the “NATO attempts to develop military infrastructure along Russia’s borders”.
The document covers the period until 2020. The previous national security strategy was adopted in 1997 and was later amended in year 2000.
According to newspaper Kommersant, which late last year reported to have obtained a draft copy of the strategy, it also includes a high focus on the energy potentials of the Arctic.
BarentsObserver in early January this year reported that the document highlights 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.
A 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 document maintains.
