Putin’s New National Security Doctrine Fails to List Domestic Threats, Regnum Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 11 – Russia’s new National Security Doctrine Vladimir Putin signed on December 31 lists numerous values that the government pledges to defend; but it only identifies foreign threats, even though there are numerous domestic sources of threat as well, according to Igor Bekshayev of the Regnum news agency.

            Among the 13 values the document commits Moscow to defend are “the priority of the spiritual over the material, the family, service to the Fatherland, humanism, justice, collectivism, the unity of the peoples of Russia, and the continuity of Russian history, the commentator points out (regnum.ru/news/society/2050780.html).

            That these are all threatened from abroad is beyond question, Bekshayev says, but he asks “why in the Strategy is nothing said about internal threats? Why is there no attention to the activity of Russian ministries … public organizations, the media and the Presidential Human Rights Council,” whose activities threaten these values?

            “Is the television series ‘House-2’ about morality? Is the optimization of health mercy? And is permanent pension reform about justice?” The answers are self-evidence, the commentator suggests, adding that he hopes that “a certain part of the ruling class really recognizes the challenges standing before the country.”

            Bekshayev’s article, which many will reasonably view as a call to a witch hunt, shows that it is all too easy for those who hear about threats from abroad to shift their focus to threats at home, something Putin may or may not want in any particular case but also a development he cannot completely control.