RUSSIAN MILITARY IDENTITY - CHANGE OR STA TUS-QUO

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Army has experienced a n identity crisis. This article attempts to analyse this process by ap plying a Self-Other dichotomy combined with a confrontative, rivalrist Friend-Foe paradigm and a hierarchical, integrative Cosmos-Chaos para digm. While there have been shifts in both Western and Russian securit y thinking towards a Cosmos-Chaos understanding of security building ( conceptualized respectively by the NATO enlargement and the ''Near Abr oad''-policy), the Russian armed forces still perceive the West in con frontative manners. It is argued that this is due to NATO's role as nu clear opponent and to the poor civil-military exchange in Russia, a So viet heritage. Thereby, the Soviet military culture persists in spite of open economic distress, the ''Near Abroad'' is viewed as an unstabl e threat and the West is an opponent to be deterred. This results in d evelopments of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles in order to balan ce the expanded NATO, as the conventional resources are poor. In turn, the threshold of first-use is lowered, perhaps even in low-intensity conflicts, a matter which is likely to be formalized in future Russian doctrinal documents. Combined with the Soviet-style military culture, and the economic malaise, these conditions contribute to the preservi ng of an uncertainty factor in European security politics.