Russian Unconventional Strategy

[OUTLAW 09]

Direct, no. Potential, possibly. Perceived, depends on who's doing the perceiving.

What exactly are you afraid that the Russians are going to do?

Still waiting for some specifics on how exactly the Russians have "scooped up all our former allies", who they have sponsored in the Middle East and Africa, and what this alleged deal with Saudi Arabia is.

Dayuhan--three T72s and a number of other armored vehicles "crossed" today into eastern Ukraine through a Russian border that Putin officially stated he had instructed the FSB and Federal Border Security Service to close the border. They crossed at a known official Russian border crossing point.

So is this a perceived or actual threat.

So did Putin actually tell the US/EU the truth that the border was secure and he is not supporting separatists are was he basically lying.

so if lying on this ---are you willing to then trust him when he says something else.

This is the fourth time Putin has "officially" misstated himself.

International Relations is usually built on a set of standards between countries so now we have one country that is simply stating a "truth" which later turns out to be a blatant lie.

So a perceived threat or actual threat? so how does one then build long term relationship when lies are the dominant basis of the relationship.

Have you really read both the 2010 new Russian nuclear doctrine and their 2013 UW strategy called the New Generation Warfare?

Please read both and then tell me how you view and interpret both documents and please refrain from making comments until you read them an answer my question ---perceived threat or actual threat on the two doctrines which are the core basis now for all Russian foreign policy decisions?

By the way I noticed you failed to respond to the Saudi article concerning their private deal offer to the Russians---perceived or actual threat to the US?

[OUTLAW 09]

Dayuhan---Russian has completely modernized over the last seven years their nuclear force, and will add two new heavy ballistic missile's to the inventory by 2016 and have violated the INF they signed by developing and deploying a mobile nuclear capable cruise missile.

Now reread their new nuclear doctrine from 2010 and now read how much it will take for the US to modernize their aging nuclear force.

Congressional auditors say official estimates are ignoring key expenses for the U.S. nuclear force, such as costs of overhauling missiles and aircraft. The Defense and Energy departments indicated that they planned to spend roughly $263.8 billion on the atomic arsenal over the coming decade, but their projections omitted significant items while obscuring “assumptions and limitations,” according to a Tuesday report by the Government Accountability Office

There is talk that Congress is unwilling to spend that much---so one side is completely rearmed nuclear wise, the other side not---and we are dealing with a leader in power until 2024 who has a track record of lying---so who do you trust to fulfill any signed treaties.

Perceived or actual threat?

[Dayuhan]

Dayuhan--three T72s and a number of other armored vehicles "crossed" today into eastern Ukraine through a Russian border that Putin officially stated he had instructed the FSB and Federal Border Security Service to close the border. They crossed at a known official Russian border crossing point.

So is this a perceived or actual threat.

It's a threat to the Ukraine. The US is not the Ukraine.

So did Putin actually tell the US/EU the truth that the border was secure and he is not supporting separatists are was he basically lying.

so if lying on this ---are you willing to then trust him when he says something else.

Of course he's lying, and of course we shouldn't trust him. Nothing new there; did anyone ever trust him?

Have you really read both the 2010 new Russian nuclear doctrine and their 2013 UW strategy called the New Generation Warfare?

Please read both and then tell me how you view and interpret both documents and please refrain from making comments until you read them an answer my question ---perceived threat or actual threat on the two doctrines which are the core basis now for all Russian foreign policy decisions?

I think you cherry pick these documents and distort them to justify an elevated perception of threat. I would use the term "potential threat", rather than perceived or actual.

Russia spending more than the US on their nuclear arsenal is not necessarily a huge deal: like much of their military, the nuclear side has suffered from neglect for a long time, and they've a lot of expensive catching up to do just to keep it functional. MAD remains firmly in place and remains a considerable deterrent to nuclear use.

By the way I noticed you failed to respond to the Saudi article concerning their private deal offer to the Russians---perceived or actual threat to the US?

You mean the points where you copy/past quotes from articles nearly a year old, fail to cite the source articles, misrepresent the supposed deal as "new", with the inevitable breathless and unsupported references to miscellaneous Interfax press releases?

Please see post #32 above. It's old news and non-news. That offer was made last August, and it was simply an attempt to bribe the Russians into dumping Assad. It failed; the Russians didn't bite. So what? Where's the threat?

[Bill Moore]

D ayuhan

Using your logic the Nazis were only a threat to Poland, and the Japanese were only a threat to China. Russian aggression unchallenged in the Ukraine threatens our interests globally in subtle and not so subtle ways by changing international norms. Others are watching to see how they can employ their military and paramilitary in creative ways outside accepted inter ational norms.

[kaur]

To continue Bill's thought. Following pic is from French general A. Beuafre's book "Strategy of Action" (1967), where he tried to explain Hitler's activity before II WW. Today we can draw similar scheme about Russia's activity in and around Ukraine with list of actors with different interests - USA, NATO, EU, different memberstates etc. Would be interesting reading

[OUTLAW 09]

To continue Bill's thought. Following pic is from French general A. Beuafre's book "Strategy of Action" (1967), where he tried to explain Hitler's activity before II WW. Today we can draw similar scheme about Russia's activity in and around Ukraine with list of actors with different interests - USA, NATO, EU, different memberstates etc. Would be interesting reading

kaur---you amaze me at times.

Here is a thought that builds on Bill's comment.

Has anyone here commented on the two Secret protocols signed by Stalin and Hitler that were part and parcel of the 1939 Soviet/German Friendship Pact.

It is interesting that many of the countries in the former Soviet Union "were given to Stalin by Hitler" in return for territories Germany wanted. And one wonders why they are so "sensitive" to current Russian activities-even 69 years later I would certainly be nervous to say the lest as history has a way of repeating itself.

[AmericanPride]

I think you cherry pick these documents and distort them to justify an elevated perception of threat.

One consistent pattern in 'analyzing' the 'threat' from Russia is to simultaneously elevate the threat posed to the United States and to diminish the abilities of Russia to resist U.S. capabilities and strategies. In one post, we hear about the great danger faced by the United States by Russia, and then in the next, how if the Obama administration would only lift the proverbial finger, the Russian campaign would immediately collapse.

The truth is that the military strength of Russia does not come close to that of the United States - and even less so the combined strength of NATO. The difference is that Russia's national security establishment is more disciplined in identifying its political goals and executing plans to implement them. Compare the political outcomes of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with Russia's Georgia and Ukraine interventions - which state came closer to accomplishing its political objectives? How many people believed Washington's IO about democracy in Iraq versus Moscow's IO about Crimean desire for unification with Russia? Moscow has been smarter than Washington in recent history in its use of force, and this success aggravates those in Washington to no end.

Russian aggression unchallenged in the Ukraine threatens our interests globally in subtle and not so subtle ways by changing international norms.

By default, challengers to the status quo will seek to change international norms. Since power is relative, we have to ask if American power is declining or if Russian power is growing (or both). The Russians are clearly discontent with their lot in the international system, so it's not surprising that Moscow exploits opportunities to advance its position. The problem, then, is not the change in the status quo in itself, but Russia's discontent with the status quo. Why is Moscow discontent and what incentives can Washington offer to purchase its cooperation? If Moscow cannot be coerced into compliance, then negotiation is the only viable alternative. What do the Russians want and does Washington have the ability and/or willingness to give it to them?

[Dayuhan]

Using your logic the Nazis were only a threat to Poland, and the Japanese were only a threat to China.

Apples and oranges, really, or more like apples and baseballs. Despite the round of Putin-worship we're seeing lately, Russia's success in the Ukraine is less about Putin's genius or some uniquely devious scheme for "New Generation Warfare" than about circumstances unique to the Ukraine. The Ukraine was beyond low-hanging fruit; it was fruit on the ground. The revolution had left the country effectively ungoverned; the armed forces were of varied loyalty and barely functional. Russia had a military base in the Ukraine and could tap into a large and disaffected ethnic Russian population with an active perception of threat. Crimea effectively dropped into Putin's lap, all he had to do was reach out and take it. I suspect that he really doesn't want Donetsk; if he did he'd have taken it already.

Will these enabling circumstances be repeated elsewhere? Probably not, unless a pro-Western revolution breaks out in Belarus (not very likely any time soon). Russia's aggression in the Ukraine was as much an act of opportunism as anything else: Putin didn't create that opportunity, he just took advantage of it. It's not likely that he will be given or can create that opportunity elsewhere. That's very much unlike the aggressors of WW2, who created their own opportunities and were able to repeat them.

Russian aggression unchallenged in the Ukraine threatens our interests globally in subtle and not so subtle ways by changing international norms. Others are watching to see how they can employ their military and paramilitary in creative ways outside accepted international norms.

Those "international norms" have been ignored forever by anyone with the opportunity and the incentive. We generally don't notice, because it's so often us that's doing the ignoring.