Russian Unconventional Strategy

[OUTLAW 09]

Bill---to answer the following questions---these two paragraphs are to the point and go a little further than your questions.

"Still, this will be a different cold war than the last one. For all its tough rhetoric, the Soviet Union of the Brezhnev era was a tired, conservative power. Putin's Russia is different. It is bursting with negative energy, hatred of the outside world and enthusiasm for confrontation.

It's a throwback not so much to the cold war diplomacy of missile treaties and international alliances, as to the Soviet Union's revolutionary birth, when the new Bolshevik government in Moscow actively undermined its enemies in the West."

The comments are actually very to the point.

1. After the poor performance of the Russian Army in 2008 in Georgia there was a massive investment into the Russian military as a whole and today through their 2020 plans they are far better trained, equipped with new weapon systems that are superior to ours in many ways, have a professional fulltime standing expeditionary army backed by a draftee army.
1a. They have become far more aggressive towards US military units in neutral zones---far more aggressive than under the Cold War days.
2. They developed their new UW strategy for this force.-and it is clear and concise.
3. They have completely modernized their nuclear forces and will add two heavy ballistic missiles in 2016 to the inventory and have violated the standing INF. US has an aging fore that is in need of modernization but Congress has shown an unwillingness to fund.
4. They have a new 2010 nuclear use doctrine to support this force-and it is clear and concise.
5. The have over the last 20 years used natural gas/oil as an economic force/weapon and built the pipeline delivery systems to support this economic weapons system. they are trying to get the EU to recognize their form of state run economics vs the EU free competition.
6. They are now expanding their naval forces and acquiring berthing rights around the world.
7. They are now flying into areas they never flew in during even the Cold War days and in a more aggressive manner.
8. These Russian steps are actually being matched by the same type of military/political/economic moves by the Chinese who are especially focused on Africa.
9. Both Russia and the Chinese are actively reinterpreting older treaties and agreements and are actually now simply declaring them null and void if it fits their interests something neither would have done 10 years ago---an interesting question would be why now? I think they both view the US as a waning power that has not backed up a single red line they have placed in the last 20 years

Yes the Russians are approaching the rest of the world from a state to state perspective and the US from a population perspective---but does the rule of law and good governance outweigh cheap gas and the perspective on investing in Russian and Chinese economic development opportunities for economically less powerful but influential countries in say the ME or in the Far East. Or does Russian and Chinese investment in say Africa and the ME appear to be more attractive than western investments---yes it does.

In some aspects while the rule of law and good governance resonate with populations in the end it still is all about economic development, employment, and personal security ---so yes the Maidan echoes those demands--but when implementing say the IMF and EU economic restructuring in exchange for billions of USDs those same populations will suffer and suffer badly until they adjust so in the end does the Russian/Chinese state economic systems appear more attractive to a state or the population or actually to both?

I would argue they do especially in the ME and Africa.

I would also argue that since both the Russians and Chinese view especially the US in the same light and with the same distrust they will in effect be nudged by world politics to work together which is why the initial gas deal between them is so important---it is about image/politics, and not about economics.

I would though take it a step further and say Russia is also interested in neutralizing both the EU/NATO for different reasons that are not the same as with the US.


What are the implications of this? Are we going to see a new type of confrontation between the U.S. and the USSR (oops I mean Russia), where Russia is engages states and the US engages populaces? Obviously the Russians desire to limit and even turn back the scale of U.S. influence globally, as does China. Will they form a coalition? Should the U.S. defense strategy change based on this?[/QUOTE]

[davidbfpo]

A short FT article, the full edition is behind a registration "wall", that appears on a NATO website and starts with:

In more than a dozen interviews, planners, security officials and members of the intelligence community have spoken of Moscow with universal, if grudging, praise.

Tactically, they say, Russia has waged a dexterous and comprehensive campaign, and has been one step ahead at every turn. The Kremlin's operations on the ground have been "masterly", said one.

Rightly the author ends with:

With that in mind, it is ironic that for all of its accusations against Russia, it is Nato that is looking like it is stuck in the Iron Curtain era, as it tries to fly more planes, exercise more troops and sail more ships ever closer to Russia.

Link:http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs...1s4skM.twitter

[kaur]

davidbfpo used word "masterly". I'd like to ask if this Crimea operation was easy to accomplish in military terms or was it hard? If you have located there your Black Sea Fleet since late 18th century. You had troops, GRU, military CI (KGB/FSB) present all the time. You knew a lot about Ukrainian officers, lot of them retired from Soviet fleet and joined Ukrainian. Crimea was favourite place to go retirement among Soviet officers, which means that best cadre (with Soviet nostalgia) was present. This means at least that you have quite nice overview what was going on there. Those smart and active young military pensioners are still capable to play the game. Then you bring in suitcases with cash to right people (like that Aksjonov guy, who got 4% votes with his party during last elections in Crimea), support with small group of special forces, bring in some thousand to close possible bridgeheads etc, etc, etc. Could it be "masterly" operation to occupy Guantanamo?

[OUTLAW 09]

Bill M---based on your questions that is something that is often overlooked in all of this.

We will be voting for a new President in 2016, Putin will easily get reelected and he is then in power until 2024.

So what would a US Russian strategy look like under this WH and would it then be carried forward in a solid fashion or would Putin rightly assume it would not be and he could then force the US into a new strategy to his liking.

Secondly ---any US strategy on Russia must be multifaceted as the current Russian foreign policy is developed and implemented by playing the four legs of a stool approach.

There are four key players in the Russian FP game that we somehow tend to ignore; 1) Russian military and their industrial complexes, 2) the Russian security services, 3) the oligarchs, and 4) Russian criminal gangs ie Russian mafia.

Layered over this is then the Russian Orthodox church.

Russian foreign policy and doctrine can be modified in any way using any combination of these players---we the US have our own players but we cannot seem to develop the adaptiveness that Putin has been showing in recent months.

[Bill Moore]

Bill M---based on your questions that is something that is often overlooked in all of this.

We will be voting for a new President in 2016, Putin will easily get reelected and he is then in power until 2024.

So what would a US Russian strategy look like under this WH and would it then be carried forward in a solid fashion or would Putin rightly assume it would not be and he could then force the US into a new strategy to his liking.

Secondly ---any US strategy on Russia must be multifaceted as the current Russian foreign policy is developed and implemented by playing the four legs of a stool approach.

There are four key players in the Russian FP game that we somehow tend to ignore; 1) Russian military and their industrial complexes, 2) the Russian security services, 3) the oligarchs, and 4) Russian criminal gangs ie Russian mafia.

Layered over this is then the Russian Orthodox church.

Russian foreign policy and doctrine can be modified in any way using any combination of these players---we the US have our own players but we cannot seem to develop the adaptiveness that Putin has been showing in recent months.

New administrations in the White House generally result in strategy changes, if not the ends, then the ways and means.

Who are the major players (official and unofficial) in U.S. foreign policy? Federal government, State governments, Industry (to include the defense industry), NGOs, media, etc. All have an impact. The difference perhaps is unlike the Russians we're possibly not as synched in leveraging all these different players to achieve strategic ends. We do use them all and each has incredible capability and influence, so if we first understand what the Russians are doing and why, determine if any of these "really" threatens our national interests, if it does then get serious about addressing it.

The ability to execute these operations on countries that border their nation is impressive, but not overly impressive. We have been astrategic for the past 10 years, so we're impressed with a nation that can actually think strategically (at least in the area of military and paramilitary arts). We have the capability to execute a global strategy globally, they don't, but we won't, etc., so their is some self-imposed strategic asymmetry here.

[OUTLAW 09]

New administrations in the White House generally result in strategy changes, if not the ends, then the ways and means.

Who are the major players (official and unofficial) in U.S. foreign policy? Federal government, State governments, Industry (to include the defense industry), NGOs, media, etc. All have an impact. The difference perhaps is unlike the Russians we're possibly not as synched in leveraging all these different players to achieve strategic ends. We do use them all and each has incredible capability and influence, so if we first understand what the Russians are doing and why, determine if any of these "really" threatens our national interests, if it does then get serious about addressing it.

The ability to execute these operations on countries that border their nation is impressive, but not overly impressive. We have been astrategic for the past 10 years, so we're impressed with a nation that can actually think strategically (at least in the area of military and paramilitary arts). We have the capability to execute a global strategy globally, they don't, but we won't, etc., so their is some self-imposed strategic asymmetry here.

Bill---would argue and some might not agree---right now the Russians are in fact implementing a global strategy the problem is we are not use to the game after about a 25 year hiatus of playing global games.

They have had time to sit down and to rethink their collapse and they apparently learned from it and focused on a rebuild of the military and military projection powers, they definitely have played a great economic game using gas/pipelines and oil, and politically are now playing the UW card against NATO and attempting to split the EU from the US which they have in effect achieved to a degree.

Back to the players---it makes Russian FP simplistic in nature when having to deal with five players especially if all the players are onboard ideology wise ie neo imperialism or neo economic imperialism cloaked under the guise of ethnic nationalism. We on the other hand in the last 25 years seem to have forgotten the old ideology war games ---we are so wrapped up in our own internal political right/left/tea party games for especially the last ten years we have simply "missed" what the rest of the world is thinking/doing.

You are right the core question is Russian a national threat?---if one looks at the willingness recently to fly a SU29 30 meters in front of a RC135 and flash weapons then I would say they are already a national threat especially since that flashing had to be approved by the central flight controller of the SU, if they are scooping up all our "former" allies and are sponsoring new friends in the ME and Africa then they are a threat, if in fact they have modernized and added to their nuclear abilities and voided a portion of the INF then they are a threat, if they have power projection abilities equal to us then they are a threat, they now openly question and or void existing treaties anyway they feel like interpreting -then they are a threat. If one looks at the claimed joint efforts by the US/Russian in Syria, Iran, Palestine, NK --where has the Russian significantly contributed to a direct resolution of any of those problem areas--no that I can see.

We could though take the high ground and via "soft power" look the other way stating they are not a threat but then what does the long term look like especially if Putin controls until 2024?

A lot of this is IMO---- has an underlying not spoken about driver-economic survival of Russia at least in their eyes.

This was taken from a new Russian SWJ article that goes to the point I am making about the threat.

"Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria." The author quotes one reference but I had seen references to this in several Interfax press releases over the last four weeks and had wondered about it---nothing-nothing was mentioned in the US media and this is a threat as it impacts a really long term ME ally which has had strained ties with us the last several years by our all over the map foreign policy regarding Syria, Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood support.

This newly released editorial today (below) in the Voice of Russian reflects a hardening in rhetoric I have not seen since 1989 especially if one really reads the reunification treaties 4 plus 2 and the Founding Act between NATO/Russia---they are virtually demanding the West accept their definition of those treaties, but then notice they ignored the Ukrainian treaty which they themselves signed. It should be noted that the 4 plus 2 treaties stipulate no nuclear weapons and no large scale permanent troops bases---not rotational exercise troops contingents.

http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_06_10/...t-expert-3064/

[kaur]

Sorry for link in Russian, but 1 pic tells more than 1000 words One Russian officer wrote short overview about exercise " Steadfast Jazz 2013". First pic is how Russians think about NATO attack in European theatre of war. If you perceive situation this way, look at the map, then how you think about Crimea and Eastern Ukraine?

http://factmil.com/publ/strana/alban...013/66-1-0-335

[Dayuhan]

They have had time to sit down and to rethink their collapse and they apparently learned from it and focused on a rebuild of the military and military projection powers, they definitely have played a great economic game using gas/pipelines and oil, and politically are now playing the UW card against NATO and attempting to split the EU from the US which they have in effect achieved to a degree.

I don't see how they've "split the EU from the US"... if anything the Ukraine events have brought the EU and US closer.

We on the other hand in the last 25 years seem to have forgotten the old ideology war games ---we are so wrapped up in our own internal political right/left/tea party games for especially the last ten years we have simply "missed" what the rest of the world is thinking/doing.

The distractions have been multiple, and the "right/left/tea party games" are less a problem than the economic crisis and the burden of legacy wars. Still, I don't see any evidence to suggest disconnection from "what the rest of the world is thinking". As always, the "rest of the world" is thinking all kinds of different things, all of which have to be managed on a case to case basis.

You are right the core question is Russian a national threat?---if one looks at the willingness recently to fly a SU29 30 meters in front of a RC135 and flash weapons then I would say they are already a national threat especially since that flashing had to be approved by the central flight controller of the SU

How does that constitute a threat?

if they are scooping up all our "former" allies and are sponsoring new friends in the ME and Africa

Who exactly have they "scooped up", and who have they sponsored?

We could though take the high ground and via "soft power" look the other way stating they are not a threat but then what does the long term look like especially if Putin controls until 2024?

Or we could go all hysterical and exaggerate the threat all out of proportion.

Or we could stay calm and assess the threat realistically.

In specific, real-world terms, what are we afraid of? What do we think the Russians are going to do that we don't want them to do?

"Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria." The author quotes one reference but I had seen references to this in several Interfax press releases over the last four weeks and had wondered about it---nothing-nothing was mentioned in the US media and this is a threat as it impacts a really long term ME ally which has had strained ties with us the last several years by our all over the map foreign policy regarding Syria, Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood support.

So what's the supposed deal, and what's it meant to accomplish? Claims like that need a reference.