Assessing the Russian military as an instrument of power
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August 25, 2016
It
has been a quarter of a century now since the fall of the Soviet Union
and yet the memory of the Soviet Armed Forces is still vivid in the
minds of many of those who lived through the Cold War or even remember
WWII. The NATO-sponsored elites of eastern Europe still continue to
scare their citizens by warning of a danger of “Russian tanks” rolling
down their streets as if the Soviet tanks were about to advance on
Germany again. For a while, the accepted image of a Russian solider in
the West was a semi-literate drinking and raping Ivan who would attack
in immense hordes with little tactical skills and an officer corps
selected for political loyalty and lack of imagination. Then the
propaganda narrative changed and now the new Russian bogeyman is a “little green man”
who will suddenly show up to annex some part of the Baltics to Russia.
Putatively pro-Russian “experts” add to the confusion by publicly
hallucinating of a Russian deployment in Syria and the Mediterranean
which could wrestle the entire region away from Uncle Sam and fight the
entire NATO/CENCOM air forces and navies with confidence. This is all
nonsense, of course, and what I propose to do here is to provide a few
very basic pointers about what the modern Russian military can and
cannot do in 2016. This will not be a highly technical discussion but
rather a list of a few simple, basic, reminders.
Russia is not the Soviet Union
The
first and most important thing to keep in mind is that the Russian
military is truly focused on the defense of the Russian territory. Let
me immediately say that contrary to much of the Cold War propaganda, the
Soviet military was also defensive in essence, even if it did include a
number of offensive elements:
1) The military control of all of Eastern Europe as a “buffer zone” to keep the US/NATO away from the Soviet Union’s borders.
2)
An official ideology, Communism, which was messianic and global in its
stated goals (more or less, depending on who was in power)
3)
A practice of global opposition to the US Empire anywhere on the planet
with technical, political, financial, scientific and, of course,
military means
Russia has exactly zero interest in any of these.
Not only did the nature of modern warfare dramatically reduce the
benefits of being forward deployed, the messianic aspects of Communism
have even been abandoned by the Communist Party of Russia which is now
focused on the internal socio-economic problems of Russia and which has
no interest whatsoever in liberating the Polish or Austrian proletariat
from Capitalist exploitation. As for a global military presence, Russia
has neither the means nor the desire to waste her very limited resources
on faraway territories which do not contribute to her defense.
But
the single most important factor here is this: the overwhelming
majority of Russian are tired and fed up with being an empire. From
Peter I to Gorbachev, the Russian people have paid a horrific price in
sweat, tears, blood and Rubles to maintain an empire which did
absolutely nothing for the Russian people except impoverish them and
make them hated in much of the world. More than anything else, the
Russians want their country to be a “normal” country. Yes, safe,
powerful, wealthy and respected, but still a normal country and not a
global superpower. Many Russians still remember that the Soviet
Politburo justified the occupation and subsequent war in Afghanistan as
the completion of an “internationalist duty” and if somebody today tried
that kind of language the reply would be “to hell with that”. Finally,
there is the sad reality that almost all the countries which were
liberated by Russia, not only from Nazi Germany, but also from the
Turkish yoke show exactly zero gratitude for the role Russia played in
their liberation. To see how our so-called “Orthodox brothers” in
Bulgaria, Romania or Georgia are eager to deploy NATO weapons against
Russia is nothing short of sickening. The next time around, let these
guys liberate themselves, everybody will be happier that way.
It
is a basic rule of military analysis that you do not look at the
intentions but primarily at capabilities, so let us now look at Russian
capabilities.
The Russian armed forces are relatively small
First,
the Russian armed forces are fairly small, especially for the defense
of the biggest country on the planet (Russia is almost twice the size of
the USA, she has a about half the population and land border length of
20,241km). The total size of the Russian Armed Forces is estimated at
about 800’000 soldiers. That puts the Russian Armed Forces in 5th position worldwide, somewhere between the DPRK (1’190’000) and Pakistan (643’800). Truly, this kind of “bean counting” makes absolutely no sense, but this comparison is useful to show something crucial: the Russian Armed Forces are relatively small.
This
conclusion is further bolstered if we consider the fact that it is hard
to imagine a scenario in which every Russian solider from Kalinigrad to
the Kamchatka will be engaged at the same time against one enemy. This
is why the Russian territory has been broken up into five separate (and,
de facto, autonomous) military districts (or “strategic directions): East, Central, Northern, Western and Southern.
While
there are a number of units which are subordinated directly to the high
command in Moscow, most Russian units have been distributed between the
commands of these strategic directions.
[Sidebar:
it is also interesting to know that when Putin came to power the
Western military district was almost demilitarized as nobody in Russia
believed that there was a threat coming from the West. The aggressive
US/NATO policies have now changed that and there now is an major program
underway to strengthen it, including the reactivation of the First
Guards Tank Army.]
There
is no US equivalent to the Russian military districts. Or, if there is,
it is very different in nature and scope. I am talking about the US
Unified Combatant Commands which have broken up our entire planet into
“Areas of Responsibility”:
Notice
that all of Russia is in the area of “responsibility” of only one of
these commands, USEUCOM. In reality, however, in the case of full scale
war between Russia and the United States USCENTCOM and USPACOM would,
obviously, play a crucial role.
The Russians are *not* coming
The
size and capabilities of the Russian Military Districts are completely
dwarfed by the immense power and resources of the US Commands: in every
one of these commands the USA already has deployed forces,
pre-positioned equipment and built the infrastructure needed to receive
major reinforcements. Furthermore, since the USA currently has about 700
military bases worldwide, the host countries have been turned into a
modern version of a colony, a protectorate, which has no option than to
fully collaborate with the USA and which has to offer all its resources
in manpower, equipment, infrastructure, etc. to the USA in case of war.
To put it simply: all of Europe is owned by the USA who can use it as
they want (mainly as canon fodder against Russia, of course).
It
is important to keep this immense difference in size and capabilities
in mind when, for example, we look at the Russian operation in Syria.
When
the first rumors of an impending Russian intervention began flooding
the blogosphere many were tempted to say that the Russians were about to
liberate Syria, challenge NATO and defeat Daesh. Some had visions of
Russian Airborne Forces deployed into Damascus, MiG-31s criss-crossing
the Syrian skies and even Russian SLBMs cruising off the Syrian coast
(though they never explained this one). At the time I tried to explain
that no, the “Russians are not coming” (see here, here, here, hereand here),
but my cautionary remarks were not greeted with enthusiasm, to put it
mildly. A Russian task force did eventually materialize in Syria, but it
was a very far cry from what was expected. In fact, compared to the
expected intervention force, it was tiny: 50 aircraft and support
personnel. What this small force achieved, however, was much more than
anybody expected, including myself. So what happened here, did the
Russians really do everything they can, or did they get cold feet or
were they somehow pressured into a much less ambitious mission than they
had originally envisioned?
To explain this, we now need to look at the actual capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces.
The true “reach” of the Russian armed forces
First,
Russia does have very long range weapon systems: her missiles can reach
any point on the planet, her bombers can fly many thousands of miles
and her transport aircraft have ranges of several thousand miles.
However, and this is crucial, none of that amounts to a real power
projection capability.
There
are two main ways to project power: to take control over a territory
or, failing that to deny it to your enemy. The first one absolutely
requires the famous “boots on the ground” while the second one requires
air supremacy. So how far away from home can the Russian solider and
pilots really fight? How far from home can the Russian Aerospace forces
establish a no-fly zone?
Let’s begin by dispelling a myth: that Russian Airborne Forces are more or less similar to the US 82nd or 101st Airborne. They are not. The 82nd and 101st
are light infantry divisions which are typically engaged in what I
would call “colonial enforcement” missions. In comparison to the US
airborne forces, the Russian Airborne Forces are much heavier, fully
mechanized and their main mission is to fight in the operational level
support of the front to a maximum depth of 100km to 300km (if I remember
correctly, the Russian Aerospace Forces don’t even have sufficient
aircraft to airlift an entire Airborne Division although they will
acquire that capability in 2017). Once landed, the Russian Airborne
Division is a much more formidable force than its US counterpart: not
only are the Russians fully mechanized and they have their own
artillery. Most importantly, they are far more tactically mobile than
the Americans.
But what the Russians gain in tactical mobility, they lose in strategic mobility.: the US can easily sent the 82nd pretty much to any location on the planet, whereas the Russians most definitely cannot do that with their Airborne Forces.
Furthermore,
even a Russian Airborne Division is relatively weak and fragile,
especially when compared to regular armed forces, so they are critically
dependent on the support of the Russian Aerospace forces. That, again,
dramatically reduces the “reach” of these forces. All this is to say
that no, the Russian VDV never had the means to send an airborne
division/Brigade/Regiment to Damascus any more than they had the means
to support the Russian VDV company in Pristina.
This is not a weakness of the Russian Airborne Forces, it is simply the
logical consequence of the fact that the entire Russian military
posture is purely defensive in nature, at least strategically.
Like
any other modern military force, the Russians are capable of offensive
military operations, but those would be executed primarily as a part of a
defensive plan or as a part of a counter-attack. And while the Russian
Ground Forces (aka “Army”) have excellent terrain crossing capabilities,
they are all designed for missions of less than a couple of hundred
kilometers in depth.
This
is why in the past I have written that the Russian Armed Forces are
designed to fight on their national territory and up to a maximum of
1000km from the Russian border. Now, please do not take this “1000km”
literally. In reality, 200km-400km would be much more realistic, and I
would say that the capabilities of the Russian military diminish in a
manner roughly inversely proportional to the square of the distance
from the Russian borders. Here is what this maximal 1000km looks like on a map showing the western and southern borders of Russia:
Map by Harry
Keep
in mind that the real distance the Russian armed forces can “reach” is
not primarily determined by distance, but much more by terrain and the
possible defenses encountered in this zone. Flying over Estonia to reach
the Baltic Sea would be much easier than to fly over Turkey to reach
Syria. It is much easier to cross the Ukrainian plains that it would be
to cross the snow covered forests of Finland. Again, the conceptual
1000km distance would often be much shorter in the real world.
If we now take a closer look at the Middle-East, here is what we see:
Map by udbc
Notice
that Khmeimin is just at the edge of this 1000km distance, but only
50km from the Turkish border and that in order to resupply it the
Russians would need to either cross Turkish airspace of fly around
Turkey via Iran and Iraq. In other words, Khmeimim and Damascus are way
too far for the Russian armed forces to insert anything but a relatively
small force and give it a relatively limited mission. And while the
Russians were extremely successful in Syria, I would argue that Putin
took a huge risk, even if he, and the Russian General Staff, calculated
the odds correctly and achieved a truly remarkable success.
Has the recent Iranian offer to use the Hamedan airbase made a difference in Russian capabilities?
Yes
and no. Yes because it will now make it possible for the Russians to
use their Tu-22M3 in a much more effective way and no because this
improvement does not fundamentally change the regional balance of power
or allow the Russian to project their forces into Syria. To put it
simply: the Russians are years away from being capable of executing
something similar to what the USA did during “Desert Shield”. In fact,
such operations are not even part of the Russian military doctrine and
the Russians have no desire to develop any such capability. There is a
reason why the AngloZionist Empire is broke: maintaining a global empire
is prohibitively expensive, the Russians painfully learned that lesson
in the past and they have no desire to emulate the USA today. Doing so
would not only require a dramatic change in the Russian military
posture, but also to imitate the US political and economic model,
something Russia neither desires nor is capable of.
There
are, however, also big advantages to the Russian force posture, the
main one being that Russians will only fight on “their turf” not only in
terms of location, but also in terms of capabilities. The very same
inverse square “law” which so severely limits the Russian military power
projection capabilities also acts in Russia’s favor when dealing with
an enemy approaching the Russian border: the closer this enemy gets, the
more dangerous his environment becomes. In practical terms, this means
that the three Baltic states, the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Finland, most
of the Ukraine, the Black Sea and the Caspian are all, for all practical
purposes, “Russkie-land”. The fact that NATO pretends otherwise makes
no difference here: the kind of firepower, capabilities which Russia can
bring to bear simply dwarfs what the US and NATO can commit. This is
not an issue of number of tanks, or helicopters or combat aircraft, it
is the fact that over and near the Russian territory the Russian armed
forces would act as an integrated whole, exactly what they cannot do as
far as, say, in Syria. So even if NATO can in theory bring more aircraft
to the battle, Russian aircraft would be supported by the multi-layered
and fully integrated Russian air defense network, a large number of
sophisticated electronic warfare systems which, together with highly
capable and long range interceptors: land based like the S-400 or
airborne like the MiG-31BM would make it extremely dangerous for US/NATO
aircraft to get anywhere near Russian airspace, especially for the
AWACs the US air doctrine completely depends on.
The real meaning of A2AD
The American nightmare
The
US and NATO are, of course, very much aware of this. And as is
typically the case, they concealed this reality behind an obscure
acronym: A2AD, which stands for anti-access area denial. According to US strategists,
Russia, China and even Iran are plotting to use A2AD strategies against
the USA. What this means in plain English is simple, of course: some
countries out there actually can fight back and defend themselves (hence
the burning aircraft carrier on the cover of this book). The arrogance
of it all is simply amazing: it is not like the USA is concerned about
Iranian A2AD in Paraguay, Russia A2AD in Africa or even Chinese A2AD in
the Gulf of Mexico. No, the USA is concerned about these countries
defending their own borders. Indeed, how dare they?!
Fortunately
for the world, Uncle Sam only get’s to whine here, but cannot do much
about it except conceal these realities from the general public in the
West and obfuscate the dangers of messing with the wrong countries under
bizarre acronyms like A2AD. And that brings me to the Ukraine.
A
quick look at 1000km map will immediately show that the Ukraine is also
well within the conceptual “Russkie-land” zone (again, don’t take
1000km literally, and remember that this is a maximum, a couple of
hundred kilometers are much more realistic). This does not at all mean
that Russia would want, or should, attack or invade the Ukraine (the the
Baltic states and Poland, for that matter), but it does mean that such
an operation is well within the Russian capabilities (at least if we
forget about public opinion in Russia) and that to try to counter that
would take a truly immense effort, something nobody in the West has the
means to undertake.
In
truth, that kind of scenarios only exist in the demented minds of
western propagandists and in the artifical world of US think tanks which
make providing the politicians with frightening fairy tales their daily
bread (for an example of the latter, see here).
To be sure, the fact that both sides have long-range standoff weapons,
including nuclear ones, makes such a scenario even less likely unless we
assume that the Russians have gone insane and are trying to force the
US to resort to nuclear weapons. The opposite scenario – the US taking
the risk of forcing Russia to use her nukes – is, alas, not quite as
unlikely, especially if the Neocons take full control of the White
House. The difference? The Russians know that they are neither
invulnerable nor invincible, the Americans don’t. This is why the latter
are far more likely to trigger and conflict than the former.
A
full-scale war between the USA and Russia would be far different from
anything described here: it would last a week, maybe two, it would
involve conventional and nuclear strikes on both the USA and Russia, and
it would be fought primarily with standoff weapons, “boots on the
ground” or armored warfare would matter very little in such a scenario.
The Ukraine is located well inside Russkie-land
So
if in Syria the “Russians are not coming”, then in the Ukraine they are
already there. I am not referring to the sending of equipment (the voentorg) or volunteers (the “northern wind”)
but to the fact that the Ukraine and, especially, the Donbass are so
close to the Russian border as being basically undeniable to the
Russians should they decide to take it. Again, I am not suggesting that
they will, or even that this should happen, but only that all the hot
air from the regime in Kiev about “defending Europe against the Russian
hordes” or “teaching NATO on how to fight the Russians” is absolute
nonsense. Ditto for the talk about supplying “lethal weapons” to the
Ukronazis. Why? Because the situation in the Donbass is extremely
simple: it is highly unlikely that the Ukronazis would succeed in taking
over the Donbass but if, by some miracle, they did, they would be
destroyed by the Russian armed forces. Putin has made it abundantly
clear that while he will not intervene militarily in the Ukraine, he
will not allow a genocide to take place in Novorussia. In fact, just the
Russian artillery deployed along the border has the means to destroy
any Ukrainian force invading Novorussia. In fact, that is exactly what
happened in July of 2014 when in a single cross-border 2 minutes long
fire strike by Russian multiple rocket launchers and long range
artillery guns completely destroyed two Ukrainian mechanized battalions
(a first in the history of warfare).
As
I wrote many times, all parties to the conflict know that, and the only
real goal of the Ukronazis is to trigger a Russian intervention in the
Donbass, while the Russians are trying to avoid it by covertly
supporting the Novorussians. That’s it. It is that simple. But the
notion of the Ukronazis ever getting their hands on the Donbass or, even
less so, Crimea is absolutely ridiculous as even the combined power of
the US and NATO could not make that happen.
Conclusion: Russia ain’t the Soviet Union and it ain’t the USA
It
is absolutely amazing how hard it is for so many people to understand
the seemingly simple fact that Russia is not a USSR v2 nor an anti-USA.
It is therefore absolutely essential to repeat over and over again that
the Russia of 2016 has no aspirations to become an empire and no means
to become a global challenger to the AngloZionist hegemony over our
planet. So what does Russia want? It is simple: Russia simply wants to
be a sovereign and free country. That’s it. But in a world ruled by the
AngloZionist Empire this is also a lot. In fact, I would say that for
the international plutocracy ruling the Empire, this Russian aspiration
is completely and categorically unacceptable as it sees this Russian
desire as an existential threat to the USA and the entire New World
Order the Empire is trying to impose upon all of us. They are absolutely
correct, by the way.
If
Russia is allowed to break free from the Empire, then this means the
end for the Empire’s global domination project as other countries will
inevitably follow suit. Not only that, but this would deprive the Empire
from the immense Russian resources in energy, potable water, strategic
metals, etc. If Russia is allowed to break free and succeed, then Europe
will inevitably gravitate towards Russia due to objective economic and
political factors. Losing Europe would mean the end of the AngloZionist
Empire. Everybody understands that and this is why the ruling 1%ers have
unleashed to most hysterical full-spectrum russophobic propaganda
campaign in western history. So yes, Russia and the Empire are already
at war, a war for survival from which only one side will walk away while
the other will be eliminated, at least in its current political form.
This war is a new type of war, however, one which is roughly 80% informational, 15% economic and 5% military.
This is why the ban on the Russian paralympic team is every bit as
important as the delivery of US and British counter-battery radars to
the Nazi junta in Kiev.
If
militarily and economically Russia is dramatically weaker than the US
led block of all the countries forming the Empire, on the informational
front Russia is doing much better. It is enough to see all the hysterics
of western politicians about RT to see that they are most definitely
feeling threatened in an area which they used to completely dominate:
information operations (aka propaganda).
The goals of Russia are quite simple:
a) military: to survive (defensive military doctrine)
b) economic: to become truly sovereign (to remove the 5th columnists from power)
c) informational: to discredit and de-legitimize the Empire political and economic basis
That’s
it. Unlike the grandiose hopes of those who wish to see the Russian
military intervene everywhere, these 3 goals are commensurate with the
actual capabilities/means of Russia.
One
cannot win a war by engaging in the kind of warfare the enemy excels
at. You have to impose upon him the kind of warfare you excel at. If
Russia tried to “out-USA the USA” she would inevitably lose, she
therefore chose to be different in order to prevail.
There
are still many out there who are nostalgic for the “good old days” of
the Cold War when any anti-US movement, party, regime or insurgency
would automatically get the support of the USSR. These are the folks who
deeply regret that Russia did not liberate the Ukraine from the Nazi
junta, who fault Russia for not standing up to the USA in Syria and who
are baffled, if not disgusted, by the apparently cozy relationship
between Moscow and Tel Aviv. I understand these people, at least to some
degree, but I also see what they plainly fail to realize: Russia is
still much weaker than the AngloZionist Empire and because of that
Russia will always prefer a bad peace to a good war. Besides, it is not
like there was a long line of countries waiting to defend Russia when
her interests were affected. Does anybody know which countries, besides
Russia, have recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Answer: Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru! Yep, not even Kazakhstan or Syria… Isn’t friendship and partnership a two-way street?
The
truth is that Russia does not owe anything to anybody. But even more
importantly, Russia does simply not have the means to engage in a
planetary zero-sum game against the AngloZionist Empire. Since Vladimir
Putin came to power he achieved a quasi-miracle: he made Russia into a
semi-sovereign state. Yes, I wrote semi-sovereign because while Russia
is militarily safe she remains economically subservient to the
AngloZionist Empire. Compared to the Empire, her economy is tiny and her
armed forces only capable of defending the Russian homeland. And yet,
just as the tiny Russian contingent in Khmeimim achieved results way
superior to anything which could have been expected from it, Russia is
still the only power on the planet who dares to openly say “niet” to the AngloZionist Hegemon and but to even openly challenge and even ridicule its legitimacy and so-called ‘values’.
The
war between the Empire and Russia will be a long one, and its outcome
will remain uncertain for many years but, as the Russian saying goes,
“Russia does not start wars, she ends them”. The Papacy fought against
Russia for 1000 years. The Crusaders for roughly a century. The Swedish
Empire for 21 years. Napoleon for just a few months. Queen Victoria,
Napoleon III and Abdülmecid I (what I call the “Ecumenical Coalition
against Russia) for about 3 years. The Kaiser Wilhelm II also for 3
years. The Trotskysts for a decade. Hitler for 4 years. The Jewish
mobsters (aka “oligarchs”) for 9 years. And yes, they all eventually
were defeated, even after a temporary victory, but each time Russia paid
a huge price in blood and suffering. This time around, the Russian
leaders have chosen a different strategy, they try as hard as possible
not to give the West a pretext for a full-scale military confrontation.
So far, this strategy has been successful and besides a two terrorist
attacks (in Egypt and Syria) and a two-year long recession (apparently
ending soon), Russia did not have pay the horrendous price countries at
war with the West typically have had to pay. It would be delusional to
expect the Russians to change course at this time, especially since time
is now clearly on the Russian side. Just look at all the problems all
the enemies of Russia have to which she does not have to contribute at
all: the US and EU are both in a deep and potentially devastating
political crisis, the US is sitting on an economic time-bomb while the
EU is quite literally imploding. The Ukraine has turned into a textbook
example of a failed state and is likely to break apart, while Turkey is
undergoing the worst crisis since its foundation. And each passing day
just makes things worse and worse for the Empire. This reminds me of the
monologue of Captain Willard in the movie “Apocalypse Now”: “I’m
here a week now… waiting for a mission… getting softer. Every minute I
stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the
bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around the walls moved in a
little tighter”. Replace Charlie with Ivan and the jungle with the
taiga, and you get a pretty good picture of the dynamic taking place:
every days the walls of the Empire are moving in a little tighter while
the AngloZionists are completely clueless as to what to do to stop this.
Conclusion
In
international affairs, as in many other areas, it is better to never
say never. So I will only say that to see the Russian armed forces going
into an offensive operation remains exceedingly unlikely. Nor will
Russia defend even an important partner at “any cost”. The primarily
mission and military posture of the Russian armed forces will remain
fundamentally defensive and while Russia might use her armed forces in
support of a political goal or to help an ally, she will do that with
extreme caution not to allow that engagement to escalate into a regional
war or, even less so, a direct war against the Empire.
Unlike the West where a possible war with Russia is almost never discussed (and, when it is, it is done in an absolutely ridiculous manner),
the prospects of war with the West are discussed in the Russian media
on an almost daily basis, including on the main, state-funded, TV
stations. As for the Russian armed forces, they are engaged in huge
rearmament and force-training program which, so far, has been roughly
50% completed. These are all clear signs that Russia is preparing, very
intensively, for war. Should the Neocon “crazies in the basement”
trigger a war they will find Russia ready, militarily and
psychologically, to fight and to win, no matter what the costs. But
Russia will never again volunteer for the role of global anti-US agent
or engage her armed forces if there is a viable alternative to such an
engagement. So no, most definitely not, the Russians are not coming.
The Saker
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