Russian Military Assessment

8/9/2019 Russian Military Assessment

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Part 1: Geopolitics and the RussianMilitary

February 9, 2009 | 1214 GMT

Summary

As the heart of the Soviet Union, Russia reached the height of its military power duringthe Cold War. Having a vast empire required a vast army to defend it. But geography andpoor infrastructure demanded that a heavy army be poised to guard against the West andgarrisoned throughout the union to contain civil unrest. By 1991, the fall of the BerlinWall, the success of Operation Desert Storm and the pending disintegration of the SovietUnion cast doubt on the Soviet military model and imposed a strange new reality forRussian military planners.

Editors Note: This is part one of a four-part series on the reformation of the Russian

military.

Analysis

By the end of World War II, the Soviet Union a constitutional assembly of socialistrepublics in existence since 1922 had come to encompass a massive amount ofterritory. Covering what would later be known as the Warsaw Pact (the Sovietcounteralliance to NATO), the Iron Curtain fell across a vast swath of Eurasia, providingMoscow with immense strategic depth more than it had ever controlled before, or hascontrolled since.


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Click map to enlarge

To the south and southwest, the Kremlin commanded critical geographic buffers like theCaucasus and Carpathian mountains, and to the west, where there were no such mountainbarriers, the North European Plain offered an effective defense in depth. Moscow wasmore than 1,000 miles from NATOs front lines, and these geographic circumstances along with the long-standing realities of Russian geopolitics favored land forces. Hence the Red Army, in its many forms, has traditionally beenthe pre-eminent branch of the Russian military.

At the end of World War II, the Soviets commanded a vast wartime industrial machine.

The demographic, agricultural and industrial strengths of the western Soviet republicsand Eastern Europe meant that Moscow was positioned to sustain an enormous militarywell after the conclusion of the Great Patriotic War and it proceeded to do just that.

Related Links

The Geopolitics of Russia: Permanent Struggle Russia: Trials of the Russian Fleet Russia: The Challenges of Modernizing the Military Russia: Understanding the Russian Military China, Russia: An Evolving Defense Relationship

Related Special Topic Pages

Russias Military The Russian Resurgence Special Series: Status of the Russian Military


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These two factors, geography and industry, were deeply interrelated and interdependent.The vast territory required a vast military to defend it. The perennial Russian problem oflong, indefensible borders had not been solved by the creation and expansion of theWarsaw Pact; the borders had simply been pushed out to a more comfortable distancefrom Moscow, to include actual geographic barriers to invasion, such as mountain ranges.

Further complicating matters was Russias second perennial problem: poor transportationinfrastructure not just bad roads and a limited rail network, but terrain on which it wasdifficult to build infrastructure and the lack of a river system conducive to commerce.

These problems continue to plague Russia. Unable to quickly move large forces and theirequipment across the country even today, Russia spans nearly the entirety of theEastern Hemisphere Russia must disperse large, standing military units around thecountry. While Russias focus has always been westward, it maintains a significant, if attimes neglected, presence in the Far East. Meanwhile, the territory that provided Moscowwith strategic depth required extensive internal security apparatuses to quell dissent.These widely dispersed forces depended on the people, agriculture and industry of thenewly acquired territories for sustenance.

Nevertheless, by the end of World War II it looked as though the stars had finally alignedfor Russia. The Soviet Union would become so militarily powerful that Europe andthe combined forces of NATO trembled at the prospect of a Soviet invasion from

Russia, rather than the reverse (which had historically been the case).

Naturally, this newfound power made deep and lasting impressions on military thinkingin Russia. It reinforced deep-seated Russian conceptions of strategy that figured in termsof overwhelming numbers, where quantitative superiority compensated for qualitativeinefficiencies. The military continued to be organized to carry out large, coordinatedmaneuvers that demanded strict adherence to higher command. Quantitative superiority


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dictated a large, conscripted force of necessarily young, poorly educated soldiers withlimited training, and equipment and organization had to account for this.

At the same time, the military continued to be the primary, privileged beneficiary of theentire Soviet economy and remained so for the remainder of the unions existence.

This put immense resources at the Kremlins disposal, so immense that military thinkingbegan to be taken to a perverse extreme. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989,Moscow had more than 50,000 main battle tanks deployed west of the Ural Mountains so many that it is doubtful the Soviet Union could have provided sufficient gasoline tofuel the much-feared invasion of Western Europe. But even then, in terms of the size ofthe military and the territory it occupied, Soviet military strength was very real.


When the Berlin Wall came down, the floor collapsed under the Soviet Union, whichceased to exist in 1991. Soviet territory contracted to the borders of Russia proper. On theNorth European Plain, the border retreated from the Elbe River in Germany to a pointless than 100 miles from St. Petersburg. Moscow found itself 250 miles from anindependent Belarus and less than 300 miles from an independent Ukraine. Russia also

lost the demographic, agricultural and industrial capacity of Eastern Europe and thewestern republics that had helped sustain the enormous Soviet war machine.

But this was only the beginning. In 1991, the utter devastation of Iraqs military at thehands of U.S. and NATO forces undermined the credibility of the Soviet military model.At the time, far from the weak military for which Iraq has come to be known, the Iraqimilitary was among the largest in the world. Its troops were battle-hardened from nearly adecade of war with Iran and they were equipped with Soviet hardware and followed


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basic Soviet doctrine. Desert Storm called into question the central tenets of Sovietmilitary thinking, leaving a Russian military awash in problems and uncertain of even itsmost basic assumptions.

Meanwhile, then-President Boris Yeltsin began to build inefficiency and incoherence into

the Russian military in order to forestall a military coup (though he was hardly the firstRussian leader to do this). Decay and disarray gripped all of Russia. The military itselfbegan to rust and atrophy, even as it entered into the first bloody and protracted civil warin Chechnya. The ruble experienced what can only be described as a free fall. Birth ratesdeclined dramatically. Former Warsaw Pact allies and even former Soviet SocialistRepublics began to be accepted as full members of NATO. Everything that had madethe Soviet Union geographically secure, and much of what had made the Soviet warmachine possible, was no longer Moscows.

Thus, the perennial Russian problem of insecurity and vulnerability to invasion wasprofoundly complicated by the rapid retraction of territory at the same time that basic

subsistence for the military was becoming a problem. The Russian military was simplyno longer capable of defending what limited (yet still vast) territory it was responsible for,to say nothing of meaningful offensive or expeditionary capability.

This situation was not just a massive blow to the Russian military it also imposed astrange new reality for which long-standing Soviet military doctrine was completelyunprepared. The underlying structure of the military, in other words, was in completedisarray just at the moment when the military, as an institution, had to grapple withcompletely new circumstances and challenges.

In dealing with the situation, the Kremlin came to rely increasingly on its nuclear arsenal

as the guarantor of territorial integrity. Observers of Russian training exercises began tonote the simulated use of nuclear weapons to stem the tide of an invasion. In thesescenarios, Russian forces fight qualitatively superior forces in a slow retreat culminatingin the use of tactical nuclear weapons to hold the line.

Weak points in the Russian deterrent certainly remain itsballistic missile submarineshardly ever conduct patrols, and the bulk of its deliverable warheads are carried aboardaging Soviet-era heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles. But there is also little doubt thatMoscow retains a modern nuclear capability. Russia continues to field a very sizablearsenal that includes established missile designs that work, even as it continues to toywith maneuverable re-entry vehicles and penetration aids to improve its capability againstballistic missile defenses.

Russias nuclear posturing especially its defensive exercises was thus a message tothe West to not try anything, even though the conventional Russian military appearedweak. But it was also a warning of how Moscow would be forced to escalate matters if itfelt threatened. The nuclear arsenal became the trump card that the Kremlin clung to in anincreasing number of defensive scenarios. In reality, the Kremlin no longer had anyoffensive scenarios.


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This obviously was not a tenable position for Russia, and the need to reconstituteconventional military forces was clear. But this would take time. It was only whenVladimir Putin came to power in 1999 and began to consolidate control over the countrythat the Kremlin could stop fretting about a military coup and begin to think seriouslyabout meaningful military reform. In other words, the power of Putin allowed the

Kremlin, for the first time since the Cold War, to begin strengthening the military. Soon,however, the process of reform began cutting against the grain of the militarys old guard,so the challenge was to strengthen the military from the outside despite the best efforts ofthe military itself.

Even under the most optimistic of scenarios, Russia will never rebuild the Soviet army.The Kremlin simply lacks the capacity to sustain an army large enough to compensate forthe profound geographic disadvantages Russia faces in the 21st century. Although a massmilitary is no longer feasible, however, Russias borders and transportation constraintsare even more problematic than they were during the Soviet era. The only rationalsolution is to push for increasingly mobile and agile military units.

Russia will not embrace this reality completely; it will likely retain some semblance of alarge military, including a great number of conscripts. But Russia is attempting to buildmore agile units, to be known as permanent readiness forces (PRFs), trained to bepoised and prepared for quick deployment in a crisis.

The concept of permanent readiness is very Russian. History and geography haveinformed how Russia conceives of military operations. Russia has long had forces locatedgeographically and equipped to fight a specific type of war namely, heavy armoredcombat with NATO on the North European Plain. By comparison, the United States hasbeen conducting expeditionary overseas operations for almost its entire existence. The

U.S. military has long been intimately familiar with the logistical requirements ofoverseas deployments, and the rotations and training cycles required for sustainingexpeditionary forces.

Only about a quarter of the Russian military is expected to fall under the PRF umbrella.Manned by professional contract soldiers and with a presence in each of the six militarydistricts, such units will form the vanguard of the army in those regions, and will betrained to quickly react to any contingency. Missions can range from humanitarian anddisaster relief to counterterrorism, or even military intervention along Russias peripheryin operations akin to the August 2008 invasion of the breakaway Georgian enclave ofSouth Ossetia.

While this is an attractive concept in the abstract, however, there are numerous obstaclesto achieving a new military paradigm in Russia.

Next: Challenges to Russian military reform.


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Part 2: Challenges to Russian Military

Reform

February 10, 2009 | 1227 GMT

Summary

During the time of the Soviet Union, the Soviet armed forces were privileged institutions.As the primary beneficiary of the entire Soviet economic and political system, themilitary became a key foundation of Soviet power around the world. Not surprisingly,much of todays Russian military remains a legacy of the Soviet armed forces, although itis a shadow of its former self. Although the Kremlin intends to implement broad militaryreform, profound challenges remain, such as a top-heavy officer corps as well as difficultcultural, demographic and financial conditions.

Editors Note: This is part two of a four-part series on the reformation of the Russianmilitary.

Analysis

The Russian military will always be a product of Russian history, Russian geopoliticalimperatives and Russian thinking. It will never be measurable entirely by Westernmilitary standards. At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the realities ofthe 21st century demand some of the most radical military reform in Russias modernhistory. And this reform is not simply a matter of getting a fresh start. In order to build anew military, Moscow must also deconstruct what remains of Soviet military structureand organization. It must push past much of the Soviet-era thinking that has governed theRussian military for the better part of a century. And it must do so while working againstthe grain of profound institutional inertia.


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Officers

This inertia is embodied in the upper echelons of the officer corps, something we pointedout nearly 10 years ago in our2000-2010 decade forecast. STRATFOR also indicatedthat only the very top rung of Russian leadership had been replaced since the collapse ofthe Soviet Union, leaving much of the old Soviet mindset still firmly entrenched. Notonly is this cadre of senior officers the intellectual product of Soviet military education,but the upper echelons in which they reside were both incidentally and deliberatelyoverloaded.

Related Links

Part 1: Geopolitics and the Russian Military The Geopolitics of Russia: Permanent Struggle Russia: Trials of the Russian Fleet Russia: The Challenges of Modernizing the Military Russia: Understanding the Russian Military China, Russia: An Evolving Defense Relationship



Incidentally, because Moscow held tightly to the reins of the Soviet military in the daysof the Soviet Union, the majority of officers were Russian. When the union collapsed, adisproportionate number of enlisted personnel conscripts and volunteers alike from


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the western Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics were lost while the vast majorityof the officers remained part of the Russian military. The result was that the ratio ofofficers to enlisted personnel in the Russian military became extremely high.

Deliberately, because every Russian or Soviet leader before Vladimir Putin was

concerned about the military consolidating against the Kremlin, even though Russia hasnot faced a successful military coup in over two centuries. As a result of this paranoia,various inefficiencies have been deliberately and systematically built into the military bymany leaders in order to keep the officers too numerous and disorganized to ever achievesuch consolidation.

Indeed, future President Boris Yeltsin helped turn the tide against a 1991 coup supportedby rogue elements of the military against former President Mikhail Gorbachev. Uponbecoming president, Yeltsin greatly increased the number of officers both to keep themilitary in disarray and to insert political allies into the military.

In large part due to Yeltsins efforts, the officer corps today remains immense, with over300,000 members, tipping the scales at more than 30 percent of the total force (including

conscripts). As a point of comparison, commissioned officers in the U.S. Army amount to15 percent of its personnel, a percentage far more commensurate with modern, Westernmodels. Although the Russian military cannot be judged or understood entirely throughthe prism of Western military thought, it is a bloated, top-heavy and ultimatelyunsustainable force structure even for Russia.

So far, progress in reducing the number of officers has been stop-and-go. But thetransition of presidential power from Putin to Dmitri Medvedev has now been completed,


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which could position the Kremlin to challenge the entrenched interests of more than1,100 generals and admirals. These general officers have also been an expensive financialburden, since they occupy the most senior and well-paid positions with the mostassistants and perks. Efforts are underway to shrink their ranks by some 200, bringing thefigure closer to, though still greater than, the U.S. militarys general-officer ranks (fewer

than 900).

The current goal of reductions to 150,000 officers by 2012 a cut of more than 50percent is nothing if not ambitious, but even getting in that range would be anenormous step for Russias military because it would free up resources and help increasethe institutional agility of the armed forces as a whole. Indeed, the reduction in the seniorofficer ranks is even more dramatic than the 50 percent cut suggests, since the Kremlinhopes to dramatically expand the ranks of junior officers and noncommissioned officers(NCOs).

But concerns about job security in the midst of the global financial crisis and a tumblingruble have already led Prime Minister Putin to make public assurances that cuts to theranks of the military will not be precipitous and that only those near retirement will be letgo with pension and (a tradition in Russia) housing. No matter how the Kremlinmanages it, significant rises in entitlement spending are in the cards for the military

budget, and questions remain about just how quickly Russia will be able to push forwardwith major reductions in the senior officer ranks.

Culture

For the remainder of the Russian military, there are two broad issues: culture anddemographics. The new permanent readiness forces, poised and prepared for quickdeployment in a crisis, will be smaller and more agile, with different chains of command.


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This will necessarily increase reliance on junior officers and NCOs. By pushingcommand down to the lower levels, the demand for initiative and small-unit leadershipwill rise accordingly. But there is little tradition in the Russian military for either, and it isnot clear how well young officers and NCOs will cope, even though an expanded trainingpipeline is in the works.

There is also a culture of violence and leadership through brutality in the Russian military.The heart of this problem is the conscription program, which remains an enormousembarrassment for the Kremlin. Rampant brutality and hazing known as dedovshchina(formerly practiced by those in their second year of conscription before the two-year termof service was reduced to one year) often results in serious injury and death, includingsuicide. (Dedovshchina reportedly resulted in the loss of several hundred conscripts in2007, several years after the problem had been identified and reforms had begun to beimplemented.)

Not unrelated is a culture of drunkenness, drug abuse and desertion not only among

conscripts but also in the ranks of professional contract soldiers. As the U.S. militaryfound after Vietnam, this sort of cultural affliction can take a decade or more to remedy,and unlike the U.S. military in Vietnam, Russia hosts major heroin smuggling routesfrom Afghanistan. Black-market alcohol, as well as illicit drugs, are coursing throughRussias veins, making the reduction of alcoholism, drug abuse and corruption even morecomplicated for the Russian military.


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Demographics

A far more concrete problem is demographics. Junior officers, NCOs, professionalsoldiers and conscripts are all going to come from essentially the same pool (even withsome variation in age and educational achievement). By cutting the conscripted serviceperiod in half, Russia has effectively doubled the number of youth it must conscript eachyear. While eligibility for the draft runs for nearly a decade, technically, the vast majorityof youth are conscripted at age 18, and Russia is now attempting to conscript young menwho never knew the Soviet Union. The 1990s were not a particularly buoyant time forRussia in terms of the birth rate, and the number of Russian men turning 18 each year isdeclining, just when the Kremlin needs to press more and more of them into service.Although there will be a small rebound starting in 2017, according to birth-rateprojections, nearly a decade of dramatic population decline will occur before then, and

long-term prospects are much worse.


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The declining youth population is a reminder that Russia is approaching a much moreproblematic demographic crisis beyond 2025 namely, the decline of Russian societyas a whole. Birth rates are not sufficient to sustain the population, infertility, AIDS andalcoholism are rampant and the Russian people are growing increasingly unhealthy withdiminishing life spans.

Finances

The other major problem is money. Awash in cash during Putins presidency due in largepart to high commodity prices, Russia was able to sock away some US$750 billion intotal currency reserves. This sum has begun to erode because of the invasion of Georgiaand the ongoing financial crisis and is already down to around US$400 billion. Russiastill enjoys vast reserves, but the ruble continues to tumble as the financial crisis works itway through the Russian economy. Russia may be able to sustain some planned increasesin military spending by tapping its reserves, but the implications of the financial crisis onRussian military reform remain to be seen.

Actual spending on Russian national defense around US$40 billion in 2008 hascontinued to rise steadily in real rubles, but as a portion of gross domestic product and the


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overall budget it has remained relatively constant. What this means is that the Kremlinhas not been excessively lavish with national defense even when its monetary resourceswere expanding dramatically. Instead it has exercised the power of the purse nowembodied in the appointment of a tax man, Anatoly Serdyukov, as defense minister. TheKremlin is all too aware of how much money is being lost through corruption,

inefficiency and waste (Moscow is willing to acknowledge some US$75 million in 2007,but the real figure is almost certainly much higher).


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The global financial crisis comes at a particularly difficult point in Russian militarymodernization. Increases in defense spending and procurement had been talked aboutbefore, but the confluence of a flood of petrodollars and the successful transition ofpower to President Medvedev in 2008 held the promise, at last, of actual implementation.Then came the onslaught of the worldwide recession. While the Kremlin may continue to

sustain military spending out of its reserves, its budgets will undoubtedly be tighter thananticipated for the duration of the crisis.

Further complicating financial matters is an ongoing clan warin the Kremlin between thetwo main factions working under Prime Minister Putin. The faction led by VladislavSurkov controls both the countrys finances and the GRU, Russias shadowy militaryintelligence agency, while the defense establishment (both ministerial and industrial) iscontrolled by the other faction, led by Igor Sechin. This conflict has likely played a rolein impeding the implementation of military reform.

But even if the clan war subsides and Moscows coffers stabilize, money cannot solve

everything. The myriad obstacles in the way of genuine military reform are daunting ones,difficult to overcome even in the best of times. And these are not the best of times. Russiahas devised ambitious military reform plans and revised time and again to accommodatethe realities of the moment, often departing from the plans original goals. This timearound, as Russia tries to reassert itself as a regional power, broad military reform is acritical priority for the Kremlin. Some progress is certainly in the cards, and although itwill not likely conform to previously articulated plans, it could lead to limited successesthat are sufficient for Moscows needs, such as the Georgian operation in August 2008.

Next: The Russian defense industry.

Part 3: The Russian Defense Industry

February 11, 2009 | 1159 GMT


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Summary

Russian military hardware gets a bad rap from Western analysts, who unfairly useWestern standards to evaluate it. Even the best Soviet equipment much of which isstill quite capable and relevant was designed with lower quality control, mass

production and crude maintenance in mind (for easier use by poorly trained conscripts).The fact that some production capacity has endured through the hardships of the post-Soviet era is remarkable, representing a solid technological footing for military reform.Moving forward, it all depends on how innovative the defense sector can be.

Editors Note: This is part three of a four-part series on the reformation of the Russian

military.

Analysis

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 hit the defense industry particularly hard. Once

the premier sector of the Soviet economy, with immense production capacities, thedefense industry suddenly found itself without a market. The economic paradigm thatsupported it was broken and the customers it existed to serve (the Soviet Union andWarsaw Pact) were no longer buying.

For a while, the industry was able to sustain itself by feeding off Soviet-era stockpiles ofraw materials. But this was hardly a sustainable solution, and as the industry began toconsume those stockpiles, it soon had to confront the realities of a completely neweconomic paradigm: the market economy. The centrally controlled Soviet economicsystem did nothing to prepare the industry for working in a modern business environment.

That the Russian defense industry has survived at all is not because of militaryprocurement investment but because of foreign sales. Following the demise of the Soviet


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Union, China became the principal financier of the Russian defense industry, thoughChinese purchases have dropped off significantly. Having learned much from importedRussian military technology, Beijing is becoming quite capable ofmaking its ownmilitary equipment. India, Algeria, Venezuela and Iran are picking up the slack asimporters of Russian military hardware (and thus financiers of the defense industry).



The bottom line is that the Kremlin, since the end of the Cold War, has yet to investenough in its own defense industry to sustain it. The new 2011-2020 procurement planwill likely try to do that, but only time will tell whether a reasonable degree ofimplementation can be achieved.

Meanwhile, Moscow is attempting to eliminate corruption and incompetence andconsolidate successful industries under unified aegis like the United Aircraft BuildingCorporation and the United Shipbuilding Corporation. While much of the defenseindustry is as bad off as the Russian military during the dark days of the 1990s, certainsectors are nonetheless cranking out quality hardware.

At times, Russian military hardware is still derided by Western analysts whoinappropriately hold it to Western standards. This is to misunderstand Russian militaryhardware. Even the best Soviet equipment was designed with lower quality control, massproduction, particularly rugged operating conditions (even by military standards) and

crude maintenance in mind.


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In fact, the Russian defense industry has made incremental and evolutionaryimprovements to the best of late-Soviet technology and is able to produce the results andsell them abroad. The Su-30MK-series Flanker fighter jets are highly coveted andwidely regarded as extremely capable late-fourth generation combat aircraft. The industryis already working on not only a more refined Su-35 but a larger fighter-bomber variantknown as the Su-34.

Russian air defense hardware also remains among the most capable in the world. TheSoviet post-World War II experience greatly informed the decades-long and still vibrantRussian obsession with ground-based air defenses. The most modern Russian systems

specifically the later versions of the S-300PMU series and what is now being touted asthe S-400 (variants of which have been designated by NATO as the SA-20 and SA-21) are the product of more than 60 years of highly focused research, development andoperational employment. Though the S-300 series is largely untested in combat, itremains a matter of broad and grave concern for American and other Western militaryplanners.


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That this production capacity has endured through the hardships of the post-Soviet era issimply remarkable, and it represents a solid technological footing for Russian militaryreform.

Related Links

Part 1: Geopolitics and the Russian Military Part 2: Challenges to Russian Military Reform The Geopolitics of Russia: Permanent Struggle Russia: Trials of the Russian Fleet Russia: The Challenges of Modernizing the Military Russia: Understanding the Russian Military China, Russia: An Evolving Defense Relationship

While certain Russian products night and thermal imaging, command, control andcommunications systems, avionics and unmanned systems are neither as complex nor

as capable as their Western counterparts, they are often more durable and more user-friendly in the hands of poorly trained troops. Products from the T-90 main battle tank tothe new Amur diesel-electric patrol submarines are still extremely capable, as aresupersonic anti-ship missiles like the SS-N-27 Sizzler.

Some of these products come from a Russian design heritage specifically tailored totarget American military capabilities (read: U.S. Navy Carrier Strike Groups) and areattractive to a number of customers around the world.

There are two caveats to this. The first is that Russian military hardware is increasinglycompeting directly with the products of Western defense companies in places like India.

Not only is Russian after-market service reputed to be abysmal, but high-profile problemswith quality and on-time delivery (though hardly unique) give pause to potentialcustomers with viable alternatives.

The second caveat is that even the newest Russian products have their roots inincremental and evolutionary upgrades from late-Soviet technology, though this is not asproblematic as it may seem. Much of the military hardware close to being fielded whenthe Soviet Union collapsed was quite capable and continues to have very real applicationand relevance today.

This incremental and evolutionary progression continues, even as Russias industrybegins to venture into less familiar territory, such as stealth and unmanned systems.These are areas that will require more innovation and present greater challenges and forwhich there will be less foundation from Soviet days.

This is where the industrys prospects become particularly cloudy. Declines in both theRussian population in general and intellectual talent in particular have been profound.From software programming to aeronautical engineering, what native talent Russia does


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possess has been finding work abroad. Those who remain are not attracted to the defensesector, which has done a terrible job of recruiting bright, young employees.

And what expertise the industry does have is nearing retirement age. The youngestengineers with meaningful design experience during the thriving Soviet era (i.e., who

were not hired the year before the entire apparatus came crashing down) are already intheir 50s, and even those without Soviet experience will be that old within a decade. Thefinancial crisis of the late 1990s prevented the hiring of new workers and the transfer ofinstitutional knowledge.

While Russia recognizes the problems inherent in the defense sector, the window isclosing for the transfer of knowledge and experience to a newer generation.Manufacturing can always be outsourced, but without the ability to innovate and movebeyond the legacy of late-Soviet designs, the Russian defense industry will be hard-pressed to keep from becoming irrelevant (though it would likely retain some prominenceas a small-scale provider of specific if impressive niche products like fighter

aircraft, air-defense equipment and anti-ship missiles).

To compensate for the erosion in broad capability, the Russian defense sector hasoccasionally cooperated with foreign countries, notably India and China. Most recently,work on the Brahmos supersonic cruise and anti-ship missile combined Soviet-eraresearch and development with Indian intellectual capital to produce a successful product.Moscow is attempting to replicate this experience with the Sukhoi PAK-FA program tobuild a modern, stealthy, fifth-generation fighter(though the long-anticipated prototypemay prove to be little more than a modified airframe with the engines, avionics andsubsystems of the Su-35).

Countries like India and China have essentially used Russia to gain access to late-Sovietdesign work and to learn all they can in order to create independent domestic defenseindustries. Some Russian defense equipment is among the best in the world today and,with even moderate upgrades, will remain relevant for a decade or more. But the Russiandefense industry has yet to demonstrate the ability to make a bold generational leap interms of technology. This does not bode well for the industrys long-termcompetitiveness and viability.

Next: The Georgian campaign as a case study.

Part 4: The Georgian Campaign as a

Case Study


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February 12, 2009 | 1210 GMT

Summary

In August 2008, Russias short war in Georgia lacked many of the hallmarks of Westernmilitary effectiveness, including communications, intelligence and reconnaissance. Butthe Russian military has always been a fairly blunt instrument, and it managed to get thejob done with old equipment that was sufficiently maintained and deployable. For all itsflaws, the Georgian campaign demonstrated an effective warfighting capability onRussias periphery and can be seen as a benchmark in Russian military reform.

Editors Note: This is part four of a four-part series on the reformation of the Russian

military.

Analysis

Many observers were quick to note the very real failings of the Russian military inGeorgia in August 2008 when it went to war in support of the Georgian breakawayprovince of South Ossetia. Indeed, there were significant deficiencies in the conduct ofthe short war that revealed the limitations of Russian military capability. In our viewthere were three flaws that were emblematic of the campaigns many failings andshortcomings:

In its target selection process, the air force reportedly was woefully ignorant ofGeorgias military disposition (even against locations that were publicly known).In some cases, unused military installations were bombed while critical newlocations were unscathed. This was a failure of basic intelligence gathering andindicates poor situational awareness and interservice coordination.

The Russians apparently attempted no meaningful suppression of enemy airdefenses (SEAD), even though the air defenses were meager. Air superioritybelonged to Russia almost by default. The small Georgian air force was composedof eight Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft, and the Russians quicklydestroyed the runway at the Georgian air field where they were based. While itwas not out of the question for the Kremlin to deem the minimal Georgian air-defense threat an acceptable risk, the lack of any real attempt to hunt down theSA-11 Gadfly surface-to-air missile systems that Tbilisi reportedly had


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purchased from Kiev (which Moscow had to have known about) likely cost theRussians combat aircraft, including a Tu-22M Backfire bomber conductingreconnaissance. Even more important, it called into question the Russian capacityto conduct SEAD.

Secure tactical communications was abysmal, with commanders reportedlyrelying on personal cell phones and even reporters satellite phones. While theGeorgian military was not capable of taking advantage of these insecure andhaphazard methods, they do raise real concerns about the status of Russiancommunications equipment. Either useful equipment was not deployed insufficient quantities or, when it was deployed, it proved ineffective and unreliable.Of these three deficiencies, communications is a particular concern because theRussian military does not have a tradition of initiative by lower level officers andhas always emphasized firm unit control by higher command.

All in all, many of the hallmarks of modern military effectiveness in the West command, control and communications; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance(ISR); joint planning and operations were either not evident during the Georgianoperation or were executed ineffectively. And the short thrust into South Ossetia hardlyconfirms the Russian militarys ability to sustain long-range military operations SouthOssetia is on the Russo-Georgian border and there was already a substantial Russianmilitary contingent spun up for exercises and poised to strike.


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While the operation demonstrated weaknesses in Russian military capabilities, it isimportant to keep in mind that the Russian military has always been a fairly bluntinstrument, and Georgia was no exception. With few major additions of groundequipment to the Russian ground arsenal since the Soviet collapse, Moscow managed toget the job done with 1980s-era equipment that was both deployable and in a sufficient

state of repair.


Indeed, Russias military failings must be understood in context. The United States andNATO developed technological capabilities and an economy-of-force specialty becauseof their quantitative Cold War disadvantage on the North European Plain. A newgeneration of precision-strike weapons and methods of command and control and ISRwere just coming online when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and would soon be putto the test in Desert Storm in 1991. In the years since, these technologies have beenrefined in a variety of military operations, and the result has been a continual process ofdoctrinal integration, operational experience and tactical evolution.



Russia, on the other hand, has had little opportunity to integrate late-Soviet technologyinto military operations and doctrine since the collapse of the union, and flaws in itsGeorgian campaign should have come as no surprise. Indeed, Georgia was the first


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warfighting in which the Russian military had engaged outside of Russia since thecollapse. There was certain to be an element of trial and error in the operation. Anddespite its inefficiencies and failures, the ultimate success of the campaign theachievement of the military objective without unreasonable losses is clear: Abkhaziaand South Ossetia each now host some 3,700 additional Russian troops and have been

recognized by Moscow, over Georgian objections, as independent entities.

The bottom line: Moscow succeeded in establishing a military reality through theexercise of force on its periphery. In so doing, it achieved its foremost objective ofmaking a credible statement to the rest of the world particularly Washington and thestates on Russias periphery. The message was not meant to start a shooting war withNATO. After securing territorial integrity, the foremost mission of the Russian military isto ensure that integrity by keeping peripheral states compliant. The military accomplishedthis in Georgia in relatively short order, without any meaningful response from the West.

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Of course, Georgias South Ossetia was low-hanging fruit. Its population has close ties to

Ossetians across the border in the Russian Republic of North Ossetia and is almostentirely pro-Russian. How effectively could the current Russian military influence otherkey peripheral states? Kazakhstan and Ukraine both have substantial strategic depth butalso military forces that are in worse shape than Russian forces. In any case, invasionwould not be necessary. Merely parking Russian military units on the border would be anunequivocal reminder to Astana and Kiev of a resurgent Russian military one morelever to reverse the gains of the 2004 pro-Western Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

On the surface, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are even morevulnerable to Russian military pressure. Their militaries barely exist and their capitals areeach roughly 100 miles from Russian territory. Occupying essentially open ground withno strategic depth, the Baltics would be hard-pressed to defend their territories on theirown. Their only saving grace is their NATO membership, which affords them NATOprotection under Article 5 by making an armed attack against one an armed attack againstall. (At present, a small squadron of fighter jets from another NATO country monitors theairspace of the three small countries.)

In short, Russias campaign in Georgia blemishes and all proved that the currentforce as equipped and fielded could have significant deterrent value in Russias sphere of


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influence. Moscow can credibly threaten the use of force precisely because it appliedforce in Georgia. This is not lost on peripheral states large or small. In each case, thecapability to defend against that force is questionable at best unless Article 5 is invoked.By that measure, the Russian military has already regained the fundamental capacity forinfluencing events with military force on its periphery.

And that development is a reminder that, despite the many challenges to reform, a chapterof history remains to be written that will likely include, once again, Russian militarypower as an element of Russian national power.

Russian Military Assessment

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