Military Russia, the power of Russia

Military Russia

Time to take a look at the military power of Russia note that this post is based mostly on the US Defense Intelligence Agency publication of a similar name from 2017.

At first a short overview from the fall of the Soviet Union to more. Recent events after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Russia inherited a large amount of military equipment from the former Soviet Union this brought many challenges with it although in general sizes the military degree substantially it was still a lot of ROG and compass on force additionally former military districts.

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That was mostly secured were not bordering other states but on one of the greatest charge of the posts, overtime was the economic one as a result military spending was cut substantially which led to a stagnation in upgrades and development and at a certain point there was email lack of fuel and salary the readiness of the force was minimal at the popular image of the Russian military of the 1990s remains ships rusting at PS I'd pilots aren't able to fly.

Russian officers moonlighting with second drops to make ends meet one major event the Chechen war and others created a bad reputation of the military on the organizational side the sort Arab mobilization for large armies with vast numbers reservists were still in place.

Several military reforms were started if most of them didn't succeed yet one exception was to reform to create the permanent ready force which was better equipped and manned these units were created and used during the second Chechen conflict and enable Moscow to intervene more rapidly and with more capable forces than during the first Chechen war.

Still, the majority of the military was equipped with all equipment and you stated organizational structures additionally there was a severe lack in modern c4isr equipment this became especially apparent during conflict in Georgia in August 2008 the shortcomings identified led to a major reform named the new look which in Russian probably doesn't sound like a title of the Roxette zone.

The aim of the new lock program was to transform the Russian military to a modern professional army with a high readiness rating and proper force structure unlike the cold war army that rats heavily on reservists and mobilization efforts additionally beforehand Russia relied heavily on nuclear deterrence which works against major powers but it's usually not useful in local conflict in uncertainties key steps in the reform was the conversion of partially meant divisions into fully meant brigades a stock reduction of the officer corps changed the cladistic system and a massive funding program.

The results of the successful reform became apparent in recent years when since in 2014 most annexation of the Crimea while the face almost no opposition the operation gives the ball its first look at the military that appealed surprisingly disciplined and well equipped for those whose image of Russian forces was formed during the years of decay in the 1990s and in for 2015.

The first expeditionary force since the fall of the Soviet Union was launched to Syria but a more the Russian military supported Assad with intelligence advisors ammunition and equipment in November 2015 the number of forces in Syria excluding the crews of ships was estimated as follows the result suggests that the over manpower what could be called the Russian expeditionary Corps in Syria has increased recently by approximately 25 to 35 percent and can be currently estimated as between 3,500 to 4,000100 this estimates exclude the crews of naval and cargo ships.

The transport aircraft involved in logistical support for the Russian combat force in the country these developments and support were crucial in stabilizing the military forces of Assad thus the Russian military today is a mobile balanced force rapidly becoming capable of conducting the full range of modern warfare since we covered the historical background.

 

The current strategy

The national security strategy was signed in the end of 2015 by President Vladimir Putin the national interests are centered around strengthening the country's defense ensuring political and social stability raising living standards preserving and developing culture improving the economy and strengthening its status as a world power.

There are some interesting changes in contrast to previous versions there are new threats added like foreign NGOs, color revolutions and social media additionally. The priority given to culture is a major change it focuses on preserving and pranking traditional Russian spiritual and moral values furthermore unlike the 2009 version a new national security strategy directly accuses the United States and NATO of pursuing actions that cause instability and threaten.

Russian national security now major focus lies on the internal political stability various measures are used to achieve this one of these measures are to keep a significant amount of security forces that are not to ordinate, to the military, these forces include the National Guard the Ministry of Internal Affairs the Federal Security Services border troops note that the FSB is the successor organization of the KGB and the Ministry of Justice.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations anti-federal protective service in total these organizations have around three hundred seventy-seven thousand troops and more than 1.2 million additional personnel.

Let's take a short look at the development of the defense budget

The most part is has grown between 2006 and 2016 as you can see here of the lowest being 27 billion dollars in 2006 and the highest in 2016 of 60 billion dollars. Yet if we look at the percentage of the GDP it is a bit less steady of the lowest value in 2007 with 2.3 percent of the GDP and the highest in 2016 was 4.5 percent yet one major problem in terms of defense spending for the upcoming years is the oil market.

Russian government revenues are highly dependent on oil prices and Moscow's decision to places sponsored for 2017 to 2019 on low projected oil prices in 2017 to 2019 is largely responsible for a glam outlook for government revenue and low protected GDP grow right.

Another major problem for Russia's we aren't is the dependency on imports from the West thus the sanctions from the best afternoon the accession of Crimea slow down Russian rearmament this is a special case in terms of electronics as outlined by Russia article from November 2016 during 2014 average dependence on imports exceeded 80 percent in strategic important sectors of the Russian economy and 40 to 90 percent of electronic components in all Russian weapon systems are imported.

When it comes to naval electronic systems 100 percent are based on imported electronic components even in terms of raw materials is a major problem since in some cases the mining infrastructure. Isn't sufficiently built-up next let's look at the Russian perception of a modern conflict this is cruising this heavily affect doctrine and strategy especially interesting is the following Moscow fears.

That the speed accuracy and quantity of nonnuclear strategic precision-guided weapons can achieve strategic effects on par with nuclear weapons one of the primary reasons that since at least 1993 and most recently codified in 2014 military doctor Russia has reserved the right to nuclear response to a non-nuclear attack that threatens the existence of the state which brings us to the major part a short overview of Korah Russian military capabilities.

 note that I excluded non-conventional weapons here for more information consult the get below the first capabilities and the excess area-denial or short a toad which basically means preventing foreign forces from conducting operations within a specific area for instance, for china into ad weapons anti-shipping muscles that allow sinking enemy ships within a certain range of Russia.

My concern is mostly about best and aerospace attacks to achieve a2/ad capabilities Russia combines the following elements information operations certifications integrated air defense systems and modern precision strike capabilities that bring us to the next capability.

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The Russian doctrine called a precision strike which itself is a 21st-century extension of deep battle the Soviet doctrine from the 1920s and work the 1983 sort military integral dictionary sufficiently defines the concept of deep battle as a simultaneous suppression of tactical defense of the enemy in all its depth and breakthrough by infantry and tanks supported by artillery and aviation in the 1970 and 80s.

The concept was expanded and should include position guided weapons it was assumed that these weapons could allow for multi-front operations that were part of the original deep battle concept yet the development of precision-guided munitions in the Soviet Union was rather limited nevertheless Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Basically provided a proof of concept although but foreign forces in recent years rushing through several precision-guided weapons and tested them in command staff exercise in 2012, 2014 and 2016 yet probably more importantly operationally 2015 in Syria.

Now key element proposition guided weapons is information since the geographic scope of modern warfare is usually extensive thus to graphic information from space is crucial for most modern operations since this is also a few of the Russian channel staff Russia's space program is both formidable and in a state of rebuilding Moscow seeks to maintain the health of its current constellations by deploying a next-generation architecture huh with lessons based systems in terms of satellites in orbit.

Russia's only behind the United States in China-Russia additional reorganize its EF was and aerospace defense troops into one organization similarly the space industries also merge with the federal space the agency next up its cyber capabilities since at least 2010 Russia's military has prioritized for information water although they call it information confrontation or in short I PB IPP includes diplomatic economic military political-cultural social and religious information arenas and encompasses two measures for influence informational technical effect and informational psychological effect whereas informational technically effect is basically computer network operations like defense, attack, and information of psychological effect are intended to change people's beliefs and war behaviors in favor of Russian objectives.

The next capability is indirect action which is basically a way to achieve an objective while avoiding a full-blown state to state conflict indirect action employs both military and non-military measures prime examples are conflict with Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea against Ukraine. It began with a restriction on food imports then followed by financial-economic and information warfare later this was followed by commercial military action involving Russian Spetsnaz and other non attributed military units in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Now in terms of electronic warfare Russia feeds a wide array of world-class capabilities that allow interfering with enemy command and control communications and intelligence operations these include countering GPS radar tactically and satellite communications, another key capability as became apparent in Syria is power projection.

Russia has focused on improving capabilities for out-of-area operations which of course rely on previously mentioned capabilities like precision-guided weapons modern communication infrastructure space and aerospace forces three key elements our long-range aviation forces that already operated in the Pacific Arctic and Venezuela the neighbor forces which operated in the Mediterranean the Arctic, the Western Hemisphere and the Indian Ocean yet probably most importantly expeditionary operations in Syria.

Russia used the mix of maritime in the assets the former deploy its forces and Russia will almost certainly be able to rotisserie support its current level of operations in Syria by a mix of those means for the foreseeable future.

 

Russia and Us

This included the launch of naval and air base cruise missiles from outside of Syrian territory and as mentioned before such operations provide vital experience for personal testing systems and doctrines next is a capability that really surprised me namely underground facilities from the summertime.

There's an extensive network of bunkers secret subway lines tunnels and other facilities left this should have provided command and control capabilities even in the case of a major war several, major cities have such installations some can go as a few hundred meters deep especially for Moscow these sides are interconnected and allow the leadership to evacuate in case of emergency.

Note that the following information from 1991 it is also used in a 2017 publication. These facilities are intended for National Command Authority in wartime they estimated to be 200 to 300 meters deep and can accommodate an estimated 10,000 people and since the last capability is denial interception I go now in full Captain Obvious mode and tell you to take everything with a grain of salt Russian denial and deception is usually called mask Yaka the family of capabilities.

The compromise traditional mask yoga include camouflage deception denials version sabotage espionage propaganda and psychological operations.

Note that the various definition infused on mask yoga for that I recommend you check out my post on that particular topic one of the last a successful operation that used mascara offer was during the annexation of Crimea President Putin insisted that the armed men in Crimea.

Were self-defense groups for volunteers at a time Moscow admitted to the presents of Russian troops in Crimea. This is after had created enough confusion to forestall significant internationally mention the conflict and the ground reality was irreversibly tipped in Russia's.

Favor so let's do a short summary the Russian military inherit equipment personnel and know-how from the Soviet Union we do lack in funding old equipment insufficient organization and cold war doctrines.

The Russian militaries have had some heavy blows to its reputation but learn from these mistakes inside the major reforms some of which were successful additionally funding was increased the force modernized an equipment structure and doctorate thus.

Russia now is for status capable of power protection operations modern precision guard weapons and information warfare capabilities besides that, the current challenges are the low oil prices and the Western embargos which slow down the production of various weapon systems nevertheless slowed is not halted Russia's commitment to building.

Its military is demonstrated by to attention of the draft all Russian mayors are required to register for the draft at 17 years of age and all men between the ages of 18 and 27 are obligated by law to perform one year of military service well I hope you liked this short overview of the contemporary for us and if you like what I do consider supporting your Patreon remember every Rugal helps if interest in a similar post.