Russia has just announced that it will be revising its military doctrine to allow it to concentrate more fully on NATO. This review will be led by the current Minister of Defence, Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoygu. From the outside this might seem to be a reasonable project. It would be reasonable if someone would take the opportunity to brief Shoygu on how a military actually works. The key point of the structure of the Russian military establishment is that it is run by people who have had virtually no contact with actual soldiering. They are politicians; apparatchiki who have worked their way up the political ladder to be entrusted with high military office. They call themselves 'generals' but were originally mayors, heads of political parties and hangers-on in the Russian equivalent of Tammany Hall. This is true for many in the higher ranks in the Army. The KGB has always been staffed by people who give themselves military rank by decree. Virtually none of the top leaders had any personal military experience. The FSB is no different. When the post-war soldiers died out and retired they were replaced by 'careerists'.
The ones with actual military experience in the Soviet Union and Russia have been those in the middle ranks of the Army and in the GRU. The Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the acronym for the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation; The full name is GRU GSh (GRU Generalnovo Shtaba i.e. "GRU of the General Staff"). The GRU was founded by Leon Trotsky in 1918. The GRU, which is subordinate to the General Staff, is organized into Directorates, Directions, and Sections. Most of the work of the GRU concerns military intelligence (gathering information about foreign armies, orders of battle, communications links, etc.) The tasks are divided operationally by function and by area (e.g. Africa, Asia, etc.). The operations in the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine have been primarily conducted by the GRU.
Its headquarters, the 'Aquarium' is located in Khodinka Airfield, right near the Ilyushin Design Bureau, just outside Moscow. The GRU has always been independent of the KGB. Indeed the KGB had to ask permission to visit the GRU or to attend its functions. The GRU was larger than the KGB and had its own Special Forces spetznaz troops. Unlike the KGB, it has been largely unchanged in the post-Soviet era. Since it was less 'political' it had offended fewer people. It kept its structures, its officers and its tasks. Despite the dissolution of the USSR at the start of 1992 and the reduction in manpower within the GRU engendered by Russia's reduced economic might, the GRU remained largely unchanged from the Soviet era. In the former Communist bloc their military intelligence arms also remain largely unchanged despite becoming democracies.
There is another consideration which is important; it is a long time since Russia has actually fought a war. It has spent its time killing its own citizens in the Caucasus and made a feeble attempt at invading Georgia but it really hasn't had a chance to test the skills of its officer class, test its logistical systems in a battlefield situation; nor to test its ability to choreograph complex military manoeuvres. The Georgian operation demonstrated the failure or decay of many of its pieces of equipment. The equipment they have brought to the Ukraine is largely dated museum pieces and some modern gear. Russian investment in military gear is constantly rumoured to be happening but it is twenty years since anything like readiness can be ascribed to the force. To say that the Russian war machine is untested would be a fair description.
This is why the Russians are uneasy about the West arming the Ukrainians with proper, modern weapons. They remember what happened in Afghanistan. The Soviets were fighting a desperate and debilitating war in Afghanistan. In defence of a Communist government which the Soviets had installed in Kabul, the Soviets sent its troops across the Afghan border on Christmas day 1979. They rapidly occupied the area around the capital but their opposition, the mujahidin scattered to the rural areas. Initially the Soviets had overwhelming firepower and air supremacy. However, with the introduction of 'Red-eye' and 'Stinger' missiles and modern equipment the mujahidin were able to shoot down Soviet helicopters and to destroy Soviet tanks. These were largely supplied by the U.S. in Operation Cyclone. The mujahidin began a war of attrition with the occupying Soviet troops. This was very expensive in men, material and propaganda. It was bleeding the Soviet military dry and winning no friends around the world. Equally as important it distressed the parents and families of these soldiers who were suffering and dying in Afghanistan, creating a major gulf between them and the Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev Governments.
After the war ended, the Soviet Union published figures of dead Soviet soldiers: the initial total was 13,836 men, an average of 1,537 men a year. According to updated figures, the Soviet army lost 14,427, the KGB lost 576, with 28 people dead and missing. Material losses included: 118 aircraft; 333 helicopters; 147 tanks; 1,314 IFV/APCs; 433 artillery guns and mortars; 1,138 radio sets and command vehicles; 510 engineering vehicles; 11,369 trucks and petrol tankers. It was a very costly business.
The provision of modern military equipment to the Ukrainians by the West is crucial for Russia as it is far from being self-sufficient itself. The Ukrainians are the main suppliers of spare parts which its armed forces desperately need. Four of the humanitarian trucks which recently arrived in Eastern Ukraine were empty. That is because they were transporting back to Russia key pieces of equipment from Motor Sich which produces vital helicopter parts. Thirty Ukrainian technicians accompanied the convoy. Russia's hopes to become self-reliant in the production of military equipment are a fantasy. That is because the Russian economy has been starved of R&D money which has left its technological capacity stuck at the starting point. In short the Russian military are about two weapons generations behind the West. Most Western militaries have developed effective counter-measures against the current aging Russian equipment.
The most important question Russia will face will be the apprehension of regular military officers to the possibility of a repeat of Operation Cyclone. They know, despite the bluster and bluff, that by using modern equipment the 'separatists' and the Russian troops would soon be obliterated, just as they were by the mujahidin in Afghanistan. The silly comments on nuclear attacks are ludicrous. With the deployment of Aegis missiles around the Russian periphery they will have a very hard time launching and delivering a large number of their missiles, even to the Ukraine.
A report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in September 2011 concluded that the Aegis missile system represents a grave threat to Russian nuclear strategy. The focus, wrote Yousaf Butt and Theodore Postol, "is on what would be the main concern of cautious Russian military planners; the capability of the missile defines interceptors to simply reach, or engage, Russian strategic warheads;rather than whether any particular engagement results in an actual interception, or 'kill.' Interceptors with a kinematic capability to reach Russian ICBM warheads would be sufficient to raise concerns in Russian national security circles� regardless of the possibility that Russian decoys and other countermeasures might defeat the system in actual engagements. In short, even a missile defence system that could be rendered ineffective could still elicit serious concern from cautious Russian planners."
Such large numbers of interceptors, which might in reality have little capability in combat, could be expected to create fears among Russian political and military leaders that the PAA [Phased Adaptive Approach] could cause some attrition of Russian warheads. According to the FAS report, shore-based radar units to support Aegis missile targeting by US warships are in planning, or are already installed around the Black Sea shore in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Georgia. Others are on U.S. naval vessels, like the USS Vella Gulf, currently in the Black Sea.
These nuclear bases are readily accessible to existing Aegis systems. About 62% of these bases are immediately accessible.
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The point is that while the imposition of economic sanctions may well be the most effective response to Russian aggression it must be coupled with the provision of modern weapons and weapon systems to the Ukrainian Army. This is not designed only to level the battlefield but, more importantly, to demonstrate to the regular Russian military leaders that the pretend soldiers are getting the country into a desperate position. If there is to be change in Russia it can only come from the men with the guns. They will see that the end is inevitable and may well choose to change the direction of Russian military policy
