Russian thinking about future war
Russia’s qualitative upgrading of its forces is an important aspect of its preparation for future war, but not the most important. As was the case for the Soviet Union in the 1930s, its doctrinal response to the latest revolution in military affairs will be the most significant development. Clearly, the Russian conceptualization of future war has moved from one of a clash of mass armies in which numbers will be a determining factor. There is now a blurring – never absent even in Soviet times – of the boundaries between war and peace. The new norm may well be what Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov describes as ‘new generation’ war18 (or ambiguous war, usually –albeit mistakenly – termed ‘hybrid’ in the West and, in Putin’s narrative, practised by the USA and NATO in some former Soviet states). According to Gerasimov’s article: ‘In the 21st century, a tendency towards the elimination of the differences between the states of war and peace is becoming discernable. Wars are now not even declared but, having begun, are not going according to a pattern we are accustomed to.’ This new generation war should fall more surely into the Russian comfort zone than that of Western democracies; and, in any confrontation, it suits a weaker but politically more agile power. The historian Timothy Snyder argues in The Road to Unfreedom that Russia has long been practising information and influence operations and other non-kinetic forms of warfare against target states and groups in the West, often successfully.19 The Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg is not a military organization, but it is arguably more destructive of enemy determination and cohesion than most armed attacks could hope to be. Its actions are insidious and deniable, and thus run less danger of uniting enemies and leading to escalation.
In conditions of local war or armed conflict, ‘colour revolution’ or terrorism, mixed in with informational, cyber, economic, political, criminal and other indirect modes of attack, the cadre mobilization model of the Soviet army has become inappropriate. Moreover, the old system strained popular enthusiasm and support for both military and government. Today, the emphasis is on high combat readiness of an increasingly professionalized military, potent combat capabilities in the context of combined arms and joint operations, the ability to deploy rapidly anywhere as may be required, and the attainment of fast-acting, reliable command and control. There is an increased preparedness for limited, ideally plausibly deniable operations in support of limited political objectives. This is evidenced by the growth of the spetsnaz (special forces, often operating covertly), as well as of conventional airborne troops.20 It also explains the attraction of the new phenomenon in Russia of private military contractors such as Wagner, which have been deployed in Donbas and, more recently, in Syria and (in a smaller way) in the Central African Republic. These characteristics, combined with flexibility and strategic mobility, must necessarily substitute for Soviet mass. Russia now boasts a credible military posture to back an assertive foreign policy. Its forces possess a range of capabilities that enable the state to deploy an appropriate scale and type of force in possibly complex operations to fulfil any requirements of policy.
Deployability, even if only to adjacent countries, poses a problem given Russia’s great size, relatively limited infrastructure and outdated administrative capacity, and as yet inadequate military command-and-control capabilities. Together, these factors slow things down. Some potential adversaries may well have the potential to act faster than Russia. This combines with relative weakness to put a premium on pre-emption in order to disrupt the enemy’s command and control and decision-making, throw it into confusion and in consequence seize the initiative. The employment of Russian forces will be predicated on the achievement of surprise through a comprehensive maskirovka effort,21 quite probably extending over a considerable period of time. This, of course, is not a recent idea. Restating it in 2013, Gerasimov quoted approvingly the 1930s’ theorist Georgy Isserson’s assertion: ‘Mobilization and concentration is not part of the period after the onset of war … but rather unnoticed, proceeds long before that.’22 Ideally, therefore, as in Donbas in 2014, Russia’s opponents would not be able to tell just when posturing and threats had morphed into aggression – or even prove that this had actually happened.
Peacetime orders of battle, force structures, deployments and exercise activity can reveal a lot about wartime intentions. During the Cold War, for instance, the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG, later the Western Group of Forces – WGF) was plainly intended to conduct an offensive into at least West Germany and the Low Countries, and NATO deployed what it hoped would be an adequate defence in response. Today, by and large, Russia would prefer not to telegraph its intentions so clearly. It has revisionist ambitions, and is actually engaged both in a ‘re-imperialization’ project and in efforts to undermine its enemies, but the military is only one of several instruments to be utilized in these enterprises – and one to which the Kremlin does not wish to draw undue attention.23 If significant forces were to be permanently garrisoned in close proximity to Estonia, Latvia or even Belarus, this would strengthen the case of NATO ‘hawks’ demanding a forward deployment for deterrence purposes against Russia. Thus, most of the forces based in the Western Military District are garrisoned in its depth, especially around Moscow, rather than towards the frontiers. Kaliningrad oblast provides an inevitable exception. Its isolation, and its strategically significant position as an advanced place d’armes, require that it be substantially garrisoned, including with surface-to-surface and air-defence missiles.
There is, of course, another interpretation of the paucity of forward-deployed forces in the Western Military District. If the Belarusian armed forces are regarded as effectively an extension of that district, then there is no need for Russian forces to be stationed further to the west to enable them to intervene in the Baltic states and/or Poland with minimal delay in mobilization, concentration and deployment. This, however, is to assume that Belarus will always be a pliant tool of the Kremlin – an assumption that was made about Ukraine until the unexpected removal of Viktor Yanukovych in early 2014. While Moscow sees its relationship with Minsk as quasi-imperial, President Alyaksandr Lukashenko appears to regard it as merely transactional. Lukashenko quite frequently flirts with the West, and makes a point of showing himself not to be Putin’s poodle.
The situation is different further south. Until 2014, only in the North Caucasus were substantial forces maintained in what might be considered threatening proximity to the frontier, the likely purpose being to intimidate the former Soviet states of the Transcaucasus – above all Georgia – and indeed troublesome and potentially separatist areas of the Russian North Caucasus. Such forward-deployed elements also provided for a scenario in which intimidation ceased to be effective and action became necessary and urgent. As the Ukrainian crisis escalated, Russian forces were moved close to that border too, with some being actually committed – supposedly unattributably – to the struggle for Donbas. When, with Minsk II, that conflict essentially became a stalemate, in addition to the forces remaining in Ukraine several formations took up permanent station in an arc from Klintsy (Bryansk oblast) in the north to Crimea in the south.24 Clearly, the purpose is intimidatory, and to provide for a swift transition to military action if it is again required. The conflict with Ukraine, arguably an existential issue for Russia, could quickly escalate into war – quite possibly involving Western powers. It thus exercises a major influence on Russian political and military thinking.
During the Cold War, had any confrontation between the Warsaw Pact and NATO escalated into active conflict, even a week or so into the process of mobilization, concentration and deployment NATO could have achieved a density of defence that would have required a Soviet breakthrough operation. As in the Great Patriotic War, such an undertaking would have been time-consuming, expensive, and perhaps uncertain of success. It might have proved impossible for Soviet forces to gain operational momentum, and the likelihood of NATO resorting to use of nuclear weapons – and their ability to do so – would have grown with each day that passed. The Soviets therefore concluded that they had substantially to have won in the initial period of war – i.e. while the West had not yet completed its mobilization, concentration and deployment. With surprise and pre-emption achieved, and with the defensive front uncompleted, Moscow believed that its forces would be able to conduct high-tempo operational manoeuvre from the outset. Led by tactical forward detachments and operational manoeuvre groups at the higher level, they would be able to exploit gaps and weak spots and achieve high rates of advance into the enemy’s depth, breaking up the organization, command and control, and logistic support of defending formations and perhaps precluding NATO resort to operational–tactical nuclear weapons. These concepts are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago. The difference is that they are now easier to realize than in a less technologically advanced era when force densities were likely to be higher.
Contemporary conditions obviate the need for such a breakthrough, and generating operational manoeuvre is not a problem. Force levels have shrunk in the post-Cold War era, and the likely area of operations has grown so much that the ratio of forces to space – even taking into account massive increases in firepower – makes it impossible to create a continuous front. Nor do even elaborate field fortifications provide the force multiplier for the NATO defender that they once did: precision and thermobaric weapons – large and small – have combined with modern obstacle-clearing methods to greatly lower their effectiveness. Forces can transition from their peacetime garrisons to assume their allotted place in an offensive without the need for large-scale, obvious and vulnerable concentrations. The key to success will, in Russia’s view, lie in surprise, and in the high-combat readiness and high mobility that will both enable and capitalize on surprise.25
The conventional aspect of future war between Russia and NATO will be characterized by manoeuvre from the outset. There will be no ponderous massing of formations using vast quantities of artillery to gnaw methodically through a dense, well-organized and balanced defence. Instead, fewer formations will converge from dispersed locations on an inevitably thinner, less robust defence, probably on more numerous axes. Now, their attacks will be prepared by concentrations on critical targets executed by reconnaissance-fire and reconnaissance-strike complexes at, respectively, the tactical and operational levels.26 These combine precision as well as conventional massed fire from widely spread long-range missile, multiple rocket and artillery units. The manoeuvre units will then be able to attack from the line of march, that is to say without being involved in traditional, time-consuming Western-style battle preparation. The typical form of combat will be the meeting battle and engagement (respectively at tactical and operational levels) where the two sides clash on the move, both intent on advancing to achieve their assigned goals and thus neither having the advantage of choosing the ground on which to fight.
Soviet military theory taught that superior numbers were not required for success in such circumstances. What would bring victory was beating the enemy to the punch, and thereafter acting within its appreciation–decision–action cycle. The Russian military sees this as its forte. Even more than in the past, the aim of operations is likely to be the destruction of the enemy’s main groupings, as often there will be no vital terrain objectives that, if secured, would put the opponent at a fatal disadvantage. The aim will be to convince selected enemy states that, for them, war with Russia is no longer a worthwhile policy, thus breaking up a hostile coalition. Russia’s frequently stated preparedness to use operational–tactical nuclear weapons, underlined by force structuring, will reinforce this message. Resulting from successful experience in 1943–45 and sound subsequent doctrinal development, the Russians have confidence in their superior ability to conduct manoeuvre warfare. They are investing heavily in creating the necessary capabilities to realize the demands of theory in practice.
18 Gerasimov, V. (2013), ‘Ценность науки в предвидении. Новые вызовы требуют переосмыслить формы и способы ведения боевых действий’ [The Value of Science in Prediction. New challenges require rethinking the forms and methods of warfare], Voyenno- promyshlennyy kur’yer, 5 March 2013, https://www.vpk-news.ru/articles/14632 (accessed 14 Mar. 2018).
19 Snyder, T. (2018), The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, London: The Bodley Head. In this book, the author expands on and reinforces the case made in his previous work On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017, London: The Bodley Head).
20 In 2013 these totalled seven brigades, one regiment and five battalions; and it was planned to expand by 2018 to eight brigades, one regiment, 16 battalions and 59 companies. These statistics, and those for the strength of the Western and Southern Military Districts, are taken from Sutyagin and Bronk (2017), Russia’s New Ground Forces, chapters II and III).
21 Maskirovka is a single, all-embracing concept that includes concealment and camouflage, deception and disinformation, counter-reconnaissance and security to conceal the disposition and activities of friendly troops and mislead the enemy with regard to their grouping and intentions.
22 Gerasimov (2013), ‘Ценность науки в предвидении’ [The Value of Science in Prediction].
23 ‘Re-imperialization’ is the term used by Agnia Grigas in Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire (2016, Newhaven, CT, and London: Yale University Press). At the same time, Russia is actively engaged in non-military aspects of ‘new generation’ war with its adversaries in a sustained effort to undermine the stability of several Western states and the cohesion of NATO and the EU. Anton Shekhovtsov investigates both the strategy and the tactics pursued in a political aspect of this endeavour in Russia and the Western Far Right (2018, Abingdon: Routledge). In The Vory – Russia’s Super Mafia (2018, Newhaven, CT, and London, Yale University Press), chapters 12–16, Mark Galeotti looks at state co-option of organized crime to achieve economic and political ends. Timothy Snyder also considers the evolution of Russia’s information war in The Road to Unfreedom (2018).
24 TSN (2016), ‘Росія стягує війська до північних кордонів України’ [Russia draws troops to the northern borders of Ukraine], 10 June 2016, https://tsn.ua/ukrayina/rosiya-styaguye-viyska-do-pivnichnih-kordoniv-u… (accessed 14 Mar. 2018).
25 Contrary to the opinions of many defence and intelligence experts, modern methods of intelligence gathering and surveillance have not made surprise unattainable in contemporary conditions. See Dick, C. J. (2016), From Defeat to Victory: The Eastern Front, Summer 1944, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, pp. 270–72.
26 RFCs and RSCs were first discussed by Marshal N. V. Ogarkov in the 1980s. He envisaged the intimate combination of long-range, real-time ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems such as satellites, drones and spetsnaz with highly accurate and/or area fires, precision-guided (e.g. through GLONASS, the Russian version of GPS) and coordinated by automated command-and-control systems. The aim was to ensure that important targets, even where small and mobile, would be engaged within minutes of their detection. This requires powerful computer assistance at every stage of the process from the detection of the enemy, through the decision-making process, prioritizing targets and allocating appropriate means of engagement, to the execution of strikes. However, the technological gap between the USSR in its final two decades and the US in particular – a gap that the chaos of the first post-Soviet decade did nothing to close – meant that Russia lagged behind.