Category Russia

Future Conventional Warfare Scenarios

What are the U.S. Armed Forces’ potential conventional warfare missions?  Is conventional warfare gone, leaving the U.S. Army conducting special ops, training, coordinating air and drone strikes, providing counterinsurgency support, and generally just kicking down doors?

Well, there are still a few potential conventional warfare scenarios out there, even if they have a low probability of occurring:

  1. Korea: We still have the majority of the 2nd Infantry Division deployed in Korea as a reserve force for the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army. If a war blows up in Korea, then we are immediately right in the middle of a conventional war. It is 1950 all over again. Amid all the “fire and fury” type comments, I do consider this to be a low odds of occurring. Still, it is one conventional warfare mission that has existed since 1950 and does not appear to be going away.
  2. Taiwan: I don’t think China is going to invade Taiwan (their third largest trading partner), but stranger things have happened. I believe we are informally committed to defend Taiwan if this happens. We have no ground troops there.
  3. Ukraine: We have no commitment to defend Ukraine. On the other hand, if Russia rolls across the border with tanks and is heading towards Kiev, then we may decide we need to intervene. Exactly with what forces we would use is a question, but this is potentially a mission in the future. I don’t think it is likely. If Russia was going to conduct a conventional invasion of  Ukraine, it would have done so in 2014.
  4. Baltic States: On the other hand, we do have a commitment to defend the three Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia). They are members of NATO. Right now, with the forces currently in place, a Russian conventional invasion would sweep over these three countries in a matter of days. Then what? The U.S. would be challenged to be able to quickly move a single armored or mechanized division there, let alone the several divisions it would probably take to re-claim them. We currently are not defending them and do not have the ability to quickly re-take them. That said, the odds of Russia doing this is very, very close to zero, because they do end up in a war with 29 nations. This is probably not the best use of their time.
  5. Belarus: On the other hand, I don’t rule out tanks rolling into Belarus at some point in the future. Lukashenko, the Belarus dictator, is 63 years old, and these guys don’t live forever. Once he is gone, will Belorus undergo a calm transition of power to a new president (for life)….or does Russia take this opportunity to reclaim Belarus? Unlike Ukraine, there is not a strong nationalist group that is clearly ready to fight off any Russian invaders. If Russia did decide to take Belarus (probably making sure they were invited, like they were in Afghanistan in 1979), is there anything we could do about it? How concerned would we be about it?
  6. Georgia: Russian already had a five day war with Georgia in 2008. Russia probably could have overrun Georgia if they wanted to. They probably can now. It is a very small country and geographically isolated from NATO. I don’t rule out it becoming a battlefield in the future. Not sure what the United States could do about it.
  7. Iran: While I don’t think that the U.S. will ever invade Iran, I would have said the same thing about Iraq in 2000. Of course, Iran is a country with a population more more than twice that of Iraq. Invading Iraq in 2003 led to lots of long-term complications. Invading Iran might get even more difficult.
  8. The mission not yet named: The last 30 years are notable in that the United States has been dragged into three major wars rather suddenly. At the beginning of 1990, I don’t recall any defense analyst saying the United States was about to enter into a war with Iraq for the sake of saving Kuwait (who we had no alliance with). Yet, less than a year later, this is exactly what we did, and it was done with a large conventional force of nine deployed U.S. divisions. In 2000, I don’t recall too many defense analysts saying that we would soon be invading Afghanistan and Iraq. These missions came rather suddenly. So, one must always assume that there is a possible conventional mission at any time in any place. It has happened twice in the last 30 years. These are hard to plan for and to structure forces for, yet there is clearly a need for a mobile conventional force just in case.

Anyhow, that list appears to cover the possible conventional warfare missions for the United States right now. The one with the highest probability of occurring is “the mission not yet named.” There are many other flash points in the world, but most of them are not ones that would attract American conventional ground forces. Still, as shown by Kuwait in 1990 and Iraq in 2003, we can end up involved in a conventional conflict with very little notice. This is a far cry from the days of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were lined up along the border of Germany. The future ain’t what it used to be, to borrow a quote.

Russian General Staff Chief Dishes On Military Operations In Syria

General of the Army Valeriy Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and First Deputy Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation [Wikipedia]

General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, provided detailed information on Russian military operations in Syria in an interview published in Komsomolskaya Pravda on the day after Christmas.

Maxim A. Suchkov, the Russian coverage editor for Al-Monitor, provided an English-language summary on Twitter.

While Gerasimov’s comments should be read critically, they do provide a fascinating insight into the Russian perspective on the intervention in Syria, which has proved remarkably successful with an economical investment in resources and money.

Gerasimov stated that planning for Russian military operations used Operation Anadyr, the secret deployment of troops and weapons to Cuba in 1962, as a template. A large-scale deployment of ground forces was ruled out at the start. The Syrian government army and militias were deemed combat-capable despite heavy combat losses, so the primary supporting tasks were identified as targeting and supporting fires to disrupt enemy “control systems.”

The clandestine transfer of up to 50 Russian combat aircraft to Hmeimim Air Base in Latakia, Syria, began a month before the beginning of operations in late-September 2015. Logistical and infrastructure preparations took much longer. The most difficult initial challenge, according to Gerasimov, was coordinating Russian air support with Syrian government ground forces, but it was resolved over time.

The Russians viewed Daesh (ISIS) forces battling the Syrian government as a regular army employing combat tactics, fielding about 1,500 tanks and 1,200 artillery pieces seized from Syria and Iraq.

While the U.S.-led coalition conducted 8-10 air strikes per day against Daesh in Syria, the Russians averaged 60-70, with a peak of 120-140. Gerasimov attributed the disparity to the fact that the coalition was seeking to topple Bashar al-Assad’s regime, not the defeat of Daesh. He said that while the Russians obtained cooperation with the U.S. over aerial deconfliction and “de-escalation” in southern Syria, offers for joint planning, surveillance, and strikes were turned down. Gerasimov asserted that Daesh would have been defeated faster had there been more collaboration.

More controversially, Gerasimov claimed that U.S.-supported New Syrian Army rebel forces at Al Tanf and Al-Shaddidi were “virtually” Daesh militants, seeking to destabilize Syria, and complained that the U.S. refused Russian access to the camp at Rukban.

According to Russian estimates, there were a total of 59,000 Daesh fighters in September 2015 and that 10,000 more were recruited. Now there are only 2,800 and most militants are returning to their home countries. Most are believed heading to Libya, some to Afghanistan, and others to Southwest Asia.

Gerasimov stated that Russia will continue to deploy sufficient forces in Syria to provide offensive support if needed and the Mediterranean naval presence will be maintained. The military situation remains unstable and the primary objective is the elimination of remaining al Nusra/Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (al Qaida in Syria) fighters.

48,000 Russian troops were rotated through Syria, most for three months, from nearly 90% of Russian Army divisions and half of the regiments and brigades. 200 new weapons were tested and “great leaps” were made in developing and using drone technology, which Gerasimov deemed now “integral” to the Russian military.

Gerasimov said that he briefed Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Syria twice daily, and Shoigu updated Russian President Vladimir Putin “once or twice a week.” All three would “sometimes” meet to plan together and Gerasimov averred that “Putin sets [the] goals, tasks, [and] knows all the details on every level.

NATO’S Black Sea Force

This article caught my attention: NATO launches Black Sea force as latest counter to Russia

It consists of a Romanian brigade of up to 4,000 soldiers, troops from nine other NATO countries (including Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Britain, Canada). In addition, there is a separate deployment of 900 U.S. troops in the area.

During the cold war, there was only one NATO member on the Black Sea, Turkey, but there were three Warsaw Pact members (Soviet Union, Romania and Bulgaria). Now there are three NATO members (Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria), several countries who have a Russian-supported separatist enclave or two in them  (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova) and, of course, Russia. It has become an interesting area.

 

Then again, maybe it is not 100,000 troops

Article on the size of the exercises in Belarus: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/heres-know-reported-100-000-173231187.html

Quote from the article: “Either way, that “100,000 figure is pretty off the wall,” Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, told Business Insider in an email.”

This is a follow-up to this blog post:

First Guards Tank Army and new exercises

One wonders if we are in a state of perpetual panic; with North Korean nuclear-tipped missiles about to hit the United States that are neither nuclear tipped and may not be able to reach; and large exercises in Belarus of 100,000 that may only consist of 13,000 troops. I do not know what the truth is here.

Then again, maybe North Korea can’t hit the Continental U.S.

First Guards Tank Army and new exercises

Hard for me to pass on articles on the First Guards Tank Army. That was one of the two Soviet tank armies in the Voronezh Front at Kursk during the defensive operations there. Its operations are discussed in some depth in my book. I found that the First Tank Army at Kursk under Katukov was much better handled than the Fifth Guards Tank Army under Rotmistrov, although Rotmistrov is now much more famous than Mikhail Efimovich Katukov.

Next Stop Berlin?

Article is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/world/europe/russia-military-exercise-zapad-west.html

The important part of the article are:

  1. Russia is doing a 100,000 man exercise this late summer near the Baltic States (who are members of NATO). western Russian, Belarus and Kalingrad (near Poland, also a NATO member).
  2. It includes of course the First Guards Tank Army.
    1. “Its establishment represents the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that so much offensive power has been concentrated in a single command.”
  3. There is some concern that Russia forces moved into Belarus may not leave.

Anyhow, it is probably just some shirtless swagger and signaling and I would be hesitant to read more into it than that.

There is also a pretty neat map in the article.

 

Russian Protestors

It probably does not come as a surprise to most who read this blog that I am not favorably disposed to the presidency of Vladimir Putin. I found the following article in the Christian Science Monitor to be interesting: What is Stirring Russia’s Youth to Rally Around Alexei Navalny

Just a couple of quotes from the article that caught my eye:

Mikhail Aralov: “In our country the population is called ‘the people.’ when in fact we are citizens. ‘The people’ need bread and circuses, but citizens need civil institutions.”

Dmitry Zabelin: “I am tired of corruption, the state of human rights, and all the hypocrisy that you see every day. I’m very worried about how Putin is trying to restore the Soviet Union; Russia should be trying to become a Western country and part of the world.”

Anyhow, I wish them the best.

Russian Arms Sales

Little article on Russian arms sale, not a subject we track: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-how-many-countries-buy-weapons-from-russia-2017-7

The article is based upon the first DIA report on the Russia/Soviet military that they have published since 1991. I have not read the report but note that the article states: “The DIA report, however, has been criticized by some for being too hawkish, just like previous DIA reports on the Soviet Union.” I have not reviewed the DIA report and don’t have the ability to really do so properly, but I do remember well their old reports in the 1980s, and they were certainly “too hawkish.” They clearly overemphasized Soviet strengths and ignored many of their weaknesses. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

More to the point, we engaged one of the Soviet armed countries, Iraq, in the Gulf War in 1991; and we had a chance to review their military in the 1990s (something which I have some knowledge of). I have never seen a systematic analysis of what the defense and intelligence analysts were saying in the 1980s compared to what they were able to see in the 1990s, but there is an interesting story there about our misperceptions and failures to understand the Soviet military.