Category Russia

Russian Duma Elections

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As the vote counts are being finalized for this election held 18 September, we have the following results for the Russia legislative elections (the Duma):

  1. United Russia (Putin’s party) = 54% of popular vote
    • 343 seats, up from 238 in 2011.
  2. Communist Party (yes, those dinosaurs) = 13%
    • 42 seats, down from 92 in 2011.
  3. Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (mad Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s party) = 13%
    • 39 seats, down from 56 in 2011.
  4. A Just Russia (a moderate, well-behaved reformist party) = 6%
    • 23 seats, down from 64 seats in 2011.

Two other seats are held by two other parties. Fourteen parties participated in the election. Duma members serve for 5 years (next Duma election is in 2021).

A significant part of the story though is voter turn-out. In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, voter turn-out used to be very high. Even in 1990 (under Gorbachev) it was 77%. It was 60.1% in 2011. It was 47.88% in this election (and there is some question about this figure). It is the lowest turn-out figure to date. In the two major cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg turn-out was low. For Moscow it was less than 35%, down from 66% in 2011. This is worth noting. There were no major post-election protests, unlike in 2011. Crimea did vote in the Russian election.

Several opinion polls from September shows United Russia with 39.3 to 43% of the vote and two exit polls show it with 44.5 and 48.4% of the votes. There were some voting irregularities reported. United Russia won 54.2% of the popular vote in an election of with a turn-out of 47.88%.

United Russia now has 343 out of 450 seats in the Duma. This is 76% of the seats. Half the seats were elected based upon proportional voting based upon party lists and half were elected based upon single-member constituencies. This was a change from the 2011 elections. United Russia does have a “supermajority” which now allows them to unilaterally change the constitution. This is probably a very important point. For all practical purposes, Russia is now a “single-party democracy.”

From 1999 to 2013 the Russian economy boomed at unprecedented levels. From 2014 to the present, it has been in decline. Next election is the presidential election of March 2018.

SU-35 Flanker vs F-15 Eagle

Another comparative analysis article from The National Interest: America’s F-15 Eagle vs Russia’s Su-35 fighter: Who Wins?

This article lacks the depth of the nicely done article in the Armata Tank vs the M-1 Abrams Tank and the TOW missile. A few points:

  1. F-15C Eagle is now nearly 40 years old.
  2. It may be in service for another 20 years.
  3. The Flanker-E clearly has the advantage at low speeds.
  4. The F-15C and F-15E have the advantage at long ranges.
  5. I gather the author considers them overall roughly equal.

But the lines that catch my attention are:

“More likely to happen is that a F-15 would run into a Su-35 operated by some Third World despot. The pilots are not likely to have the training, tactics or experience to fight against an American aviator with a realistic chance of winning.”

I am not sure which “Third World despots” he is considering for his analysis. Indonesia is a democracy. Indonesia is not on bad terms with the U.S. I gather only Russia has the SU-35 with China and Indonesia having ordered them. Indonesia is using them to replace their aging fleet of U.S. F-5E Tiger IIs. The initial buy is something like 8 planes. Perhaps Algeria, Egypt, India, Pakistan, or Vietnam may purchase them at some point, but these are also not countries we are likely to conflict with. It does not appear that places like North Korea, Venezuela, and what remains of the government of Syria is going to obtain them (although Russia deployed at least 4 Su-35s in Syria). I think the author of the article probably needs to re-examine who is actually going to have and use these aircraft. So far, it seems to be only Russia, China (24 of them) and Indonesia (8 of them).

What does A2/AD look like?

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A2/AD stands for anti-access/aerial denial. There is a recently published article from The National Interest that laid out a potential scenario concerning such an effort in the Baltic Sea. It is only 4-pages and makes for a good read: Entering the Bear’s Lair: Russia’s A2/D2 Bubble in the Baltic Sea

There are a number of NATO members on the Baltic Sea: Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Non-NATO members are Sweden, Finland and Russia.

Kaliningrad is part of Russia. It is the old German city of Konigsberg and surrounding former Prussian territory. It was given to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and they attached it to Russian SFSR (which became the independent country of Russia in 1991). The Kaliningrad Oblast had a population of 941,873 in 2010. It is named after the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin (1975-1946), one of the original Bolsheviks.

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This keys off of the previous post by Shawn about the “Third Offset Strategy,” of which A2/AD is a part of.

Count of Russian Combat Troops in Ukraine

An interesting article from Forbes: Russian Combat Medals

Forbes articles tend to be pretty negative on Russia, but it is no secret that Russia had moved into Ukraine its troops, or its contractors, or Russian volunteers (a word that has had interesting connotations in Soviet history).

A few points:

  1. According to one source, 167 regular troops killed, 187 MIA (missing in action), with 305 mercenaries killed and 796 MIA. Most MIA are likely KIA. So maybe 1,455 Russians killed in fighting in Ukraine. I gather this is a pretty reliable listing of people.
  2. Society of Russian Mothers (this organization has been around for a while) says up to 3,500 KIA.
  3. Malaysian airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system operated by a Russian crew (is there really any other reasonable interpretation of this event?).
  4. 4,300 medals awarded “For Distinction in Combat” between 11 July 2014 and February 2016, over 10,000 medals for bravery awarded.
  5. If there are five troops per every one that receives a medal, then one could guesstimate 50,000 Russian troops having served in Ukraine between July 2014 and February 2016.

Anyhow, I have not checked all the various estimates on Russian intervention in Ukraine, and compared and contrasted them, so no sense of how accurate this is. I do note that this is 1,455 killed out of 50,000 involved or almost 3%. This is pretty high. When you add in wounded then you are looking an overall casualty figure that may be as high as 10,000. Of course, the “tooth-to-tail” ratio is very skewed, as most of the support troops would be just across the border in Russia. Anyone have better estimates?

Armata Tank vs M-1 Abrams and TOW: Who Wins?

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Nice four page article from the National Interest: Russia’s Armata Tank vs America’s M-1 Abrams and TOW Missile: Who Wins?

A few points:

  1. The Russia’s Armata family of armored combat vehicles (Tank, IFV and SP Artillery) sort of takes the approach we were using with the Future Combat System (FCS)…(which we did some work on for Boeing, oddly enough using Kursk data).
  2. The Armata has an unmanned turret (it really does help to be able to stick your head out and look around).
  3. They then compare it to the M-1 (still on page 1)
  4. “The tank that sees the enemy first almost always wins the fight”
  5. “Further, there is the question of whether the T-14 can be produced in numbers….given the state of Russia’s economy.”
  6. They then compare it to the U.S. TOW missiles (early on page 2 and covers the rest of the article)….and the Javelin.
  7. Syrian FSA rebels have TOW missiles (but not Javelins).
  8. TOW-2A is wire guided and probably can be defeated by the Armata.
  9. “If only the notorious F-35 could boast a similar record.” (to tie this article back to a previous posting).
  10. TOW-2B can probably defeat an Armata, because of its top attack capability.
  11. I am guessing that so to can the Javelin (they actually don’t address that).
  12. Right now, only 100 Armata’s are slated for production.

 

Lost Decade

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Article in the “Business Insider” on Russia’s emergency fund: One of Russia’s biggest economic problems

Summary: The Russian reserve fund runs out in 2017.

Why this gets my attention: Russia has been maintaining its federal budget by draining their reserve fund. Their presidential election is in March 2018.

A few notes from the article:

  1. In 2014 the fund was 67 billion pounds.
  2. It is now 23 billion pounds ($30.6 billion)
  3. Federal budget was based upon a $50 a barrel price of oil.
  4. Average price in January-August has been only $42.70 a barrel (it is currently around $46).
  5. The budget assumed 1% GDP real growth this year (it has been in decline).
  6. Export duties on oil was 4% of GDP in 2011
    1. Was 2% last year
    2. Now is 1.1% for January-July
  7. Kicker summary: “With real GDP growth averaging only 0.3% since 2008….the Russian economy has already experienced a lost decade. It needs to implement radical changes if it is not to repeat weak performance in years to come.”

I suspect this “lost decade” is going to be very much a part of Putin’s legacy, where instead of actually growing the economy, the Russian leadership instead comfortably rested on the high oil prices to boost their economy and federal budget and let the rest of the economy languish. People were not that far from the mark when they referred to Russia as being “Nigeria with snow.” To date we have not seen any real efforts to change and adjust the economy, including eliminating the widespread corruption and matching the budget to reflect their revenue. Instead the government has been depleting its reserve fund to cover its budget shortfalls. This cannot last forever. It does remind me of the Soviet days, when they had a huge reserve of gold that had been built up over decades. By the end of the 1980s, they had exhausted this, much to everyone’s surprise.

Russia’s Strategy in Ukraine

"Russian Build-Up In and Around Ukraine: August 12, 2016," Institute for the Study of WarOver at Foreign Policy, Michael Kofman, a research scientist at CNA Corp. and fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, has analyzed recent Russian troop deployments on Ukraine’s border peripheries and what they imply about the strategic goals of the Russian government in the mid-term. He concludes that the Russians are not massing for a possible invasion in the short-term. Instead, the shifting of forces suggests sustainable, long-term deployments at strategically important locations along the border. The mid-term objective of this is to secure the current status-quo.

The Russian General Staff is not only repositioning these units back where they were before 2009, it’s also rebuilding a capable combat grouping on Crimea — albeit one that’s largely defensive in nature… It also secures the Russian vision for how this conflict ends: In a hypothetical future where the Minsk agreement is actually implemented, Russian forces may withdraw from the separatist enclaves in the Donbass. If the deal fails to hold or Kiev reneges on the terms, Russian divisions ringing the country from its north to very southeast (not including Crimea) would be poised to counter any Ukrainian moves by striking from several directions.

Kofman also sees this strategy as seeking to maintain Russia’s political dominance over Ukraine in the longer term.

The string of divisions, airbases, and brigades will be able to effect conventional deterrence or compellence for years to come… Russia will retain escalation dominance over Ukraine for the foreseeable future. By the end of 2017, its forces will be better positioned to conduct an incursion or threaten regime change in Kiev than they ever were in 2014.

Kofman recommends that the U.S. and its allies carefully think through the implications of this strategy. He believes it will take Ukraine five to 10 years to rebuild an effective military, but even if successful, the future correlation of forces and the aggressive positioning of Russian forces could make the situation more unstable rather than less so.

U.S. policymakers should think about the medium to long term — a timeline that is admittedly not our strong suit. If this conflict is not placed on stable footing by the time both countries feel themselves capable of engaging in a larger fight, it may well result in a conventional war that would dwarf the small set-piece battles we’ve seen so far. Beyond imposing a ceasefire on the current fighting, the West should think about what a rematch might look like several years from now.

Scandinavia and the Baltics

During the Cold War Sweden and Finland were two nations that were democratic and independent but were neutral and not part of NATO. Norway and Denmark were a part of NATO since 1949 and the three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) were part of the Soviet Union since 1940. Now the three Baltic states are part of NATO as of 2004 and Sweden and Finland are establishing ties to NATO.

An article on Finland from Michael Peck:   Finland: America’s Next Top Ally?

Article on Lithuania: Ground Zero in the new Cold War

Entirely irrelevant article on Norway: More than 300 reindeer killed lightning in Norway

Just a little demographics: the population of Scandinavia is around 27 million people, that is 5 million in Norway (which has a per capita income higher than the U.S.), 10 million in Sweden, 5.5 million in Finland, over 5.5 million in Denmark, plus Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The population of the three Baltic states is around 6 million people (and includes four major languages, including Russian). The population of Russia is 144 million (with 5 million in St. Petersburg and less than a million in the Kaliningrad Oblast).

We have sold the rights to use our combat model, the TNDM (Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model) to Sweden and Finland. We have never the rights to use the combat model to a NATO member.

Lawyers at War

There is a new dimension in warfare: legal. For example: Ukraine taking Russia to Court

Ukraine is taking Russia to court in multiple venues. This includes the multiple cases in the International Court of Justice in the Hague and the European Court of Human Rights. Not sure how this all plays out, but in the end, there has to be some additional cost to Russia if the judgments go against it. It is not like the bad old days when one could march into the Rhineland, annex Austria and take the Sudetenland facing only international condemnation. Now one has to deal with law suits!!! I gather these things are going to drag on for years.