"It's hard to believe, of course, that Russia's Defense Ministry is seriously planning to fight the United States. There is another problem, and that's the fact that the nation's strategists know no other military scenario. And they don't want to develop any other scenario for the simple reason that any maneuvers different from the current ones, if they were conducted, would inevitably show neglected military preparation and ineffectively spent funds."
http://www.mosnews.com/column/2005/08/22/wargames.shtml Photo: http://www.mosnews.com/files/10303/putinAP.jpg Cold War Games Created: 22.08.2005 19:38 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 19:44 MSK, 10 hours 17 minutes ago Alexander Goltz Yezhednevny Zhurnal The Russian Army has been fighting all summer. From the North Caucasus to the Kamchatka, from the Barents Sea to the Shandong peninsula, thousands of troops and dozens of ships and planes are involved in a series of war games. Of course, these aren't Soviet times, when on the command of the Chief of Staff hundreds of thousands of soldiers would pick up their rifles and start moving west. But it's still impressive. Even the president was so impressed that after flying on the TU-160 strategic bomber and taking part in launching winged missiles that he announced the army was experiencing nothing less than a renaissance and then said that the Kremlin, not prepared to stop there, is intent on further increasing the military budget up to 688 billion rubles (over $24 billion) in 2006. It's probably nice for the president and the ordinary layperson to know that things are finally going as they should in our army. That the new winged X-555, in whose launchings Putin took part, demonstrated an extraordinary precision as it hits the window of an abandoned club now used as a target. That a strategic missile launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea successfully destroyed its target on Kamchatka. That the nuclear missile cruiser "Peter the Great" brilliantly completed a shooting session. That Russian and Chinese paratroopers are rehearsing a peacekeeping operation together. After all, that's what armed forces are for: to perfect their military skill and to demonstrate their might before their friends and foes. It's left to determine, however, to what extent these war games prepare the army to counter real threats. Describing all these maneuvers, military officials insist that their aims are to teach troops to battle terrorists. After all, three years ago, just after Nord-Ost, Vladimir Putin ordered the Armed Forces to include anti-terrorist training in their program. However, judging from the maneuvers now taking place, these aims have been left unrealized. What the Russian army is preparing for today fits the scenario of a major traditional military conflict with a traditional foe, when military action is conducted by traditional armed forces. Most likely, this stage was conducted in July-August during troop maneuvers in the Far East and North Caucasus military districts. But the state of Russia's common-purpose forces leaves us with doubt that they can stand up to the forces of a powerful nation. The next stage is when aggression against Russia continues. And that's when strategic bombers get involved, demonstrating nuclear strikes using winged missiles on low-populated areas of the aggressor-state. That was the stage that Putin took part in. At the same time, during the strategic aviation stage, paratroopers land as a distraction. That is what is happening right now in China. And if that doesn't work, then the forces of the entire nuclear triad are implemented (this year, it was symbolized by the launching of a missile from the nuclear submarine missile launcher "Yekaterinburg"). Since the General Staff doesn't plan anything farther that that, all this means the end of the world. Maneuvers like these have been conducted by the Russian Armed Forces since 1999, ever since the NATO operation in Yugoslavia. These war games are a warning to the West, and first and foremost to the United States. Their "anti-terrorist" aims are merely a pretext. Take, for example, the winged missiles that were launched in Putin's presence. These weapons were created not just for precision strikes, but primarily to get past the enemy's anti-ballistic missile system. You'll have to agree that it's unlikely that an international terrorist organization would have such a system. And, after getting confused trying to explain the use of the strategic bomber "solely for peacekeeping aims" in the Russian-Chinese maneuvers, Russian generals began hinting at the necessity of fighting a certain nation that supports terrorists. Such hints are telling. It's hard to believe, of course, that Russia's Defense Ministry is seriously planning to fight the United States. There is another problem, and that's the fact that the nation's strategists know no other military scenario. And they don't want to develop any other scenario for the simple reason that any maneuvers different from the current ones, if they were conducted, would inevitably show neglected military preparation and ineffectively spent funds. For example, the 76th paratrooper division became fully professional a year ago, thus becoming the first full-fledged standing formation. In the event of a crisis it would be the first formation to be deployed. In light of this, it would have been important to see how exactly the command is planning to deploy this division both of its regiments, and not just a single company. It's clear that right now there are not enough military planes for such a task. Are military officials planning to "mobilize" civilian aviation or is there another means of getting the paratroopers to the necessary region? In a scenario like this, the president would have to play another role besides that of a high-placed passenger aboard a strategic bomber. After all, he would be the one who would have to decide to use military force, taking into account all the possible consequences. Would Putin have been just as impressed had he learned that the Armed Forces could not carry out his command? Indeed, the only way for the country's leadership to learn whether its military spending is worthwhile is to start getting the military to solve real problems, instead of artificially constructed games. But President Putin is hiding from this challenge. He leaves it up to certain "specialists" from the General Staff to choose priorities in developing the nation's Armed Forces. And we can be sure that in the coming years these specialists will do the only thing they know how to do: preparing the army for a world war. This article was orginally published, in Russian, here. http://www.ej.ru/dayTheme/entry/1648 ------------------------ Yahoo! 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