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Russia: An army at war with
itself
By Stephen Blank
Russia's recent announcements that it would
obtain and rebuild bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
represents a significant move in its overall military
strategy and policy. Certainly it also represents a
fundamental aspect as well of Russian policy in Central
Asia. That policy has acquired a steadily more
integrated character under President Vladimir Putin's
leadership. Putin is increasingly using all the
instruments of power available to him to try to limit
the other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
governments' room for maneuver in both security and
economic policy.
Clearly his objective is to
create a ring of pliant client states around Russia, all
of whom enjoy nominal sovereignty but which in fact have
severely circumscribed capabilities for exercising it.
These bases are intended to house Russian fighter
planes, specifically five Su-25 fighters each at first.
But if fighters are to be based there, that raises the
question of what kind of air defenses will protect them.
Presumably, those air defense capabilities will be part
of the CIS-wide air-defense system that has yet to be
tested and that one suspects has multiple problems. That
system has been a focus of Russian and CIS policy and
exercises, suggesting that despite rhetoric to the
contrary about terrorism and insurgency being the main
threat, in fact the United States remains the main
enemy. Other Russian exercises would also lend
themselves to that conclusion.
Moreover, the
Russian Ministry of Defense has advertised that these
bases and their associated air capabilities are to serve
as the basis for a CIS Rapid Reaction Force (RRF). While
the creation of this RRF follows contemporary
international trends, it remains unclear just how much
Russia has learned from recent wars and how much of
these lessons it is able to implement with its own still
unreformed and desperately underfunded forces. Certainly
examination of Russian military literature suggests that
its commanders could not begin to imagine what the
United States achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq, let
alone implement those lessons and synergies of men and
weapons systems in modern war.
Certainly, there
is no sign as yet, for example, that the Russian
military can perform synchronized air-ground operations,
as do the US armed forces, or that it can create a truly
effective RRF that can rapidly reach a theater and
sustain operations there effectively. On the other hand,
Moscow long ago announced plans to create a special
50,000-man force for deployment in and around the
Caspian Sea and has consistently augmented the Caspian
Flotilla. Thus these bases may represent steps toward
executing the strategic vision inherent in the
proclamation of this special force or a recalibration of
those earlier plans. At the same time, it is also clear
that these bases represent the Russian government's and
the military's profound suspicion of US intentions and
capabilities revealed in those two wars, as well as
their fears about US unilateralism, willingness to
disregard Russian interests, and supposed designs, on
Central Asia and the Transcaucasus.
Undoubtedly,
the United States' capabilities for long-range strikes
and for projecting and then sustaining forces far from
home must generate considerable anxiety within the
Ministry of Defense and government. Thus these bases
represent a strategic counter to those US capabilities.
But here lies the quandary for Moscow. The announced
force deployments for these bases are not
power-projection forces. The Su-25 is not a long-range
fighter, nor can it synchronize with the ground forces
to provide the kinds of joint operations that were a
hallmark of the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. It
cannot produce air cover for ground forces and take out
enemy forces at the same time. What these deployments do
represent is a determination to stake a claim to
"Eurasia", that is, the former Soviet empire, and to
build on it in the future.
However, what Russian
planners clearly fail to realize is that by virtue of
the capabilities and presence they now possess, US
forces have utterly undermined the concept of Eurasia as
some unique theater off-limits to everyone else. And
they have certainly shown long ago the limitations of
the Soviet model of force building, which still grips
Russian commanders. Not only can the United States
project and sustain power into this theater, its
victories have led to a situation whereby the entire
trans-Caspian region can be considered, at least for
some strategic operations, as part of a single Greater
Middle Eastern theater. Whereas in both these wars US
planners not only transformed the strategic landscape,
they also developed novel operational concepts and
military organizations to conduct operations. None of
this appears remotely possible for Russian planners. One
need only look at their entrenched and quite public
refusal to entertain ideas of military reform or their
inability to develop new tactical or operational
concepts to understand that the cognitive gap between
them and Western militaries is growing by leaps and
bounds.
Military reform is essential to the
creation of armies that can wage contemporary wars
successfully and both develop and use modern technology.
Failing that, a pre-modern relationship between officers
and soldiers remains the norm, and that entails all the
forms of the czarist "regimental economy",
dedovshchina (the violent and cruel treatment of
young recruits in the Russian army), etc. Certainly, no
innovative operational concepts or the means to train
soldiers in them will develop out of that kind of army.
Neither will it be able to engage effectively on its
own, either in counter-terrorism or other kinds of
operations associated with the threats it will face in
and around Central Asia. Worse yet, nobody should think
that counter-terrorism entails strictly small-scale
operations. That is emphatically not the case, as the US
experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq show conclusively.
In contemporary war, forces must be able to dominate
across the entire spectrum of operations because
contemporary and future war will increasingly present
what perhaps the most innovative Russian thinker,
retired General M A Gareyev, called "multivariant"
challenges, often at the same time in the same
engagements.
Under present conditions, and as
Chechnya indicates, Russia's military is simply unable
to live in the same conceptual and operational universe
as Western militaries do. And what Moscow intends to
enforce in Central Asia by reserving command of these
putative CIS forces is those areas' military
backwardness. This is unlikely to be an acceptable
alternative for many of these states. Georgia and
Azerbaijan already want to be in the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization or to enjoy its protection. Other
states seek to learn from Western models and tactics.
Neither is it clear that Russia can even afford to
sustain the forces it hopes to build.
Still,
none of these considerations has deterred the military,
the most unreformed institution in Russia and one that
remains in thrall to atavistic visions of the old
machtpolitik. There is no doubt that Russia will
remain a significant, and possibly the major, player in
Central Asia. But if it hopes to achieve that position
it will have to reform both its policies and the way it
thinks about war and peace. And whether it has the will,
the skill, the resources, and the understanding needed
to do so still remains a very open question.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of
international security affairs residing in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times
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