Russian Resurgence has Blindsided Nato

July/August 2014

The danger is that events in Ukraine have unpicked the American side of the bargain as well. Burden-sharing is desirable, but collective defence is only guaranteed if the US is prepared to use force. Only 64,000 US military personnel remain in Europe, compared to almost half a million at the height of the Cold War. Even Obama's $1 billion pledge won't substantially change the number of boots on the ground. By contrast, estimates put Russian troop movements during the Crimean incursion alone at about 50,000 men massed on the border, who were able to be rapidly deployed. The incursion was spearheaded by an unexpectedly large number of well-equipped and professional special forces.

Western military leaders have foolishly touted the experience of Afghanistan and Iraq to refocus Western armies on counterinsurgency rather than deterrence. Meanwhile, the response in Russian military doctrine has been to successfully blend a medium-sized conventional force with unconventional tactics to blindside supposedly superior Nato forces. Putin's masterstroke has been to understand Nato's political weakness and the European reluctance to use force at all. Russian doctrine exploits this weakness through speed and unconventional tactics. Even if Nato cannot collectively increase its levels of defence expenditure in the short to medium term, the most important first step would be understanding and responding to this change in Russian doctrine. This would allow Nato rapidly to shut down future threats, both in Europe and elsewhere if China or other powers adopted similar military reforms to leverage inferior militaries.

Russia's Crimean campaign has illustrated that while it lacks the capability to threaten continental war in a Cold War-style confrontation, it is able to shape the proximate environment for its objectives. Nato leaders spoke and acted as if the "red line" for action was the appearance of a Russian armoured column and a stereotypically heavy-handed Soviet invasion force entering Ukraine. Instead, Russia has turned its doctrine on its head. It has used special forces and intelligence operatives, either in civilian clothing or balaclavas and unmarked uniforms lending a semi-plausible deniability. The tactics were based on impressive political-military coordination.

This has allowed political destabilisation, the use of proxy "separatists" and the installation of a client government in Crimea, to render the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato or the EU all but impossible. Russia's 2008 campaign in Georgia not only showed the political possibilities of such lightning strikes but also paved the way for military reform.

The result is the creation of a well-equipped core professional army. Structural reforms have created mobile combat brigades that can move rapidly in under-defended parts of Europe, creating "facts on the ground" before Nato summons the will to respond. The presence of massed Russian forces on the border is not required to invade Ukraine but rather for leverage, to maintain the possibility of escalation in the mind of Nato's political leaders. Russia's other Georgian lesson was that the West will not send in troops if Russian forces are on the ground and at combat readiness. While America's vast military is unable to achieve the country's political ends, Putin has learnt the opposite lesson from his Chechen and Georgian campaigns, where he has achieved his strategic ambitions.

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Max

July 14th, 2014
3:07 PM

This summer will be remembered for the flow of lies and stupid articles.

Vlad

July 14th, 2014
9:07 AM

This man really believes in true democracy. When I read, I thought it was a woman over 50. Too naive and idealized.And what kind of aggression it? Crimea territory which for over 200 years is Russia. And more than 200 years, there are Russian troops. Most of the people there, all these 200 years were Russian. When it is in a part of Ukraine, all the past 23 years, they are perceived as a misunderstanding.Therefore, after the illegal political coup organized by U.S. taxpayers' money in order to bring to power a pro-American government, people are simply people in the Crimea did not recognize him and declared independence. Whether they supported Russia? Yes. As well as the United States in a similar situation would have supported.And funny to remember about the fact that the referendum is not unconstitutional government which came to power through unconstitutional. Constitution or valid or not. No middle ground. At the time of the referendum, the constitution has already been deposed.

Halappa

July 14th, 2014
6:07 AM

The only aggressors in the modern world - NATO and USA.

Baron

July 13th, 2014
1:07 AM

Spot on, Mr. James.

Lawrence James

July 9th, 2014
11:07 AM

Alexander Woolfson’s strident bugle call for intervention in the Ukraine and the Crimea combines a misunderstanding of history with discordant echoes of music-hall Russophobia. His speculation about whether Nato could somehow have mobilised forces for dispatch to the Crimea invokes that jingo chorus of 1854: “Let’s raise a mighty cheer,/We’re going to the Crimea,/We’ll tame the Russian bear.’ Having abjectly failed to ‘tame’ the equivalent beasts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should know better. As for the context of recent events in the Ukraine, Woolfson disregards Russia’s historic experience and misunderstands Nato’s purpose. The alliance was the product of the Cold War created solely to resist Soviet encroachments on Western Europe and not to make land grabs across the borders of the former Russian empire. Wisely, it did not take advantage of the implosion of the Communist state in the 1990s and repeat the Allied intervention during the Russian civil war of 1918 to 1920. Yet, something along the lines of this catastrophic enterprise is now being contemplated as a solution to the Ukrainian crisis by overheated champions of Nato engagement in what has always been accepted as a Russian sphere of influence. Russia has made it plain that she regards the former Czarist and Soviet province of the Ukraine as a de facto province. There are valid historic reasons for this. The French invasions of 1812 and the German of 1918 and 1940 taught Russians that their land mass was the best means of defence. Since the eighteenth century the Ukraine has been a vital part of this vast glacis. Russia is also nervously aware that on the two latter occasions a substantial number of Ukrainians defected to the invaders. Likewise, Russia has a legitimate claim to the Crimea, as strong, say, as the United States has to Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and its sundry Pacific island naval and air bases. If a section of the population of any one of these outposts chose to spurn their patrons and attach themselves to their rivals, gunboats or their modern counterparts would soon be in action. Their use would be justified by the same arguments as Russia has deployed over the Crimea. Post-Cold War geo-strategy has seen a reversion to traditional assumptions and methods. We live, as we did in 1914, in a world of official and unofficial empires and spheres of influence. This being so, there is an excellent historic case for the Ukraine staying within the orbit of Russia and the Crimea returning to Russian sovereignty. Acceptance of a status quo upheld by history is infinitely preferable to a policy of shifty intrigues with malcontent Ukrainians and sending absurdly tiny detachments of Nato soldiers to camp out in the forests and marshes of Lithuania.

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