lol seriously this is odd.
Topic: World War III - page 5. (Read 34342 times)
Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects-based network operations and how to counteract them
Article by: Vitalii Usenko and Dmytro Usenko
The strategy of a hybrid or irregular war followed by real war was developed in the USSR. The same scenario was used by USSR during the ‘liberation’ of Poland, Bessarabia, Bukovyna, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the attempt to ‘liberate’ Finland in 1939-1940. This liberation is now being justified as a Soviet attempt to secure its borders against Hitler, which is the same justification Russia uses now, 75 years later: “to secure its borders against NATO”.
Since its formation in 1922 following communist doctrine the USSR has made accusations against every country in the world with the deliberate intention of concealing its own role as the instigator.
Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the USSR established the Comintern to be, in the definition of its own name, the world communist party, and gave it the objective of setting up a world Soviet socialist republic. The declaration that accompanied the formation of the USSR in 1922 included four republics; the plan was to increase this number until the whole world formed part of it. The declaration behind the formation of the USSR is an official document with the principal objective of this vast state being the destruction and subjugation of all other states in the world. Europe was the first target. This ideology was inherited by second leader of USSR, Joseph Stalin, who needed crises, wars, destruction and hunger in Europe. The worse for Europe the better. It would create opportunities for Stalin and provide justification for him to send the Red Army into Europe as its liberator.
In 1939, the Soviet Union started actively pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia lost during the chaos of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, after the agreement with Nazi Germany in August 1939. The same rhetoric is used by Putin to back up his claim that in returning Crimea to Russia he is correcting not just a historical injustice, but an outrage.
nsc Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects based network operations and how to counteract them
History is being repeated and it seems that a similar strategy to the one described in US NSDC (National Security Council) Report 68 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security” (April 14, 1950), a Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950 should be reconsidered in respect of Russia. The President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense undertook a reexamination of US objectives in peace and war and the effect of these objectives on US strategic plans, in the light of nuclear bomb capability of the Soviet Union. The challenge which faced the USA and the West at that time involved preempting the destruction of not only the US but the civilization itself.
“The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas under the Soviet sphere of influence. The means employed by the Kremlin in pursuit of this policy were limited only by considerations of expediency. Doctrine is not a limiting factor; rather it dictates the employment of violence, subversion, and deceit, and rejects moral considerations. The only apparent restraints on resort to war are, therefore, calculations of practicality”, stated the report.
Russia has not changed its mentality much from its predecessor USSR with its communist ideology. The mistakes and misconceptions of the West were explored in the article “A need to contain Russia” by Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post on March 29, 2014: “Openly or subconsciously, since 1991, Western leaders have acted on the assumption that Russia is a flawed Western country. Perhaps during the Soviet years it had become different, even deformed. But sooner or later, the land of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the home of classical ballet, would join what Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, so movingly called “our common European home. For the first time, many are beginning to understand that the narrative is wrong: Russia is not a flawed Western power. Russia is an anti-Western power with a different, darker vision of global politics”, concluded Anne Applebaum.
In the 1990s, many people thought Russian progress toward that home simply required new policies: with the right economic reforms, Russians would sooner or later become like West. As it turned out Russia is not a flawed Western power. Russia is an anti-Western power with a different, darker vision of global politics.
Eedward lucas 2 Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects based network operations and how to counteract them
Edward Lucas, UK journalist in ‘The Economist’ author of the books “New Cold War” and Deception: “Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West”, has similar point of view. He argues that Russia is a revisionist power:
It has the means to pursue its objectives;
It is winning ; and
Greater dangers lie ahead.
He recommended that the United Kingdom (but it applies to US and NATO countries) and its allies:
Give up any hope of a return to business as usual;
Boost the defense of the Baltic states and Poland;
Expose Russian corruption in the West;
Impose sweeping visa sanctions on the Russian elite;
Help Ukraine; and
Reboot the Atlantic Alliance.
Edward Lucas supposes that Putin is tempted to destroy NATO via Baltics: “Putin has seen the West weakness in Ukraine, and he wants to exploit that. I fear very much that he will try something in the Baltic states because he can see that if he destroys NATO’s credibility in the Baltic states, then he destroys NATO, and this is a very tempting target for him.”
Let us have a brief look at the Eurasian ideology and Russian Doctrine and then go the application of these doctrines to current hybrid warfare and network operations. There is practically no difference with its precursor’s Communist ideology, which promoted a continuous program of expansion and world domination. The terminology is slightly different, but the final goal of world domination in the communist doctrine and the Russian doctrine is virtually identical. It was too early to assume that Russia changed and could potentially become part of the West.
The Russian Doctrine and Eurasian ideology are unofficial documents, they have not been approved by the Russian Parliament. Elements of the doctrines are present in political programs or in theories of the “Russian National Idea.” It seems that the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church perceive both Russian Doctrine and Eurasian ideology as an essential worldview, the spiritual foundation for the entire Russian nation.
The doctrine’s major goal is to carve out Russian civilization as a separate world phenomenon and to lay out the Russian Global Project. There isn’t much difference with the communist ideology where communism was considered to be a separate world phenomenon, in essence a Red Global Project.
The Russian Doctrine is a collection of different scenarios, each of which not only describes one variant of the future and warns against possible threats, but at the same time lays out strategies outlining the vision of the desired Russia, the Russia that should be. It is a voluminous document, which is why we will only highlight some points relevant to the current situation.
In the introduction to the Russian Doctrine, we find quotes from different speeches by Vladimir Putin: “The Russian Federation is doomed in today’s world.” “The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”
The Russian Doctrine sees the “final and irreversible overcoming of the US and Western hegemony by ousting them from the geopolitical arena” as Russia’s only chance for survival in the 21st century. “Only those countries will be successful in the first 20 years of the 21st century which are hard, severe, persistent, and consistent.”
“The Russian empire has revived several times. Based on the values of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), even after the long-lived Tatar-Mongol yoke, the renewed mighty empire-successor of Kyivan Rus of King Sviatoslav has arisen in Eastern Europe.” Moscow is described as the Third Rome, the sole successor of Rome.
The Russian Doctrine presupposes that the crisis of Western civilization will inevitably lead to an urgent search for a new world leader. The international potential of Russian civilization is again on the agenda of history.
The Russian Doctrine defines three major principles of foreign policy:
Concentration: The return and re-unification of all territories of historical Russia, first of all Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, followed by reunification with the rest of the Russian world
Fight ‘terror-globalism:’ Russia shall declare openly that Russia does not recognize the civilizing missions of the USA and the West;
‘Big Clench,’ ‘Alternative globalization’: Strategic cooperation with China, India, and Iran, resulting in a military union between Russia, China, India, North Korea, and Syria.
Possible further extension to other Arab countries and countries from other regions, such as Africa and South America.
Alternative globalization, ousting the US and the West from the geopolitical arena, will start from ‘the near abroad,’ from countries like Ukraine. The initial territories initially would include Ukraine’s Tavria region (Crimea, Mykolaiv Oblast, and Kherson Oblast) and the Donbas (Donetsk Oblast). Please note that the Russian Doctrine was published in 2005, not in 2014.
The Soviet Union started actively pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia lost during the chaos of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War in 1939, after the agreement with Nazi Germany in August 1939. The same rhetoric is used by Putin to back up his claim that in returning Crimea to Russia he is correcting not just a historical injustice, but an outrage.
We will return again to US NSDC (National Security Council) Report 68 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security” (April 14, 1950). The document’s summary of Soviet priorities is equally applicable to Putin’s Russia:
“The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas under the Soviet sphere of influence”. “The means employed by the Kremlin in pursuit of this policy were limited only by considerations of expediency. Doctrine is not a limiting factor; rather it dictates the employment of violence, subversion, and deceit, and rejects moral considerations. The only apparent restraints on resort to war are, therefore, calculations of practicality”, stated the report.
Ukraine is learning not only how to fight an undeclared hybrid was against Russia; some ‘humanitarian’ aspects of this hybrid war were not left without attention either.
Many questions exist why the worldview and history (more precisely, the distortion of historical events and wrong interpretations of history) are so important for Putin’s Russia as integral part of information and network operations. The issue is that Russian extremists consider worldview and history as warfare tools in this hybrid war as well.
Russian extremist theories of world dominance see the warfare from a perspective which could be unusual for Western audiences. Russians have a far broader conception of warfare than you might expect. They see 6 major priorities in warfare (the more potent is to create an irreversible result and the more sustainable, but slower in time are at the top, the less potent to create sustainable result but faster are at the bottom). This concept is known as the Social Security Concept of the all-Russian political party “Truth and Unity Course”. Hearings of this concept in the Russian Paliament (State Duma) took place on November 28, 1995 (text of the hearings can be found here). It was at the time when the West considered that democratic developments in Russia were irreversible and that Russia would be an allied country with Western democratic values.
Methodological priority: World view and methodology – changing the worldview and methodology of the individual as a means of warfare method (how a person sees the world) is the most potent from the sustainability point of view. That is why the Russian Orthodox Church and the creation of the “Russian World” as an all-encompassing worldview is of utmost priority for Russia in order to achieve its long-term goals.
Chronological priority, the warfare of history – to distort history and chronology in order to justify claims on new territories both for external and internal users as well as to brainwash external and internal victims with propaganda for them to regard Russian claims as legitimate.
Priority based on facts and their interpretations: ideology, technology, methodology. The examples: Russian Doctrine, ideology of Russia as Third Rome, Alexandr Dugin’s ideology and his Eurasianism, Panslavism based on distorted historical interpretations (see above – 2nd chronololgical priority).
Economics priority: eсonomics and finance warfare (example – trade wars against Ukraine, use of the unjustified gas price as an instrument of war against Europe and Ukraine, Russian banking and finance system as warfare tool against Ukraine, currency speculations and throw-in of counterfeit local currency in order to destabilize Ukrainian currency and the Ukrainian monetary system, strategy to buy sovereign debt of victim country and then to request immediate debt re-payment etc.)
Ecological priority, “Genetics” warfare (alcohol, tobacco, environmental pollution e.t.c.) – to promote in the victim country a tolerance to abuse of alcohol, narcotics, to support environmental pollution, deliberately destroying the infrastructure and industrial capacities of the victim county e.t.c. In line with this priority Russia is making efforts to destroy the infrastructure of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast. The terrorists mined the Stirol chemical plant, threatening to cause an environmental catastrophe in the Donetsk Oblast.
Military priority: conventional warfare. Military warfare was used by Russia in a new form of an undeclared hybrid war with a wide application of newly created Special Operation Forces (SSO) in combination with use of local residents brainwashed by the ‘higher’ priorities of warfare described above.
As we can see that information and network operation strategies are key and cover 5 priority of 6 (Methodological priority, Chronological priority, Priority based on facts, Economics priority, Ecological priority) and only one priority is a conventional military priority.
Galeotti MoscowsSpyGame short 300x187 Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects based network operations and how to counteract them
Until recently not much attention was paid in US and EU to Russian doctrines and strategies, but fortunately situation is changing. Mark Galeotti in his article “Moscow’s Spy Game. Why Russia Is Winning the Intelligence War in Ukraine”, published in Foreign Affairs concludes: “Russia has long been preparing for the kind of conflict underway in Ukraine—one that combines espionage with firepower, economic pressure, information warfare, and political maneuvering. The Russian intelligence services use all these tools effortlessly—a skill that they inherited from their Soviet predecessors and further refined for today’s world, in which influence is as much about economic leverage and the ability to spin the story as about actual facts on the ground. It is telling that even the head of the Russian army, General Valery Gerasimov, admitted last year that “nonmilitary means” have become indispensable to Russia and sometimes even exceed traditional firepower in importance.”
In fact conventional warfare, the military priority was not the topic of this article. However one of the recent novelties in terms of Russia’s concept of war was the creation of full scale Special Operations Forces in Russia.
The Special Operations Forces of the Russian Federation (SOF or SSO in Russian) is a highly mobile group of trained and equipped forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense designed for specific tasks abroad and domestically. The Russian SOF is new unit in Russian army.
Valery Gerasimov, Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia announced the creation of the Special Operation Forces on March 6, 2013. Speaking to foreign military attachés, he said, “We created the command of the forces which is engaged in routine work and conducts planned activities within the framework of the preparation of the Armed Forces”.
The Special Operations Forces are troops designated to achieve Russian political and economic goals in any geographical part of the world which is of interest to the Russian Federation. These troops are fighting in peacetime.
The Russian SOF, besides such acute operations, usually solve the most incredible and ‘delicate’ tasks. They come into action when diplomatic methods are no longer useful. They can distract the energy and attention of ‘certain’ countries from external problems, creating problems inside these countries, shake the political system of these countries, destabilizing the political situation within these countries, including the use of third parties and local residents of the victim country. Special operations forces are designed to create, train and supervise foreign guerrilla movements, eliminate unwanted leaders on foreign territory without any UN sanctions.
The first drill of the Russian Special Operation Forces (SOF) units was conducted on a mountain range in the Kabardino-Balkaria region in April 2013. During the drill, an airlift of SOF units by military transport and army aviation occured, landing groups and cargo to the special assignment area. As described by the Russian military journalist Aleksandr Sladkov (video + article in Russian) during this drill, the SOF demonstrated variants of their possible actions in nieghboring countries. Drills were an imitation of the redeployment of SOF units to the territory of a neighboring country. As Censor.net[block]28[/block], the same Russian military journalist, Aleksandr Sladkov, was seen fighting with terrorists against the Ukrainian army (perhaps learning more about Russian SOF fighting in Ukraine)
The first baptism of these forces tool place in Ukraine during the seziure of the Crimean Parliament on February 27, 2014 (video with the Crimean report of unit No. 090900, February 22-28, 2014) and then in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
Besides USSR experience and practical concepts Russia has watched closely the development of military doctrines in the West in the late 1990s to early 2000s, especially after 9/11. Some concepts are in further development or reconsideration now: Effect-Based Operations, Network-Centric Warfare, Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences, Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age, Network-Enabled Operations, Effects-Based Information Operations.
Western approaches on effects-based operations and network-centric warfare were in active development in mid-1990s . One of them is “Five Rings for Strategic Warfare concept” of John A.Warden,. III, published in his work “The Enemy as a System” in 1995.
Clayton K S Chun in his overview mentioned that “Colonel John Warden believed that nation-states operate like biological organisms composed of discrete systems. In a perfect world these systems function in harmony and the organisms survive and flourish. However, certain systems controlled other systems and were thus significant, while other elements might appear to be vital, they were actually not important for sustaining the organism. Warden believed that like a biological organism a nation could be stunned. Military action could produce strategic paralysis. Strategic paralysis in Warden’s terms would make an enemy incapable of taking any physical action to conduct operations”
“Every state and every military organization will have a unique set of centers of gravity or vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, our five-ring model gives us a good starting point. It tells us what detailed questions to ask, and it suggests a priority for the questions and for operations from the most vital at the middle to the least vital at the outside. These centers of gravity, which are also rings of vulnerability, are absolutely critical to the functioning of a state.”
Leadership was at the center of Warden’s ring model. In his biological system analogy, leadership equated to the brain of a living organism. Leadership targets can include executive, legislative, judicial, and other functions. Campaign planners could target physical governmental facilities
Organic essentials: sources of energy, food, and financial resources to maintain its existence
Society’s infrastructure includes among other things road and rail networks, airports, power grids and factories.
The fourth ring is the population. Attacking the population does not focus solely on bombing civilians, but could also include using psychological warfare or other activities to reduce a populace’s morale.
The last ring comprises fielded military forces. Fielded military forces represent the “fighting mechanism” that protects the state from attack.
All these rings could be targeted and approach could be both inside-out as the case with information and network operations and outside-in as in case of conventional wars.
Russians have modified this model in accordance with their needs of information and network warfare. They modelled nation-state as six rings each of which could be targeted by different means. This model was published in a book by Valeriy Korovin “The third World Network War”
National state is made-up in accordance with following model. Leader of the state, political elites around the leader, an expert community forming political meanings and interpretations, undertaking mass conversion of these meanings and interpretations and bringing them to the masses (Russian terminology) – society and population. The outer ring isthe armed forces.
We can see from current developments that Russia tries to wage a so called “inside-out” war which starts from attempts to influence first of all EU leaders, then the EU expert community followed by mass media with adding social networks and Internet blogs as new forms of communications. The tools used for this are effect-based operations.
The reflection of the application of this model we can clearly see now. “A strategy for damaging Russia’s propaganda machine” by Stephen Komarnyckyj, published in Euromaidan Press, showed the mechanisms which Putin has deployed for his attack:
Agents of influence including politicians, businessmen, corporations with a stake in Russia’s localization program, energy sector etc.;
Networks of journalists who may be sectarian Communists (such as Seumas Milne), or social conservatives attracted by Putin’s superficially Christian agenda (such as Peter Hitchens);
Sectarian left wing sites (such as Counterpunch and Global Research) which exploit a linguistic disconnect to create a sanitised Russia and a conversely stigmatised Ukraine;
Political proxies (such as Stop the War and numerous politicians);
PR Agencies and consultancies;
The Troll army of paid internet commentators, all working to a script.
be continued
Article by: Vitalii Usenko and Dmytro Usenko
The strategy of a hybrid or irregular war followed by real war was developed in the USSR. The same scenario was used by USSR during the ‘liberation’ of Poland, Bessarabia, Bukovyna, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the attempt to ‘liberate’ Finland in 1939-1940. This liberation is now being justified as a Soviet attempt to secure its borders against Hitler, which is the same justification Russia uses now, 75 years later: “to secure its borders against NATO”.
Since its formation in 1922 following communist doctrine the USSR has made accusations against every country in the world with the deliberate intention of concealing its own role as the instigator.
Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the USSR established the Comintern to be, in the definition of its own name, the world communist party, and gave it the objective of setting up a world Soviet socialist republic. The declaration that accompanied the formation of the USSR in 1922 included four republics; the plan was to increase this number until the whole world formed part of it. The declaration behind the formation of the USSR is an official document with the principal objective of this vast state being the destruction and subjugation of all other states in the world. Europe was the first target. This ideology was inherited by second leader of USSR, Joseph Stalin, who needed crises, wars, destruction and hunger in Europe. The worse for Europe the better. It would create opportunities for Stalin and provide justification for him to send the Red Army into Europe as its liberator.
In 1939, the Soviet Union started actively pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia lost during the chaos of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, after the agreement with Nazi Germany in August 1939. The same rhetoric is used by Putin to back up his claim that in returning Crimea to Russia he is correcting not just a historical injustice, but an outrage.
nsc Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects based network operations and how to counteract them
History is being repeated and it seems that a similar strategy to the one described in US NSDC (National Security Council) Report 68 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security” (April 14, 1950), a Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950 should be reconsidered in respect of Russia. The President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense undertook a reexamination of US objectives in peace and war and the effect of these objectives on US strategic plans, in the light of nuclear bomb capability of the Soviet Union. The challenge which faced the USA and the West at that time involved preempting the destruction of not only the US but the civilization itself.
“The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas under the Soviet sphere of influence. The means employed by the Kremlin in pursuit of this policy were limited only by considerations of expediency. Doctrine is not a limiting factor; rather it dictates the employment of violence, subversion, and deceit, and rejects moral considerations. The only apparent restraints on resort to war are, therefore, calculations of practicality”, stated the report.
Russia has not changed its mentality much from its predecessor USSR with its communist ideology. The mistakes and misconceptions of the West were explored in the article “A need to contain Russia” by Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post on March 29, 2014: “Openly or subconsciously, since 1991, Western leaders have acted on the assumption that Russia is a flawed Western country. Perhaps during the Soviet years it had become different, even deformed. But sooner or later, the land of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the home of classical ballet, would join what Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, so movingly called “our common European home. For the first time, many are beginning to understand that the narrative is wrong: Russia is not a flawed Western power. Russia is an anti-Western power with a different, darker vision of global politics”, concluded Anne Applebaum.
In the 1990s, many people thought Russian progress toward that home simply required new policies: with the right economic reforms, Russians would sooner or later become like West. As it turned out Russia is not a flawed Western power. Russia is an anti-Western power with a different, darker vision of global politics.
Eedward lucas 2 Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects based network operations and how to counteract them
Edward Lucas, UK journalist in ‘The Economist’ author of the books “New Cold War” and Deception: “Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West”, has similar point of view. He argues that Russia is a revisionist power:
It has the means to pursue its objectives;
It is winning ; and
Greater dangers lie ahead.
He recommended that the United Kingdom (but it applies to US and NATO countries) and its allies:
Give up any hope of a return to business as usual;
Boost the defense of the Baltic states and Poland;
Expose Russian corruption in the West;
Impose sweeping visa sanctions on the Russian elite;
Help Ukraine; and
Reboot the Atlantic Alliance.
Edward Lucas supposes that Putin is tempted to destroy NATO via Baltics: “Putin has seen the West weakness in Ukraine, and he wants to exploit that. I fear very much that he will try something in the Baltic states because he can see that if he destroys NATO’s credibility in the Baltic states, then he destroys NATO, and this is a very tempting target for him.”
Let us have a brief look at the Eurasian ideology and Russian Doctrine and then go the application of these doctrines to current hybrid warfare and network operations. There is practically no difference with its precursor’s Communist ideology, which promoted a continuous program of expansion and world domination. The terminology is slightly different, but the final goal of world domination in the communist doctrine and the Russian doctrine is virtually identical. It was too early to assume that Russia changed and could potentially become part of the West.
The Russian Doctrine and Eurasian ideology are unofficial documents, they have not been approved by the Russian Parliament. Elements of the doctrines are present in political programs or in theories of the “Russian National Idea.” It seems that the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church perceive both Russian Doctrine and Eurasian ideology as an essential worldview, the spiritual foundation for the entire Russian nation.
The doctrine’s major goal is to carve out Russian civilization as a separate world phenomenon and to lay out the Russian Global Project. There isn’t much difference with the communist ideology where communism was considered to be a separate world phenomenon, in essence a Red Global Project.
The Russian Doctrine is a collection of different scenarios, each of which not only describes one variant of the future and warns against possible threats, but at the same time lays out strategies outlining the vision of the desired Russia, the Russia that should be. It is a voluminous document, which is why we will only highlight some points relevant to the current situation.
In the introduction to the Russian Doctrine, we find quotes from different speeches by Vladimir Putin: “The Russian Federation is doomed in today’s world.” “The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”
The Russian Doctrine sees the “final and irreversible overcoming of the US and Western hegemony by ousting them from the geopolitical arena” as Russia’s only chance for survival in the 21st century. “Only those countries will be successful in the first 20 years of the 21st century which are hard, severe, persistent, and consistent.”
“The Russian empire has revived several times. Based on the values of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), even after the long-lived Tatar-Mongol yoke, the renewed mighty empire-successor of Kyivan Rus of King Sviatoslav has arisen in Eastern Europe.” Moscow is described as the Third Rome, the sole successor of Rome.
The Russian Doctrine presupposes that the crisis of Western civilization will inevitably lead to an urgent search for a new world leader. The international potential of Russian civilization is again on the agenda of history.
The Russian Doctrine defines three major principles of foreign policy:
Concentration: The return and re-unification of all territories of historical Russia, first of all Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, followed by reunification with the rest of the Russian world
Fight ‘terror-globalism:’ Russia shall declare openly that Russia does not recognize the civilizing missions of the USA and the West;
‘Big Clench,’ ‘Alternative globalization’: Strategic cooperation with China, India, and Iran, resulting in a military union between Russia, China, India, North Korea, and Syria.
Possible further extension to other Arab countries and countries from other regions, such as Africa and South America.
Alternative globalization, ousting the US and the West from the geopolitical arena, will start from ‘the near abroad,’ from countries like Ukraine. The initial territories initially would include Ukraine’s Tavria region (Crimea, Mykolaiv Oblast, and Kherson Oblast) and the Donbas (Donetsk Oblast). Please note that the Russian Doctrine was published in 2005, not in 2014.
The Soviet Union started actively pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia lost during the chaos of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War in 1939, after the agreement with Nazi Germany in August 1939. The same rhetoric is used by Putin to back up his claim that in returning Crimea to Russia he is correcting not just a historical injustice, but an outrage.
We will return again to US NSDC (National Security Council) Report 68 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security” (April 14, 1950). The document’s summary of Soviet priorities is equally applicable to Putin’s Russia:
“The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas under the Soviet sphere of influence”. “The means employed by the Kremlin in pursuit of this policy were limited only by considerations of expediency. Doctrine is not a limiting factor; rather it dictates the employment of violence, subversion, and deceit, and rejects moral considerations. The only apparent restraints on resort to war are, therefore, calculations of practicality”, stated the report.
Ukraine is learning not only how to fight an undeclared hybrid was against Russia; some ‘humanitarian’ aspects of this hybrid war were not left without attention either.
Many questions exist why the worldview and history (more precisely, the distortion of historical events and wrong interpretations of history) are so important for Putin’s Russia as integral part of information and network operations. The issue is that Russian extremists consider worldview and history as warfare tools in this hybrid war as well.
Russian extremist theories of world dominance see the warfare from a perspective which could be unusual for Western audiences. Russians have a far broader conception of warfare than you might expect. They see 6 major priorities in warfare (the more potent is to create an irreversible result and the more sustainable, but slower in time are at the top, the less potent to create sustainable result but faster are at the bottom). This concept is known as the Social Security Concept of the all-Russian political party “Truth and Unity Course”. Hearings of this concept in the Russian Paliament (State Duma) took place on November 28, 1995 (text of the hearings can be found here). It was at the time when the West considered that democratic developments in Russia were irreversible and that Russia would be an allied country with Western democratic values.
Methodological priority: World view and methodology – changing the worldview and methodology of the individual as a means of warfare method (how a person sees the world) is the most potent from the sustainability point of view. That is why the Russian Orthodox Church and the creation of the “Russian World” as an all-encompassing worldview is of utmost priority for Russia in order to achieve its long-term goals.
Chronological priority, the warfare of history – to distort history and chronology in order to justify claims on new territories both for external and internal users as well as to brainwash external and internal victims with propaganda for them to regard Russian claims as legitimate.
Priority based on facts and their interpretations: ideology, technology, methodology. The examples: Russian Doctrine, ideology of Russia as Third Rome, Alexandr Dugin’s ideology and his Eurasianism, Panslavism based on distorted historical interpretations (see above – 2nd chronololgical priority).
Economics priority: eсonomics and finance warfare (example – trade wars against Ukraine, use of the unjustified gas price as an instrument of war against Europe and Ukraine, Russian banking and finance system as warfare tool against Ukraine, currency speculations and throw-in of counterfeit local currency in order to destabilize Ukrainian currency and the Ukrainian monetary system, strategy to buy sovereign debt of victim country and then to request immediate debt re-payment etc.)
Ecological priority, “Genetics” warfare (alcohol, tobacco, environmental pollution e.t.c.) – to promote in the victim country a tolerance to abuse of alcohol, narcotics, to support environmental pollution, deliberately destroying the infrastructure and industrial capacities of the victim county e.t.c. In line with this priority Russia is making efforts to destroy the infrastructure of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast. The terrorists mined the Stirol chemical plant, threatening to cause an environmental catastrophe in the Donetsk Oblast.
Military priority: conventional warfare. Military warfare was used by Russia in a new form of an undeclared hybrid war with a wide application of newly created Special Operation Forces (SSO) in combination with use of local residents brainwashed by the ‘higher’ priorities of warfare described above.
As we can see that information and network operation strategies are key and cover 5 priority of 6 (Methodological priority, Chronological priority, Priority based on facts, Economics priority, Ecological priority) and only one priority is a conventional military priority.
Galeotti MoscowsSpyGame short 300x187 Russian hybrid warfare: what are effects based network operations and how to counteract them
Until recently not much attention was paid in US and EU to Russian doctrines and strategies, but fortunately situation is changing. Mark Galeotti in his article “Moscow’s Spy Game. Why Russia Is Winning the Intelligence War in Ukraine”, published in Foreign Affairs concludes: “Russia has long been preparing for the kind of conflict underway in Ukraine—one that combines espionage with firepower, economic pressure, information warfare, and political maneuvering. The Russian intelligence services use all these tools effortlessly—a skill that they inherited from their Soviet predecessors and further refined for today’s world, in which influence is as much about economic leverage and the ability to spin the story as about actual facts on the ground. It is telling that even the head of the Russian army, General Valery Gerasimov, admitted last year that “nonmilitary means” have become indispensable to Russia and sometimes even exceed traditional firepower in importance.”
In fact conventional warfare, the military priority was not the topic of this article. However one of the recent novelties in terms of Russia’s concept of war was the creation of full scale Special Operations Forces in Russia.
The Special Operations Forces of the Russian Federation (SOF or SSO in Russian) is a highly mobile group of trained and equipped forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense designed for specific tasks abroad and domestically. The Russian SOF is new unit in Russian army.
Valery Gerasimov, Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia announced the creation of the Special Operation Forces on March 6, 2013. Speaking to foreign military attachés, he said, “We created the command of the forces which is engaged in routine work and conducts planned activities within the framework of the preparation of the Armed Forces”.
The Special Operations Forces are troops designated to achieve Russian political and economic goals in any geographical part of the world which is of interest to the Russian Federation. These troops are fighting in peacetime.
The Russian SOF, besides such acute operations, usually solve the most incredible and ‘delicate’ tasks. They come into action when diplomatic methods are no longer useful. They can distract the energy and attention of ‘certain’ countries from external problems, creating problems inside these countries, shake the political system of these countries, destabilizing the political situation within these countries, including the use of third parties and local residents of the victim country. Special operations forces are designed to create, train and supervise foreign guerrilla movements, eliminate unwanted leaders on foreign territory without any UN sanctions.
The first drill of the Russian Special Operation Forces (SOF) units was conducted on a mountain range in the Kabardino-Balkaria region in April 2013. During the drill, an airlift of SOF units by military transport and army aviation occured, landing groups and cargo to the special assignment area. As described by the Russian military journalist Aleksandr Sladkov (video + article in Russian) during this drill, the SOF demonstrated variants of their possible actions in nieghboring countries. Drills were an imitation of the redeployment of SOF units to the territory of a neighboring country. As Censor.net[block]28[/block], the same Russian military journalist, Aleksandr Sladkov, was seen fighting with terrorists against the Ukrainian army (perhaps learning more about Russian SOF fighting in Ukraine)
The first baptism of these forces tool place in Ukraine during the seziure of the Crimean Parliament on February 27, 2014 (video with the Crimean report of unit No. 090900, February 22-28, 2014) and then in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
Besides USSR experience and practical concepts Russia has watched closely the development of military doctrines in the West in the late 1990s to early 2000s, especially after 9/11. Some concepts are in further development or reconsideration now: Effect-Based Operations, Network-Centric Warfare, Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences, Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age, Network-Enabled Operations, Effects-Based Information Operations.
Western approaches on effects-based operations and network-centric warfare were in active development in mid-1990s . One of them is “Five Rings for Strategic Warfare concept” of John A.Warden,. III, published in his work “The Enemy as a System” in 1995.
Clayton K S Chun in his overview mentioned that “Colonel John Warden believed that nation-states operate like biological organisms composed of discrete systems. In a perfect world these systems function in harmony and the organisms survive and flourish. However, certain systems controlled other systems and were thus significant, while other elements might appear to be vital, they were actually not important for sustaining the organism. Warden believed that like a biological organism a nation could be stunned. Military action could produce strategic paralysis. Strategic paralysis in Warden’s terms would make an enemy incapable of taking any physical action to conduct operations”
“Every state and every military organization will have a unique set of centers of gravity or vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, our five-ring model gives us a good starting point. It tells us what detailed questions to ask, and it suggests a priority for the questions and for operations from the most vital at the middle to the least vital at the outside. These centers of gravity, which are also rings of vulnerability, are absolutely critical to the functioning of a state.”
Leadership was at the center of Warden’s ring model. In his biological system analogy, leadership equated to the brain of a living organism. Leadership targets can include executive, legislative, judicial, and other functions. Campaign planners could target physical governmental facilities
Organic essentials: sources of energy, food, and financial resources to maintain its existence
Society’s infrastructure includes among other things road and rail networks, airports, power grids and factories.
The fourth ring is the population. Attacking the population does not focus solely on bombing civilians, but could also include using psychological warfare or other activities to reduce a populace’s morale.
The last ring comprises fielded military forces. Fielded military forces represent the “fighting mechanism” that protects the state from attack.
All these rings could be targeted and approach could be both inside-out as the case with information and network operations and outside-in as in case of conventional wars.
Russians have modified this model in accordance with their needs of information and network warfare. They modelled nation-state as six rings each of which could be targeted by different means. This model was published in a book by Valeriy Korovin “The third World Network War”
National state is made-up in accordance with following model. Leader of the state, political elites around the leader, an expert community forming political meanings and interpretations, undertaking mass conversion of these meanings and interpretations and bringing them to the masses (Russian terminology) – society and population. The outer ring isthe armed forces.
We can see from current developments that Russia tries to wage a so called “inside-out” war which starts from attempts to influence first of all EU leaders, then the EU expert community followed by mass media with adding social networks and Internet blogs as new forms of communications. The tools used for this are effect-based operations.
The reflection of the application of this model we can clearly see now. “A strategy for damaging Russia’s propaganda machine” by Stephen Komarnyckyj, published in Euromaidan Press, showed the mechanisms which Putin has deployed for his attack:
Agents of influence including politicians, businessmen, corporations with a stake in Russia’s localization program, energy sector etc.;
Networks of journalists who may be sectarian Communists (such as Seumas Milne), or social conservatives attracted by Putin’s superficially Christian agenda (such as Peter Hitchens);
Sectarian left wing sites (such as Counterpunch and Global Research) which exploit a linguistic disconnect to create a sanitised Russia and a conversely stigmatised Ukraine;
Political proxies (such as Stop the War and numerous politicians);
PR Agencies and consultancies;
The Troll army of paid internet commentators, all working to a script.
be continued
Russia Moving Missiles, Rockets Toward Eastern Ukraine
Russia is sending additional military forces toward the border with eastern Ukraine, including units equipped with ballistic missiles, as part of Moscow’s ongoing destabilization effort in support of pro-Russian rebels.
U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports said one Russian military unit equipped with short-range ballistic missiles was detected this week near eastern Ukraine, where Russia has launched a destabilization program following its military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in March.
The military movements coincided with the an unusual number of flights last week by Russian strategic nuclear bombers and aircraft along Europe’s northern coasts in a what NATO’s military commander called strategic “messaging” toward the West.
“My opinion is that they’re messaging us,” Gen. Phillip Breedlove, the commander, told reporters at the Pentagon this week. “They’re messaging us that they are a great power and that they have the ability to exert these kinds of influences in our thinking.”
The bomber flights included three days of paired Tu-95 bomber flights that were to have circumnavigated Europe from the north but instead were halted near Portugal.
U.S. officials said Russia deployed several Il-78 refueling tankers in Egypt that were to resupply the bombers during flights over the Mediterranean, but those flights were scrapped for unknown reasons.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed concerns about Russian military moves in Ukraine during remarks to reporters Tuesday in Brussels.
“Recently we are also seeing Russian troops moving closer to the border with Ukraine, and Russia continues to support the separatists by training them, by providing equipment, and supporting them also by having special forces, Russian special forces, inside the eastern parts of Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.
Other officials said both intelligence and social media reports in recent days revealed an increase in Russian deployments.
The missile systems being deployed were described as conventionally armed, short-range ballistic missiles, multiple launch rocket systems, and BM-21 Grad multiple rocker launchers.
Additionally, Russian military forces are moving towed artillery pieces closer to the border.
One official said the display of military power is part of Moscow’s effort to reinforce “separatists” seeking to carve out a pro-Russian enclave in Eastern Ukraine.
The Russian “Spetsnaz” or special forces commandos are already inside the country, but the ground forces as of Wednesday appeared to be staging at the border.
Russian military forces in Ukraine number around 300 commandos. “These are not fighting formations. These are formations and specialists that are in there doing training and equipping of the separatist forces,” Breedlove said.
The buildup is either part of a plan for military escalation, or a coordinated pressure tactic by Moscow to force Ukraine to make concessions to the rebels, officials said.
Rebel groups in the region have made repeated threats to take control of the key southeastern Ukrainian port of Mariupol and other territory unless the Ukrainian government agrees to make changes in the current separation line.
“The build up may just be a pressure tactic to force such concessions, or it may presage further escalation,” one official said.
Rebels in eastern Ukraine recently held elections that Ukraine and NATO dismissed as illegal. New charges were raised in Kiev Wednesday about violations of a peace agreement reached in Belarus in September.
Breedlove said Monday there was no “huge change” in Russian deployments. Currently about seven battalion task groups are stationed near the border with Ukraine.
“Some of those formations have moved closer to the border,” he said. “We believe that was probably to bring some pressure on and make sure that the elections went according to the separatist plans; we’ll look now to see if they pull back from the border into their previous border locations.”
“We have now realistically entered the phase of a ‘frozen conflict,’” Yury Yakimenko, a political analyst at Ukraine’s Razumkov political research center told Reuters. The term frozen conflict has been applied to other former Soviet Republics where separatists are being backed by Russian forces.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is part of a program by Russian President Vladimir Putin to gain control or hegemony over former Soviet bloc states described as the “near abroad.”
Putin is seeking to restore Russian power with territorial seizures, along with a large-scale nuclear and conventional forces buildup.
Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez said Russian forces and equipment remain on Ukraine’s border and on Ukrainian territory in violation of international law. “We again call on Russian authorities and the separatists they back to abide by their commitments under the Sept. 5 ceasefire agreement and the Sept. 19 implementing agreement,” she said.
Breedlove said the Russians in the past have conducted small-scale bomber flights.
“And what you saw this past week was a larger, more complex formation of aircraft carrying out a little deeper and, I would say, a little bit more provocative flight path,” he said. “And so it is a concern.”
The flights are destabilizing and “problematic,” Breedlove said.
Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, also voiced concerns about the Russian bomber flights.
“When it comes to the increased Russian military activity, both in the air but also along the borders of Ukraine, I think that what we see is, especially when it comes to increased air activity of Russian planes, is that they are showing strength, and what we are doing is what we are supposed to do: we are intercepting the Russian planes, whether it is in the Atlantic Sea or the Baltic Sea or in the Black Sea,” he said.
Breedlove said he has discussed with U.S. military chiefs the idea of moving additional troops and supplies closer to Russia as a result of “increased pressure that we feel in Eastern Europe now and because of the assurance measures that we are taking in the Baltics, in Poland, in Romania.”
“I believe there is a requirement for rotational forces in the future until we see the current situation begin to normalize,” he said.
Breedlove said the halt in the conflict in Ukraine has been “pretty much a cease-fire in name only.”
“There continue to be sporadic engagements in and around the cease-fire zone,” he said. “And the second thing that I would say that has changed is we have seen a general trend towards a hardening of this line of demarcation and much more softening of the actual Ukraine-Russia border.”
Russia’s border with Ukraine in the east is open and completely porous. As a result, Russian military equipment is flowing back and forth the border
“Russia continues to resupply the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine,” Breedlove said.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-moving-missiles-rockets-toward-eastern-ukraine/
Russia is sending additional military forces toward the border with eastern Ukraine, including units equipped with ballistic missiles, as part of Moscow’s ongoing destabilization effort in support of pro-Russian rebels.
U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports said one Russian military unit equipped with short-range ballistic missiles was detected this week near eastern Ukraine, where Russia has launched a destabilization program following its military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in March.
The military movements coincided with the an unusual number of flights last week by Russian strategic nuclear bombers and aircraft along Europe’s northern coasts in a what NATO’s military commander called strategic “messaging” toward the West.
“My opinion is that they’re messaging us,” Gen. Phillip Breedlove, the commander, told reporters at the Pentagon this week. “They’re messaging us that they are a great power and that they have the ability to exert these kinds of influences in our thinking.”
The bomber flights included three days of paired Tu-95 bomber flights that were to have circumnavigated Europe from the north but instead were halted near Portugal.
U.S. officials said Russia deployed several Il-78 refueling tankers in Egypt that were to resupply the bombers during flights over the Mediterranean, but those flights were scrapped for unknown reasons.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed concerns about Russian military moves in Ukraine during remarks to reporters Tuesday in Brussels.
“Recently we are also seeing Russian troops moving closer to the border with Ukraine, and Russia continues to support the separatists by training them, by providing equipment, and supporting them also by having special forces, Russian special forces, inside the eastern parts of Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.
Other officials said both intelligence and social media reports in recent days revealed an increase in Russian deployments.
The missile systems being deployed were described as conventionally armed, short-range ballistic missiles, multiple launch rocket systems, and BM-21 Grad multiple rocker launchers.
Additionally, Russian military forces are moving towed artillery pieces closer to the border.
One official said the display of military power is part of Moscow’s effort to reinforce “separatists” seeking to carve out a pro-Russian enclave in Eastern Ukraine.
The Russian “Spetsnaz” or special forces commandos are already inside the country, but the ground forces as of Wednesday appeared to be staging at the border.
Russian military forces in Ukraine number around 300 commandos. “These are not fighting formations. These are formations and specialists that are in there doing training and equipping of the separatist forces,” Breedlove said.
The buildup is either part of a plan for military escalation, or a coordinated pressure tactic by Moscow to force Ukraine to make concessions to the rebels, officials said.
Rebel groups in the region have made repeated threats to take control of the key southeastern Ukrainian port of Mariupol and other territory unless the Ukrainian government agrees to make changes in the current separation line.
“The build up may just be a pressure tactic to force such concessions, or it may presage further escalation,” one official said.
Rebels in eastern Ukraine recently held elections that Ukraine and NATO dismissed as illegal. New charges were raised in Kiev Wednesday about violations of a peace agreement reached in Belarus in September.
Breedlove said Monday there was no “huge change” in Russian deployments. Currently about seven battalion task groups are stationed near the border with Ukraine.
“Some of those formations have moved closer to the border,” he said. “We believe that was probably to bring some pressure on and make sure that the elections went according to the separatist plans; we’ll look now to see if they pull back from the border into their previous border locations.”
“We have now realistically entered the phase of a ‘frozen conflict,’” Yury Yakimenko, a political analyst at Ukraine’s Razumkov political research center told Reuters. The term frozen conflict has been applied to other former Soviet Republics where separatists are being backed by Russian forces.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is part of a program by Russian President Vladimir Putin to gain control or hegemony over former Soviet bloc states described as the “near abroad.”
Putin is seeking to restore Russian power with territorial seizures, along with a large-scale nuclear and conventional forces buildup.
Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez said Russian forces and equipment remain on Ukraine’s border and on Ukrainian territory in violation of international law. “We again call on Russian authorities and the separatists they back to abide by their commitments under the Sept. 5 ceasefire agreement and the Sept. 19 implementing agreement,” she said.
Breedlove said the Russians in the past have conducted small-scale bomber flights.
“And what you saw this past week was a larger, more complex formation of aircraft carrying out a little deeper and, I would say, a little bit more provocative flight path,” he said. “And so it is a concern.”
The flights are destabilizing and “problematic,” Breedlove said.
Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, also voiced concerns about the Russian bomber flights.
“When it comes to the increased Russian military activity, both in the air but also along the borders of Ukraine, I think that what we see is, especially when it comes to increased air activity of Russian planes, is that they are showing strength, and what we are doing is what we are supposed to do: we are intercepting the Russian planes, whether it is in the Atlantic Sea or the Baltic Sea or in the Black Sea,” he said.
Breedlove said he has discussed with U.S. military chiefs the idea of moving additional troops and supplies closer to Russia as a result of “increased pressure that we feel in Eastern Europe now and because of the assurance measures that we are taking in the Baltics, in Poland, in Romania.”
“I believe there is a requirement for rotational forces in the future until we see the current situation begin to normalize,” he said.
Breedlove said the halt in the conflict in Ukraine has been “pretty much a cease-fire in name only.”
“There continue to be sporadic engagements in and around the cease-fire zone,” he said. “And the second thing that I would say that has changed is we have seen a general trend towards a hardening of this line of demarcation and much more softening of the actual Ukraine-Russia border.”
Russia’s border with Ukraine in the east is open and completely porous. As a result, Russian military equipment is flowing back and forth the border
“Russia continues to resupply the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine,” Breedlove said.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-moving-missiles-rockets-toward-eastern-ukraine/
It seems that he has been hired by United Russia party for discreditation of US backed position. And he does this work quite well.
lol thats twisted ^^
It seems that he has been hired by United Russia party for discreditation of US backed position. And he does this work quite well.
lol thats twisted ^^
It seems that he has been hired by United Russia party for discreditation of US backed position. And he does this work quite well.
ok im now quite sure you are a paid western troll.
who do you work for? UNO? NATO? EU?
who do you work for? UNO? NATO? EU?
Russia test-fires intercontinental missile from submerged submarine in Barents Sea
Test comes after Russia informed the United States on Tuesday that it will boycott the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit.
A Russian Tula submarine. / Photo by RIANbot / Wikimedia
By Timothy Heritage, George Jahn and Deb Riechmann
Published 15:21 05.11.14
REUTERS AND AP - Russia test-fired a Sineva intercontinental missile from a submerged submarine in the Barents Sea on Wednesday as part of a check on the reliability of the navy's strategic forces, the Defense Ministry said.
The liquid-fueled missile, which can carry nuclear warheads, was fired from the Tula submarine to the Kura Test Range in the far eastern region of Kamchatka, RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying. It gave no other details.
The Sineva, which has a range of about 12,000 km (7,500 miles), entered service in 2007 and is part of efforts to prevent the weakening of Russia's nuclear deterrent.
President Vladimir Putin has underlined the importance of the nuclear deterrent during the standoff with the West over the crisis in Ukraine, and Russia has held several military exercises during the crisis that have alarmed Western powers.
Russia informed the United States on Tuesday that it will boycott the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, diplomats told The Associated Press on Tuesday, potentially stripping the meeting of one of its key participants and hurting efforts initiated by President Barack Obama to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.
Officials already had told the AP on Monday that Moscow was absent from last week's initial summit planning session in Washington but had left it unclear whether Russia planned to attend the summit itself.
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/1.624803?v=A32FDD7AFE5A728F0C727C1DA0D9A7B2
Test comes after Russia informed the United States on Tuesday that it will boycott the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit.
A Russian Tula submarine. / Photo by RIANbot / Wikimedia
By Timothy Heritage, George Jahn and Deb Riechmann
Published 15:21 05.11.14
REUTERS AND AP - Russia test-fired a Sineva intercontinental missile from a submerged submarine in the Barents Sea on Wednesday as part of a check on the reliability of the navy's strategic forces, the Defense Ministry said.
The liquid-fueled missile, which can carry nuclear warheads, was fired from the Tula submarine to the Kura Test Range in the far eastern region of Kamchatka, RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying. It gave no other details.
The Sineva, which has a range of about 12,000 km (7,500 miles), entered service in 2007 and is part of efforts to prevent the weakening of Russia's nuclear deterrent.
President Vladimir Putin has underlined the importance of the nuclear deterrent during the standoff with the West over the crisis in Ukraine, and Russia has held several military exercises during the crisis that have alarmed Western powers.
Russia informed the United States on Tuesday that it will boycott the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, diplomats told The Associated Press on Tuesday, potentially stripping the meeting of one of its key participants and hurting efforts initiated by President Barack Obama to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.
Officials already had told the AP on Monday that Moscow was absent from last week's initial summit planning session in Washington but had left it unclear whether Russia planned to attend the summit itself.
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/1.624803?v=A32FDD7AFE5A728F0C727C1DA0D9A7B2
I'm glad one of these countries is thinking!
Project Pluto is a ramjet, needs air to function. Only benefit over conventional hydrocarbon fueled engine/ramjet is greatly increased loiter time.
To my knowledge the only proposed "nuclear rocket" idea capable of achieving orbit or beyond would be project Orion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29
It throws out coke can sized nuclear bombs underneath itself in quick succession, that thing would win any dick waving competition hands down!
The wikipedia article was polite and non-alarmist. Project Pluto was a doomsday device,
made to be in the air for a LONG time before target identification, all the while flying low
and spreading deadly radiation in its path. Have a hundred of those circling the earth for
a few days, and you see what I mean.
You really think we made the world's first nuclear ramjet and "shelved" it?
Theres probably hundreds of these things in secret operational bunkers since the 1970's.
Sounds paranoid, but it isn't. Its just how we do things since OP Paperclip.
I'm glad one of these countries is thinking!
Project Pluto is a ramjet, needs air to function. Only benefit over conventional hydrocarbon fueled engine/ramjet is greatly increased loiter time.
To my knowledge the only proposed "nuclear rocket" idea capable of achieving orbit or beyond would be project Orion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29
It throws out coke can sized nuclear bombs underneath itself in quick succession, that thing would win any dick waving competition hands down!
Russia has a very capable military, and is a nuclear superpower if not THE HARDEST nuclear super power on the planet.
To treat Russia like a 3rd world developing nation (imposing sanctions) seems completely crazy to me.
To treat Russia like a 3rd world developing nation (imposing sanctions) seems completely crazy to me.
Russia can't compete with Nato or China with conventional forces, so trying to compensate it with nuclear weapons. A failed state, which want to revise defeat of cold war.
I'm glad one of these countries is thinking!
If somebody starts a nuclear war, everyone will join in. That means that there will be radiation all over the place anyway. So, why don't some of these countries develop a nuclear fueled rocket? Once in the air, it wouldn't need shielding. And with all the war radiation coming anyway, who would really care about the little bit of radiation coming from a nuclear rocket?
The advantage would be a much smaller fuel cell (if not shielded). That means a much larger payload. I mean, if we're going to soak the earth with radiation anyway, why not win the war?
I wonder which country has the best technology for building an unshielded, nuclear-powered rocket, anyway?
The advantage would be a much smaller fuel cell (if not shielded). That means a much larger payload. I mean, if we're going to soak the earth with radiation anyway, why not win the war?
I wonder which country has the best technology for building an unshielded, nuclear-powered rocket, anyway?
Russia has a very capable military, and is a nuclear superpower if not THE HARDEST nuclear super power on the planet.
To treat Russia like a 3rd world developing nation (imposing sanctions) seems completely crazy to me.
To treat Russia like a 3rd world developing nation (imposing sanctions) seems completely crazy to me.
I think that a next world war is always more near us. Because with this economic crisis, it is a good way to make a reboot and restart from the begin. Country that will begin the next war will be Russia, i think this..
History will be written by the victor, it always is.
I think that a next world war is always more near us. Because with this economic crisis, it is a good way to make a reboot and restart from the begin. Country that will begin the next war will be Russia, i think this..
Russia has over the last 72 hours tested its entire nuclear triad consisting of strategic bombers; submarines and this ICBM launched Saturday morning.
This Topol-M ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk region Saturday morning. (Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense)
At 09:20 am (Moscow time), this silo-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast. A few minutes later, the dummy nuclear warhead hits its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far eastern corner, the Ministry of Defense reports.
The Ministry adds that the Topol-M missile has an “extremely high accuracy of target destruction.”
Strategic bombers
On Friday, Norwegian F-16s were scrambled from Bodø airbase for the second time this week as a group of four Tu-95 strategic bombers were approaching from the northeast, Norway’s TV2 reports.
The bombers, flying out over the Barents Sea from Russia’s Kola Peninsula, were accompanied by four Il-78 tankers.
On Wednesday, a similar group of four strategic bombers and four tanker aircrafts were flying southbound along Norway’s northern coast. Six of the aircrafts turned around and flew north again over the Norwegian- and Barents Seas before heading home to Russia. The two last flew all the way south to outside Portuguese airspace before heading north again.
After scrambling fighter jets from Norway and Great Britian, NATO said in a statement that the Russian bombers pose a risk to civilian air traffic.
“The bomber and tanker aircraft from Russia did not file flight plans or maintain radio contact with civilian air traffic control authorities and they were not using on-board transponders. This poses a potential risk to civil aviation as civilian air traffic control cannot detect these aircraft or ensure there is no interference with civilian air traffic,” NATO said.
Tu-95 is a turboprop aircraft built during the Cold War to carry nuclear weapons and is because of its long range included in the strategic nuclear forces.
Strategic submarines
The third arm of Russia’s nuclear triad, the submarine based ballistic missiles (SLBM), were tested on Wednesday, when “Yury Dolgoruky” launhced a Bulava missile from submerged position in the Barents Sea.
This was the first operational test launch of Bulava in line with the program of combat training. All previous launches were part of development testing of the new weapon.
It is also the first time a Borey-class submarine had a full set of missiles on board when the launch was conducted. The Borey-class submarines carries 16 missiles that each may hold as many as 10 nuclear warheads. “Yury Dolgoruky” got her full set of Bulava missiles in June this year.
http://barentsobserver.com/en/security/2014/11/russia-plays-nuclear-war-games-barents-region-01-11
This Topol-M ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk region Saturday morning. (Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense)
At 09:20 am (Moscow time), this silo-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast. A few minutes later, the dummy nuclear warhead hits its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far eastern corner, the Ministry of Defense reports.
The Ministry adds that the Topol-M missile has an “extremely high accuracy of target destruction.”
Strategic bombers
On Friday, Norwegian F-16s were scrambled from Bodø airbase for the second time this week as a group of four Tu-95 strategic bombers were approaching from the northeast, Norway’s TV2 reports.
The bombers, flying out over the Barents Sea from Russia’s Kola Peninsula, were accompanied by four Il-78 tankers.
On Wednesday, a similar group of four strategic bombers and four tanker aircrafts were flying southbound along Norway’s northern coast. Six of the aircrafts turned around and flew north again over the Norwegian- and Barents Seas before heading home to Russia. The two last flew all the way south to outside Portuguese airspace before heading north again.
After scrambling fighter jets from Norway and Great Britian, NATO said in a statement that the Russian bombers pose a risk to civilian air traffic.
“The bomber and tanker aircraft from Russia did not file flight plans or maintain radio contact with civilian air traffic control authorities and they were not using on-board transponders. This poses a potential risk to civil aviation as civilian air traffic control cannot detect these aircraft or ensure there is no interference with civilian air traffic,” NATO said.
Tu-95 is a turboprop aircraft built during the Cold War to carry nuclear weapons and is because of its long range included in the strategic nuclear forces.
Strategic submarines
The third arm of Russia’s nuclear triad, the submarine based ballistic missiles (SLBM), were tested on Wednesday, when “Yury Dolgoruky” launhced a Bulava missile from submerged position in the Barents Sea.
This was the first operational test launch of Bulava in line with the program of combat training. All previous launches were part of development testing of the new weapon.
It is also the first time a Borey-class submarine had a full set of missiles on board when the launch was conducted. The Borey-class submarines carries 16 missiles that each may hold as many as 10 nuclear warheads. “Yury Dolgoruky” got her full set of Bulava missiles in June this year.
http://barentsobserver.com/en/security/2014/11/russia-plays-nuclear-war-games-barents-region-01-11
Portugal usually doesn't care much about far away Russia. That was before they had strategic bombers on state visit.
http://www.matthewaid.com/post/101442135556/portuguese-f-16-fighters-intercept-russian-bombers-over
Poland Is Preparing For A Potential Russian Invasion
http://www.businessinsider.com/poland-is-preparing-for-a-russian-invasion-2014-10
http://www.matthewaid.com/post/101442135556/portuguese-f-16-fighters-intercept-russian-bombers-over
Poland Is Preparing For A Potential Russian Invasion
http://www.businessinsider.com/poland-is-preparing-for-a-russian-invasion-2014-10
Jump to: