Romeo Squared

Defense with a Baltic edge

Archives for September 2017

Russia continues move to more professional military

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Russia has called in 134,000 new conscripts to begin 12 months of military training in the fourth quarter of 2017.

The schedule is such that new recruits begin in the second and fourth quarters, and together with the spring draft the total number for 2017 is up to 276,000 conscripts. Although that is a very large number, it is actually a reduction of about 10% compared to 2016.

Russia is in the process of moving to a more professional military. Between 2015 and 2020 the number of soldiers with a contract is expected to grow from 300,000 to 500,000, and the number of conscripts will be reduced during the same period.

Worrying initiatives to improve navigational safety in US Navy

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The US Navy attempts to improve navigational safety in the wake of a series of accidents involving ships from the Pacific Fleet, reports Geoff Ziezulewicz for Navy Times after obtaining a command message outlining some of the initiatives. The list of revised procedures does give grounds for some worry, though.

It starts off well enough. There will be a revised watch schedule to ensure better human performance:

[S]urface fleet skippers will be required to implement watch schedules and shipboard routines that better sync with circadian rhythms and natural sleep cycles.

This is a good idea. In many navies around the world sleep routines are an underestimated factor in performance, and in some places there has developed a culture where a tough schedule is even regarded as a sort of test of manhood (try reading the comments to the article).

But then the list continues with this:

In a nod to old-school seamanship, and regardless of any installed radar capability, Rowden’s message also dictates that maneuvering boards will be used by both the bridge and combat information center for all vessel contacts with an initial closest point of approach of 5,000 yards or less.

No, seriously, who uses maneuvering boards for actual collision Read more

Russia destroys its last chemical weapons

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Russia has destroyed the last chemical weapons from its arsenal. The occasion was announced by Putin personally, and the president was not slow to point out that Russia beat USA in reaching the milestone. That reports postimees.ee (in Estonian).

In fact both Russia and USA have failed to meet the 2012 deadline for the destruction its chemical weapons. The fact that Russia came first really must be understood in the sense that they were first among those who came too late. That didn’t stop Putin from jabbing out against the Americans in his statement that painted the occasion as an example that Russia is taking the lead in building a safer world.

The fact that Russia no longer has chemical weapons really is noticeable in a historical perspective. It is good to know that a war in Europe will not be fought with chemical weapons. Of course one must also acknowledge that the reason the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) from 1997 is still being honored by Russia and USA is that chemical weapons don’t fit into current military doctrines of either country. While it’s sort of a free ride to fulfill the CWC from a military perspective, it’s still nice to see that at least some agreements from the era of deescalation stand the test of time.

Winter warfare is loosing its peculiar charm

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Charlsy Panzino for Army Times

Researchers are working on a way for soldiers to generate heat in cold environments instead of piling on multiple bulky layers to their uniforms.

By applying a silver nanowire coating to the uniforms, troops could theoretically dial up the heat to keep themselves comfortable, according to researchers at U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Massachusetts.

The silver nanowires form an electrically conductive network that when hooked up to a low-power battery can heat up polyester and polypropylene, research bioengineer Paola D’Angelo told Army Times.

Zapad perhaps smaller than expected

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Mathieu Boulègue for Chatham House:

Western commentators were obsessed with the numbers of Russian troops being mobilized during the course of exercise and stuck firmly to the “100,000 servicemen” narrative. But Russia proved them wrong by keeping the drills small, managed, and contained.

The real numbers are still unconfirmed, but the actual number of troops deployed was almost certainly below what was initially reported in the West. This is primarily because Zapad-2017 focused on strengthening Command and Control (C2) and integrating forces, rather than emphasising troop displacements – which had already been done during Zapad-2013.

The Kremlin could therefore credibly claim that the West overreacted and fell victim to scaremongering and reporting rumours that Moscow was not being transparent about the nature of the exercise and its intentions.

Short of entrapment, proving the West wrong is increasingly part of the Kremlin’s political strategy which, in turn, strengthens Russia’s sense of superiority.

The real numbers will remain unconfirmed forever.

Election fraud story, German edition

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Maks Czuperski has a fascinating look at the role of Russian botnets in the propagation of fake stories about election fraud in Germany:

Comments from the fringe on the eve of the German election took various forms, including official posts, posts from probable fake accounts, and bot amplification. While no evidence of fraud was presented in the posts, the narrative they all spread is the same: the AfD is in danger of election fraud, and its members should be on the alert to prevent it.

This behavior seems pitched to increase tensions, not least in the polling stations and counting areas. Should the AfD fail to perform well at the urns, it is likely to lead to online accusations of election fraud, potentially undermining the legitimacy of the vote.

The line between war and peace is getting hard to define.

Russia growing non-nuclear deterrence

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Speaking of Russia’s military transformation Kristin ven Bruusgaard has a terrific article in War on the Rocks called The Myth of Russia’s Lowered Nuclear Threshold:

Non-nuclear deterrence involves both military and non-military assets that can convince an adversary that the costs of aggression against Russia would outweigh any benefit. These include precision strike capabilities, effective command, control, intelligence, and reconnaissance capabilities, effective strategic assets such as aerospace defense forces and special operations forces, information warfare capabilities, and non-military tools such as diplomatic, economic, and political instruments of influence. These non-nuclear tools would add to the combined credibility of Russian deterrence, particularly in deterring regional conflicts and emerging threats, such as color revolutions. Nuclear weapons were still central under the strategic deterrence concept, but rather than taking on an elevated role to compensate for a lack of conventional options, they shifted toward a more normalized role in deterring large-scale aggression.

It’s going to take me like a week to get through all the great links in this article.

Russia’s strategic transformation in the light of Zapad

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Thoughtful points about the strategic transformation that Russia’s military is going through in this article by BBC in the wake of Zapad 2017:

It is interesting that while much of the Western media discussion of [precision-guided munitions] rests upon their use as air-launched weapons in bombing campaigns, intended to increase accuracy and reduce the level of civilian casualties, in Russia the weapons are viewed in a rather different light.
Mr McDermott’s study concludes that “for the foreseeable future, precision-guided munitions will mainly provide Russia with what in the Russian literature is called a ‘pre-nuclear’ deterrence capability”.

There also is a good piece on electronic warfare.

NATO needs exercises like Zapad

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John R. Deni for Carnegie Europe:

One area where the West has struggled though is in mounting the kind of capability display similar to Zapad 2017. That is, deploying large-scale combat power from across the continent and across the Atlantic for the purposes of conducting corps-level training, maneuvers, and live fire, all to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic objectives. Conducting such a large-scale training event periodically is necessary, not simply because the alliance has seen its ability to train and fight at the corps level atrophy, but also because of the unmistakable deterrent message to Moscow.

During NATO’s Wales Summit in 2014, the alliance agreed to periodically conduct a so-called high-visibility exercise starting in 2015. That training event — Trident Juncture 2015 — occurred in October and November 2015, and was hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Next year, the 2018 iteration will be hosted by Norway. This was a step in the right direction, but it’s insufficient for several reasons.

According to Deni, Trident Juncture is too small, infrequent, and doesn’t reflect the true challenges that a real event would. To be a deterrent the exercise needs to send a clear message that NATO is prepared. The whole piece is well worth reading.

UK without anti-ship missiles for a decade

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Robert Beckhusen for War is Boring:

In 2010, Britain’s sailing branch opted not to replace the Harpoon, and one year ago it was revealed the missiles were set to retire at the end of 2018. In September 2017, IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly announced that the U.K. Ministry of Defense has delayed the retirement until 2020.

That buys the Royal Navy some time — but not much. Fundamentally, the situation hasn’t changed. The Harpoon is already obsolete and terribly outranged, which is why the United States is preparing the new 200-mile-range LRASM to replace it. But no new missile is expected for the Royal Navy until possibly 2030 when the Perseus missile by European developer MBDA is complete.

The Perseus missile is promising but the thing is that it won’t actually exist for another 15 years or so. The UK must find some anti-ship missiles somewhere to fill in the gap, because having none is just ridiculous.