Romeo Squared

Defense with a Baltic edge

Archives for March 2018

Let’s not question the future of Königsberg

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Next time you think the Russians are paranoid for believing that NATO might attack them, keep this in mind:

Jüri Saar has an article titled “The Future of Königsberg” in Diplomaatia, which is an Estonian think tank publication. In this he argues that the 1975 Helsinki Accords are no longer valid, and that Kaliningrad is essentially an illegally occupied territory which the West should demand to get back.

“The issue of the territorial ownership of the Kaliningrad Oblast after the Russians leave is considered a problem. The area could become a new bone of contention between Germany, Poland and Lithuania. For this reason, it must not be merged with the territory of any existing country. The solution, however, is also as plain as day. Königsberg must become the first region solely under the jurisdiction of the European Union, similar to the capital of the US, which forms a separate administrative unit, the District of Columbia.”

This is probably the worst idea I’ve seen all month. In fact it’s so bad I had to read the article twice to look for signs that it is meant as a joke.

Saar more or less proposes that the West should seek regime change in Kaliningrad through a series of hybrid warfare operations. This is exactly what the Russians believe to be the Western doctrine, and what chief the the general staff Valery Gerasimov has pointed out that Russia needs to prepare for. If I were a Russian military strategist, I’d be pretty happy about those Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad now.

What we need is to create certainty about the existing borders. Both sides must believe that the opponent accepts the borders as they are. It may require some fortification before we get to that point, but it also requires cogency.

Silly suggestions like this one which question the border drawing in the Baltic region are flat out dangerous.

HMS Ocean retired and sold to Brazil

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HMS Ocean was retired from the Royal Navy today. The helicopter carrier officially left service at a ceremony at HM Naval Base Devonport with the participation of Queen Elizabeth.

HMS Ocean
HMS Ocean. Photo: Royal Navy

Ocean has been the flagship of the Royal Navy since it was commissioned into service in 1998. Now she will be handed off to Brazil for the price of £84 million.

The role as flagship will be taken over by the new aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. However, the first one will not be operational until 2020.

I had the personal privilege of serving as a liaison officer to Ocean during a port stay in Copenhagen back in 2003. For a young Danish naval officer it was quite an experience to stand on the huge helicopter deck.

On the scholarship-policy gap in foreign politics

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John Glaser has written an interesting commentary on War on the Rocks under the title “Truth, Power, and the Academy: A response to Hal Brands”. It is about the relationship between academic expertise and the political establishment in the United States.

Last fall, Hal Brands wrote an article in The American Interest in which he points out that there is a “scholarship-policy gap which is real and widening”. It seems that the scholars and politicians simply do not agree on any issues of importance, so there is little basis for the view that academia informs policy making. Hal Brands largely blames the scholars for this situation. Apparently academics work in a secluded universe where they don’t have to deal with the complex realities of the world and do not face any penalties for being wrong.

John Glaser agrees that there is a problem, but he very much disagrees with everything else in Hal Brands’ article.

“Most of Brands’ account, however, is just flat out wrong. The evidence repudiates the suggestion, for example, that policymakers are held accountable for their ideas. […] The scholarship-policy gap persists because the people and ideas that drive foreign policy in Washington are not held accountable for their failures, and instead are often rewarded with a lifetime of high-status revolving door positions in the policy and think tank worlds.”

I really enjoyed Glaser’s argument about a kind of perception bubble in the political establishment. If your views fall outside the established conventional truths, you are disregarded. This is a result of several factors such as government’s inherent resistance to challenges to the reigning doctrine, socialization and status quo bias, self-interests and palace politics, and the desire of think tanks to receive funding.

So if you want to remain in business in politics, it is much safer to work on how to operationalize the existing doctrine than to question the assumptions. But the trend is dangerous for the ability to make wise foreign policy decisions.

Book review: Near Abroad — Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus

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Title: Near Abroad — Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus
Author: Gerard Toal
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (2017)
ISBN-13: 978-0190253301

Near abroad cover

Gerard Toal has written an insightful book about the geopolitics of the former Soviet Union. Through case studies of South Ossetia and Ukraine, Toal unfolds the complexities of the geopolitical field and exposes prejudices on all sides.

Professor Gerard Toal is one of the prominent proponents of critical geopolitics. Through his career, he has contributed extensively to the development of this theoretical framework which places itself in opposition to more traditional schools of international relations theory like realism and liberalism.

His latest book, Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus, is not a book about the theoretical framework. Toal’s intention is to contribute to a scholarly understanding of the unfolding conflicts between Russia, its neighbors, and the West. He does this by examining the conflicts in South Ossetia and Ukraine which erupted into wars in 2008 and 2014 respectively.

…Continue reading

Poland extends service life of Perry-class frigates until 2024

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Poland has extended the service life of its two Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates until 2024. That reports Janes.

The prolonged service time has required some additional maintenance work and upgrades of subsystems. ORP General Kazimierz Pulaski has already completed these works during a scheduled docking. This includes the installation of Link 16 and an upgrade to the command system to allow automatic detection and tracking of aerial and surface targets. The 76 mm. gun (Mark 75) has been replaced with a refurbished analogue. Fire control systems, radar, and generators have been updated, and the Mk 13 missile launchers have been upgraded to mod 4 block 6 standards. The SM-1 air defense missiles have been upgraded, and the ship has received more modern electronic warfare equipment and air defense systems.

There is also equipment which is not upgraded, and in order to ensure the prolonged service life of the ships, the use of some systems like the Phalanx 20 mm close-in weapon system has been restricted.

The other frigate, ORP Tadeusz Kosciuszko is expected to receive the upgrades in the second half of 2018.

These upgrades give a substantial lift to Poland’s frigates. However, it is not cutting edge technology, and 2024 is not far away in the grand scheme of things. So Poland will still have to think about possibilities for a renewed frigate capability.

Putin is popular, but his voters don’t necessarily agree on much

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There is little excitement about the result of today’s presidential election in Russia, but that does not mean that there is nothing exciting about it. Sam Greene has a sharp analysis on his blog, Moscow-on-Thames:

Vladimir Putin will win today’s elections because he is genuinely popular. We should be clear about that. But we should also be clear about what exactly that popularity means.

The typical political-science view of political behavior holds that preferences – whether expressed at the ballot box or to pollsters – are formed by citizens acting as rational, utility-maximizing individuals. Without wanting to knock the importance of rationality, if there is anything that the events of recent years around the world, from the Euromaidan to Brexit to Trump, should have taught us, it is that politics is fundamentally a social phenomenon. People intuitively and continually read their social surroundings, looking for cues that would convey meaning, solidarity and a sense of inclusion. Nobody votes in a vacuum. …Continue reading

Sailor fell overboard from Russian corvette in Baltic Sea

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On Tuesday 13 March a crew member fell overboard from the Russian corvette Soobrazitelny in the Baltic Sea. Eight ships took part in the search-and-rescue operation, but the sailor was not found. That reports korabel.ru.

Soobrazitelny
Soobrazitelny. Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense

The incident occurred just after midnight, and at 21:00 the search was canceled. With the present water temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius a person without a survival suit will not be able to survive for more than a few hours.

Soobrazitelny is a Steregushchiy-class corvette based in Kaliningrad.

Podcast recommendation: WOTR – A big debate about a little nuke

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There is a great discussion about Russia and nuclear weapons in this episode of the War on the Rocks podcast.

The panel is terrific. Olga Oliker is brilliant, Frank Miller is wrong about most things concerning Russia but argues his case very well, and Vipin Narang has deep technical insights. Ryan and Usha do a fantastic job of moderating the discussion between the guests who clearly represent very different views.

The discussion follows up on the new U.S. Nuclear Posture Review which has some controversial assumptions about Russia’s nuclear doctrine and on Putin’s announcement of a new suite of nuclear weapons.

If the nuclear discussion interests you at all (and it should), this is a must-hear.

Russia’s new nuclear weapons are about missile defense

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Vladimir Putin spent a surprising amount of time in his March 1st speech talking about nuclear weapons. Pavel K. Baev has some interesting considerations in Brookings about the possible motivations for this:

Russia’s economic weakness is so profound that Russia cannot possibly engage in anything resembling a real arms race with the United States and NATO. Putin’s enthusiastic rollout of Russia’s missile program scored many good points domestically but produced a mixed impression among his key international audiences. It doesn’t take a shrewd strategic mind to conclude that Russia can only proceed with these entirely unnecessary weapon programs at the expense of addressing its more pressing economic needs and acute security challenges, including Syria. Putin’s posturing cannot meet many strict reality checks, but it is nevertheless, dangerous because it damages the norm of owning nuclear weapons responsibly.

In essence, Baev focuses on Putin’s need to legitimize the new 2027 state armament program, a desire to divert attention from recent poor performance in Syria, and a general inclination to ‘restoring greatness’.

I will add that Russia is truly concerned about the development of a ballistic missile defense in the West. It is debatable whether this concern is rational, but that has little to do with the affective reactions to it in Russia. The weapons that Putin announced are mostly intended to maintain a strategic nuclear deterrent in an age of missile defense: A missile with unlimited range to circumvent missile defense stations, supersonic missiles that are impossible to intercept, and a nuclear bomb installed in a torpedo.

So even though Putin talked a lot about nuclear weapons in his speech, there is nothing new when it comes to the Russian doctrine for actually using nuclear weapons. The idea from the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review that Russia develops non-strategic nuclear weapons for an escalate-to-deescalate strategy is still a fantasy. Russia’s nuclear development program is focused on strategic missiles, and in the non-strategic realm the goal is to develop more powerful conventional alternatives so they don’t have to use nuclear weapons.

Predator retired

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Joe Chapa in War on the Rocks:

Today, the U.S. Air Force “sunsets” the Predator, permanently retiring it from service. Though individual squadrons have been transitioning from the Predator to the Reaper for some time, that transition is now complete. This provides a good opportunity to look back at the Predator to learn what we can of its impact on contemporary war and on future combat.

Few weapons have changed warfare the way the Predator drone has.