Romeo Squared

Defense with a Baltic edge

Military strategy and politics

Sergey Shoigu nuances public image with art exhibition

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Russia’s top leaders are known for many talents. Vladimir Putin, for example, is also a famous martial artist, horseback rider, wildlife conservationist, hang glider pilot, underwater archeologist, and a truck driver.

Now, defense minister Sergey Shoigu shows that there are also other sides to him than political life. He is apparently a skilled artist, and he displays some of his works at the National Museum in Kyzyl in his home region of Tyva. That reports Voenno-Promyshlenny Kurjer.

Shoigu does different kinds of arts. The displayed pieces are objects of carved cedar wood like vases, sculptures and small boxes. Shoigu’s wood carvings are the ones in the first picture in this Facebook post.

I am unable to judge the artistic qualities of the wood carvings. A representative from the cultural department in the Ministry of Defense notices that Shoigu is especially gifted as a graphical artist and a painter, which is interesting given that such pieces are not on display.

The art works are a part of a larger exhibition to celebrate the centennial of the Red Army. On opening day, Shoigu showed the exhibition to a delegation of defense ministers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and from the defense command in Russia. The museum notes that the delegation was surprised to see the private works of Shoigu in the exhibition.

At the time of this writing, the Museum’s post only has 34 reactions from Facebook users, and the picture of Shoigu’s art has four likes. That is a surprisingly small number. It does make you wonder how the famous Russian cyber bots could miss this opportunity.

One could speculate that Putin and Shoigu have coordinated their public non-political appearances to appeal to different segments. Putin has created an image of strong masculinity, while Shoigu’s artistic expressions send a more reflective and emotional message.

The exhibition with Shoigu’s wood carvings is open until the end of June.

Russia’s military budget has nothing to do with the GDP of Spain

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The size and durability of Russia’s defense budget and economy in general is a source of much debate. One particular figure that I often encounter is that Russia has an equivalent GDP to Spain. The meaning apparently is that a country the size of Spain cannot sustain an armed force to compete for world leadership in the long run.

For example, Danish rear admiral Nils Wang uses the Spain trope in this interview to OLFI before his retirement as chief of the Danish Defense Academy. Wang presents the case that the military tensions between NATO and Russia are not comparable to the Cold War because with a GDP the size of Spain’s, Russia will not be able to hold territory in Western Europe after an initial occupation.

There are a few problems with this line of reasoning. First, historically the USSR never had an impressive GDP either. There are many complicating factors when comparing economies of different countries, especially when one of them has a fundamentally different economic system like the communist one. But in general, it seems that in second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union had a GDP which was smaller than the combined GDP of West Germany and France. The combined GDP of all NATO countries beat the Soviet GDP by many lengths.

Another problem with the Spain comparison is that things don’t cost the same in different countries. In some places you just get more for your money than in others. It is cheaper to have a large army if the wages are low and equipment is inexpensive. To account for that, you need to correct the GDPs for purchasing power parity (PPP) before comparing different countries.

Nominally, the GDPs of Russia and Spain are roughly in the same ballpark. In 2017, Russia was number 12 in the world with a GDP of 1,527,469 million USD, and Spain was number 14 with a GDP of 1,313,951 million USD. So Russia’s GDP was about 14 percent larger than Spain’s in 2017. But if the numbers are corrected for purchasing power parity, Russia is number 6 in the world, just a tiny bit behind Germany and well ahead of both the United Kingdom, France, or Spain. Russia’s GDP (PPP) was 4,007,831 million Int$, and Germany’s was 4,170,790 million Int$. (Source: IMF)

The very similar GDPs (PPP) between Russia and Germany give room for an interesting perspective: Their defense spendings as percent of GDP indicate the same amount of stuff that one could buy for that money.1

In 2017, Germany spent 44.3 billion USD on defense which amounted to 1.2 percent of GDP. Russia spent 66.3 billion USD, which was 4.3 percent of GDP (source: SIPRI). But because their GDPs with corrections for purchasing power parity are the same, Germany would have to increase their defense spending to 4.3 percent of GDP or 158.7 billion USD to afford the same investments as Russia.

Since playing with numbers is so much fun, I decided correct the defense budgets of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom for purchasing power parity and see how that compares to Russia’s military spending. With a GDP (PPP) of 4,007,831 million Int$ and a defense share of GPD of 4.3 percent, Russia’s defense planners had 172,336.7 million Int$ to spend in 2017. The other countries scored as follows:

Calculation of PPP corrected defense spending

In other words, corrected for purchasing power, Russia has a larger military budget than Germany, France, and the United Kingdom combined. Because graphs are fun too, I also illustrated this point.

Defense spending (PPP)
Corrected for purchasing power, Russia has a larger military budget than Germany, France, and the UK combined.

Recently, there have been reports that Russia’s military budget declined by 20 percent in 2017 compared to 2016. Some have argued that this decline was inevitable given the poor condition of Russia’s economy. But as Michael Kofman has explained, Russia’s military budget is neither declining nor unsustainable. Instead, the apparent decline in defense spending in 2017 is due to technicalities like periodization of expenses in the national budget. Indicators suggest a stable level of defense spending which is sustainable in the long run in terms of manpower, materiel, and money.

So while Russia does have a GDP the size of Spain’s, that doesn’t say much about their military potential. More interestingly, Russia has a defense budget which gives them the same purchasing power as the combined military spending of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. And they can afford to keep it up in the foreseeable future.

  1. As Oliker has pointed out, there are many complicating factors when comparing defense spending across borders. For example, it is different what countries include as defense expenses. If anything, such a consideration would only strengthen the argument in this article. European countries have incentives to make their defense spending appear higher than it really is, whereas Russia has incentives to make it appear lower. ↩

Gerasimov on the characteristics of modern warfare

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Valery Gerasimov
General Valery Gerasimov, image from Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
Chief of the Russian general staff Valery Gerasimov held a speech at the Military Academy in Moscow during a March 22-23 conference. Here he reflected on the trends of modern warfare and the general geopolitical situation that faces Russia.1

I thought it would be interesting to look at his messages, especially in the light of Putin’s March 1st speech to the Federal Assembly where he showcased a range of new strategic nuclear weapons.

A complete transcript of Gerasimov’s speech has not been published. However, Krasnaya Zvezda has a fairly comprehensive account of the speech with many direct quotes. It seems good enough to get the idea.2

I often find Gerasimov’s statements informative when trying to understand how the Russian military establishment sees itself and the world. Putin and defense minister Shoigu have a different agenda in their public appearances where the intended audience is either the Russian public or foreign states. Gerasimov, however, addresses the military personnel, so his goal is more to make sense and direction than to impress or instill fear.

…Continue reading

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.

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

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

The ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ doesn’t exist

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In the West it is widely believed that Russia follows a specific military doctrine that the current chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov has invented. This alleged Gerasimov Doctrine prescribes a kind of hybrid warfare to undermine the societal structures of the adversary through means of disinformation, deception, subversion, intelligent use of limited force, political war, targeted attacks on democratic institutions, and opening existing fault lines.

In 2013 Gerasimov himself discussed these aspects of warfare in a speech at the military academy, which was reprinted in Military-Industrial Courier. This led Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian defense, to use the term ‘the Gerasimov Doctrine’ on his blog, and that proved to be a powerful and sticky idea.

But now Galeotti wants us to stop using the term. In a piece named I’m Sorry for Creating the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ in Foreign Policy, Galeotti writes:

“A blog is as much as anything else a vanity site; obviously I want people to read it. So for a snappy title, I coined the term “Gerasimov doctrine,” though even then I noted in the text that this term was nothing more than “a placeholder,” and “it certainly isn’t a doctrine.” I didn’t think people would genuinely believe either that he came up with it (Gerasimov is a tough and effective chief of the general staff, but no theoretician), less yet than it was a “programmatic” blueprint for war on the West.”

There are several problems with the idea of a Gerasimov Doctrine. Most notably, Gerasimov clearly does not outline a doctrine for the Russian military in his speech. He makes some observations about modern warfare in the wake of the Arab Spring which from a Russian perspective is considered a successful example of Western hybrid warfare with the purpose of creating regime change. Then he calls upon the academic society to develop theories on the new kind of warfare. If anything, Gerasimov’s speech is a view into the Russian understanding of Western doctrine.

It is true that Gerasimov identified some military and non-military means that characterize modern warfare, and that Russia utilized some of these means in 2014 in Ukraine. But really, the content in Gerasimov’s speech is rudimentary. Many people before Gerasimov have pointed to the same factors in warfare. It would have been strange if Russia had not taken notice of things like information warfare, drone technology, or high-precision munitions, which are some of the characteristics of modern warfare that Gerasimov identifies in his speech.

‘The Gerasimov Doctrine’ as a term has perhaps been useful as a thought experiment about the nature of Russian military strategy. It has helped draw attention to some of the more subversive aspects of Russian information warfare. But it is not in fact a doctrine, and it was not developed by Gerasimov. And it is probably time to leave the term behind because it gives the wrong impression that deception and social engineering is all that Russian military thinking is about.

Danish defense minister says it will take many years to improve relationship with Russia

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Danish minister of defense Claus Hjort Frederiksen on Monday:

Russia has chosen a path fundamentally different from ours. A path where international cooperation has become a zero sum game. […] Furthermore, Moscow has demonstrated an appetite for taking risks. I find it disturbing that that we now face a situation with much less dialogue between Russia and the West than during the Cold War. […] It could take many years for the relationship to improve.

The entire speech is available in English from the ministry’s website. Some of the arguments are simplistic, and it always makes me reluctant when anybody claims to represent “freedom”. But the minister is absolutely correct in stating that the situation is dangerous, and that it will take a long time to improve the relationship.

Ukraine’s military suffers from corruption

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In Ukraine, the military is suffering under corruption. Andrew Higgins has a good piece in The New York Times about the movement of large-scale corruption from the gas business to military procurement:

Nearly four years into a grinding war against rebels armed by Russia, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry proudly announced last month that it had improved its previously meager medical services for its wounded troops with the purchase and delivery of 100 new military ambulances.

Not mentioned, however, was that many of the ambulances had already broken down. Or that they had been sold to the military under a no-bid contract by an auto company owned by a senior official in charge of procurement for Ukraine’s armed forces. Or that the official, Oleg Gladkovskyi, is an old friend and business partner of Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko.