One of the things that I didn’t touch on in my description about how a war between Russia and the West will play out was the resistance that the populations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania would muster after a Russian occupation. That was a deliberate omission because you just can’t fit everything into one piece, […]
Military strategy and politics
More dire predictions following US sale of Javelin missiles to Ukraine
Michael Kimmage for War on the Rocks in connection with the American decision to provide anti-tank missiles to Ukraine: Both sides interpret their own actions as defensive. The greater the need to defend from the other’s aggression, the more an expansion of military assets makes sense — hence, the provision of “defensive lethal weapons.” Hence, […]
Proxy wars seem to be a thing again
Sébastien Roblin for War on the Rocks in connection with the American decision to provide Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine: Michael Kofman, an analyst with extensive knowledge of Russian military affairs, was skeptical that a “few missiles” would be of any serious military benefit in a New York Times column in August. He wrote that […]
How would a war between Russia and the West play out?
There is a specific military scenario connected with the possibility of a war between Russia and the West in the Baltic area. This summary explains how the war can develop from a limited insurgency to a nuclear exchange.
Maybe former Soviet republics don’t like to be Russia’s “sphere of interest”
Mikhail Barabanov in Moscow Defense Brief: Russia holds the Zapad drills along its western borders once every four years; the previous such event took place in 2013. This year, however, the reaction from some of Russia’s neighbors to the west has been nothing short of hysterical. […] For all the Western concerns, the scenario of […]
More on Germany’s trouble to keep equipment moving
Sébastien Roblin for The National Interest in a piece called Germany Does Not Have One Working Submarine: One unfortunate consequence is that the submarine crews are completely unable to gain badly needed operational experience. Only by mid-2018 will three German submarines be operational, followed by possibly a fourth that November. But the kicker is that […]
Good article about what a war with Russia would look like
In connection with Zapad 2017, Russia said that the exercise was about training defensive maneuvers. BILD has an article that claims otherwise: However, BILD recently spoke to two leading analysts from a western intelligence service who revealed that Zapad 2017 was neither an “anti-terror exercise” nor “purely defensive”, but a “dry run” for a “full-scale […]
Poland connects the European security puzzle
Natalia Wojtowicz suggests that Poland can play leading role in connecting regional security initiatives to make EU and NATO strategies more coherent.
Putin joke shows Russian narrative about the West
This week Russian president Vladimir Putin held a press conference in Moscow in the presence of no less that 1600 journalists. And if anybody should doubt the narrative that exists in Russia about the West, I think the following answer to a question about international relations and defense spending gives a good illustration: “We didn’t […]
Hardliners rise to power in Russian leadership rotation
In November, Russia made a large rotation of top leaders in the armed forces. Russian Defense Policy has looked at the people who have risen to glory. The overall trend is that successful command in combat is a key qualification for promotion. The most prominent command change is that the Aerospace Forces got a new […]