This new IISS Strategic Dossier examines the recent development of Moscow’s armed forces and military capabilities. It analyses the aspirations underpinning Russia’s military reform programme and its successes as well as its failures. The book also provides insights into Russia’s operational use of its armed forces, including in the intervention in Syria, the goals and results of recent state armament programmes, and the trajectory of future developments. This full-colour volume includes more than 50 graphics, maps and charts and over 70 images, and contains chapters on: Russia's armed forces since the end of the Cold War Strategic forces Ground forces Naval forces Aerospace forces Russia’s approach to military decision-making and joint operations Economics and industry At a time when Russia’s relations with many of its neighbours are increasingly strained, and amid renewed concern about the risk of an armed clash, this dossier is essential reading for understanding the state,capabilities and future of Russia’s armed forces.
At no time since the end of the Cold War has interest been higher in Russian security issues and the role played in this by the modernization of Russia’s Armed Forces. The continued transformation of its Armed Forces from Cold War legacy towards a modern combat capable force presents many challenges for the Kremlin. Moscow’s security concerns domestically, in the turbulent North Caucasus, and internationally linked to the Arab Spring, as well as its complex relations with the US and NATO and its role in the aftermath of the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014 further raises the need to present an informed analytical survey of the country’s military, past, present and future. This collection addresses precisely the nature of the challenges facing Russian policymakers as they struggle to rebuild combat capable military to protect Russian interests in the twenty-first century. This book was based on a special issue of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies.
Published each year since 1959, The Military Balance is an indispensable reference to the capabilities of armed forces across the globe. It is used by academia, the media, armed forces, the private sector and government. It is an open-source assessment of the military forces and equipment inventories of 171 countries, with accompanying defence economics and procurement data. Alongside detailed country data, The Military Balance assesses important defence issues, by region, as well as key global trends, such as in defence technology and equipment modernisation. This analysis is accompanied by full-colour graphics, including maps and illustrations. With extensive explanatory notes and reference information, The Military Balance is as straightforward to use as it is extensive. The 2022 edition is accompanied by a fullcolour wall chart illustrating security dynamics in the Arctic.
Reforming Russia's conventional armed forces, modernizing its weapons and equipment, and reorienting its military to suit the needs of the state and the changing nature of modern conflict has been long overdue. Numerous failed attempts to conduct such reform predisposed Russian and international observers to be skeptical of any renewed efforts to address this issue. In the aftermath of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war and the ensuing crisis in NATO-Russia relations, Moscow finally launched a genuine and systemic reform agenda that has changed the face of the Russian armed forces. Its longer-term success remains questionable. The Reform of Russia's Conventional Armed Forces traces the complex origins of the reform and its numerous twists and assesses the key challenges its faces. Roger N. McDermott examines the obstacles confronting Russian defense planners as they seek to transform the military education system, encourage high standards among the officer corps, train suitable noncommissioned officers, and overcome the weaknesses of the domestic defense industry to facilitate modernization. Moscow's long-term political and economic support will be necessary, as pursuit of reform is likely to result in a lengthy period of transition for the armed forces. Whether, or to what extent, such challenges are sufficiently resolved will determine the Russian states' future capability to project military power, preserve the country's territorial integrity, and validate its claims to "great power" status.
" ... Paper provides an authoritative analysis of national security thinking in Moscow, as well as some pointed suggestions on how to improve relations between Russia and the West. To assist readers who may want more details from official documents, as opposed to the opinions of an individual scholar and parliamentarian, we have also included extracts from the current Russian Military Doctrine and National Security Concept."--Forward.
With tensions between Russia and the West at an all-time high, Russian military reforms have taken a new direction in what appears to be preparation for large-scale war. In this context, now more than ever, there is an increased need to understand the past and future directions of Russian military reform and what it means for the West. In Military Reform and Militarism in Russia, Aleksandr Golts takes a hard look at the evolution of the Russian military from the collapse of the Soviet Union to its present involvement in wars in eastern Ukraine and Syria. This book is a follow-on to his study of military reform, or more precisely its failure, under President Boris Yeltsin and during the first term of President Vladimir Putin. Golts focuses on the evolution of military reform inside Russia since 2005; additionally, he examines the new phenomenon of Russian militarism and its origins in a Russian system that is hostile to both civilian control as well as civil society. The work reaches an important milestone in new works on Russian security in the age of Putin by explaining why Russian society has supported the concept of militarism in Russia. This important book traces the roots of Russian militarism since the age of Ivan the Terrible, providing new understanding as to why this new phenomenon has emerged in Russia under Putin. Golts also examines the current state of Russian military reforms through the prism of Russian history by exploring the historic struggle between the "technocrats" who pushed force modernization and the "magicians" who still believe in mass armies and want to prepare for a general war. This in turn has modern-day repercussions for the West as it will determine how Putin will use the Russian military abroad and in a potential future confrontation with NATO.
This book studies the impact of cultural factors on the course of military innovations. One would expect that countries accustomed to similar technologies would undergo analogous changes in their perception of and approach to warfare. However, the intellectual history of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) in Russia, the US, and Israel indicates the opposite. The US developed technology and weaponry for about a decade without reconceptualizing the existing paradigm about the nature of warfare. Soviet 'new theory of victory' represented a conceptualization which chronologically preceded technological procurement. Israel was the first to utilize the weaponry on the battlefield, but was the last to develop a conceptual framework that acknowledged its revolutionary implications. Utilizing primary sources that had previously been completely inaccessible, and borrowing methods of analysis from political science, history, anthropology, and cognitive psychology, this book suggests a cultural explanation for this puzzling transformation in warfare. The Culture of Military Innovation offers a systematic, thorough, and unique analytical approach that may well be applicable in other perplexing strategic situations. Though framed in the context of specific historical experience, the insights of this book reveal important implications related to conventional, subconventional, and nonconventional security issues. It is therefore an ideal reference work for practitioners, scholars, teachers, and students of security studies.
Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces The mighty Soviet Army is no more. The feckless Russian Army that stumbled into Chechnya is no more. Today's Russian Army is modern, better manned, better equipped and designed for maneuver combat under nuclear-threatened conditions. This is your source for the tactics, equipment, force structure and theoretical underpinnings of a major Eurasian power. Here's what the experts are saying: "A superb baseline study for understanding how and why the modern Russian Army functions as it does. Essential for specialist and generalist alike." -Colonel (Ret) David M. Glantz, foremost Western author on the Soviet Union in World War II and Editor of The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. "Congratulations to Les Grau and Chuck Bartles on filling a gap which has yawned steadily wider since the end of the USSR. Their book addresses evolving Russian views on war, including the blurring of its nature and levels, and the consequent Russian approaches to the Ground Forces' force structuring, manning, equipping, and tactics. Confidence is conferred on the validity of their arguments and conclusions by copious footnoting, mostly from an impressive array of primary sources. It is this firm grounding in Russian military writings, coupled with the authors' understanding of war and the Russian way of thinking about it, that imparts such an authoritative tone to this impressive work." -Charles Dick, former Director of the Combat Studies Research Centre, Senior Fellow at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, author of the 1991 British Army Field Manual, Volume 2, A Treatise on Soviet Operational Art and author of From Victory to Stalemate The Western Front, Summer 1944 and From Defeat to Victory, The Eastern Front, Summer 1944. "Dr. Lester Grau's and Chuck Bartles' professional research on the Russian Armed Forces is widely read throughout the world and especially in Russia. Russia's Armed Forces have changed much since the large-scale reforms of 2008, which brought the Russian Army to the level of the world's other leading armies. The speed of reform combined with limited information about their core mechanisms represented a difficult challenge to the authors. They have done a great job and created a book which could be called an encyclopedia of the modern armed forces of Russia. They used their wisdom and talents to explore vital elements of the Russian military machine: the system of recruitment and training, structure of units of different levels, methods and tactics in defense and offence and even such little-known fields as the Arctic forces and the latest Russian combat robotics." -Dr. Vadim Kozyulin, Professor of Military Science and Project Director, Project on Asian Security, Emerging Technologies and Global Security Project PIR Center, Moscow. "Probably the best book on the Russian Armed Forces published in North America during the past ten years. A must read for all analysts and professionals following Russian affairs. A reliable account of the strong and weak aspects of the Russian Army. Provides the first look on what the Russian Ministry of Defense learned from best Western practices and then applied them on Russian soil." -Ruslan Pukhov, Director of the Moscow-based Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) and member of the Public Council of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense. Author of Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine, Russia's New Army, and The Tanks of August.
In Finding the Target, Frederick W. Kagan describes the three basic transformations within the U.S. military since Vietnam. First was the move to an all-volunteer force and a new generation of weapons systems in the 1970s. Second was the emergence of stealth technology and precision-guided munitions in the 1980s. Third was the information technology that followed the fall of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War. This last could have insured the U.S. continuing military preeminence, but this goal was compromised by Clinton's drawing down of our armed forces in the 1990s and Bush's response to 9/11 and the global war on terror. The issue of transformation leads Kagan to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's vision of a ''new ''military; the conduct of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; and the disconnect between grand strategic visions such as the Bush Doctrine's idea of ''preemption ''and the underfunding of military force structures that are supposed to achieve such goals.
Crimea in War and Transformation is the first exploration of the civilian experience during the Crimean War to appear in English. Beginning with Russian mobilization in 1852 and lasting through demobilization in 1857, the conflict devastated the peoples and landscapes of Crimea as well as the volatile southern borderlands of the Russian Empire, leading to the largest war recovery program yet undertaken by the Russian government.
