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Originally Posted by StuartK
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You can't blame Russia for imperialism, as they have no natural borders in the west, so expansion is the only way for them to maintain their state. It's just very basic geopolitics. Actually, the same applies to Ukraine.

So, where do they stop? At the Niemen? At the Oder-Neisse line? It's one vast plain until you get to North Sea. . .

For now they'll probably stop on the Oder-Neisse line (or maybe on Vistula again?), while extending their influence in Germany and the whole EU by Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines. They have already succeeded in ensuring the abandonment of the independent Nabucco pipeline.

But who knows what the future will bring? With advisors like Alexander Dugin the chekisty ruling Russia may have far-reaching plans...

Originally Posted by StuartK
The question begged here is who is Russia's enemy? Neither Ukraine nor Belarus have the military power nor the inclination to invade the Rodina. So is it the Poles? How about the Germans or the Danes?

So, it's a good moment to seize the opportunity and take advantage of the western weakness. Tomorrow Europe can grow stronger and it will be too late. The larger the "buffer zones" before the unsafe, vulnerable and always prone to conflict borders on the vast plains are, the safer Matushka Rossiya is...

Originally Posted by StuartK
The simple truth is Western Europe is utterly debellicized.[..]

not debellicized enough, because France sold Mistrals to Russia recently biggrin But seriously speaking, maybe this debellicization is why Russia prefers economical and political (in place of military) expansion in Europe? Or maybe Comrade Mao was right, and political power flows from the rifle barrel, so this senile European pacifism makes Russian expansion possible? Who knows?

When the attempts to consolidate the Intermarium (like Pentagonale, Hexagonale, or whatever this initiative was called in the end) failed, this outcome of things was more or less predictable.

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not debellicized enough, because France sold Mistrals to Russia recently

Debellicization is a term coined by the British historian Michael Howard to define a condition in which a society no longer views armed force as having any legitimate role (even defensive) in resolving international conflict, and loses the will to employ armed force for any purpose, even its own defense. Europe fits the bill, and its arms sales to Russia are indicative of it, because it's more in the way of appeasement than an attempt to join militarily with Russia.

In any case, my opinion Mistral and other MBDA missiles is pretty low, so I'm not losing sleep over it. That Russia would go to France both for an air-to-air missile and an aircraft carrier is actually a sign of the decay and decadence of the Russian defense industry, which has been systematically starved of R&D funds by the Putin government. Putin apparently sees the Russian extractive sector as a more viable weapon than its military.

I don't think there is much chance of Russian expansionism because of its irreconcilable economic contradictions and its irreversible demographic catastrophe. Not only are there not enough Russians to man the armed forces, soon there won't be enough to run the factories. Russia's real enemy lies to the East, where the Chinese are crossing an increasingly porous border and squatting on Russian territory. How long before there are enough Chinese to create "facts on the ground"?

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Originally Posted by StuartK
I don't think there is much chance of Russian expansionism because of its irreconcilable economic contradictions and its irreversible demographic catastrophe. Not only are there not enough Russians to man the armed forces, soon there won't be enough to run the factories. Russia's real enemy lies to the East, where the Chinese are crossing an increasingly porous border and squatting on Russian territory. How long before there are enough Chinese to create "facts on the ground"?

I am deeply suspicious towards all predictions based on demographics. OK, there will be fewer younger people. So what? The decline in numbers happens both in Russia and in the West. There will be more Muslims, but it doesn't matter, as long as the Europeans are in power. There's plenty of Chinese workers in Siberia, that's a fact. But it doesn't matter as long as Siberia is a buffer zone before the Russian center of gravity in Europe, and the Chinese prefer to look for natural resources (and build their sphere of influence) in Africa.

The Sino-Soviet split didn't lead to confrontation. A common enemy unites for good, and I think that both China and Russia still see their enemy in the USA.

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Well, it takes young people to fill out an army. Russia is losing not merely young people, but population as a whole; by 2025, there will be fewer than 125 million Russians, and by 2050, less than 111 million. And because Russian men die much younger than Russian women (59 vs. 72), the population will not only be older, it will be predominantly female. Finally, what population growth is occurring in Russia is not among the ethnic Slavs but among the Central Asian population. The revenge of the Golden Horde is at hand.

By the 1980s, the Soviet army was hard pressed to find enough Great Russians to fill out sensitive positions in the armed forces; increasingly, it was forced to use Muslims and other minorities in the combat arms (previously they had been restricted to combat services). Because the minorities spoke little Russian and had inferior education, the personnel quality of combat units declined at the very time that new, high-technology equipment required better educated and better trained operators.

The situation has not improved since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian units have limited training budgets, and seldom engage in multi-divisional exercises. Attempts to improve the lot of the enlisted men have mostly failed, and troop quality remains low. Though Russia won its war with Georgia, it is surprising how much trouble the Russians had in massing sufficient force to crush the miniscule Georgian army, and the performance of Russian units--particularly the air force--was rates as close to abysmal. Against a larger and better equipped force, they would have been in real trouble.

Now, with even fewer young men age 18-21 to fill the ranks, the Russian military will have to contract even more. This could be an opportunity to professionalize the service, but that would mean increasing pay, improving living conditions, and investing more in training and maintenance--for which no money is available. As a result, the Russian army will shrink but remain a hollow force. There is a hard nucleus in the special forces, the air assault brigades, the airborne divisions and a few showpiece tank and motor rifle divisions.

But these are not equipped for operations beyond Russia's "near abroad". It requires a real effort whenever Russia decides to send a squadron of bombers to probe around U.S. and UK air space, or a small naval battle group out of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Such operations are basically "stunts", to show the flag, not operations as usual, which is the case for the U.S. military.

To be brutally honest, Russia may be able to incinerate contiguous states, but it has no capability to invade and occupy them (with the exception of its lilliputian neighbors in the Baltic, Georgia, and possibly Armenia). An invasion of Ukraine would probably be defeated just by Ukrainian forces alone, but such an invasion would trigger a response by Poland and Romania--both of which have small but modern forces that would give Russia a very hard time.

Russia, I think, failed to recognize that its invasion of Georgia would change attitudes among all its neighbors. Poland, Romania, Finland and Sweden were all reorganizing their military forces for peacekeeping and counter-insurgency operations in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. All their plans were put on hold after the Georgian war, and when the revised plans were issued there was much more emphasis on maintaining modern conventional forces for territorial defense.

Western Europe may be craven, but Eastern Europe remembers the Russians all too well, and is determined to keep the Bear inside his own territory.

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Those interested may see my assessment of Russian military capabilities Weekly Standard [weeklystandard.com] published in 2008. Not much has changed since then.

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You're focused on the army, but the army is not the only way of expanding power and influence. Judging from Russia's actions, it is secondary if not tertiary.

Originally Posted by StuartK
To be brutally honest, Russia may be able to incinerate contiguous states, but it has no capability to invade and occupy them (with the exception of its lilliputian neighbors in the Baltic, Georgia, and possibly Armenia).
By the way, what does the international law say about attacking a sovereign state and annexing part of its territory, as it was the case in Georgia?

Originally Posted by StuartK
An invasion of Ukraine would probably be defeated just by Ukrainian forces alone, but such an invasion would trigger a response by Poland and Romania--both of which have small but modern forces that would give Russia a very hard time.
There would be no political will to start a "response". At least not from our phoney minister of defense, who is a psychiatrist (really), a pacifist (!!!), and has virtually disbanded the army (we have now 2 officers per private).

No one in the world cares about Georgia, which is clear from the fact that Russia was allowed to keep the territories they won at war, which is contrary to the Hague Convention.

No one cares about Slovakia, which is now totally dependent from Russian oil, and a wide russian-standard railroad to Bratislava (or maybe even Vienna) is being built.

No one cares about the effect that will be caused by Russian takeover of the Lithuanian refinery in Mazeikiai (or whatever they call it).

Now Russia has virtually taken over Ukraine and Poland by political means (here this needs yet to be reaffirmed by elections), and no one cares. A fight in the Ukrainian parliament is really too cheap price to be worth mentioning. Feeding the bear means that the bear will grow even more hungry.

All this happens in spite of their demographical problems. Maybe in the long run they want to establish a pan-European military block, including Russia? At least this is what Lt. Col. Putin suggested in his letter to my fellow countrymen from August 2009.

Russia IS expanding and encounters no obstacles, so it will expand MORE.

Originally Posted by StuartK
Poland, Romania, Finland and Sweden were all reorganizing their military forces for peacekeeping and counter-insurgency operations in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. All their plans were put on hold after the Georgian war, and when the revised plans were issued there was much more emphasis on maintaining modern conventional forces for territorial defense.
I don't know what the Fins, Swedes or Romanians do, but I know our official "Vision of the Armed Forces in 2030" document. It's a crazy mixture of phantasies, worn-out slogans and wishful thinking, which anyway remain on paper only.

Originally Posted by StuartK
Western Europe may be craven, but Eastern Europe remembers the Russians all too well, and is determined to keep the Bear inside his own territory.
I think the USA should fire its intelligence officers biggrin

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I've read your article. I agree particularly with this:

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Germany has been particularly culpable in this regard, being almost supine in the face of Russian economic and military aggression. Prime Minister Angela Merkel continues to block Ukrainian accession to NATO, and enters into energy agreements that make Germany ever more dependent on Russian supplies, which in turn makes Germany even less willing to challenge Russia's actions in the "near abroad." Yet every appeasement of Russia merely encourages Russia to pursue its two-track policy of reincorporation of separated territories (i.e., Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, the Baltic States) and of controlling the European energy supply. Success in the former would greatly strengthen Russia's position regarding the latter, which in turn would give Russia the leverage it needs to sustain itself as a "great power" in the midst of its ongoing economic and demographic decline. The result would be a setback for freedom and human rights throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and a weakening of America's beneficial influence in those regions.

Apart from Germany not having prime ministers on federal level, I've noticed you use the demographical argument as minor in this article. Also, your diagnosis is based on the assumption that Russia will not find a way to suck out resources, technology or maybe even recruits and officers from the East and West-European countries that are gradually falling under its influence. You also seem to be very confident about the information you have about the Russian budget and the state of their army, but it's well known that the Mongolian art of deception is a tool that Russia used many times with success. Some people still believe that Stalin was not ready for war.

By the way,

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Poland bought some 24 F-16s a couple of years back for about $3 billion
They're always broken old scrap.

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Apart from Germany not having prime ministers on federal level

I thought it would be pedantic to refer to her as Bundeskanzler.

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I've noticed you use the demographical argument as minor in this article.

That's because the article to which I was responding focused on the 24% rise in the Russian defense budget. That was touted as a near-term, proximate threat, whereas the demographic issue is a delayed action bomb. It will bite them badly in about ten years, when all those kids who should have been born aren't there to pay the pensions of all the people who will be retiring.

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Also, your diagnosis is based on the assumption that Russia will not find a way to suck out resources, technology or maybe even recruits and officers from the East and West-European countries that are gradually falling under its influence.

It's possible. Note that Russia has turned to France to supply it with next generation warships and missiles--areas in which Russia was a world leader just a decade ago. But then, France, Germany and Italy don't have much about which to brag in their defense technology bag, do they? Eurofighter Typhoon, which provides F-16 capabilities at F-22 prices, and the A400M, 2/3 of a C-17 for the price of just two C-17s. Recruits and officers? I don't think so. And the demographics of those countries is a cause of concern as well. Will Russia look to the 'Stans for salvation? That is a fantasy.

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You also seem to be very confident about the information you have about the Russian budget and the state of their army, but it's well known that the Mongolian art of deception is a tool that Russia used many times with success.

If anything, I've been conservative in my estimates, adding to the official figures a SWAG for undeclared programs. Nonetheless, even Putin cannot squeeze blood from a stone--Russia has all sorts of debts and expenses to meet, and it is not in Putin's interest to underestimate Russia's GDP (he needs to attract foreign investment and maintain consumer confidence), so looking at the total Russian budget, it's pretty clear Putin is floating the rest of government at the expense of the military. If anything is a Potemkin village, it's the facade of Russian military power.

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Some people still believe that Stalin was not ready for war.

It's pretty clear from the first six months of the war that he wasn't. I believe Stalin thought he might have until 1942-43 to worry about Hitler. After all, invading Russia before defeating Britain would be insane, right?

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They're always broken old scrap.

Actually, these were brand-new Block 52 birds, better than anything in the USAF inventory. The Poles drove a hard bargain--Lockheed Martin had to cough up something close to eleven billion in offset credits (investments in Polish industry plus project work share) to get it.

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You're focused on the army, but the army is not the only way of expanding power and influence. Judging from Russia's actions, it is secondary if not tertiary.

In my article, and elsewhere, I have noted that Putin believes economic power is more effective than military power at this point--though being able to rattle a saber every now and again is good for public morale and frightens the Belgians.

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By the way, what does the international law say about attacking a sovereign state and annexing part of its territory, as it was the case in Georgia?


I believe it is considered bad form.

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There would be no political will to start a "response". At least not from our phoney minister of defense, who is a psychiatrist (really), a pacifist (!!!), and has virtually disbanded the army (we have now 2 officers per private).

Just about as bad as the U.S. Army, which has one officer per six men (not counting doctors or aviators). But Ukraine was in the process of restructuring its army, eliminating conscription and reducing the size of the ground forces to about 240,000 men, mainly long-term professionals. By way of comparison, the active component of the U.S. Army is just 615,000 men (total force, including reserves, is 1.1 million).

As compared to the Russian army today, the Ukrainian army is quite well trained and equipped with a combination of Western systems and indigenous systems derived from Soviet-era technology, updated with Western electronics and sensors. The Ukrainian military has conducted joint training exercises with U.S. and NATO forces, and unlike Russian forces, has been rotating personnel through Afghanistan and other contingency areas to learn the latest operational techniques. American officers who have worked alongside their Ukrainian counterparts speak well of their dedication and professionalism.

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Russia IS expanding and encounters no obstacles, so it will expand MORE.

Expansion of a balloon requires more gas. Expansion of an empire requires more people. It also requires wealth. The more Russia expands--or attempts to--the less "gas" there will be to keep the balloon inflated.

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Originally Posted by StuartK
[/quote]

I thought it would be pedantic to refer to her as Bundeskanzler.
Bundeskanzlerin. She's a woman.

Originally Posted by StuartK
It will bite them badly in about ten years, when all those kids who should have been born aren't there to pay the pensions of all the people who will be retiring.
It would have bitten them in a Western country. The chekisty will not care for that. Also, I may be naive, but somehow I can't believe that as much as 66% to 90% pregnancies in the heart of Russia really end with an abortion. It would have quickly turned Russia into a country of human wrecks (emotional, psychical, physical). I know that Russian life expectancy is poor, but this may be as well an outcome of poor health care.

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Recruits and officers? I don't think so.

I was thinking about re-creation of the Warsaw Pact in some form.

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Some people still believe that Stalin was not ready for war.

It's pretty clear from the first six months of the war that he wasn't. I believe Stalin thought he might have until 1942-43 to worry about Hitler. After all, invading Russia before defeating Britain would be insane, right?

Of course not. It was obviously better to attack Hitler still involved in the West, than Hitler-winner and ruler of Europe. Hitler acted risky, but he definitely wasn't insane, as his successes in subsequent months have shown. Hitler dreamed about an empire resembling the British Empire with Russia playing the role of India. I think he wrote it explicitly somewhere, maybe it was in Mein Kampf. The Soviets wanted to spread the revolution, to attack Europe already weakened by war, so they were supporting Hitler very actively since 1930s. But ther collaboration actually starts with the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.

Stalin switched the air force training system to war mode as early as December 7, 1940. Hitler definitely decided on December 18, 1940 that he is going to attack Soviet Union. He was closely following him. By July 1941 the mobilization of the five million Red Army would have been known. In such circumstances war would have been started in a few weeks at most.

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Actually, these were brand-new Block 52 birds, better than anything in the USAF inventory.
They kept breaking from the very beginning. They even had problems while flying to Poland.

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The Poles drove a hard bargain--Lockheed Martin had to cough up something close to eleven billion in offset credits (investments in Polish industry plus project work share) to get it.
Yes, offset, I almost forgot that word. The problem is that nobody actually seen this money, maybe except for some arms trading company run by former communist intelligence officers.

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A propos:

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04 May 2010
Strong healthy nation is needed to reclaim Russian spaces – Patriarch Kirill

Belgorod, May 4, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia stresses the importance of solving Russia's demographical problems and improving nation's health.

"What's the good of having economy, if our nation is sick? How will we reclaim these boundless spaces, vast lands, not only in European part of Russia, but in Siberia as well?" the Primate said at organizational meeting of the Belgorod branch of the World Russian People's Council.

He reminded that birth rates had recently grown in Russia.

"We hope this tendency will be stable and our people rather than strangers with alien culture and alien faith will inhabit our vast lands inherited from God and our hardworking forefathers and this greatest treasure – our land – will be cultivated by descendants of those who merged it to the great Russian state," Patriarch Kirill said.

[Linked Image]
Photo by the Moscow Patriarchate press service
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=dujour&div=193

I bet they consider Ukraine a "Russian space" biggrin This kind of politically incorrect language is unknown in the West, which makes clear that Russian government, at least in their religious part, does care for the demographics and is strongly expansive (at least verbally), which again means that if there will be any demographical recovery it will happen in Russia, and Orthodoxy is also a tool for extending Russian influence nowadays. If Europe doesn't want crucifixes in public space, and Russia hangs icons in hospitals (with the support of the government) the trend is good for Russia, bad for the West.

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I bet they consider Ukraine a "Russian space"

Of course they do. But beyond that, there is the nagging Russian sense of cultural inferiority that comes out when dealing with parts of the Empire significantly older than Muscovy. The Russians did not seem to mind when they lost the Central Asian republics. The were a bit irked by the loss of the Baltic states (but that might have had a strategic rationale). But the loss of Ukraine and Georgia bugs them to no end, and I have no doubt that reabsorption of both is their fondest desire.

They may succeed with Georgia--"a strange land far away of which we no little"--but Ukraine is another matter. First of all, though there are pro- and anti-Russian factions in Ukraine, there is no great desire (except on the part of ethnic Russians living in Ukraine) to return to Russian domination. Even pro-Russian sentiment in Ukraine is due largely to the corruption and ineptitude of the prior pro-Western government. Ukrainians look westward, and see prosperity. They look eastward and see. . . Russia, an increasingly authoritarian state with social and economic problems at least as great as their own. Its only attraction is economies of scale in misery.

Second, Ukraine, as I noted, is a tough nut to crack, and it has allies. If Western Europe would be inclined to look the other way, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden and the Balts would not be. And nothing would do more to solidify and reinvigorate the NATO alliance than a Russian attempt at irredentism.

As for Patriarch Kiril's whistling past the graveyard speech, many governments have found it far easier to cut birth rates than to boost them. Ceaucescu managed to pump up the Romanian fertility rate through draconian measures (leading to the social catastrophe of Romanian orphanages, as unwanted babies were dumped into filthy warehouses), but once out from under his thumb, Romania's birth rate plummeted. It has come back from its nadir in the early 1990s, but still has not reached replacement levels.

Increasing fertility rates, I am convinced, cannot be done with stipends or subsidies (else the Swedes, who have the most comprehensive child welfare system in the world would be popping babies like mad). Rather, it really depends on people's long-term optimism about society and their own personal prospects. The Russian fertility rate ticked up a bit (from catastrophic to merely calamitous), but that was before the recent economic downturn wiped out a lot of new wealth, and before Putin's ratcheting up the repression of dissent. So we will have to see whether Russia manages to get to the magic 2.1, whether it manages to reverse the mortality crisis among Russian men, and whether it can reverse the decline of its population, or merely reduce the rate at which it falls.


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