#9
pravda.ru
March 26, 2003
Russia and Wars of Tomorrow
Don’t trouble until trouble troubles you. The US’s invasion in Iraq gave
up for lost the previously established regulations of the world community, the
national sovereignty is no longer a holy cow. The whole of the world understood
in an instant that any country can be devoured in a jiffy, even if the country
makes up one sixth of land, or used to be of this size some day. The Russian
bear has understood its vulnerability, it’s scared.
This is a characteristic, probably an approximate one, of the attitudes in
the Russian society, of the highest ranks to be more exact. Mass media reporting
about the attitudes in the highest ranks of the Russian society sound alarming.
Vladimir Averchenko, Duma vice-speaker, the first deputy chairman of the
People’s Party thinks that after the war in Iraq the US armed forces may come
to Russia. He declared it at a meeting against the Iraqi war the party organized
on Tuesday. He said: “America plans to seize 15% of the world oil reserve
located in Iraq. To achieve the goal, Americans kill Iraqi children and old
people. Russia holds 37% of the world oil reserve, and there is no guarantee
that Americans don’t have an intention to attack Russia next.”
The deputy emphasized that “the war and subsequent redistribution of the
world make Russia solve new problems.” In particular, this is the necessity to
strengthen Russia’s defensive capacity, to upgrade the armed forces; the
deputy thinks that Russia “must give up implementation of arrangements that
can negatively affect condition of the defense potential of the country; it is
necessary to initiate creation of an international coalition for the sake of
defending peace and the international law.”
For the purpose of saving the might of the green currency, Americans will go
further than Iraq. Yankees would be happy to devour Russia as well, but their
ambition is brought to reason by the heavy ballistic missiles Satan that Moscow
placed into the silos ready for action already in the Soviet era. This is an
opinion voiced by General Valentin Varennikov, the chairman of the Russian
Association of Soviet Heroes.
Now we have the strongest nuclear weapon. Americans are mostly scared not
with Russia’s new mobile strategic missile complexes Topol-M, but with the old
SS intercontinental ballistic missiles created in the Soviet era. These are the
silo-based missiles that Americans call Satan. Russia also holds wonderful
developments of new plasma, laser and molecular weapons; it will take American
scientists up to 50 years to develop such kind of weapons. But realization of
the new developments requires much money.
If we put aside the emotional background of the problem, the situation looks
like this: there are Americans who have much money (the Pentagon is going to
spend 80-100 billion dollars on modernization of the armed forces in the nearest
five years) and much ambition. Russians also have ambition, but unfortunately
have no money. A rhetoric question arises in this connection: what is to be
done?
Army General Andrey Nikolayev, the chairman of the Duma committee for defense
says: “When the RF State Duma passed a resolution in connection with beginning
of the US/UK war in Iraq, the parliament stated that actions of the USA and the
allies had created a political situation that posed a potential danger to the
Russian Federation’s national security. Russian deputies think that this fact
requires that leadership of the country must take immediate efforts to
strengthen Russia’s defensive potential.
This certainly must be a military reform, as a result of which a new army
will be created in Russia. This must be a mobile, professional army equipped
with modern weapons, an army that would be able to guarantee Russia’s
security. Now it’s very important to define what army the country needs.
What army does Russia need?
Russia’s army reform in its present-day condition looks like a road to
nowhere. It is not clear to which doctrine it is being adapted (offensive or
defensive) and what it will look like.
It is often said that the armed forces have reached a deadlock in the process
of so-called reforms; in any case, it makes an impression that measures are
still taken for army reforming. But in fact the process is making no headway and
reforms are just being imitated. And this is against the background of still
increasing gap between the organizational and technical level of armed forces in
developed countries. This is the first real threat to the country. The second
threat is the increasing degradation of defensive capacity of the army and of
the navy; soldiers and officers degrade because of their sad living conditions
(and this is at the time when we often hear the living standard of the military
is improving more and more).
America knows an answer to this question. In May 2001, when George W. Bush
delivered his first speech on the presidential post to students of the US Navy
Academy in Annapolis, he spoke about the necessity to immediately start
preparations of the US armed forces for waging wars of tomorrow. He emphasized,
these must be high-tech armed forces capable of waging no-contact wars all over
the world (the Iraqi war is an exception from the rule, which in its turn proves
stability of the rule itself).
Russia can only dream about such things. Russian generals are getting ready
for waging wars of yesterday, they are convulsively trying to drag yesterday in
tomorrow. This is how they understand the military doctrine and such are the
rules according to which they carry out army reforms.
Dmitry Chirkin
PRAVDA.Ru
Translated by Maria Gousseva
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