Iron Cannot Fight¹ – The Role of Technology in Current Russian Military Theory

Abstract

Contemporary Russian military theory is dominated by three schools of thought: the ‘traditionalists’, the ‘modernists’ and the ‘revolutionaries’. On the role of technology in future warfare, the traditionalists argue for both high tech and massive forces at the same time. The modernists are ready to trade manpower for technology, whereas the revolutionaries give technology full priority. Both the traditionalists and the modernists believe Russia, because of the country's technological lag and limited resources, should respond asymmetrically to the Western technology challenge. The revolutionaries, on the other hand, maintain that Russia must respond in kind. If not, the country will no longer be able to defend its sovereignty. The currently ongoing radical reform of the Russian military is a partial victory for the modernists, but which model or mix of models that will dominate in the future is first of all dependent on the Russian military's purchasing power and the state of the domestic defence industry.

Key Words:

• Russia
• Military Theory
• Technology

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jacob S. Ravndahl, Kristian Åtland and Roger McDermott for comments upon earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

¹Russian military saying (Zheleso ne voinet).

²See for example Todd Harrison, ‘The New Guns Versus Butter Debate’ (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assesments 2010); Timothy Edmunds, ‘The Defence Dilemma in Britain’, International Affairs 86/2 (2010).

³This is the author's own categorization, but it builds on Alexandr Golts' distinction between ‘technologists’ and ‘magicians’, and Igor Popov's distinction between ‘conservatives’ and ‘innovators’. See Aleksandr Golts, ‘Bremia Militarizma’, Otechestvennye zapisky, no. 5 (2005); Igor Popov, ‘Voennaia Mysl Sovremennoi Rossii’, at <http://futurewarfare.narod.ru/theoryRF.html>.

⁴For Western scepticism, see for example Jacob W. Kipp and Lester W. Grau , ‘The Fog and Friction of Technology’, Military Review (Sept.–Oct. 2001); Antulio Echevarria, ‘Challenging Transformation's Cliches’ (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College 2006); Colin S. Gray, Recognizing and Understanding Revolutionary Change in Warfare: The Sovereignty of Context, (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College 2006); Stephen Biddle, ‘Speed Kills? Reassessing the Role of Speed, Precision and Situational Awareness in the Fall of Saddam’, Journal of Strategic Studies 30/1 (Feb. 2007); Christopher M. Schnaubelt, ‘Whither the RMA?’, Parameters (Autumn 2007); John Ferris, ‘After the RMA: Contemporary Intelligence, Power and War’, in George Kassimeris and John Buckley (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Modern Warfare (Farnham, UK: Ashgate 2010).

⁵On the Western cottage industry of discovering generations of warfare see Antulio Echevarria, ‘4th, 5th and 6th Generation War’, paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention (New Orleans 2010).

⁶Jan Fredrik Geiner, Egil Daltveit and Palle Ydstebø, ‘Trender I Militære Operasjoner’, FFI-rapport 2010/00692, <http://rapporter.ffi.no/rapporter/2010/00692.pdf>.

⁷Shimon Naveh, In Pursuit of Military Excellence – the Evolution of Operational Theory, in Gabriel Gorodetsky (ed.), The Cummings Center Series (London: Frank Cass 1997), 164. See also Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought (Oxford: OUP 2001), 632–9, and Andrei Kokoshin, Soviet Strategic Though 1917–91 (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1998), 19–40.

⁸Stephen Peter Rosen, ‘The Impact of the Office of Net Assessment on the American Military in the Matter of the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (Aug. 2010), 469–82.

⁹David A. Deptula, ‘Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare’, in Defense and Airpower (2001), 30, note 60, the reference is indirect through work done by Mary Fitzgerald, at <www.aef.org/pub/psbook.pdf>.

¹⁰Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 2010), 49.

¹¹Ibid.

¹²Vitalii Strugovets, ‘Genshtab Postavlen Pod Vertikal Vlasti’, Russkii kur'er, 15 June 2004.

¹³‘Voennye akademiki ne v favore’, Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, 18 Jan. 2008.

¹⁴Makhmud Gareev, ‘Itogi Desiatiletnosti Akademii Voennykh Nauk 2001–2005 I Osnovnye Zadachii Akademii’, Voennaia mysl, no. 2 (2006).

¹⁵‘Voennie akademiki ne v favore’

¹⁶Makhmud Gareev and Vladimir Slipchenko, Budushchaia Voina (Moscow: Politru OGI 2005), 11.

¹⁷Popov, ‘Voennaia Mysl Sovremennoi Rossii’

¹⁸Ibid.

¹⁹Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation, 42–6

²⁰Gareev and Slipchenko, Budushchaia Voina, 103.

²¹Adamsky, Culture of Military Innovation, 42.

²²Makhmud Gareev, ‘Opyt Pobediteliei V Velikoi Voine Ne Mozhet Ustaret’, Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 12 March 2010.

²³Makhmud Gareev, ‘Problemy Strategicheskogo Sderzhivania V Sovremennykh Usloviakh’, in R.M. Timofeev (ed.), Bezopasnost Rossii – 2010 (Moskva: Triumfalnaia Arka 2009).

²⁴Boris Cheltsov and Sergei Volkov, ‘Setevye Voiny Xx Veka’, Vozdushno-kosmicheskaia oborona 41/4 (2008).

²⁵Thomas P. Barnett, ‘The Pentagon's New Map’, Esquire, 1 March 2003, <www.esquire.com/featyres/ESQ0303-MAR_WARPRIMER>.

²⁶Alexandr Burutin, ‘O Nekotorykh Aspektakh Voenno-Technicheskoi Politiki Gosudarstvo V Novoi Redaktsii Voennoi Doktriny Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, in A. Yusupov (ed.), K Novoi Redaktsii Voennoi Doktriny Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Moscow: URSS 2009), 105.

²⁷Ibid., 111.

²⁸Cheltsov and Volkov, ‘Setevye Voiny Xx Veka’.

²⁹Popov, ‘Voennaia Mysl Sovremennoi Rossii’ and Gareev, Budushchaia Voina, 9.

³⁰Popov, ‘Voennaia Mysl Sovremennoi Rossii’.

³¹Vladimir Slipchenko, Voiny Novogo Pokolenia – Distantsionnye I Bezkontaktnye (Moscow: Olma-Press 2004), 32–34.

³²Slipchenko and Gareev, Budushchaia Voina, 42 and 54.

³³Slipchenko, Voiny Novogo Pokolenia – Distantsionnye I Bezkontaktnye, 51.

³⁴Ibid., 329.

³⁵Ibid., 335.

³⁶Vladimir Slipchenko, ‘K Kakoi Voine Dolzhny Gotovitsia Vooruzhennye Sily’, Otechestvennye zapisky, No. 8 (2002), 4.

³⁷Slipchenko, Voiny Novogo Pokolenia – Distantsionnye I Bezkontaktnye, 325.

³⁸Ibid., 318–20

³⁹Ibid., 323.

⁴⁰Slipchenko and Gareev, Budushchaia Voina, 13.

⁴¹Slipchenko, Voiny Novogo Pokolenia – Distantsionnye I Bezkontaktnye, 323.

⁴²Ibid., 325 and Slipchenko and Gareev, Budushchaia Voina, 44.

⁴³Slipchenko, Voiny Novogo Pokolenia – Distantsionnye I Bezkontaktnye, 326 and 335.

⁴⁴Ibid., 328.

⁴⁵Sergei Chekinov, ‘Prognozirovanie Tendentsii Voennogo Iskusstva V Nachalnom Periode Xxi Veka’, Voennaia mysl, No. 7 (2010), 22.

⁴⁶Adamsky, Culture of Military Innovation, 48.

⁴⁷The quote from Makarov is reprinted in Mikhail Rastopshin, ‘Voennaia Mysl Protiv Generalnogo Shtaba’, Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, 12 March 2010.

⁴⁸Andrei Kisliakov, ‘Ballisticheskie Rakety I Glonass V ‘Bardachke’, Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 12 March 2010.

⁴⁹Aleksei Arbatov, Advancing US–Russian Security Cooperation, (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2010), 6.

⁵⁰Makhmud Gareev, Srazhenia Na Voenno-Istoricheskom Fronte (Moscow: INSAN Publishers 2010), 607.

⁵¹Slipchenko, Voiny Novogo Pokolenia – Distantsionnye I Bezkontaktnye, 211–30.

⁵²Alexandr Kondratyev, ‘Stavka Na Voyny Budushchego’, Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 27 June 2008.

⁵³For a detailed study of the Russian perspectives on network-centric warfare, see Roger N. McDermott, Russian Perspective on Network-Centric Warfare, (Ft Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office 2010), <http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Collaboration/international/McDermott/Network-Centric-Warfare.pdf>.

⁵⁴See for example Aleksei Arbatov, ‘Strategicheskii Siurrealizm Somnitelnykh Konseptsii’, Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 5 March 2010.

⁵⁵Adamsky, Culture of Military Innovation, 29.

⁵⁶Author's interview with Aleksei Arbatov, Moscow, Sept. 2007, and Aleksei Arbatov, Uravnenie Bezopasnosti (Moscow: RODP ‘Yabloko’ 2010), 163.

⁵⁷General impression from talks with Russian military experts and journalists in Moscow in June 2010.

⁵⁸Andrei Kokoshin, O Politicheskom Smysle Pobedy V Sovremennoi Voine (Moscow: URSS 2004), Politilogia I Sotsiologia Voennoi Strategii (Moscow: URSS 2005), O Revoliutsii V Voennom Dele V Proshlom I Nastoiashchem (Moscow: URSS 2006), Innovatsionnye Vooruzhennye Sily I Revoliutsia V Voennom Dele (Moscow: URSS 2008).

⁵⁹Aleksandr Golts, ‘O Revoliutsii V Voennom Dele V Proshlom I Nastoiashchem – Interviu S Andreiem Kokoshinym’, Otechestvennye zapisky, No. 5 (2005). 1.

⁶⁰Ibid., 8.

⁶¹Kokoshin, Innovatsionnye Vooruzhennye Sily I Revoliutsia V Voennom Dele, 7.

⁶²Golts, ‘O Revoliutsii V Voennom Dele V Proshlom I Nastoiashchem – Interviu S Andreiem Kokoshinym’, 8.

⁶³Aleksei Arbatov, ‘Voennaia Reforma V Svete Chuzhykh Oshibok’, Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 23 May 2003.

⁶⁴Carolina Vendil Pallin and Fredrik Westerlund, ‘Russia's War in Georgia: Lessons and Consequences’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 20/2 (2009), 407–8.

⁶⁵Kokoshin, Innovatsionnye Vooruzhennye Sily I Revoliutsia V Voennom Dele, 5.

⁶⁶Alexandr Kondratiev, ‘Borba Za Informatsiu Na Osnove Informatsii’, Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 24 Oct. 2008.

⁶⁷Kokoshin, Innovatsionnye Vooruzhennye Sily I Revoliutsia V Voennom Dele, 198–9.

⁶⁸See for example A.E. Kondratiev, ‘Problemnye Voprosy Issledovania Novykh Setetsentricheskikh Konseptsii Vooruzhennykh Sil Vedushchikh Zarubezhnykh Stran’, Voennaia mysl, No. 11 (2009), 63.

⁶⁹Arbatov, ‘Voennaia Reforma V Svete Chuzhykh Oshibok.’

⁷⁰Interview with Vitalii Shlykov at the radio station Ekho Moskvy, 28 Feb. 2010.

⁷¹Pavel Felgengauer, ‘Russian Military Weakness Increases Importance of Strategic Nuclear Forces’, Eurasia Daily Monitor, 11 June 2009.

⁷²This is the interpretation for example of Russian military expert Ivan Safranchuk. Author's interview with Safranchuk, Moscow, April 2010.

⁷³Viktor Miasnikov, ‘Pantsyr-S Vstaniet Na Zashchitu S-400’, Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 26 March 2010.

⁷⁴<http://premier.ru>.