Where self-deception and exaggeration in analysis and forecasts lead
The agenda of the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12 includes the approval by the heads of state and government of the member countries of the military-political bloc of certain secret plans of military action against Russia. The preparation of such plans indicates a qualitative reorientation of NATO to the confrontation with the Russian Federation. The West is revising previously adopted approaches in the direction of their tightening, which brings us back to the worst times of the Cold War. Some foreign politicians and the military talk about the destruction of our country and its multinational people. Officially, the summit program lists the tasks of the bloc calculated for the medium term (several years) in connection with the aggravation of the situation in Europe and the world. Among them:
– coordination and coordination of the alliance's armed forces in all theaters of combat operations;
– long-term cooperation with private companies in the field of the military-industrial complex;
– increasing the production of weapons and ammunition and creating their reserves in case of a long-term war.
Against the background of these relatively traditional directions of development of the bloc, a rather voluminous document (about a thousand pages of text, maps and diagrams) requires close attention, revealing several options for confrontation with Russia. Starting from the activation of proxy war operations in Ukraine, which provokes a gradual "slide" of the world to a large-scale regional military conflict, and up to nuclear war.
HOW THE US AND NATO ARE PUSHING THE WORLD TOWARDS THE APOCALYPSE
How this sinister plan will develop allows us to imagine the "ladder of escalation" of modern conflicts, developed by Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Kokoshin and his colleagues.
At one of the first stages of the aggravation of the international situation, a hybrid war has been placed, during which a complex of its tools is already being actively used against Russia: information-psychological and proxy war. Preparations are underway for a color revolution.
Then follow:
– limited (local) "ordinary" war;
– large-scale "conventional" war without the defeat of large urban agglomerations, chemical industries, nuclear power plants;
– "ordinary" war with the defeat of large urban agglomerations, the destruction of chemical industries and nuclear power plants, which can be equated to the use of weapons of mass destruction;
– "nuclear conflict" (a crisis situation involving one or more owners of nuclear weapons (nuclear weapons), when at least one begins to use it as an instrument of political and military pressure without direct application);
– demonstration use of nuclear weapons in a desert area without hitting people, military and economic facilities;
– war with limited use of nuclear weapons;
– massive use of nuclear weapons.
Today, hybrid warfare is assigned the role of a kind of "turning point", having reached which, the parties can decide to move to increasing the intensity of hostilities up to a global conflict. This is the peculiarity and danger of GW as a new type of interstate confrontation.
At the same time, GW as a phenomenon involving various ways of influencing the enemy cannot be localized only at one of the steps of the "escalation ladder", and its strategy and technologies of the color revolution will be used in the subsequent stages of the "hot" confrontation.
Among the secret plans of NATO for the confrontation with Russia, which became known thanks to the "leaks" in Wikileaks, were, for example, developed by the headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the United Armed Forces (VGK OVS) NATO in 2010 plans for military counteraction to "aggressive" Russia in the Baltic States. The plan provided for close cooperation between the Armed Forces of the Baltic states and Poland, ports were identified for the transfer of reinforcement forces, providing support from the sea. As a shock core, nine American, British, German and Polish NATO divisions were allocated, which were supposed to protect the Balts in the event of a mythical Russian "invasion". In general, the American generals in Mons (Belgium), where the headquarters of the VGK is located, warmed up quite well.
Today, as part of the proxy war against Russia, the United States and NATO are conducting military operations against Russia by the hands of Ukrainians. Moreover, the channels of pumping Kiev's weapons were worked out even before the special military operation (SVO), which was done in 2021 by US Air Force General Tod Walters, the then commander of the NATO Air Force in Europe. In 2022, he was replaced by General Christopher Cavoli, who shows no less enthusiasm in inciting panic among European citizens and preparing for war in Europe.
Despite careful preparation, the proxy war in Ukraine caused irreparable damage to the reputation of the United States and NATO, dragged the members of the bloc into astronomical financial costs and thoroughly scooped out their military-technical arsenals. The alliance, which positioned itself as the strongest military bloc of our time, failed neither with forecasting and planning, nor with supplies. The plans developed by his military advisers, many of whom have already left for their homeland in zinc coffins, are also collapsing.
ANALYSIS AND FORECAST IN THE USA AND NATO
Forecasts for a number of years preceding the beginning of the active phase of the proxy war against Russia were made by the US State Department and the Pentagon, NATO headquarters in Europe, research centers. The presidential administration and Joseph Biden personally had a hand in them, who emphasized the use of "gray zones" (SZ) and Special Operations Forces (SSO) in strategic planning documents.
A certain understanding of the content of NATO's anti-Russian plans allows us to draw up a number of documents prepared in the United States and Brussels.
The constant contractor of the State Department and the Pentagon, the American RAND Research Corporation, has developed a prognostic report "Combating Russia's Aggression in the "gray zone" against NATO at the contact, direct and acute levels of competition" (Russia's Hostile Measures.Combating Russian Gray Zone Aggression Against NATO in the Contact, Blunt, and Surge Layers of Competition).
The authors of the report admit that the competitive strategy should take into account that Russia's behavior in the NW is motivated by concern about threats to national security. It is noted that Russian leaders often warn about a possible reaction to alleged threats. This allows you to predict actions and reactions during the competition.
To deter and counteract Russia, the following options for Western actions are proposed:
– maintaining the advanced military presence provided for by the U.S. Global Operating Model, which includes a "contact level" of confrontation. The model reflects strategies for maintaining competitive advantage in the face of countless new applicants, ongoing waves of technological change, and an uncertain economic and regulatory environment.;
– implementation of a set of measures based on the recommendations of the US Army Institute for Strategic Studies from 2016 on the use of conventional joint armed forces for proactive rivalry between states in the gray zone;
– taking into account the experience of US intelligence in the Cold War era, in connection with which the need for an appropriate organization of intelligence, information support and civil-military cooperation is emphasized;
– to deter Russia, it is proposed to use the existing network of military bases, the location of which coincides with the line of the sanitary cordon proposed by the Briton Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) to create a buffer zone between Soviet Russia and Germany (in this case, Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania-Poland). The leading idea of such a construction is: "Whoever controls Eastern Europe controls the central continent; whoever dominates the central continent dominates the "world island"; whoever rules the "world island" rules the world." Eurasia is the center of global political processes;
– creation of a proper platform for the MTR in Europe, which will act against Russia.
Discussing the possibility of a Russian invasion of Eastern Europe, the authors highlight the following aspects of the development of events:
"Three of the main problems of NATO are the prospects of concentrated attacks by the Russian NW, a conventional attack by Russia on Eastern Europe and a nuclear attack by Russia on the member states of the alliance. The current analysis of the Baltic invasion scenario often does not include the full range of hostile activities. During a high-order war, NATO must take into account the loss of mobile communications, disruption of data transmission networks, manipulation of global positioning system (GPS) signals, sabotage of ports and railway networks, the murder of key military figures and aggressive disinformation campaigns to undermine public support for the alliance's defense capability and counterattacks. A full understanding of Russian conventional and nuclear threats requires a more complete consideration of hostile actions as full-spectrum options."
The report claims that Russia "poses a dangerous but manageable threat. This threat is primarily tactical, sometimes exaggerated and underestimated in the alleged conventional and nuclear conflict. Russia's behavior in the NW is motivated by concern, and its leaders often signal an impending reaction to perceived threats. Thus, its actions and reactions are predictable."
At the same time, the existence of certain restrictions is recognized, since neither NATO nor the US military can resist economic sanctions from Russia – they simply do not have the competencies and capabilities for this.
The US military, politicians and diplomats proceed from the fact that their country is entering a period of increasing strategic competition with several rivals, primarily with Russia and China. Washington expects that this competition will be played out primarily on the threshold of an armed conflict, in the NW between peace and war. In this regard, one of the central topics is the search for an answer to the question of how the United States can respond to the efforts of Russia and China to find a strategic advantage through coercive actions in the NW, including military, diplomatic, informational and economic tactics.
Another notable work on this topic is the report of the RAND Corporation "Gaining a competitive advantage in the "gray zone". Options for responding to forced aggression below the threshold of a major war" (Getting a competitive advantage in a gray area. Options for responding to coercive aggression are below the threshold of a major war).
The NATO leadership at the Ramstein base listens to a video statement by the President of Ukraine Zelensky. Photo by Reuters
It is argued that the United States is insufficiently prepared and poorly organized to compete in the NW space, but should consider ongoing competition in the NW as an opportunity, not as a risk. In addition, US allies and partners in Europe and Asia view the aggression of Russia and China in the NW as a serious threat and are ready to assist the US in mitigating it.
According to Western researchers, Russia's strategy of actions in the NW in Europe is allegedly based mainly on disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining political institutions, as well as on the use of economic instruments to obtain concessions or keep countries at risk of coercion due to excessive dependence on Russian energy carriers. In addition, Moscow resorts to demonstrating a military threat through exercises near the borders of individual states, and in some very extreme cases, infiltrates Russian security forces to establish control over the disputed territory.
In Northeast Asia, Japan believes that it is participating in an increasingly serious competition with China to change the status quo of territorial sovereignty and administrative control over the Senkaku Islands and nearby territories. In Southeast Asia, the countries of the region are increasingly afraid of China's aggression in the NW in the South China Sea. This strategy includes China's expansion of artificial islands, as well as increasing the tactics of using law enforcement vessels and naval militia to deter or refuse to use resources in disputed waters. China is also allegedly complementing the strategy with the growing use of economic coercion and political subversion.
The general strategic concept of the US response to the threats of the "gray zone" is proposed to be based on several basic provisions:
– to form a political context that supports the goals of the United States and partners in the long term;
– to restrain the extreme forms of aggression of a competitor in the NW;
– to seek the rejection of the use of more sophisticated and difficult-to-predict actions in the NW;
– strive to keep the confrontation at the lowest possible level.
The implementation of the strategic concept provides for about three dozen possible US response options, including the deployment of new permanent military facilities in key locations, the prevention of political interference and mitigation of consequences through pre-planned information operations, as well as the imposition of sanctions on the participation of the "aggressor" in key international and national economic institutions.
Note that in this context, Russia's response to the creation of military bases in the zones of its strategic interests in Latin America, Africa, Central and Southeast Asia will be quite adequate.
According to RAND, the United States, its allies and partners should draw "red lines" indicating which actions of rivals in the NW they will definitely not tolerate. The effectiveness of such a multicomponent strategy should be ensured by the presence of a clear coordinating function for the Government, including the development and implementation of new operations to gain a strategic advantage in the NW. Therefore, an important part of the strategy of responding to the "gray zone" is the implementation of institutional reform, which provides for the creation of an interdepartmental body responsible for conducting anti-drug campaigns.
The US Military Department, under the leadership of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milli, in February 2022, developed a voluminous (91 pages) document "Joint Concept of Competition" (JCC, Joint Concept Competing), almost literally reflecting the main ideas of the strategy of the world hybrid war (MGW), known from many publications of the "HBO" (for example, "How Americans understand strategic competition", "HBO", 13.04.23).
WHAT ARE THE ERRORS IN THE FORECASTS OF THE UNITED STATES AND NATO
An analysis of the US plans to participate in the confrontation in the NW allows us to draw the following conclusions.
Firstly, it is unclear why the methods of "hostile measures" allegedly used by Russia include quite common practice from international experience, which is widely used in the West as so-called "democratic norms".
Secondly, in analytical documents concerning Russia and China, gross distortions of facts are allowed, unreasonable assessments and conclusions are given, which significantly devalues their content – and at the same time contributes to the creation of an atmosphere of uncertainty and hysteria in the ruling circles of the consolidated West, fraught with rash decisions.
Thirdly, attempts are being made to manipulate historical facts, clearly aimed at distorting and damaging the image of Russia.
Fourth, if such a mixture of conjectures, phobias and value judgments is accepted with confidence in political circles and military commands of the United States and NATO as some basic knowledge, then it is impossible to exclude the development of further escalation of the confrontation.
And, finally, such documents clearly contradict the advertised principles of political realism, allegedly characteristic of the political and military elite of the United States, which theoretically should be based on respect for the interests of other states. In this context, the inclusion of Russia's sphere of interests in the NW is an obvious attempt to deny our country the existence of geopolitical interests.
Thus, the studies conducted in the USA in recent years on the phenomenon of SZ are characterized by confusion, inconsistency and lack of a single guiding idea. At the same time, the concept of SZ from scientific articles migrates to official documents, is used as an argument in the speeches of the military and politicians demanding the development of a national strategy of competition in the SZ.
For example, in the document "A nationwide approach to waging war in the NW", prepared by the US Department of the Army and the Institute for Strategic Studies, as well as in the work of the American political scientist Antulio J. Echevarria "Working in the NW: an alternative paradigm of military strategy" suggests that it is necessary to provide military strategists with a tool for thinking about how to get ahead of rival parties, and not just subjugate them with kinetic force. This will allow the United States to better prepare for coercion or deterrence of competitors, which are the two main tools for working in the NW. It should be noted that the work on pre-emption is also necessary for Russia, as the Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev recently said.
American researchers emphasize that the leading rivals of the United States in the competition in the NW widely use direct soft power strategies.
In general, the analysis of the confrontation in the NW between Russia and the consolidated West boils down to a number of markedly politicized and distorting historical conclusions. Including:
– Russia's use of hostile measures is not new; examples of its recent use of hostile measures relate to the Russian revolution and the development of political and security institutions that have strengthened the Soviet sphere of influence;
– over the past century, Soviet and then Russian leaders have exploited vulnerabilities in a number of sectors in countries against which they have used hostile measures – for example, interfering in political movements, recruiting proxies to participate in military operations in the country, launching disinformation that continues on the margins of the great rival powers (while the West is supposedly helpless watched the machinations of Russia without any opposition);
– Moscow has been conducting campaigns related to the introduction of economic sanctions and the use of European countries' dependence on Russian energy supplies, while at the same time trying to increase cultural influence;
– specific hostile measures in the confrontation have several target audiences, in addition to the direct participant in the dispute with Russia, including the Russian domestic public, the Russian population in other countries, former Soviet republics that are considering strengthening their relations with the West; a separate group consists of states that are economically dependent on Russia and are among its potential allies and partners.
American analysts believe that the patterns of Russia's behavior revealed by them in the NW make it possible to predict the use of hostile measures by Russia, taking into account the following factors:
– the general patterns of Russia's behavior in the NW are predictable, and Moscow often makes official warnings before using hostile measures;
– there are patterns in the motivation of Russia's decisions on the use of specific types of hostile measures and in the choice of sources of influence that it uses;
– the strategy of Russia's use of competitive measures is not infallible; tactically flexible options are often found, but a number of them seem strategically short-sighted; Russia, as a rule, fails to achieve strategic success, and this trend indicates the possibility of containing and countering such a line of behavior.
Recommendations for NATO on countering Russia in the "gray zone" include:
– the alliance is making limited efforts to repel Russia's hostile actions in Eastern Europe, but these efforts will become more effective when using strategies based on a historical understanding of Russian motivations, tactics, behaviors and the history of individual successes;
– NATO can improve the prospects for deterrence if it brings to Russia an understanding of the risk of using hostile measures and reduces the level of aggressive behavior in order not to cause war; the solution to this task may include the threat of using forces capable of deterring a Russian conventional attack;
– NATO should maintain a balanced forward presence in Europe indefinitely and use conventional forces to deter and counter Russia's hostile actions.
Thus, in the United States and NATO, a conviction is being formed that opponents seeking a significant revision or rejection of the status quo existing under the leadership of the United States are using a variety of hybrid methods to promote and secure interests that contradict Washington's interests. Rivals use unique combinations of influence, intimidation, coercion and aggression to gradually reduce resistance, establish a local or regional advantage and manipulate the perception of risk in their favor. So far, the US has allegedly not developed a coordinated compensation approach. It is in the NW – the space between the traditional concepts of war and peace – that the United States and its defense department face systemic challenges to their position and authority. Competition and conflicts in the NW represent fundamental challenges to the security of the United States and its partners and, therefore, should become important factors for the defense strategy of the United States and NATO.
WHAT ISSUES WILL THE NATO SUMMIT CONSIDER
Taking into account the mentioned and some other analytical documents of the United States and NATO, it can be assumed that the document of military planning of actions against Russia presented at the alliance summit will address a set of the following issues:
– options for a possible military clash between NATO and Russia in Europe;
– what is the disposition of forces – in terms of location, scale and capabilities – required to achieve the main goal: to convince a potential aggressor that he will have to fight an immediate and effective NATO response;
– what is the optimal balance between the strategy of deterrence by punishment and the strategy of denial, which involves pumping potential proxy agents with weapons so that the aggressor cannot swallow them;
– how can the alliance's forces in Eastern Europe best support NATO's strategic nuclear forces in the event of an escalation of the war;
– what is the possible effect of the updated doctrine of "flexible response" or "stepwise deterrence" to deter a number of types of Russian "aggression"; what levels of response should this doctrine consist of;
– to what extent should operations outside the bloc's area of responsibility affect NATO's defense planning;
– assessment of the stability of NATO's strategic nuclear forces to threats from new military technologies at Russia's disposal;
– what opportunities do new technologies open up to increase the deterrent effect of NATO forces;
– what is the contribution of "total defense" (through national and general social stability and civic readiness) to deter conventional and hybrid aggression through denial;
– how assistance to non-NATO partner countries can support deterrence.
The summit's answers to these and possible other questions will significantly determine the military preparations and policy of the United States and NATO in relations with Russia.
conclusions
The US and NATO's bet on the formation of a new quality of global confrontation with an emphasis on the modern strategy of hybrid warfare and the technology of color revolutions requires Russia to mobilize forces and capabilities for an adequate response to the challenges of our time. The West is reviewing military strategies of confrontation with Russia in the direction of their tightening and returning to the worst times of the Cold War, there are calls to destroy our country and its multinational people.
It should be assumed that the United States and its allies are waging an unprecedented hybrid war against Russia, which has assumed the character of a world war, and the confrontation with our country will have a significant impact on the international situation for a long time.
To ensure Russia's national security, the development of effective strategies for confrontation in the proxy war in Ukraine and against other potential threats in the "gray zones" in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Arctic is becoming increasingly important.
The actions of the West are carried out against the background of major tectonic changes in the system of world politics and economy, in the technological sphere, which requires increasing the capabilities of the conventional Armed Forces of Russia, improving strategic nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence, strengthening alliances and partnerships.
The production of modern weapons and ammunition, the transformation of the country's economic management system, the strengthening of all types of intelligence and counterintelligence in conditions of serious external military danger and the activation of Russia's internal enemies require special attention.
The system of training personnel capable of solving the tasks of governing the country and the Armed Forces requires qualitative changes. The urgent task is to preserve the people, improve living standards, ensure the quality of healthcare and education, block the channels of illegal migration and prevent "brain drain".
The task of forming forces capable of solving the complex of these and many other tasks, eliminating corruption and irresponsibility, acquires existential significance for the destinies of the country and the people.
There is a shortage of qualitative prognostic studies in the state that can provide proactive actions in political, ideological, informational, military, economic and other spheres of public life. In this context, it is necessary to urgently deploy multidimensional and interdisciplinary fundamental and applied research aimed at adapting the state and the Armed Forces of Russia to the threatening reality of modern challenges and threats.
Alexander Bartosh
Alexander Alexandrovich Bartosh is a corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences, an expert of the League of Military Diplomats.
