Hybrid conflicts between allies, Germany's feminist strategy, tanks need wings
Our attention is focused on analytical articles by Russian military theorists and political scientists from online and paper publications published in September and October. Some of their themes and plots have not yet received coverage in HBO. Others have been treated in detail, but the authors offer non-trivial views or approaches.
A WAR THAT CANNOT BE STOPPED
Ivan Timofeev. "Hybrid War and Hybrid Peace" (website of the Russian Council for International Policy (INF))
"Gaps have clearly appeared in the conceptual apparatus of international analytics: the new realities of international relations were not sufficiently described by existing concepts. The rapid spread of the concept of hybrid warfare has become a spontaneous reaction to such gaps. While the concept suffers from excessive blurriness. It is more suitable for journalism than for science... It is also advisable to ask about the opposite concept – a hybrid world. If there is a hybrid war, is it possible to transform it into a hybrid world? Is modern diplomacy capable of negotiating a hybrid world and reaching any sustainable agreements to end hybrid wars?"
"The main problem of hybrid warfare is that it is easy to start and even easier to disperse its momentum. It is extremely difficult, if at all possible, to stop it. Moreover, a smoldering and self-sustaining hybrid war may well devalue political agreements and the efforts of diplomats... Diplomats themselves become instruments of hybrid war, but do not have the tools to stop it, even if they have the desire or the political will to do so. Developing diplomatic tools to achieve peace in a hybrid war is a non–trivial task. To some extent, the future of diplomacy as an institution depends on its solution."
"Summarizing many interpretations, we can identify a couple of common features attributed to the phenomenon of hybrid warfare. The first feature is the existence of a conflict situation between States, in which one side is trying to impose its will on the other, to force it to fulfill certain requirements, to harm it, to achieve a change in its foreign and domestic policy.
The second feature is the use of non–military methods to win the conflict... Many means of hybrid warfare are not related to armed struggle. Among them are economic sanctions, information and propaganda campaigns (including the dissemination of fake information), bribery of political forces and movements, the organization of protests, the collection and use for hostile purposes of information of various types and from various sources. Today, the increasing use of artificial intelligence in social networks is being added to such a set."
"Hybrid wars – or at least hybrid operations – are possible even between allies. For example, the United States and Turkey are NATO allies. However, Washington uses economic sanctions against Ankara, individual Turkish individuals and organizations, and supports anti-Turkish forces. Scandals with secret wiretapping of leaders of allied countries periodically occur. Democratic elections are overshadowed by the tacit participation of intelligence agencies, lobbying groups, ethnic communities… The tools of power and coercion are used against both enemies and friends. And in the second case, they are even more effective. Back in the late 1990s, Daniel Drezner, a well-known researcher of sanctions policy, showed this pattern on empirical material, calling it a "sanctions paradox".
THE DEFENSE BECOMES STRONGER THAN THE OFFENSIVE
Rostislav Ishchenko. "Lessons from the Middle East crisis" (Ukraine.ru)
"The Syrian and Ukrainian campaigns of the Russian troops, the actions of the Azerbaijani army in the 2nd Karabakh War showed not only the dramatically increased role of drones, modern ATGMs and MANPADS, as well as maneuverable light infantry (including civilian vehicles), but also the ability of those equipped with these weapons, trained to use them and tactically prepared for a new type militant wars for a long time on equal terms to resist the regular army in isolation from external support or with minimal external support. Such a war is only hindered by state structures, since administrative and civilian facilities serve as priority targets for massive demoralizing strikes."
"Proxy wars were waged more than once in the twentieth century. The US lost the proxy war to the USSR in Vietnam, the USSR lost to the USA in Afghanistan, the USA almost won the proxy war in Syria, but after the appearance of the Russian contingent there, they hopelessly lost it. Iran has been waging a proxy war against Israel for years, and Israel against Iran. Iran won the proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen."
"The events of recent campaigns, in which new military technologies were used, show that the defense is once again becoming stronger than the offensive. But the defense is flexible, maneuverable, deeply echeloned. Numerical and even technical superiority, including absolute superiority in certain types of weapons, has ceased to be a guarantee of victory. Professionally proficient in new military technologies and new tactics, the enemy is able to put an army significantly superior to him in terms of total strength and technical power in a difficult situation."
IN GERMAN STRAIGHTFORWARDLY
Vasily Belozerov. "Germany Constructs a strategic culture" ("Russia in Global Politics, 2023, Volume 21, No. 5).
"On June 14, 2023, the National Security Strategy (NSS) of Germany was published for the first time in history. The developers characterize Germany's security policy as integrated, that is, covering all its aspects and tools. It is defined as defensive, resistant to negative external influences and resistant to environmental changes (wehrhaft, resilient und nachhaltig)".
"For several decades, German society has been painfully experiencing responsibility for the consequences of Germany's actions for the peoples of the world, the "guilt complex" and the "defeated nation syndrome" have become an integral part of political culture…
With the beginning of the Russian special military operation, the German political discourse has changed dramatically: on February 27, 2022, Olaf Scholz, speaking at an emergency meeting of the Bundestag, proclaimed a change of epochs, a sharp increase in Germany's military capabilities."
"The Strategy says directly in German about Germany's claims to raise its status on the world stage: "Germany is ready to assume global responsibility."
"The building of Germany's political identity, judging by the NSC, is based on the opposition of Russia, which "for the foreseeable period remains the greatest threat to peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic space ..." The document says about the rejection of the division of spheres of influence, support for the G7 and G20, and at the same time does not recognize the institutions created in the world arena by other players. The NSC also contains outrage at actions aimed at blocking decisions in the UN Security Council. This is, of course, about Russia and China."
"It is unclear how to implement the intentions of the federal government declared in the National Security Council "to turn Europe into a climate-neutral continent." Our country is also to blame for this "fight against windmills": in the developments of the German Foreign Policy Society, published in October 2022, the climate security policy is directly linked to the "aggressive war of Russia".
"In the Strategy, the foreign policy and development policy of Germany is repeatedly characterized as feminist. It means... increasing the role of women based on their ability to see and solve problems differently. However, there is no clear answer to what was wrong in the country before the turn towards feminism. By the way, Pistorius's predecessors as defense minister have been women three times in a row since December 2013. The foreign and security policy pursued by Germany ... in a number of parameters actually seems masculine, militant and radical."
EACH TANK HAS A DRONE
V.A. Lesin. "Tanks of the Future" ("Military Thought", No. 9, 2023)
"Attempts to advance to the so-called "deserted" battlefield continue abroad, where high-precision weapons (WTO), combat and support robots operating in a single information and intelligence space will reign supreme... It is impossible to ignore the views of the Russian military theorist and historian Yevgeny Eduardovich Messner, set out by him in his work "The Curse of Military Equipment". He wrote about the worship of technology in the armed struggle: "The military is not to blame for this – blame those civilians, ignorant strategists who everywhere seized power over the generals: they replaced the formula "to fight with people with the support of military equipment" with the unnatural formula "to fight with equipment serviced by people".
"Individual protection continues to be the main factor in maintaining the combat capability of tanks in the conditions of close fire combat ...The principle of "multilayering" provides for the consistent use of protection against detection and recognition, prevention of falling into the tank, protection in case of hit and reduction of damage during penetration of armor protective devices. The first frontier of individual protection ... is a comprehensive reduction of the unmasking features of the tank using means of reducing visibility, imitation and distortion of the image of the machine in various ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The prevention of getting into tanks can be achieved by actively countering anti-tank weapons (homing) by jamming the guidance channels, as well as their active defeat on the flight path at a safe distance from the vehicle. Protection of the crew and the most important systems of the tank in the event of a PTSD hit today is provided by passive armor protection and the use of "dynamic" ("explosive") protection.
Reducing damage during armor penetration can be achieved by a number of measures, such as: improving the layout of the tank; isolating the crew from ammunition and fuel; the use of fragmentation screens, shock and vibration reduction devices; the use of individual anti-fragmentation suits and helmets... etc."
"The existing problems of finding the optimal combination of the basic properties and characteristics of the machines being created also lead to some disadvantages of machines with an uninhabited tower. Among them: the impossibility of guaranteed protection of the equipment of an uninhabited combat module from modern PTS; the need for duplication and redundancy of weapons control, sighting and observation complex and power plant; insufficient visibility from the vehicle... The effective combat use of tanks with an uninhabited tower ... is seen under the condition of close interaction with other samples of the combined-arms formation, leveling their shortcomings. This applies primarily to fire support vehicles and heavy infantry fighting vehicles… The problem of ensuring the protection of tanks continues to be a key one, while the possibilities of using well–known principles and means of protection against PTSD, including active protection complexes, have approached the limit of development determined by the "efficiency-cost" criterion.
"It is assumed that the tank of the future will have a combat mass of no more than 43 tons, a crew of three people, reach a maximum speed of up to 100 km per hour, hit targets beyond the line of sight at a range of up to 8 km, have active and passive means of protection capable of countering all types of modern PTS, have increased stealth on the field to be air transportable and capable of conducting combat operations on any theater in conditions of the use of both conventional and nuclear weapons."
"As part of the machine, it is advisable to have an unmanned aerial vehicle capable of performing surveillance, reconnaissance and relay control signals in the near zone. It is also possible to use a ground-based remotely controlled robot as part of the vehicle to solve the tasks of terrain reconnaissance, detecting minefields and performing the task of sentry protection."
Arkady Threw up
Arkady Fomich Vomited – journalist, writer.