Alexander Khramchikhin. Exercises under the lantern

Exercises under the lantern
Alexander Khramchikhin

Publication date: February 17, 2004

Strategic nuclear forces today remain the only factor allowing us to consider Russia a great power, and the only more or less successfully functioning component of the Armed Forces. The fact that these forces remained generally combat-ready is explained by a number of factors. Firstly, this is the specificity of strategic forces, which (especially the Strategic Missile Forces) are quite compact, small in number and require relatively low costs to maintain combat readiness. Secondly, the Russian leadership has always understood the political, rather than military, significance of strategic forces, and therefore paid more attention to them than to general-purpose forces. A particularly favorable period for the “strategists” was 1997-2001, when the former commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Igor Sergeev, was the Minister of Defense. Moreover, since the Cold War it has been known that even the limited use of nuclear weapons in a real war is practically impossible. An appropriate decision can be made only if the state is doomed to destruction and its leadership wants to take at least a victorious enemy, or at most the entire civilization, to the grave.

From a military point of view, the current exercises of strategic forces and the launch of several ships of the Northern Fleet “attached” to them are “searches under the lantern” (not where they were lost, but where it is brighter). Those components of the Armed Forces that have maintained combat readiness demonstrate this very fact of maintaining combat readiness. It is impossible to understand what specific possible conflict the teachings model. More precisely, everything is clear, the country’s military leadership is preparing for war with the United States, and the political leadership is obediently playing along with it. This follows from the famous “Current tasks for the development of the RF Armed Forces”, published in October last year. The Kremlin and Arbat Square never understood that America will never fight with us. If she needs to destroy us, she will do it without firing a single shot, as happened with the USSR (naturally, it is much easier to do this with Russia, especially since in the last four years we ourselves have been actively moving in this direction). Moreover, today the collapse of Russia is absolutely not beneficial for the Americans, since it will sharply strengthen their main opponents - China and what is commonly called international terrorism (in fact, this is a complex, volatile conglomerate of various forces in the Islamic world).

If we are preparing to fight with the United States, we need to simulate a completely different conflict and conduct completely different exercises. Obviously, these could be exercises of the “aviation against air defense” type, where, on the one hand, Desert Storm and the operation against Yugoslavia are copied, and on the other, methods are developed to repel a massive air strike. Such exercises involve strategic and front-line aviation, anti-aircraft missiles and airborne missiles. There is no doubt that the results of such exercises would be disastrous even if the preparation for them took a long time. The point is not so much the loss of skills among the pilots, especially in front-line aviation, but rather the serious lag of our Air Force behind modern requirements in technical and tactical terms.

It would be no less interesting to repeat, at least on a 1:10 scale, the American operation in Iraq in 2003 with the creation of joint formations, constant interaction between the ground forces and the Air Force, the widespread use of high-tech weapons, the involvement of special forces, the actions of large contingents of troops in a significant separation from rear lines, war at night, the highest tempo of ground offensive. The results of such exercises in our country would be simply catastrophic; It is possible that in this case the number of people willing to talk about the mistakes of the Americans and how the Russian Armed Forces have been strengthening in recent years would have decreased somewhat.

Finally, if we want to prepare for real, and not fictitious, conflicts, we should conduct exercises to transfer several units and formations of the Ground Forces, Airborne Forces and Air Forces from the European part of the country to Transbaikalia and the Far East with an immediate transition to combat operations against a mock enemy. For some reason, Moscow does not notice that in China’s military doctrine Russia is the “unconditional enemy ,” enemy #3 after the United States and Japan, and with all these countries, from the Chinese point of view, “there is an immediate threat of war . ” However, even such exercises would reveal the absolute unpreparedness of the Russian Armed Forces to repel existing external threats. By the way, exercises of strategic forces would make real sense if China were considered as an enemy, but, as already mentioned, we are “at war” with America.

However, the current teachings perfectly reflect the essence of Putin’s rule. The current president himself and all his public actions are purely PR. In general, Putin’s scheme of actions is maintained flawlessly: liberal rhetoric for the West, Soviet-conservative rhetoric for domestic consumption, strengthening bureaucratic structures and repressive bodies, which for some reason are usually confused with strengthening the state, for himself personally. As for the real problems of the country, they are either (and most often) not recognized at all, or the scale of the tasks and the number of interests that must be “stepped on” in the course of solving them completely paralyze the will of the Kremlin. If a choice arises between the interests of Russia and maintaining the rating, in 100% of cases the choice is made in favor of the rating. It is not for nothing that during the past Duma and the ongoing presidential campaigns, no substantive problems were discussed and are not being discussed at all.

The situation in the Armed Forces is a clear reflection of the general trend. Never in the history of mankind has it been possible to preserve the army that served the previous regime during a radical change in the political and economic structure of the state. The army of a new country must be created from scratch. The painful agony of the Soviet Army, which will inevitably end in death, is explained not by financial starvation, but by its incompatibility with modern conditions (even a slight increase in funding for the Armed Forces in recent years has had an amazing effect: the Ministry of Defense is not able to absorb additional funds!). However, the vast majority of government leadership does not understand this, and those who do are overwhelmed by the scale of the task. Therefore, the problem will not be solved, as the Minister of Defense clearly stated ( “the reform is completed” ). At the same time, in public opinion, the only alternative to the concept of the Ministry of Defense, aimed at preserving the agony, seems to be an ugly hack of the Union of Right Forces (if it is implemented, the situation in the Armed Forces will become even worse than if the status quo is maintained).

Accordingly, today's exercises of strategic forces fit perfectly into the scheme of the PR presidency. It is not the part of the armed forces that will have to fight that is taken, but the one that can demonstrate combat capability. Putin is going to continue to be friends with the United States, but he is calmly playing war with them in order to please the generals. The exercises receive wide coverage in the media, which achieves a remarkable pre-election effect. How seriously “those at the top” take this event is evidenced by the fact that the only aircraft carrier in the Russian Navy, Admiral Kuznetsov, is involved in the exercises, but carrier-based aircraft flights from it are not planned. An aircraft carrier from which no planes fly can serve as a wonderful symbol of the state of not only the armed forces, but also the country as a whole.