Russia's Military Modernizes

This kyrills (?) issue with Japan isn't really sattled yet, is it? Though a few military muzzles might be apreciated there by the russian leadership. And perhaps they want to play part in the game between China and the US for influence around the China Sea.
Then again, the mid-east is an importand place as well. We shall see.

Vlad Plasmius said:

I think their motivation for a carrier fleet is obvious enough. In fact, I believe their next carrier will be at the Syrian port, if that is built. Russia wants to challenge the U.S. on the sea and a port in Syria will help achieve the result.

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Maybe, but Russia is still having problems paying for day to day maintenance. We have all seen the pictures of the Red Banner Northern Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet rusting at anchor, and they are rather depressing to look at. I was no fan of the Soviet Union, but I thought such proud and beautiful warships deserved a better fate. If Russia wants to reassert her power at sea, she has to actually find a way to pay for overhauling her fleet without selling it off piecemeal. I'm reading over at the "Slava" forum that Russia can't even afford the maintenance on one of her last remaining Kirov class battlecruisers. Again, she needs to get day to day ops under control before worrying about power projection.

Russia is beginning to expand their state assets. Gazprom is buying up all kinds of major natural gas, oil, and coal, groups. They're looking to expand outwards and eventually may merge with Rosneft. They're also expanding their gas operations in the Middle East.

The United Aircraft Building Corporation is under Russian state control and so is Atomprom. Russia is also looking to consolidate metals production under the Russian state. Should all of that take place it will give Russia significant capital to build up their budget. In the past few years Russia's military budget has increased by 300%. At the rate Russia's going, more money will be going into state coffers and their economy will continue growing. If 7% growth is maintained it will give Russia an economy of about $2 trillion. In addition the world's third largest reserves of foreign currency on the order of about $300 billion, Russia has significant state assets to buildup the military.

Not to mention Russia's going to pool some of that cash with the equally massive economic power of India.

This is only going to grow as time goes buy, and eventually Russia will have no real difficulty building up funds for the Russian military.

Vlad Plasmius said:

Russia is beginning to expand their state assets. Gazprom is buying up all kinds of major natural gas, oil, and coal, groups. They're looking to expand outwards and eventually may merge with Rosneft. They're also expanding their gas operations in the Middle East....
This is only going to grow as time goes buy, and eventually Russia will have no real difficulty building up funds for the Russian military.

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I have to partially disagree. While new Russian weapon acquisitions seem to be impressive they will merely patch up holes as hordes of Soviet era equipment will get too old. Soviet Union was dismantled fifteen years ago, many weapons are too old technically or even physically.

Another thing is the sustainability of Russian economic growth. While Russian economy may run wild for some time it's going to hit hard times fairly soon as there is lack of new workforce due to fall in birth numbers during last years of Soviet Union and first years of new Russia. This is also going to hit armed forces as well. Yes, long-term population predictions are always tricky but the impact in age cohorts mostly effecting military (IMHO, 18-27 year olds) will be significant for a long time. Youngest recruits for 2025 are already coming.

Russian rearming cannot be of course anywhere compared to Soviet armed might.Even after rearming it's forces cannot be compared to even what EU countries could put up together. And ultimately the biggest thing lacking with Russia compared to Soviet Union is the lack of appealing ideology.

To be able to effectively to fight a global power Russia would have to be allied with some global power, whether EU, India, China or USA. What we will see after Russian re-arming at tops will be something comparable to Cold War France or UK in sense of power projection ability to either neighbouring countries or globally.

The real question, IMHO, will be what choice does Russia make in age-old defense calculation of quality versus quantity, or operations/personnel/material.

Jon K said:

I have to partially disagree. While new Russian weapon acquisitions seem to be impressive they will merely patch up holes as hordes of Soviet era equipment will get too old. Soviet Union was dismantled fifteen years ago, many weapons are too old technically or even physically.

Another thing is the sustainability of Russian economic growth. While Russian economy may run wild for some time it's going to hit hard times fairly soon as there is lack of new workforce due to fall in birth numbers during last years of Soviet Union and first years of new Russia. This is also going to hit armed forces as well. Yes, long-term population predictions are always tricky but the impact in age cohorts mostly effecting military (IMHO, 18-27 year olds) will be significant for a long time. Youngest recruits for 2025 are already coming.

Russian rearming cannot be of course anywhere compared to Soviet armed might.Even after rearming it's forces cannot be compared to even what EU countries could put up together. And ultimately the biggest thing lacking with Russia compared to Soviet Union is the lack of appealing ideology.

To be able to effectively to fight a global power Russia would have to be allied with some global power, whether EU, India, China or USA. What we will see after Russian re-arming at tops will be something comparable to Cold War France or UK in sense of power projection ability to either neighbouring countries or globally.

The real question, IMHO, will be what choice does Russia make in age-old defense calculation of quality versus quantity, or operations/personnel/material.

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The new russia is turbo capitalism, they have no interest in fighting anyone big. What they will do now is modernise their army make it professional/volounter. They will of curse build missiles and advanced ones to prevent beeing bombed but the new russia can be seen as an arms dealer that will sell to anyone who has the money to pay

And most of the old Soviet equipmet has gotten scraped or will be scraped and not replaced at all, Russia will keep a small (compared to before) professional/volounter army. It will most likely model itself on Great Britain when it comes to equipment i.e haveing a small but very modern arsenal. Atleast i think that will be the result in 5-10 years

Another thing is the sustainability of Russian economic growth. While Russian economy may run wild for some time it's going to hit hard times fairly soon as there is lack of new workforce due to fall in birth numbers during last years of Soviet Union and first years of new Russia. This is also going to hit armed forces as well. Yes, long-term population predictions are always tricky but the impact in age cohorts mostly effecting military (IMHO, 18-27 year olds) will be significant for a long time. Youngest recruits for 2025 are already coming.

Russian rearming cannot be of course anywhere compared to Soviet armed might.Even after rearming it's forces cannot be compared to even what EU countries could put up together. And ultimately the biggest thing lacking with Russia compared to Soviet Union is the lack of appealing ideology.

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Here's Russia's solution: moving out. That means having their corporations purchase outside, build labor pools outside for commercial products, mainly in Africa. As well it means alliances with Iran and India to assist in the low labor pools.

India has a horribly underexploited workforce.

With Russian corporations like Gazprom bringing money to state coffers and allies like India providing additional cheap labor those problems can be alleviated. Also, a tightening of political control in Russia can certainly lead to prevention of the decreasing population by forceful means.

So, I think Russia is taking significant effort to reduce the societal and economic troubles of building a large modern military.

To be able to effectively to fight a global power Russia would have to be allied with some global power, whether EU, India, China or USA. What we will see after Russian re-arming at tops will be something comparable to Cold War France or UK in sense of power projection ability to either neighbouring countries or globally.

Click to expand...

Well, yes, I would say alliance with India and Iran, which could develop into a global power. Then creating European dependence on Russia, would put them in a prime strategic position.

The real question, IMHO, will be what choice does Russia make in age-old defense calculation of quality versus quantity, or operations/personnel/material.

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According to Sergei Ivanov the emphasis will be on maintaining the 1.1 million-man army, but making it increasingly professional and modern.

Ultimately, Russia's methods are very reliable. They look to consolidate all the world's major resource powers in the nuclear and hydrocarbon fields to create a dependency on Russia. They make those resource powers dependent through military sales or political and economic arrangements.

Russia being able to hold these cards as well as a strong nuclear arsenal, possibly expanded with renewed production of IRBMs, would provide the ultimate deterrence.

It's similar to the strategies thought up before World War I. The idea being that of major powers being able to wage total war through use of industrial assets. With Russia this includes nuclear deterrence, a large industrial capacity, major international corporate holdings, and a system of alliances with major skilled and unskilled labor pools.

Vlad Plasmius said:

Ultimately, Russia's methods are very reliable. They look to consolidate all the world's major resource powers in the nuclear and hydrocarbon fields to create a dependency on Russia.

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If you're talking about countries being totally reliant on Russia for energy, I doubt that will happen. Indeed Russia's attempts at using economic/energy resource power to push its neighbours around has backfired in reference to Europe - it made them think about diversifying much more seriously. I don't think Russia really wants to use its resources in a manipulative way, but that's how it's being perceived at the moment.

In regards to other resource-producing countries being totally reliant on Russia, again I don't see that happening.

By the way, basing an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean would be a very stupid thing to do in terms of diplomacy. Indeed there's an issue as to whether it could even happen.

FuManChu said:

If you're talking about countries being totally reliant on Russia for energy, I doubt that will happen. Indeed Russia's attempts at using economic/energy resource power to push its neighbours around has backfired in reference to Europe - it made them think about diversifying much more seriously. I don't think Russia really wants to use its resources in a manipulative way, but that's how it's being perceived at the moment.

In regards to other resource-producing countries being totally reliant on Russia, again I don't see that happening.

By the way, basing an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean would be a very stupid thing to do in terms of diplomacy. Indeed there's an issue as to whether it could even happen.

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I don't think the Russians are even allowed to have a carrier pass through the Bosporus Strait... they get around this with the old Kiev and Kuznetsov carriers by calling them aviation cruisers to get around this restriction.

Well, I'm saying that's apparently their aim, I doubt Russia can achieve it, but they are making inroads towards doing that.

Vlad Plasmius said:

Here's Russia's solution: moving out. That means having their corporations purchase outside, build labor pools outside for commercial products, mainly in Africa. As well it means alliances with Iran and India to assist in the low labor pools.

India has a horribly underexploited workforce.

With Russian corporations like Gazprom bringing money to state coffers and allies like India providing additional cheap labor those problems can be alleviated. Also, a tightening of political control in Russia can certainly lead to prevention of the decreasing population by forceful means.

So, I think Russia is taking significant effort to reduce the societal and economic troubles of building a large modern military.



Well, yes, I would say alliance with India and Iran, which could develop into a global power. Then creating European dependence on Russia, would put them in a prime strategic position.



According to Sergei Ivanov the emphasis will be on maintaining the 1.1 million-man army, but making it increasingly professional and modern.

Ultimately, Russia's methods are very reliable. They look to consolidate all the world's major resource powers in the nuclear and hydrocarbon fields to create a dependency on Russia. They make those resource powers dependent through military sales or political and economic arrangements.

Russia being able to hold these cards as well as a strong nuclear arsenal, possibly expanded with renewed production of IRBMs, would provide the ultimate deterrence.

It's similar to the strategies thought up before World War I. The idea being that of major powers being able to wage total war through use of industrial assets. With Russia this includes nuclear deterrence, a large industrial capacity, major international corporate holdings, and a system of alliances with major skilled and unskilled labor pools.

Click to expand...

Pretty ambitious for a country whose black market economy exceeds the official economy. It still sound like pie-in-the -sky, to some extent. Russia will modernize and improve her military, but the glory days are over. Why would India need an alliance with Russia, when she can chart her own course independently now?