By: Jacek Bartosiak
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia transformed its military from a sluggish, archaic institution to a fighting force better able to wage modern warfare, an essential function of which is to serve as a foreign policy tool for the government in Moscow. This is perhaps best illustrated by the composition of the armed forces itself.
The Pride of Russia
The great pride of Russia, and the basis of its regional power projection, is its soldiers. They are divided into four divisions (98 and 106 Guardian descent, 7th Guards), four brigades (11, 31, 56 and 83) and one Spetsnaz brigade (45), though, notably, Spetsnaz is supported by 20,000-30,000 personnel. Thereare also airborne troops capable of rapid invasion or quick response, albeit intended to operate in post-Soviet areas.
Unlike in Western armies, including the U.S. Army, Russian units are very “heavy,” supported by tanks, heavy infantry fighting vehicles and tracked vehicles required in the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium.
The Russians do not have a modern air force by Western standards, but it is good enough to defeat opponents on the periphery. Russia’s integrated air defense system, on the other hand, is very modern – it was one of the few things Moscow never stopped developing, even after the Soviet Union collapsed.
The Russian navy, which is headquartered in St. Petersburg, boasts four regional fleets: the Northern Fleet, the Pacific Fleet, the Baltic Fleet and the Black SeaFleet. Together they have between 15 percent and 25 percent of the number of ships they had during the Soviet era.
The average age of their ships is 20-25 years. (These numbers exclude the Caspian Flotilla, which operates in closed waters.)
Traditionally, submarines were the backbone of the Russian navy, but 75 percent of the 61 submarines in service are already over 20 years old.
Russian Naval Bases and Assets
(click to enlarge)
The base of the most powerful Russian fleet – the Northern Fleet – is located in Severomorskin Kola Bay, the only ice-free place with access from the Atlantic.
It consists of seven or eight nuclear submarine carriers armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles (depending on your source), Russia’s only atomic cruiser and its only Russian aircraft carrier. Nuclear ballistic missile carriers can reach targets in the U.S., theoretically even from their own wharf.
They are protected by submarine-hunting impact vessels and submarines with maneuvering rockets, of which there are 16 in the Northern Fleet, and by conventional submarines, of which there are six in the Northern Fleet.
The Pacific Fleet, with its bases in Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, includesnuclear submarines carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles and conventional diesel-powered submarines (nine pieces) intended for the coastal waters of the North Pacific.
A new class of Kalina conventional submarines with air-independent propulsion, which allows for a long-lasting immersion of quieter and smaller conventional ships, is expected to enter service after 2020. The Pacific Fleet also has a large number of Udaloy-class destroyers sailing on patrols throughout theWestern Pacific.
The Baltic Fleet has degraded since the end of the Soviet Union, which lost several ports when the Baltic states regained independence. The largest war port is now Baltiysk in Kaliningrad region. It controls the actions of the Polish navy right at its main approach to the Gulf of Gdansk, and the port ofSt. Petersburg.
The Black Sea Fleet is similarly afflicted, having lost its ports in Ukraine and Crimea after1991. But now that Crimea has been annexed and restrictions have beenplaced on Ukraine’s sea access, Moscow is implementing plans to strengthennaval forces in this basin.
The Caspian Flotilla completely dominates the drainage basin, equipped as it is with modern Kalibr long-range maneuvering rockets with striking capabilities against all of Central Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. (It demonstratedas much in October 2015 by striking Syria.)
The value of the Kalibr system is that it can be fired from relatively small mobile platforms such as corvettes and that it has a range of 2,500 kilometers (1,500miles) – with relatively low rocket detection to boot. Most of theCaspian Flotilla is stationed at the base in Makhachkala, which has better access to water than Astrakhan, its traditional port.
Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence
The Soviet Union became a nuclear power in 1949. The Cold War arms race with the U.S. resulted in high numbers of warheads and their means of delivery, the number of warheads in the rockets, the direction of possible attacks, and homing locations – especially land-based near the enemy's borders (Cuba,West Germany and Turkey).
Russia’s comparative weakness after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the United States’ comparative strength, made nuclear weapons all the more valuable to Moscow. They allowed Russia to maintain its status as a superpower and gave the Kremlin a ton of leverage as it pursued its interests.
In 2010, the “NEWSTART” treaty curbed the number of nuclear warheads to 1,735, but in practice, it applied only to strategic warheads, not tactical warheads. Russia now has somewhere between 2,000 and 2,700 tactical nuclear warheads, depending on which source you use.
NEW START allows Russia to modernize and expand its nuclear arsenal and in fact has almost completely replaced its Soviet-era arsenal. By 2021, Soviet-era munitions are expected to constitute only 2 percent of Russia’s total nuclear forcé.
Of the three means of strategic nuclear delivery – intercontinental missiles, submarines and strategic bombers – ballistic ground-to-ground missiles from the Sovietera make up only half of the current number and are to leave service in2022.
They have largely been replaced by SS-27 Topol-M missiles, with thenew RS-24 Yars and RS-26 Rubezh also joining the line. The SS-28 missiles with maneuvering warheads that are currently under development are expected to be able to avoid U.S. missile defenses, according to Russia.
FR nuclear missiles are divided equally between above ground silos andrail launchers on land. In March 2018, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had new rockets with completely new capabilities, including allegedly nuclear-powered maneuvering rockets with virtually unlimited range, as well as a hypersonic missile, though it’s unclear if this is true.
The second means of delivery consists of 10 Dolgorukiy-class ballistic missile carrier submarines. Russia plans to complete the launch of new missiles for SS-N-32 Bulava submarines, each with six warheads separately maneuvering (reentry vehicles).
Moscow is also modernizing the third means of delivery: the strategic bomb fleet ofTu-160s and Tu-95MSs. The first bomber is to be reopened on the production line, and the second will introduce new versions to the line.Works on the new PAK DA bomber are also underway.
Given such a vastnuclear arsenal, and given the disproportionate value of the munitions that comprise it, Moscow abandoned the Soviet policy of no first use.
Officially, Russia seems prepared to use nuclear weapons not just inresponse to a nuclear threat but in response to conventional threats as well, especially if it “threatens Russia's survival in a nuclear or conventional war.” The notion of “survival” in the context of Russia – with its geography, disintegrative tendencies and historically labile power systems – is dangerously fluid.
Strategic games and simulations suggest that if Russian forces face destruction in a theater or operational direction that endangers the state apparatus, then Moscow would use nuclear weapons under the so-called “escalate to deescalate theory.”
First floated in the1990s, the general idea behind the theory is that a low-power tactical warhead could, in fact, stabilize a potential conflict because itproduces the psychological effect of “escalating dominance” – that is, creating the impression of strength that confers to Russia the ability tocontrol the escalation process.
Russia can then count on achieving victory in the conflict by using low-power nuclear weapons on an operational scale, or to intimidate a state that has no nuclear weapons or is a member of a broader alliance.
The interests of the other countries of the alliance are then separated from the interests of the country against which nuclear weapons would be used. Most often, the remaining countries of the alliance then tend to sacrifice the interests of the member at risk in exchange for a promise to stop escalating, thereby resolving the conflict on terms favorable to Russia and altering thebalance of power in the region. In other words, Moscow escalates to deescalate.
By this logic, if conflict broke out between Russia and China or NATO, Moscow would opt fornuclear strikes to end a conventional war, assuming that the opponent would accept a loss or concession to Russia instead of risking furthernuclear escalation. However, the most recent versions of Russia’s defensedoctrines make no mention of deescalation through nuclear attack.
The National Security Strategy issued in December 2015 is especially antagonistic, in that it directly accuses the United States of “instigating instability” and threatening Russia's interests and mentions the never-ending role of force as a factor in international relations. But it elides nuclear deterrence. Some believe this is merely a feint to trick the U.S. into not modernizing its own nuclear arsenal.
Either way, it’s important to note that in Russian military parlance, the notion of “deterrence” differs fundamentally from the understanding in the West, which sees it as a steady state of affairs.
For Russia, it is dynamic, anactive action, which is in opposition to a fixed passive state, which isactive before the conflict, throughout the course of geopolitical rivalry, and even during open conflict. It is then expressed in a coordinated package of political, diplomatic, military, scientific, technological and all other undertakings aimed at ensuring the desired “stability” in competition.
Put differently, Russian deterrence is to provide strategic stability favorable to Russia and its geopolitical interests. It is when Russia’s opponent cannot gain an advantage that Moscow cannot contest.
These notions of deterrence and stability are expressed almost exclusively in the context of Russia’s rivalry with the U.S. – and specifically Washington’s ability to project power into Eurasia, including the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium. This may change as China’s military power grows.
But even then, it’s unclear what action would trigger Russia’s use of nuclear weapons. The military holds nuclear strike drills, sure, but has never publicly defined its threshold. This is very likely a “calculated ambiguity” meant to throw off the planning of potential enemies. In this way, Russia creates a lot of room for political and military maneuvering, especially toward neighboring countries that do not have nuclear weapons.
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