By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

A “New” War, Twenty Years in the Making

Earlier, we posted a one, two, and three-part study about how spy agencies adjusted themselves to the current situations and an overview of Russian Intelligence agencies.

In December 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and while nuclear weapons remained pointed at the United States, the hostile Soviet communist threat to America ended. Americans envisioned a future of friendship and cooperation with Russia, believing it would indeed embrace democracy and (naively) join NATO. Instead, the post-Soviet Russian threat would be underway before the decade was out.

But it still took Russia a decade to declare a state of conflict with the United States openly. During the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Putin vociferously denounced the United States and NATO in an inflammatory keynote speech in front of military, political, and business executives from more than forty countries.1 He accused the United States and NATO of waging “illegitimate” wars, provoking an arms race, and causing extremism, terrorism, and general devastation across the world through destabilizing policies.2

The 2018 Annual Threat Assessment by former director of national intelligence Dan Coats notes: “Moscow will employ various aggressive tactics… to weaken the United States and undermine Euro-Atlantic security.” Russia will use the tools of influencing campaigns, “economic coercion, cyber operations… and measured military force.” 3

During the 1990s, Moscow launched a multiyear cyber operation - separate from the cyberattacks described earlier - nicknamed “Moonlight Maze” by U.S. investigators.4 Vast amounts of critical, secret data were stolen from the US military, government, and civilian networks, including from the U.S. Navy and Air Force.

Moscow’s desired strategic outcome is a weakened United States immersed in political dysfunction, torn by racial, religious, ethnic, and other social tensions, struggling economically, bogged down in external conflicts, and alienated from its allies. A distracted America, forced to deal with domestic and international problems, is far less likely to interfere with Putin’s strategic ambitions.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, during the 1990s, the Kremlin likely sent the redheaded “femme fatale” Anna Chapman and ten other Russian intelligence sleeper agents to infiltrate American society.5 These deep-cover spies, called “illegals” in the parlance of Soviet and Russian Intelligence, conducted a sophisticated operation using false identities and posing as ordinary American families. The twenty-year intelligence operation aimed to "search and develop ties with U.S. policymaking circles” and send intelligence reports about their sensitive activities in the United States back to Moscow.6

Russia formalized the state of hostility in 2010 by designating, in the release of its second post-Soviet Military Doctrine, the United States and NATO as its primary security threat.7 Moscow further codified this assessment in a series of other official documents, including the 2014 Military Doctrine, 8 the 2015 National Security Strategy, 9 and the 2016 Foreign Policy Concept.10 These are what the Russian government calls “foundational strategic planning and military planning documents,” developed every five to six years by the national security apparatus and approved directly by the Russian president. They serve as the basis for the Russian military’s plans to neutralize assessed threats.

In preparation for a potential war with what Putin’s generals frequently acknowledge as “the world’s best military” - that is, the U.S. military - Russia developed a certain doctrine and strategy. It implemented an unprecedented military modernization with a price tag on the order of $ 650 billion.11

Russia is continuously mining U.S. systems for vulnerabilities.12 Russia, along with China, has stolen technical plans for nearly every major U.S. military system and will try to render our weaponry inoperable through cyberattacks during wartime.13 That Putin and his cyber agents penetrated our electrical grid, election systems, and nuclear facilities keeping American generals and government officials awake at night.

In June 2018, top administration officials were advised that the threat to the U.S. electric grid was so severe that the country needed to prepare for a catastrophic power outage, possibly caused by a cyberattack.14 Even America’s weapons arsenal, including the advanced Patriot missile system, the littoral combat ship, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - capabilities that the United States would be reliant on in the event of a kinetic war with Russia -  are vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office audit.15

What had occurred was not a series of random actions or Russian fun and games. Rather, the intrusions were a test run for a potential war. They were acts of sabotage designed to destabilize the United States, even during peacetime, by a country that views America as a strategic competitor and fears it as a powerful wartime adversary at worst.

The July 2015  journal of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Military Thought (Voyennaya Mysl’) discussed what the writers called the “Strategic Operation to Defeat Critical Infrastructure of the Adversary” (SOPKVOP in Russian transliteration), one of the key asymmetric strategies Moscow can use against the United States.16

 

Cyber penetration

Such strategic operations are no less than warfighting campaigns developed by the Russian General Staff and executed by their armed forces and the intelligence services to prevent, prosecute, or end a conflict.17 Although intended for wartime, SOPKVOP operations also could be deployed during peacetime to “destabilize the opponent’s social and political situation.” 18

It is most likely that Russia has been conducting cyber penetration of America’s critical infrastructure to test drive and eventually operationalize SOPKVOP. The U.S. government acknowledged that Russia’s “destabilizing” cyber activities “jeopardized the safety and security of the United States and our allies” and were designed to “enable future offensive operations.”19 In other words, to prepare the battlefield for war.

In fact, at that time already, military steps were far less subtle than cyber intrusions were activated. On March 1, 2018, in his annual State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly, Putin announced new weapons aimed at the United States, including next-generation nuclear missiles.20

                                               

Test Runs for Armageddon

Putin showed a video rendition of a nuclear strike on Florida, home to the U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. Central Command - which oversees Iraq and Afghanistan to demonstrate that he meant business.

The simulated attack was launched from a new Russian-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) complex known as “Sarmat” -  nicknamed “Satan-2” by NATO -  whose missiles, Putin claimed, were “immune to interception” by American missile defenses.21 “No one listened to us. Listen to us now,” Putin warned.22

It was the latest iteration of the hostile anti-American Putin approach often echoed by Russian military and political elites. In 2014, for example, a Kremlin-backed journalist reminded us that “Russia is the only country in the world capable of turning America into nuclear ash.” 23 In July 2018, a senior member of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences stated in the military press. that “only a weapon of Armageddon can stop the USA.” 24

Moscow views war with the United States in the long run as inevitable and regularly conducts practice runs for it.25 Russian weapons systems can strike targets throughout the United States and Canada from stand-off distances - that is, without entering U.S. sovereign airspace to deliver the weapons.26

Fearing U.S. conventional superiority, Russia relies on its nuclear forces as a contingency weapon to prevail in any conflict. It is the only country in the world that can destroy American ICBMs on the ground by “precisely coordinating attacks with hundreds of high-yield and accurate warheads,” according to the 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review.27

In 2007, after stunning Western officials at the Munich Security Conference declaring an end to the U.S.-shaped world order, 28 Putin resumed the Cold War practice of running Russian strategic bomber patrols.29 The flight over a U.S. military base on the Pacific Island of Guam by two nuclear-capable Tu-95 “Bear” bombers on August 8 30 was followed by a test of a powerful non-nuclear “vacuum” bomb on September 11 that year. 31 To reinforce his earlier anti-American manifesto delivered in Germany, Putin was now flexing Russia’s military and nuclear muscle on the anniversary of terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. The Russians named their bomb “the Father of All Bombs,” claiming that it dwarfs a similar U.S. weapon called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, that U.S. designers dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs.” Developed in 2005, the American MOAB, officially called GBU-43/ B, was first used in combat on ISIS caves in Afghanistan in 2017.

According to NORAD, Russian bombers capable of striking targets deep within the U.S. homeland have been conducting long-range sorties six to seven times per year. 32

 

It Doesn’t Take Much for the Entire System to Collapse

Russia’s targeting strategy against the United States, such as the cyber intrusions into its nuclear sector and other critical infrastructure, results from years of a comprehensive study of U.S. vulnerabilities by the Russian military and intelligence services. A January 2012 issue of a Russian military periodical, Foreign Military Observer (Novoye Voyennoye Obozreniye), reveals the military strategists’ calculus for striking an adversary’s civilian infrastructure during a conflict. You only need to defeat a “small number of key interconnected targets” that are vital to the functioning of the state for the “entire system to collapse,” it said.33

“Taking parts of the adversary’s civilian infrastructure out of commission,” the authors argue, will produce cascading destructive effects “harming the entire state's economy, healthcare, defense, and security.” 34

 

Driven by Fear of America’s Hostile Intentions

Moscow considers the area within Eurasia that was once the Soviet Union as Russia’s exclusive sphere of influence - a critical region for its security and therefore off-limits to U.S. influence - a no-go zone for the West, in Russia’s view. The freedom Washington has granted to the Baltic states to join NATO is considered an existential threat to the Kremlin. While it was the right thing to do, it made Russia more insecure and dangerous. 

Influenced by Cold War thinking, Moscow holds Washington responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, which the Russians believe was precipitated by America’s outspending Russia on armaments and by a secret plot, which the Russians don’t specify, orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency. Similarly, Russia’s political and military elite believe Washington seeks to overthrow Putin’s regime and dismember Russia in the long run.

They view Washington’s promotion of democracy and advocacy for human rights and NATO’s expansion into the post-Soviet space as a ruse for installing anti-Russian and pro-Western governments in Eurasia, including Russia itself. Russia, therefore, rejects values we hold dear and views our embrace of them as cynical opportunism. Inflicting oppression in the name of stability, defense of its empire, and preservation of power for the ruling class defines Russian history.

Moscow has adopted a “fear-equals-respect” mentality, often intimidating its perceived enemies with hostile rhetoric, demonstrations of powerful weaponry, and nuclear saber-rattling.

The Russians believe that only a robust and czar-like leader can protect Mother Russia from foreign invaders, supply domestic stability, and command respect internationally. Despite his authoritarian rule, this explains why Putin often earns high approval ratings, between 60 and 80 percent. It also explains why there are Russians who (oddly to Americans) support Joseph Stalin, even though he murdered millions of Soviet citizens. Most Russians will sacrifice what they feel they must, including personal freedoms, for stability and security. They view democracy as chaotic and unstable because it allows individuals to challenge and change the state.                                                        

Russia interprets all geopolitical events through the prism of this “worst-case scenario” mindset. It is obsessed with the United States, which it fears superior militarily, economically, and technologically. This can result in reactions to U.S. policies that are often the opposite of what Americans expect.

A skillful strategist, Putin has ensured that Russia has a fallback option in his five-point master plan to defeat America. If Moscow’s strategic nonmilitary destabilization campaign against America is insufficient to counter what Putin views as Washington’s long-term effort to impair Russia’s economy through sanctions and erode Moscow’s sphere of influence in Eurasia, the Russian General Staff, on Putin’s orders, has developed a more traditional statecraft instrument - the military option.35 It includes a brand new doctrine, 36 innovative warfighting concepts, 37 modern weaponry, command and control systems, and of course, the nuclear Armageddon scenario.38

Upon occupying the top seat in the Kremlin, from which multiple generations of czars ruled Russia, President Putin adopted a new Military Doctrine in April 2000.39 It was updated twice: in 2010.40 and 2014, 41 based on Moscow’s interpretation of the global strategic security environment and the General Staff’s forecasts of security threats to Russia and the Kremlin.

In Early June 2020, Russia released a new document, titled “On Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” that outlined the threats and circumstances that could lead to Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.42 This document notes explicitly that Russia “considers nuclear weapons exclusively as a means of deterrence.” It states that Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy “is defensive by nature, it is aimed at maintaining the potential of the nuclear force at the level sufficient for nuclear deterrence and guarantees protection of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the State, and deterrence of a potential adversary from aggression against the Russian Federation and its allies.” It emphasizes that Russia maintains forces that could “inflict guaranteed unacceptable damage on a potential adversary … in any circumstances” 43

While Kremlin propaganda says its actions are only defensive, Putin’s new military doctrine is aggressive. It is even more dangerous than the one which the Soviet Union followed during the Cold War. It claims to be asymmetric, but it is both asymmetric and symmetric in reality. It is asymmetric because it relies on nontraditional methods that fall below the threshold of provoking a military response and targets perceived U.S. vulnerabilities - such as reliance on space and cyber technology and aversion to casualties. But it is also symmetric because it positions Russia to fight a conventional kinetic conflict with modern weaponry, such as precision-guided munitions (PGMs).44 It is more dangerous because of the special role reserved for nuclear weapons.45

Preemptive action is included in the doctrine to gain strategic initiative quickly during the initial period, but the Russians do not widely publicize this.46 But in the case of the recent invasion of Ukraine attack where Putin thought Russia's military could capture Kyiv in 2 days, this strategic initiative has failed.

Today’s Russian military is far superior to its Cold War forces compared to the years just after the Soviet Union’s collapse.47 Putin has transformed Russia’s military into a force to be reckoned with even it failed to take.

The Russians are typically much more easily convinced to make sacrifices to militarize the country than Americans. Having been preparing to fight the “main enemy” for generations, they are pretty used to tightening their belts so that Mother Russia can be armed with robust weaponry. “If you don’t want to feed your army, you will be feeding someone else’s,” Putin said.

Russia has used the current conflict in Ukraine as testing grounds for some of its new weapon systems and warfighting concepts.

Putin’s new military doctrine reserves a unique role for Russia’s nuclear forces in wartime. Unlike the Cold War, when nuclear weapons were primarily psychological weapons intended for deterrence, today, Russia tests and plans to use nuclear weapons to achieve military victory.

The Russians regularly practice nuclear launches in simulation exercises, with Putin “pressing the button” with the defense minister and the chief of General Staff at his side.48 The Russians believe that the regular practice of authorizing a nuclear-weapon release keeps their leader psychologically prepared for this action.

The Russian president has the ultimate authority to authorize a nuclear strike, which is done through the Cheget, Russia’s “nuclear football.” However, the defense minister and chief of the General Staff can also authorize the release of a nuclear weapon. The nuclear command-and-control system (NC2) obtains authorization from the Russian president or the other two designees in about ten minutes, launching nuclear strikes that can be delivered to their targets from land, sea.

The bottom line is that Russia reserves the right to “first use” its nuclear weapons, which could unleash a nuclear war that would be difficult to control. Even though Russian planners believe they have figured out the tolerance levels of the U.S. leadership and population for various Russian actions, including nuclear use in a conflict, Moscow is capable of error. Given that an exchange of atomic weapons between two nuclear-armed powers has never occurred, no one knows how anyone, especially the American people, would respond.

Russian strategists have thought about nuclear warfare and how the nuclear conflict would play out between Moscow and Washington. And while the Russians have an advanced thinking and nuanced doctrine that draws on an extensive body of knowledge, both Western and Russian, there is always the risk of things not going according to plan. For example, Russia may be underestimating the willingness of Americans to tolerate mass casualties, given the hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 deaths it has absorbed.

 

Continued in Part Three

 

 

For updates click hompage here