There are several indications that Russia is conducting hostile, low intensity and subversive operations towards NATO countries[ii] while simultaneously conducting conventional military operations in Ukraine. Therefore, it is paramount to get an understanding of their activities from the Russian perspective. It is more important to frame the issue properly than analyse an issue in the right way. By framing Russian military thinking in the mindset of contemporary Western military thinking, we superimpose our thinking on their activities. This results in our thinking framework only partly able to understand what is going on. We are not very good at thinking outside the box. The result is that we are not able to read the message from Kremlin, and constantly getting surprised.[iii] This paper will focus on:

Russian thinking and acting in contemporary war and warfare. 

Russian threat perseption

The threat perception is one of the drivers behind the development of forces, weapons and non-military means used in a strategy to counter a threat. However, the means development is only partly reacting to outside forces. The Kremlin perception is that Russia is as a natural, permanent great power with power rights in its near abroad.[iv] There is also a perception that Russia is surrounded by enemies – a besieged-fortress syndrome.[v] Altogether, this impacts forces size and non-military means used in a grand strategy to counter the threat, and to give Russia the respect and place in the world as fitting a great power (in their view). The main threats to the regime as of 2015 were:

• US’s Prompt Global Strike concept
• A global ABM system
• Colour revolutions
• Cyber-attacks
• ISIS threat to the south.[vi]

However, how important the Military Doctrine and the Russian Federation’s National Security Strategy are, the perception of the Russian political and military elite may be more important than official documents. President Putin focuses on two drivers that changes the character of war: one is colour revolutions (creating chaos); the other is information technology, which he holds to be equally important as new military means.[vii] The Russian regime in Kremlin has come to the conclusion that it is under existential threat from the West in the form of information warfare and colour revolutions.[viii] Russia is under an information-psychological attack.[ix] This implies that Russian is at war with the West[x] - or an information war generated by the West according to the Chief of the General Staff Garasimov.[xi] The threat perception is the backdrop to Russian offensive action.[xii] Before going into how the Kremlin regime is defending itself against this presumed threat by going on the offensive, it is necessarily to examine Russian strategic culture, military theoretical thinking and how the generals and politicians view war and its utility.

Strategic cultur and way of thinking

Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.

Plato - The Republic

Strategic empathy

Zachary Shore describes strategic empathy as”.. the ability to think like their opponent. Strategic empathy is the skill of stepping out of our own heads and into the minds of others.”[xiii] Empathy is an understanding of the other party’s perspective. That said, it is not an endorsement of their view or compromising your own beliefs.[xiv] Putin’s media machine has built a new Russian collective identity based on identity politics and the mentality of “Russia against the West”.[xv] This is not the best starting point for Russians assessing Western activities from a Western viewpoint. When considering Russian assessing Western activities, one needs to take into account what Edwards Luttwak calls “great-state autism” due to the complexities of internal affairs, foreign affairs are handled as if they were internal. This leads to mirror imagining and distorted views of the foreign party.[xvi]

Strategic culture

The style of thinking and norms of conduct in military affairs is closely related to the general Russian culture, as Plato suggests. The Russian approach to strategy is holistic-dialectical. The strategic legacy is that Russian are good at theory, but extremely poor at implementation. Advanced future war theory did not always come to effect due to lack of resources and weapons/units to enact the theory. Realisation of theory and strategy may also be hampered by traits such as recklessness, carelessness, and negligence, resulting in chaos. Russian culture of war tends to emphasize moral and psychological-cognitive factor over material-technological, and thereby avoiding becoming technocentric. The information struggle – warfare is aimed at imposing one’s strategic will on the enemy through cognitive-phycological and digital-technological forms of influence.[xvii]

Cognitive style
Dimitry Adamsky writes that “rationality is neither objective nor universal, and that rational behaviour is cultural dependent.  The actors formulate their preference not in accordance with a universal logic of efficacy, but according to their own norms, values, and self-image.”[xviii] As an example; President Putin’s “gangster” rationality was formed in contact with the St. Petersburg gangster milieu and his experience as intelligence officer in the KGB.[xix]

The Russian society is a collectivistic one where holistic-dialectical thinking dominates. Russian time is cyclical and unpunctuated, indicating that people live in several time frames at once. Patience is a virtue; punctuality is not. Russian mentality may display both an inferiority complex and a superiority complex at once. This makes it possible to pursue an aggressive military strategy while pursuing peaceful political aims at the same time. There is a tendency of declaration knowledge and neglecting solving the problem. It is a belief that everything is connected in a synthetic whole system. This leads to multidisciplinary research and an ability to see the whole picture, which influences theory creation and military planning.[xx] It may also lead to connection dots that is not connected. This may also lead to free fabulation.[xxi] There is also a Russian tradition for staging events, historical known as “Potemkin villages”, or pokazukha in the Soviet variant.[xxii] A Russian cultural acceptance of human losses in war also exists.[xxiii] The Russian society is one where lying is institutionalised.[xxiv] Speaking truth to power is an unknown feature which leads to decisions been taken based on faulty information.[xxv]

Different ways of understanding the same issues

Oscar Jonsson writes: “…when Western states are taking actions that they perceive as being short of war—sanctions, democracy promotion, and information operations—but that are understood by Russia as amounting to war, there is a risk of unconscious and/or unintentional escalation.”[xxvi] Charles Bartles writes: “while the West considers these nonmilitary measures as a way of avoiding war, Russia considers these measures as war”[xxvii]. Jonsson writes on a fallacious assumption: “Western states believe it is up to them to choose whether they enter a war with Russia or not. This underpins every action that simultaneously seeks to punish Russian hostility while “avoiding escalation.” The problem is that this view assumes that the current situation is one of peace. Rather, as the Russian leadership sees itself in an information war, being targeted with colour revolution, subversion is equivalent to a use of force.”[xxviii]

Zachary Shore writes that leaders’ future actions may be revealed by pattern breaks.[xxix] President Putin’s speech at the 2007 Security conference in Munich and his 2021 article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”[xxx] may be seen as breaks with the Russian former activity patterns. The 2021 article revealed Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine and may be sees as a forewarning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine which build on the one that started in 2014.

War and military theory

Development of the thinking about war from Lenin to Putin

Russian holistic thinking informs Russian military scientific thinking which treats war as a totality of military, economic, political and social measures.[xxxi] Depending on the war taken into consideration, the development of new methods for military action and new forms of applying force have appeared. Nonmilitary methods have increased in importance. Foremost in this discussion has been the possibility of nonmilitary means taking violent forms. As of now many Russian elites still considers war to be used as a term implying military conflict.[xxxii] However, as Jonsson states: “The boundary between war and peace is blurring in the Russian view, and it will become even blurrier as the utility of nonmilitary means keeps on increasing.”[xxxiii]

Military theory development

The Russians coined the term Revolution in Military Affairs – RMA which in the West has been concentrated on the influence of precision ammunition and weapons on warfighting. In Russia the RMA has been developed along two branches – the Military Technology Revolution (MTR) and the Information Technology Revolution in Military Affairs (IT-RMA). The Russian aim is to expand the arsenal of stand-off precision weapons, upgrade command and control systems and turn the Russian military into a reconnaissance-strike complex to wage combined arms network centric warfare.[xxxiv] A version of this is what General-Major Vladimir Slipchenko called noncontact warfare.[xxxv] Russia divides between the large-scale version of contemporary warfare and the low-scale version.[xxxvi] The large-scale version of Russian contemporary warfare is waged in Ukraine, while the low-scale warfare main theatre is Europe with lesser campaigns waged in the Middle-East and Africa. Due to the low status of tactics, lack of initiative on the units’ lower levels and central planning, implementing the MTR were very difficult during the Soviet times.[xxxvii] However, the Russian Army managed to create Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG) to fight on the fragmented (non-linear) battlefield.[xxxviii]

 Russian contemporary warfare

It is extraordinarily hard to predict the conditions of war. For each war it is necessary to work out a particular line for its strategic conduct.

Alexander Svechin.[xxxix]

Strategy

The strategy behind the invasion to annex Crimea in March 2014 was a demonstration of Russia’s ability to combine the military tool with other tools of state power.[xl] Today this is called cross domain strategy, and due to the Russian holistic thinking already mentioned, the Russian way of contemporary strategy.

To counter what the Russian political and military leadership perceive as an attack on Russia and the regime, they need a grand strategy covering internal measures directed at exchanging internal stability as well a strategy for fighting the war in Ukraine supported by a strategy for the low-scale measures in Europe. The current grand strategy has 6 key elements.[xli]

Large-scale warfare

Allan R. Miller and Williamson Murray writes:” It is more important to make correct decisions at the political and strategic level than it is at the operational and tactical level. Mistakes in operations and tactics can be corrected, but political and strategic mistakes live forever.”[xlii]

Putin’s primary plan in 2022 was to shock Ukraine’s political and military leadership into submission by conducting a lighting military campaign.[xliii] This was based on faulty assumptions and faulty intelligence, and Putin ended with a war lasting several years. The current strategy has the following elements: 1) Narrative and information warfare; 2) Nuclear threats; 3) Military campaigns; 4) Diplomacy; 5) National mobilization; and 6) Economic warfare.[xliv] Unrealistic assumptions, presenting intelligence and force capabilities that the ruler wants to hear and pursuing political ambitions that is at odds with the military capabilities is inherited in autocratic rule.[xlv]

Russian assumptions fighting on the non-linear battlefield in Ukraine with BTGs have also shown to go wrong. This is due both to cognitive and other deficiencies inherited from the Soviet Army when implementing the MTR, lean BTGs and to the fact that the battlefield became one of position defence.[xlvi] The Russian Army has returned to old ways of war – using “meat attacks” to advance on the battlefield with large losses of men and material. There is a possibility that this “battering ram” approach may revive Russian operational art.[xlvii] In addition to the BTG as a solution to fighting on the non-linear battlefield, the Soviets came up with reconnaissance-strike complex (operational) and the reconnaissance-fire complex (tactical) in the 1990s.[xlviii] There has been some development during the implementation of the 2008 Army reform.[xlix] However, it did not function as planned, nor did it did function initially in the 2022 invasion.[l] The complexes have been reorganised into one tactical system.[li] The main areas in Ukraine where there have been adaption and innovation are drones and electronic warfare.[lii] 

The noncontact warfare has fared no better; Russia has expended large number of missiles and drones every month of the war, but Ukraine is still in the fight.

Information warfare

The Russian understanding of war has expanded to include nonmilitary means, especially information war which is closely related to colour revolutions by the Kremlin. Jonsson writes: “..in an entry on information war (informatsionnaya voina) in a glossary by the Military Academy of the General Staff, which saw “a clear distinction between the Russian definition—broad, and not limited to wartime—and the Western one—which it describes as limited, tactical information operations carried out during hostilities.” This is noteworthy as the Kremlin perception of an ongoing information war between Russia and the West.

Russia divides information warfare into information-technical (hardware and software) and information-psychological spheres.[liii] The cognitive aspect is part of psychological and cyberwar is part of the information-technical sphere.

To elaborate on the threat perception, the following quote is relevant: “Bazylev et al. identify two main effects of information warfare. First, attacks on critical infrastructure systems for industry, finance, energy and transport can have huge consequences in themselves, as well as leading to financial collapses or system-wide economic crises. Second, attacks can be used to disrupt the top political and military leadership, demoralise and mislead the population, and create widespread panic.”[liv]

However, an increased focus on information warfare has not yet led to creating a separate service or information acquiring its own theatre of military operation (TVD), even if information TVD has been discussed.[lv] Information warfare is still firmly in hand of the intelligence services.

Low-scale warfare

In Russia the Russian White Army colonel Evgeny Messner has been brought in from the cold with his book “The face of Contemporary War” where he lay the theoretical grounds for subversive warfare.[lvi] Russia’s intelligence and security agencies are central in the implementation of active measures as this subversive warfare is called. These organs do not only collect information but also actively shapes the strategic environment. Active measures as a craft in the Russian art of intelligence are closely related to a core feature of the Russian practise of strategy – the uninterrupted influence of the enemy.[lvii]

Active Measures[lviii]
The following activities and measures are considered included as active measures:

• Espionage - information collection
• Propaganda – disinformation
• Assassination
• Sabotage
• Subversion
• Paramilitary operations - proxy-operations, private military firms and organized crime groups.

Mark Galeotti describes the Russian campaign as a broad-based campaign of individual ventures from the initiative of individuals guided by their sense of the Kremlin’s desires rather than any detailed masterplan.[lix] This may be described as a strategy of cumulative actions where individual actions are interdependent and pile on top of each other until they at one point becomes critical.[lx] In a so complex setting as war, a strategy of cumulative activity is not possible to control in the same way as a sequential strategy.

Conclusion

Soviet and Russia have a well-developed system to look into the future, but by developing noncontact warfare may have tipped over. They are also the foremost when it comes to cross domain strategy due to their holistic thinking. The Soviets coined operational art but enabling it by ram tactics (meat attacks) may not be possible in the future due to the demographic development in Russia (700.000[lxi] in losses and 800.000 – 900.000[lxii] citizen fleeing the country). This leads back to the nonlinear battlefield, the BTGs and reconnaissance-strike complex - the reconnaissance-fire complex. To enable those concepts Russia needs to train noncommission officers and officers in independent action, which may be a bridge to fare due to their collective incarnation and strategic culture. The implementation of brilliant ideas is still poor. Their aim to turn the Russian military into a reconnaissance-strike complex to wage combined arms network centric warfare (NCW), may also be out of reach. The NCW combined with the reconnaissance-strike complex might end up as a strategy of gadgets instead of being focused on joint and combined arms operations.

The Russo-Ukraine war is enabling Russia to learn and adapt and acquire a battle-hardened officer corps. However, the learn and adapt process in the Russian Armed Forces are top-down. Telling the truth bottom-up is the same as asking to be replaced or punished, which is part of the background for institutionalised lying.[lxiii]

The Aerospace forces and the Black Sea Fleet have suffered losses, but the Aerospace and Navy forces are mainly intact. The land forces may have a serious problem: “The Kremlin are not able to expand defence production fast enough to replace weapons at the rate they are lost on the battlefield”.[lxiv] Reequipment of the Army with new equipment drones, tanks and vehicles as the stores are depleted will be a major issue, but ought to be solvable by a defence industry on war footing. What may be a more demanding problem to solve, is a shift of mentality to implement new types of future war-fighting.

Jonsson writes “It is only necessary for one party to see itself in the blurred area of war for war to exist. This mirrors the Russian understanding of war, which has always been closer to the view of the permanent struggle and insatiable insecurity, whereas the Western understanding has been more binary, with a war/peace divide.”[lxv] “The mismatch between perceptions of war also stems from a fundamental mismatch in national interests, values, and the desired world order. This means the underlying conflict will not be solved by a détente.”[lxvi]

 The Russian threat persists as long as the Russian understanding of the current security situation is markedly different from the Western perception.

Photo: The Moscow Kremlin / Wikimedia commons