Category Archives: Russia

Britain, Government, Middle East, Military, Russia, Syria, United States

The military options the West has in smashing Assad’s arsenal…

MILITARY OPTIONS

UK and US military commanders are drawing up a list of targets for precision-guided bombs and missiles to strike at the heart of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. The options are examined:

… What targets would the coalition hit?

THE favoured option among military commanders is for limited Western action using ‘stand-off’ weapons from long distance to disrupt Assad’s ability to carry out chemical attacks and damage his military machinery.

Intelligence on targets would come from pilotless drones patrolling the skies above Syria and Special Forces on the ground.

Military analysts believe an attack could last between 24 and 48 hours and would target key regime installations in punitive strikes.

These would include Syria’s integrated air defence system, command and control bunkers, communications hubs, government buildings, missile sites and Assad’s air force.

The dictator’s use of air power has been a huge advantage for the regime, and eliminating or weakening it would tilt the odds toward the rebels.

Other military options are airstrikes on Syrian units believed to be responsible for chemical attacks. Reports last week claimed the chemical weapons were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armoured Division of the Syrian Army.

The division, which has a military base in a mountain range west of Damascus, is under the command of the president’s brother, Maher Assad.

… What bases would be used?

US-LED strikes would be launched from warships or submarines patrolling in the eastern Mediterranean or Persian Gulf, or from combat fighter aircraft that can fire missiles from hundreds of miles away.

A US Navy battlegroup including four destroyers is already in the eastern Mediterranean and has moved closer to Syria in preparation for action.

They are armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of hitting a target from up to 1,200 miles away. Around 124 of the 18ft-long, £300,000 warheads were fired by US and British forces against Colonel Gaddafi’s forces during the Libyan war.

The US Air Force could also send B-2 stealth bombers to pound Assad’s military installations. Based in Missouri, they can cover the entire world with just one refuelling. The most expensive aircraft ever – at a cost of £600million each – they are almost invisible to radar and can carry 40,000lbs of bomb payload.

As well as having F-16 fighter jets and refuelling aircraft based at airfields in the Middle East, the US also has defensive Patriot missile batteries positioned in Jordon, which neighbours Syria.

… What firepower can Britain offer?

DESPITE multi-billion pound cuts to the defence budget that have seen military chiefs axe fast jets, warships, spy planes and 30,000 troops, the armed forces can still contribute to an assault on Syria.

The Royal Navy could fire Tomahawk missiles from its nuclear-powered Trafalgar-class submarines – one of which is constantly on patrol in the Middle East. The submarines are capable of carrying a giant payload of the super-accurate missiles.

Heavily-armed RAF Tornados could fly from RAF Marham in Norfolk to attack targets in Syria, a 4,200 mile round trip – or be deployed to Cyprus to launch bombing raids from there.

Carrying precision-guided Storm Shadow missiles, the air crews could devastate enemy defences including radar stations, anti-aircraft batteries and supply lines.

The Storm Shadows have a range of more than 150 miles, allowing the aircraft to attack targets deep inside enemy territory without getting too close to anti-air defences.

The 1,300kg missile, which technicians programme with the target details before the mission, then use hi-tech GPS systems and terrain-following equipment to fly low under radar to its destination point.

Despite being fired from as far away as 150 miles, the Storm Shadow is accurate to up to 6ft, reducing collateral damage.

… What are the dangers?

THERE are enormous risks associated with any military action in Syria.

Assad has built-up formidable air defences, supplied by Russia, which are capable of downing a US or UK fighter jet.

There are also the dangers of collateral damage from airstrikes, such as accidentally killing or injuring civilians and handing the regime a propaganda victory.

And if missiles targeted Syrian chemical plants, leaving them without protection, there is a risk of deadly nerve agents and other substances falling into the hands of terrorists – allowing them to launch a potentially catastrophic attack on the West.

… What would happen next?

MILITARY leaders are concerned that a series of ‘stand-off’ strikes will be the first step on a path that leads to full involvement in the Syrian conflict.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned this week that airstrikes ‘would not be militarily decisive, but it would commit us decisively to the conflict’.

His words echoed those of General Sir David Richards, who last month stepped down after three years as Chief of the Defence Staff. General Richards said the UK must be prepared to ‘go to war’ if it wanted to stop the bloodshed inflicted by Assad and stop his chemical weapons falling into the hands of Al-Qaeda militants.

But his remarks fuelled concerns about ‘mission creep’, saying: ‘If you wanted to have the material impact in the Syrian regime’s calculations that some people seek… you have to be able, as we did successfully in Libya, to hit ground targets … You have to establish a ground control zone. You have to take out their air defences. You also have to make sure they can’t manoeuvre, which means you have to take out their tanks and armoured personnel carriers.’

… How will Russia and Iran react?

DESPITE the chemical attack violating one of Barack Obama’s ‘red lines’ he is not gung-ho for military action.

He and David Cameron are keenly aware of the danger of inflaming tensions in the Middle East, where Syria has two powerful allies in Russia and Iran.

Russia has urged Assad to co-operate with a probe by UN inspectors but claims there is growing evidence Syrian rebels were behind the attack.

The Kremlin, which has defiantly blocked any action against Syria by the UN Security Council, has also hit out at ‘unacceptable’ calls for the use of force against the regime in Damascus.

The West is also at pains to not become embroiled in a proxy Cold War over Syria: without a nod from Russia, whether in public or in private, it would be problematic to act against Syria.

Iran has already spoken strongly against any intervention in Syria.

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Economic, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, United States

Bilateral relations between America and Russia…

RUSSIA ISN’T WHAT IT ONCE WAS

At the pinnacle of the Cold War, leaders from both Russia and America would meet on fairly equal terms to bargain over the fate of the world. If either titan refused to meet the other, that generally signalled a cast chill over humanity.

Yet, the idea that Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin remain genuine peers today is a delusion and remnant left over from the era of superpower confrontation. For all the bombastic rhetoric emanating from the Kremlin, the inescapable reality is that America possesses a widening advantage over Russia on every possible measure of national power: from economic strength to its military might.

The decision by Mr Obama to cancel a proposed summit with Mr Putin in Moscow next month, ostensibly because of the furore surrounding Russia’s decision to grant the US fugitive and whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum status, was both inevitable and eminently sensible. Washington’s justified response to the posturing of a weaker rival was credible because Mr Snowden offered himself as a convenient antagonist to needle the United States.

The White House, of course, has not escaped criticism from some quarters at home. Some are asking why, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union managed to hold summits even during the depths of the Cold War – when the divide separating the rival superpowers was even greater – why President Obama, who has regularly stood by his faith and doctrine in resetting relations with Russia, could not have gone through with the September Summit?

Any historical comparison, though, is false; the Cold War ended almost 22-years ago, and America has always been perceived as the silent victor. But as Mr Obama has rightly pointed out, the Kremlin acts as if it continues, almost reflexively, to take the opposite point of view to Washington on every conceivable problem of the moment. Putin’s nationalistic approach to a domestic audience may play well at home with some, but one may wonder whether the Russian President has even noticed how much the world has changed since the demise of the Soviet Union in December 1991 when the red flag with the hammer and sickle was hauled down for the last time from the Kremlin towers.

No one should doubt that the global balance of power is turning against the West, but Russia cannot be classified as being among the world’s rising powers. For one, the country’s population is in remorseless decline. Poor health, alcoholism and emigration are steadily reducing the number of Russian citizens. The UN has forecast that by 2050 the country will have lost some 36 million people, reducing its overall population to 107 million – Uganda, a country whose territory is less than 2 per cent the size of Russia, has a population not much above 103 million.

Compare and contrast America, with a populace of more than 300 million people – or even Britain, which now has the fastest growing population in Europe. The UK adds about 400,000 people every year, which is close to the annual rate at which Russians are dying off. While some Britons remain uneasy over the scale of immigration on these islands, it is true that fewer people make a weaker economy.

And another reason for Russia’s long-term decline is due to its actual economic health. Today, the American economy remains eight times bigger than Russia’s. Remarkably, too, is that Russia’s gross domestic product is still 30 per cent smaller than Britain’s. Its economic strength has been artificially inflated by high oil prices and the vast energy reserves it has at its disposal. Despite that, Russia’s customers are increasingly turning to shale gas from fracking, and future oil prices will become an uncertain indicator for economic health.

Whilst it is true that Russia can act as an obstructionist on a range of international issues (Syria being one such example) one should seek to understand whether Mr Putin is deliberately irritating the U.S. rather than being a competitive rival to the West.

Today, military might and the size of a country’s nuclear arsenal count far less than its economic prowess, its entrepreneurialism, competitiveness and how central it is to the global trading system. With neither the EU nor China having the desire to send fleets and armies to the opposite ends of the earth, the United States remains the autonomnous military superpower having achieved that position largely by default. Despite Mr Putin’s bluster, Russia no longer has the capacity it once had in challenging America as a superpower.

Economically, Russia is a mid-sized power, with a GDP that is barely a 10th of that of the US. Russia is often quoted for its corruption, its scant respect for the rule of law and its continued dependence on raw materials, particularly oil and gas.

Had September’s summit gone ahead, Mr Obama would have been on a hiding to nothing as Vladimir Putin’s obstructionist style would have seen to that. Such summits are not spontaneous, one-off occasions, but are carefully choreographed and prepared; usually communiqués are worked out well in advance. Presently, however, apart from the evident dislike between the two men, the differences appear unbridgeable – on Syria’s continuing bloody civil war, missile defence and Mr Putin’s internal repression, to name but a few of the issues. Moscow’s granting of asylum status to Edward Snowden would have been the last straw. Had Mr Obama attended the summit in Moscow and returned empty-handed, as was all but certain, he would have been pilloried at home by Republicans as being weak and over-trusting.

With bilateral relations as low as they are, it isn’t inconceivable to say they will remain that way so long as Mr Putin is on the world stage.

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China, Foreign Affairs, Government, Japan, Military, Russia, United States

Russian war games in a show of strength…

RUSSIA FLEXES ITS MILITARY MUSCLES

RUSSIA has just started the biggest military exercises since the Soviet era, involving 160,000 troops and about 5,000 tanks across Siberia and the far eastern region in a massive show of strength.

Throughout this week dozens of Russian Pacific Fleet ships and around 130 combat aircraft will take part in military manoeuvres. Part of those drills will be on Sakhalin Island in the Pacific, where thousands of troops have been ferried and airlifted from the mainland.

Russia’s deputy defence minister, Anatoly Antonov, has made clear and assured foreign military attachés that the exercises are not directed against any particular nation, though some military analysts believe the show of force is aimed at China and Japan.

A retired officer of the Russian military’s general staff, Konstantin Sivkov, gave an interview to the daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta and briefed that the Sakhalin part of the manoeuvres are intended to simulate a response to a hypothetical attack by Japanese and US forces.

Russia and Japan are currently in dispute over a group of Pacific islands, which Russia calls the Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories.

Russia tanks move across Sakhalin Island during military exercises seen by many as a warning to China and Japan.

Russia tanks move across Sakhalin Island during military exercises seen by many as a warning to China and Japan.

Mr Antonov said that Russia had warned its neighbours about the exercise before it started, and provided particularly detailed information to China, in line with an agreement that envisages a mutual exchange of data about military activities along their 2,700-mile border.

The Cold War-era rivals have forged what they have described as a ‘strategic partnership’ since the 1991 Soviet Union collapse, developing close political, economic and military ties in a shared aspiration to counter US power around the world.

Russia has supplied sophisticated weapons to China, and the neighbours have conducted joint military drills, most recently a naval exercise in the Sea of Japan earlier this month.

But many in Russia have felt increasingly uneasy about the growing might of China.

Russia and China had territorial disputes for centuries. Relations between Communist China and the Soviet Union ruptured in the 1960s, and the two fought a brief border conflict in 1969. It wasn’t until 2004 that Moscow and Beijing signed a new border treaty, which saw Russia yielding control over several islands in the Amur River. Some in Russia’s sparsely populated far east feared that the concessions might tempt China’s resolve or by teasing its appetite.

Alexander Khramchikhin, an independent Moscow-based military analyst, said the massive exercise held in the areas along the border with China was clearly aimed at Beijing. He said: ‘It’s quite obvious that the land part of the exercise is directed at China, while sea and island part of it is aimed at Japan.’

Mr Khramchikhin, who recently posted an article online portraying a grim picture of Russia being routed in a surprise Chinese attack, said that the war games along their shared border was intended to discourage China from harbouring expansionist plots. In his article, Mr Khramchikhin wrote: ‘China may now think that Russia has finally become more aware of what could happen.’

The manoeuvres are part of recent efforts to boost the military’s mobility and combat readiness after years of post-Soviet decline, but they have far exceeded previous drills in both numbers and territorial scope.

As part of the war games, held across several time zones, some army units have been deployed to areas thousands of miles away from their bases. Paratroopers have been flown across Russia in long-range transport aircraft, and some units were ferried to Sakhalin under escort of navy ships and fighter jets.

A decade of post-Soviet economic meltdown has crippled Russia’s military capability, with a lack of funds for building and maintaining equipment, and mass draft-dodging of soldiers due to corruption and bullying.

The Kremlin responded to weaknesses revealed in a brief conflict with Georgia in 2008 by launching reforms intended to turn the bloated military into a more modern, agile and rapid reaction force.

The government has also unveiled an ambitious arms modernisation programme, though this has come under attack by a number of analysts describing the proposals as ‘clearly insufficient’.

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