When does Russia go to war?
As expected, twittersphere is already going crazy about the incoming Zapad exercise. And the drill is not scheduled to start until mid-September. I thus anticipate further claims, tweets, comments, and analyses that Russia is on the verge of invading a NATO country.
Before I move on to answer the title question, there is one thing I’d like to clear here. Belarus is safe. Its relationship with Russia is definitely solid. Having spoken to people connected with the Belarusian security establishment, NATO, and EU I can safely conclude that stories claiming Belarusian (in)dependence is threatened stem from Minsk’s attempts to obtain financial support from the West. There is no indication, apart from the infamous 4,000 flat rail cars story, suggesting Russia will maintain heavy military presence in Belarus. Although it is likely that some storage sites could be maintained in the aftermath of Zapad, the reason for their establishment is not what most people assume.
For a number of years Russia has been establishing storage sites close to potential conflict areas in order to decrease time needed to deploy its motorised and tank brigades. Previously, brigades’ organic assets were deployed by rail significantly delaying response time (as evidenced in Ukraine in early 2014). On the other hand, maintaining storage sites only requires moving troops by air thus significantly improving readiness without straining logistics capabilities of the land forces. As a result, equipment sites in Belarus are seen as a pragmatic countermeasure against NATO troop deployments in the Baltic States and Poland.
Going back to the original topic, although I consider a lot of comments on the Twittersphere to be highly exaggerated, there are some good pieces that have tactical values. But they seem to fail on a broader point. Namely, never do they look for an answer to a strategic question of: When does Russia go to war? This question needs to be answered in order to fully understand Russia strategic thinking and Russian force positioning vis-à-vis Ukraine and NATO.
When looking at the history of the Soviet Union, or its current manifestation one can reasonably conclude that the Soviets or Russia deployed combat troops during times of acute political and/or military crisis when its interests were threatened. This was the case in Hungary ’56, Czechoslovakia ’68, Afghanistan ’79, Georgia ’08, and finally Ukraine ’14.
At the moment there is no crisis in Eastern Europe and little suggests such a crisis will materialize before Zapad. The most likely scenario one can take into consideration is perceived danger to Russian citizens abroad (in the Baltics), which would meet doctrinal criteria for military action to protect these citizens (Russia Military Doctrine,32, J). Let’s imagine there is a crisis similar to the one portrayed in the BBC document ‘War Room”. In order to anticipate conflict one should answer this question:
- Has Russia exhausted all reasonable options, other than military, to achieve its political objectives? If it has, what would be the military objective for Russia to achieve?
This is by far the most important question an analyst should answer to anticipate Russian moves. In Ukraine in 2014 Russia politically lost control over the events unfolding in Kiev and was forced to act militarily to protect its interests in the country. In fact, although it was caught off guard, Moscow acted preemptively to complicate Ukrainian domestic political situation and international stance. After all, why would NATO want a new member that has numerous border disputes with Russia?
Going back to goals, Russian move into the Baltic States, even if successful, is still going to be seen as a limited objective. Again historically, if a choice were to be made between achieving strategic surprise and generating appropriate forces to achieve military and political objectives, Moscow will always go with the latter. As a result, deployment of troops into the Baltic States would still be seen as a limited objective because it would give NATO time and space to amass and counteract on Russian military moves. This is not what Moscow wants given its conventional inferiority against NATO. And there is no evidence to show that Russia is preparing its troops to march deeper into Central and Western Europe either.
And let’s face it, Russia presently does not have enough capability (political, military, economic) and manpower to take on the entire NATO and the EU. Bear in mind that the Baltic States are now part of the Eurozone and an armed attack against them will undoubtedly negatively impact the entire EU, something Germany would never allow.
To sum up, looking at current state of affairs, there is no crisis in Europe to justify Russian deployment of combat troops to the Baltic States. As a result, doctrinal criteria for military actions are not met.
P.S.1. The 1st Tank Army’s officer corps is depleted and the unit is not ready to undertake combat operations.
P.S.2. It is a good thing that the Russian Armed Forces is training. I would be concerned if they stopped because that would be a sign of incoming troubles.
