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81. A Russian View on Landpower

Author:
Keir Giles and Major General Aleksandr V Rogovoy
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Russia’s seizure of Crimea, and ongoing operations in eastern Ukraine, have refocused attention on the Russian military as a potential cause for concern in Europe. This Letort Paper, by an influential Russian general and military academic, lays out specifically Russian views on the essential nature of strong conventional land forces, and how they may be used. With an expert commentary providing essential context and interpretation, the Paper presents a valuable insight into Russian military thinking, at a potentially critical juncture for European security.
Topic:
Security, War, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Crimea

82. Understanding Public Opinion in Russia During the Ukraine Crisis

Author:
Timothy Frye
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
Abstract:
What are public attitudes in Russia toward the war in Ukraine? Is this Putin’s war, or do his narrative on Ukraine and the policies he has followed toward that country resonate with Russian citizens? If the war has popular support, to what extent is this the case and why?
Topic:
International Relations, War, and Public Opinion
Political Geography:
Russia and Ukraine

83. Humanity Considerations Cannot Reduce Wars Hazards Alone: Revitalizing the Concept of Military Necessity

Author:
Yishai Beer
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The exercise of brute force by militaries, though common, reflects professional incompetency. A well-trained military has an inherent interest in enhancing its operational effectiveness and constraining unnecessary brutality. The law of armed conflict, however, generally ignores the constraining effect of the necessity principle, originally intended to allow only the minimally necessary use of force on the battlefield. Consequently, the prevailing law places the burden of restricting the exercise of brute military force upon humanitarian considerations (and the specific norms derived from them). Humanity alone, however, cannot deliver the goods and substantially reduce war’s hazards. This article challenges the current dichotomy between the two pillars – mistakenly assumed to be polar opposites – of the law of armed conflict: necessity and humanity. It calls for the transformation of the military’s self-imposed professional constraining standards into a revised legal standard of necessity. Though the necessity principle justifies the mere use of lethal force, it should not only facilitate wielding the military sword but also function simultaneously as a shield, protecting combatants and non-combatants alike from excessive brutality. The suggested transformation would bind and restrain the prospective exercisers of excessive force, political and military alike, and restrict the potential damage that might be caused both intentionally (to combatants) and collaterally (to non-combatants). The combined effect of the current changes in war’s pattern and the law of armed conflict, in the military and social thinking of recent decades, and the new strategies available due to the development of new military technologies have all created a new war environment – one that may be ready to leverage the constraining potential of military professionalism into a binding legal standard and norms.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Law, Treaties and Agreements, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

84. Blood Revenge and Violent Mobilization: Evidence from the Chechen Wars

Author:
Emil Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Despite a considerable amount of ethnographic research into the phenomena of blood revenge and blood feud, little is known about the role of blood revenge in political violence, armed conflict, and irregular war. Yet blood revenge—widespread among many conflict-affected societies of the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond—is not confined to the realm of communal infighting, as previous research has presumed. An empirical analysis of Russia's two counterinsurgency campaigns in Chechnya suggests that the practice of blood revenge has functioned as an important mechanism in encouraging violent mobilization in the local population against the Russian troops and their Chechen proxies. The need to exact blood revenge has taken precedence over an individual's political views, or lack thereof. Triggered by the loss of a relative or humiliation, many apolitical Chechens who initially sought to avoid involvement in the hostilities or who had been skeptical of the insurgency mobilized to exact blood revenge to restore their individual and clan honor. Blood revenge functions as an effective, yet heavily underexplored, grievance-based mechanism encouraging violent mobilization in irregular wars.
Topic:
Political Violence, Civil War, War, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Russia, Asia, Chechnya, Yemen, Colombia, Georgia, and Albania

85. Entre européanisation et fragmentation, quel modèle de développement pour le territoire ukrainien? (Between Europeanization and fragmentation, what model of development for the Ukrainian territory?)

Author:
Gilles Lepesant
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
One week before the third Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius on November 28-29, 2013, Ukraine suspended the preparation of an association agreement with the European Union, which had been under negotiation since 2007. When the agreement was finally signed in June 2014, President Yanukovych had fled the country under people’s pressure, and the integrity of Ukraine was challenged in the East by separatists and their Russian allies. These events came paradoxically at a time when the country's cohesion seemed stronger than in the 1990s. Far from being divided into two parts, Ukraine consists of the pieces of broken empires that all have good reasons to join in the state, as recent as this one may be. Indeed, its geography, electoral or economic, does not show a split between two blocks, but various lines of division that do not necessarily herald the breaking up of the state. Since the independence, this diversity had never been translated into new institutions: for several reasons, the reshaping of the centralized regime inherited from the Soviet era was deemed untimely by the country’s political forces. Presented as a priority by the members of the Parliament elected in 2014, the reform of territorial government is being implemented while Ukraine’s driving regions are either paralyzed or threatened by war.
Topic:
Nationalism, Sovereignty, War, Territorial Disputes, Europeanization, Memory, Borders, and State
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and European Union

86. Afghanistan: the view from Russia

Author:
Józef Lang
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Russia's current and foreseeable policy towards Afghanistan is multi-vectored, complex and shows, at times, signs of incoherence. Russia views developments in Afghanistan as a strategic challenge and is expressing growing concern over the country's prospects for stability after the withdrawal of ISAF forces by the end of 2014. Russian decision-makers fear that a security vacuum emerging after the withdrawal could destabilise Central Asia and have a negative impact on Russia itself. At the same time, Moscow is concerned with Western military presence in the region, which it regards as interference in its neighbourhood. At tactical level, Russia also sees the situation in Afghanistan as an opportunity to secure its interests both regionally (consolidating its influence in Central Asia) and more widely (in terms of its relations with NATO).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Foreign Policy, Regional Cooperation, War, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, and Central Asia

87. Trends in international arms transfers, 2013

Author:
Siemon T. Wezeman and Pieter D. Wezeman
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:
The volume of international transfers of major weapons in 2009–13 was 14 per cent higher than in 2004–2008 (see figure 1). The five biggest exporters in 2009–13 were the United States, Russia, Germany, China and France and the five biggest importers were India, China, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, War, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, India, Paris, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia

88. The North Korean Factor and Russia’s Positions in Asia

Author:
G. Toloraya and A. Torkunov
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
In recent years, Russia’s active and highly vigorous foreign policy in many conflict zones has become an important international factor in the hottest points (Syria being one of them). Russia achieved spectacular diplomatic results. there are, however, problem zones much closer to home. We have in mind the Korean Peninsula, the scene of the oldest and dangerous conflict. Many times in the past, the “soft underbelly” of Russia’s far east left the expert community and the public puzzled and bewildered. Throughout the decades which separate the peninsula from the “hot war” (still very much in evidence de jure and de facto), it has been living amid sluggish confrontation and dramatic developments at the domestic stage of the north and the south, two irreconcilable opponents, and between them.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, and War
Political Geography:
Russia and North Korea

89. Russia's Counterinsurgency in North Caucasus: Performance and Consequence

Author:
Ariel Dr. Cohen
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The North Caucasus region has been a source of instability for the past several centuries. Most recently, Chechen aspirations to achieve full independence after the break-up of the Soviet Union led to two disastrous wars. While the active phase of the Chechen conflict ended in 2000 – more than a decade ago—the underlying social, economic, and political issues of the region remain. A low-level insurgency continues to persist in the North Caucasus region, with occasional terrorist attacks in the Russian heartland. There are few reasons to expect any substantial improvement in the situation for years to come. Chechnya functions as a de facto independent entity; Islamist influence in Dagestan is growing, terror attacks continue, and the rest of the North Caucasus requires massive presence of Russian security services to keep the situation under control. Preventing the North Caucasus from slipping back into greater instability requires tackling corruption, cronyism, discrimination, and unemployment—something the Kremlin has so far not been very willing to do. “Small wars” in the Caucasus resonated as far away as Boston, MA, and more international attention and cooperation is necessary to prevent the region from blowing up.
Topic:
Political Violence, Politics, War, International Security, Self Determination, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, Chechnya, and North Caucasus

90. Russia's Hybrid Warfare -Waging War below the Radar of Traditional Collective Defence

Author:
Heidi Reisinger and Aleksandr Golts
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Ukraine is not even a state!” Putin reportedly advised former US President George W. Bush during the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest. In 2014 this perception became reality. Russian behaviour during the current Ukraine crisis was based on the traditional Russian idea of a “sphere of influence” and a special responsibility or, stated more bluntly, the “right to interfere” with countries in its “near abroad”. This perspective is also implied by the equally misleading term “post-Soviet space.” The successor states of the Soviet Union are sovereign countries that have developed differently and therefore no longer have much in common. Some of them are members of the European Union and NATO, while others are desperately trying to achieve this goal. Contrary to what Professor John Mearsheimer may suggest. In his article “Why the Ukraine crisis is the West's fault” he argues that NATO has expanded too far to the East, “into Russia's backyard”, against Moscow's declared will, and therefore carries responsibility for recent events; however, this seems to ignore that NATO was not hunting for new members, but found them knocking at its door.
Topic:
NATO and War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Ukraine, Soviet Union, and Moscow