Zitat:Russia's New Armata Battle Tank Dramatically Cheaper Than Expected

Zitat:Russia's new Armata T-14 tank will cost a mere 250 million rubles ($3.75 million) when it enters serial production, the head of the vehicle's manufacturer said Tuesday, putting the battle tank in strong position to compete with U.S. and European rivals on the global export market.

The official cost of a single Armata has not been released, but Oleg Sienko, head of tank maker UralVagonZavod, said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Tuesday that it would be two times less than the popularly reported 500 million ruble ($7.5 million) price tag circulated by Russian and international media.

Competitors to the Armata, such as the German Leopard 2, the U.S. M1 Abrams, and the British Challenger 2 are estimated to cost anywhere from $6.8 to $8.6 million, news agency RBC reported Tuesday.

Zitat:President Vladimir Putin pledged that the Russian armed forces would procure 2,300 of the new tanks under the government's ongoing decade-long 20 trillion ruble ($350 billion) rearmament program

Quintus Fabius schrieb:Diese Problematik erschöpft sich ja nicht nur in Bezug auf die Lagerbestände an Munition. Auch Ersatzteile, Abnutzung der Zellen, Betriebsstoffe usw und selbst der Ersatz des Humankapitals sind zu bedenken. Nicht nur die Russen haben hier Probleme, insbesondere die Europäischen Armeen sind hier erbärmlich aufgestellt. Es fehlt hier jede vernünftige Vorratshaltung und ohne solche erhebliche Vorräte an Munition und Ersatzteilen werden wir jeden ernsthafteren Konflikt binnen kurzen verlieren. Von der Frage wie wir ernsthafte Verluste überhaupt ersetzen wollen noch ganz zu schweigen.

Assad verliert ja seinen Krieg inzwischen vor allem auch deshalb, weil ihm die lebendige Wehrkraft ausgeht. Und hier zumindest sind die Russen wesentlich besser aufgestellt als jede Westeuropäische Armee.

Zitat:Arctic infantry test drive new Ruslan ATV on mountainous snow in Russia

Zitat:Russia’s advanced electronic warfare capabilities elucidates a broader point. The US Military’s superiority depends on advanced communications and electronics, yet these expensive advanced systems are highly susceptible to the Russian’ advanced jamming abilities.

These systems are also much less expensive to produce than many of the advanced weapons deployed by the United States. For example, a single Richag-AV radar system costs only $10 million – expensive in absolute terms but a cheap asymmetrical capability in relative terms.

While the commander of U.S. Army units in Europe, Lt. General Ben Hodges, calls Russia’s electronic warfare capabilities “eye-watering,” Russia’s cyber warfare capabilities are the Kremlin’s ultimate asymmetric tool. While Chinese hackers receive the majority of attention, the United States’ Director of National Intelligence James Clapper believes Russia’s cyber threat exceeds the Chinese one, using stealthier and more advanced cyberattack methods.

The Russian military recently established a dedicated cyber command in preparation for a future conflict, and reportedly hacked both the State Department and the White House. Although the Russian cyber penetration explored only unclassified portions of the White House network, the attackers were still able to gain access to the President’s daily schedule.

Moreover, this represents just the tip of the iceberg. Far more worryingly, Russian hackers have also been actively exploring the United States’ infrastructure vulnerabilities. In recent Congressional testimony, Clapper revealed that Russian hackers had successfully penetrated the industrial control systems which monitor and access critical U.S. infrastructure such as water and energy systems. By remotely accessing these systems, hackers could theoretically take down the United States’ power grid.

This is not solely an American problem. A 2014 report from leading cybersecurity firm Symantec reveals that European infrastructure sits squarely in the crosshairs of Russian cyber hackers as well. The attackers, dubbed Dragonfly by Symantec researchers, penetrated major energy firms in such sectors as electricity generation, pipeline operators and energy industry industrial equipment providers. Only 24 percent of the attacks struck the United States, with the remainder occurring largely in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Poland and Romania. According to Symantec, if the attackers “had used the sabotage capabilities open to them, (they) could have caused damage or disruption to energy supplies in affected countries.” Translation – the European grid is vulnerable as well.

Those doubting the serious threat posed by Russia’s cyberattack capabilities need only look at last month’s unprecedented attack that took down Ukraine's Prykarpattyaoblenergo power grid for approximately six hours. Analysts from the American cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners attributed the attack to the Russian hacking group ‘Sandworm’. While it’s unclear whether Sandworm is working directly for the Russian government, iSight's director of espionage analysis, John Hultquist, says at a minimum “it is a Russian actor operating with alignment to the interest of the state."

Aside from the technical sophistication of these attacks, what’s also troubling is that they cannot be easily traced back to their exact origin. According to Admiral Michael Rogers, head of the United States’ National Security Agency, these penetrations are not always executed by governments, and sophisticated Russian cyber gangs are used to "obscure, if you will, their (nation-states) finger prints." The ability to obscure an attack’s origin, in turn, raises doubts about when there should be a government-to-government response – perhaps even of a kinetic variety – or whether it should be treated as a civilian domestic issue. If this sounds suspiciously like the “plausible deniability” approach behind Russia’s now widely discussed “hybrid warfare”, that’s because it is.

Needless to say, Russia is not the only country with advanced cyber capabilities. The United States military also established its own cyber command, and – as the Stuxnet attack which disabled Iranian nuclear centrifuges demonstrated – sophisticated Western cyber attack capabilities exist as well. Likewise, in a real conflict, NATO would surely deploy electronic counter counter measures (ECCM) against Russian electronic warfare systems such as the Khibin or Richag-AV. Most importantly, none of this means the West should assume a war with Russia is inevitable. It’s not – and concerted diplomacy must always seek to avert such a catastrophic scenario. Nevertheless, there are a number of things the West should do immediately.

First, when it comes to electronic warfare, NATO – especially the United States –remains horribly under-resourced, with a grand total of only 813 troops committed to this mission. The United States can spend ten billion dollars on its next generation aircraft carrier and 500 billion dollars on the flawed F-35 fighter, but if these weapons’’ advanced electronics risk being disabled by an opponent’s weapons systems at a fraction of the cost, then Americans’ overall advantage in firepower is negated. As Colonel Jeffrey Church, the U.S. Army’s chief of electronic warfare noted, Russia has “companies, they have battalions, they have brigades that are dedicated to the electronic warfare mission.” NATO should embark on a crash course to increase its own electronic warfare capabilities.

Second, NATO must confront the fact that its potential adversaries’ cyber capabilities represent a truly existential threat. Russia’s 2010 Military Doctrine notes the "intensification of the role of information warfare" and assigns its development as a national priority. Moreover, Russia aside, the United States’ also considers China, Iran and North Korea as the primary nation state cyber threats.

While countries like Russia and China would surely think twice about launching a “cyber-911” strike during a crisis, an unstable state like North Korea might not – especially if reclusive leader Kim-Jong Un believed his regime’s hold on power was threatened. Moreover, as cyber hacking continues its global proliferation, contemplating what terrorist groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda might try to do is frightening.

Western countries should therefore follow Israel's lead and place the development of cyber defense at the very top of their priorities. An American led “Cyber Manhattan Project” should be assigned the highest priority, even if this means cutting budgets for other weapons systems.

61 percent of American cybersecurity experts believe that by 2025 a major cyber attack causing “widespread harm to a nation’s security and capacity to defend itself and its people” will occur. If this is not a warning the West will heed, then it’s hard to imagine what is.

Zitat:Impact of the economic crisis on Russian military modernization

The Cipher Brief asked me to write a short piece on the impact of Russia’s economic downturn on prospects for the Russian military, as part of a series on Russian military modernization.

The drop in Russian state revenues has affected Russian military modernization to some extent, though the Russian government has made an effort to insulate the military from budget cuts. Although the 2015 military budget was cut by five percent mid-year, the total allocation was still 25 percent higher than the previous year’s budget. This allowed the military to continue its modernization process, conduct operations in Syria, and fulfill its training and exercise programs.

With oil prices remaining low, the military is facing a more difficult financial picture in 2016. In November, the Finance Ministry announced that the total 2016 defense budget would be largely the same as in 2015. However, last month, an additional five percent cut was announced, which will result in the first annual net decline in Russian defense spending since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000.

As a result of the deteriorating financial outlook, the fulfillment of the 2011-2020 State Armament Program is now in question.

Zitat:Putin stellt neues Atomwaffen-Arsenal vor

Moskau (Reuters) - Russlands Präsident Wladimir Putin hat die Entwicklung von neuartigen Atomwaffen bekanntgegeben. Bei einer Rede am Donnerstag vor Abgeordneten in Moskau sprach er von gleich mehreren neuen Systemen wie einer ballistischen Interkontinentalrakete, die nur schwer abzufangen sei; einer atomgetriebene Rakete; einem kleinen Nuklearsprengkopf für Marschflugkörper, die nicht abgefangen werden könnten; mit Kernwaffen bestückbare Unterwasserdrohnen sowie eine Überschallwaffe, die von Abwehrsystemen nicht erfasst werden könne. Russland verfüge nun über Raketen, die kein anderes Land besitze, sagte Putin.

Sein Land sei angesichts der Aufrüstung der USA gezwungen zu handeln, erklärte der Präsident weiter. Das Atomarsenal seines Landes werde ansonsten sinnlos. Die Stärkung des russischen Militärs solle den Weltfrieden sichern.

Zitat:In particular, the Russian Navyhas focused on developing long-range andprecision-strike capabilities.Most of Russia’s larger surface ships are over 30 years old and undergoing various retrofits to extend their service life as Russia’s shipbuilding industry struggles to produce ships over 7,000 tons. As a result, Russia increasingly relies on heavily armed frigates as its primary surface combatants. These ships are equipped with Vertical Launch Systems to house an array of hypersonic anti-shipmissiles, cruise missiles, and antisubmarine missiles.