Russland

[Quintus Fabius]

https://cepa.org/comprehensive-reports/r...e-by-2025/

Russia’s military strategy, as in most Western countries, is designed to ensure that the military accomplishes the tasks formulated by the political leadership—chiefly, the defense and pursuit of Russian interests in the context of an encompassing confrontation with a powerful and deeply adversarial Western coalition.

Key entities involved in the process of formulating Russian strategy include: the Kremlin, as the core of political leadership; the Ministry of Defense (MoD), particularly the research centers under the General Staff; the Security Council (SC) and the whole Presidential Executive office that supports it; and select representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and prominent think tanks.1

We hypothesize that, rather than formulate independent strategic thought in keeping with their institutional perspectives as might be expected in the West, each of these actors develops their inputs as an expression of the perspectives set by the Russian president and his close allies.

Conclusion

In brief, Russian military thinkers have realized that the current Russian armed forces are far from what they should be for modern warfare. This contradiction between theory and reality will define political discussions and the efforts of Russian political and military leadership toward adaptation and/or reform of the armed forces and military-industrial complex in the coming years. None of the players below the level of the Russian president, however, appear empowered to decide or even propose how the inevitable political and material tradeoffs necessary for a step-change in Russian military capability might be resolved.