Russia's military capability - the New Look and the Ukraine

Russian light armoured vehicles - Belarus - Shutterstock

With the ongoing invasion of the Ukraine by Russia at the instigation of Russian President, Vladimir Putin, much public commentary has focussed rightly on the unequal scale of advantage that the Russian military possess compared to their Ukrainian counterparts. This comparison is fully justified as the Russian forces both numerically outnumber the Ukrainians and also technologically, but notably not in all forms of weaponry.

Russia has been upgrading its Armed Forces for many years commencing from 2008 not in respect of the Ukraine, but generally due to the wide range of legacy systems from the Soviet era and also the quite poor performance of several parts of the Russian military in the Georgian conflict that year. Following the end of the conflict, then chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, General Nikolai Makarov decided that a massive overhaul was needed and this program became known as the "New Look".

This initiative included a complete change in the Russian Federation Armed Forces military structure that had barely altered since the period of the Soviet Union. The new structure is more versatile, mobile and tailored to operational requirements with no reliance on mass mobilisation that was a feature of the Soviet era. The process of the New Look has been progressing through the State Armament Program 2011-2020 and has been a very long term objective.

The Russians have benefitted from combat experience and systems testing through conflicts in Syria, the Crimea, Georgia and covert operations in eastern Ukraine with the breakaway provinces.  A brief summary of key changes in the Russian military is listed below -

Army/ground forces

• Smaller combat units have been created termed Battalion Tactical Groups or BTGs, usually a battalion of infantry or armour reinforced with additional armour or infantry units with artillery, air defence and electronic warfare.
• Tank modernisation has predominantly been upgrading existing T-72 tanks but progress has been slow and new generation battle tanks such as the T-14 and T-15 IFV are still being tested in trials. Armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles are mainly legacy vehicles of the past and new-generation equipment is not widely available.
• Missile and rocket artillery is where significant change has occured (this is a favoured munition of the Russians stretching back to to World War II). A new 500 kilometre-range missile termed the 9K720 Iskander has replaced the 120 km-range Tochka-U. The Iskander can utilize both ballistic and cruise missiles. The existing BM-30 Smerch multiple rockets launcher system (often seen in media film footage) has been modernised  with new systems.
• There is a strong emphasis on air-portable equipment which is a key reason why the Russians have been focussing on capturing airfields in the Ukraine.

Navy

• The Navy appears to have undergone the most transformation despite a shipbuilding industry that actually performs well below its declared objectives. Sanctions has played an important role in limiting Russia's ship building industry to deliver effective transformation in naval assets.
• The two most significant changes are first, the deployment of the 3M14 Kalibr long-range precision land attack cruise missile on both surface vessels and submarines in the fleet. Land based infrastructure is vulnerable to this form of weapon launched from the sea. Second, the deployment of vessels such as the Karakut corvettes and improved Kilo submarines has strengthened Russian fleet assets with the capability to use Kalibr.  

Air force/Aerospace

• Known for poor performance in Georgia, this part of the Russian Armed Forces has been a focus for improvement. The single role fighter aircraft ( Su-27 Flanker and MiG-29 Fulcrum) have been replaced by multi-role fighter ground attack aircraft such as the Su-35S Flanker M, Su-30SM Flanker H and the SU-34 Fulback. 
• Air-to air missiles (or AAMs) are being upgraded with improved short, medium and long range AAMs being deployed that can be launched from bomber aircraft. The emphasis is on stand-off, long-range land attack missiles.
• Tactical air-to-surface missiles mainly with Soviet era designs remain a very slow process with newer designs yet to be deployed in any measurable number.

The Ukraine in comparison has little to no capability in upgrading its weapon systems, developing and/or deploying new ones to provide counterpoints to the Russian inventory.

Weapons of fiction, now a reality

Active Denial mounted on its main heavy carrier

Smaller mobile unit of Active Denial

The idea of using invisible rays to inflict pain and/or disable an opponent has long been a favourite theme for thriller and science fiction writers and audiences alike. However such a device or system has been moving through the concept phase to active development for three decades. A prototype was in fact developed for the United States Air Force as far back as the year 2000. Using millimetre waves (which are described as very short wavelength microwaves) with a frequency of 95 gigahertz, the effects penetrate only the outer 0.4 millimetres of skin. The effect however is dramatic and is described as impossible to resist. The United States has spent around $120 million on these devices which are named Active Denial and have progressively been reduced in size from the enormous 7.5 tonnes to military versions which can be mounted on smaller vehicles. Active Denial resembles a large flat antenna dish mounted on the back of a small truck and has a beam diameter of 2 metres with a range of several hundreds of metres in distance. It fires in bursts of 3 to 5 seconds duration. With civilian versions now being developed for deployment with police forces, the obvious question is one of public safety and potential misuse. The deployment of military technology in connection with civilian matters and public order  is usually controversial with the risk of unintended consequences such as injury and/or political repression. Active Denial is a  new device and its potential effects are still relatively unknown. It should remain in limited use until the proven safety and appropriateness of deployment in civilian settings has been effectively demonstrated.

 

The US military and renewable energy

Portable solar energy unit carried by backpack

Environmentalists, various supporters of renewable energy uptake and practitioners of sustainable development would most likely be surprised to know that one of the largest investors in renewable energy sources is the United States military. While the world debates the merits and virtues of the Kyoto Protocol, Kyoto II and renewable energy targets in general, the US Department of Defence has set a goal of supplying 25% of the military's energy needs from renewable energy sources by 2025 with the US navy setting a much more ambitious goal of  50% renewable energy by 2020. These ambitious targets are not surprising in one sense as the US military is the 35th largest consumer of oil in the world with a daily consumption of 45 million litres of crude. In 2010, a portable 300-watt solar panel system called GREENS was demonstrated and small flexible panels for individual soldiers backpacks to power personal equipment were also released. There are over 600 soldiers carrying these personal devices and 100 GREENS panels have been deployed.

The Pentagon is also investing heavily in biofuels and commissioning research into ocean thermal energy conversion systems. Biofuels are showing some promise as a 'Green Fleet' being the USS Nimitz carrier group sailed around Hawaii in July 2012. The fleet comprising a cruiser, two destroyers and a fuel tanker were powered on a 50:50 mix of petroleum and biofuels and the Nimitz's strike aircraft were powered the same way. This raises the obvious conundrum, if the US military can see the value and importance of renewable energy, why do so many governments  pay it only lip service ?

Australia and international military conflict

1919 North Russia - 45th Battalion (Australian Company) Royal Fusiliers

Global strategy and intelligence consultancy, Stratfor has produced a recent brief on Australia analysing the historically large number of international military conflicts in which Austalia has been engaged - its worth noting Stratfor is a US based company but does have Australian clients including major media outlets and defence. Not all the conflicts Australia has been involved-in are mentioned (such as the Malaysian Emergency) nor is the timeframe fully encompassing as Australian's military history extends back to the Sudan in 1885 and arguably the Crimea War. Stratfor's perspective is that ideology does not explain the phenomena but rather its a question of having an ally which is a major martime power and can keep the sea lanes open to Australia. Perhaps but, in fact, Australia's involvement not only in wars but military peacekeeping operations points to a 'world view' where Australia seeks to influence global affairs and 'bat above its weight' as an international citizen. Australia still does participate in wars as a partner of a much more powerful maritime power (Great Britain and now the United States), but equally it has evolved a foreign policy to choose its own conflicts, for good or for worse. An abridged version of Stratfor's analysis follows:

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Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, ranked in the top 10 in gross domestic product per capita. It is one of the most isolated major countries in the world; it occupies an entire united continent, is difficult to invade and rarely is threatened. Normally, we would not expect a relatively well-off and isolated country to have been involved in many wars. This has not been the case for Australia and, more interesting, it has persistently not been the case, even under a variety of governments. Ideology does not explain the phenomenon in this instance.

Since 1900, Australia has engaged in several wars and other military or security interventions (including the Boer War, World War I, World War II and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq) lasting about 40 years total. Put another way, Australia has been at war for more than one-third of the time since the Commonwealth of Australia was established in 1901. In only one of these wars, World War II, was its national security directly threatened, and even then a great deal of its fighting was done in places such as Greece and North Africa rather than in direct defense of Australia. This leaves us to wonder why a country as wealthy and seemingly secure as Australia would have participated in so many conflicts.

The Australian strategy therefore involves alignment with the leading maritime power, first Britain and then the United States, and participation in their wars. We began by asking why a country as wealthy and secure as Australia would be involved in so many wars. The answer is that its wealth is not as secure as it seems. 

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Where are the ships ? US Fleet Deployments

Courtesy: StratFor

An aspect of the United States is its strong promotion of its military assets. Perhaps a clear example is the use of public information to show current deployments of the US Naval Fleets across the world as the diagram above demonstrates. Most countries don't advertise much of their activities and other powers such as Russia and China operate with the opposite perspective which is to deem all military information as secret.

Australia's military position

According to the latest information, Australia's current military strength stands at:
Army: 26,611 full time and 15,892 Reserves
Airforce: 13,521 full time and 2,653 Reserves
Navy: 12, 935 full time and 1,785 Reserves

...with 59 main battle tanks, 71 F/A-18 fighters, 21 F-112 strike aircraft and a small handful of surface craft vessels (6 mine hunters, 4 guided missile frigates, 8 frigates, 9 amphibious landing craft and 6 submarines).

Australia ranks 13th in terms of military expenditure but only ranks 68th in terms of size of armed forces. Australia's modest military outlay of $24B USD in spending in compares very small to France at $61B USD, the United States at $713B (ex NATO) and China at $61B USD.

In total, this is a very small but high tech level military force and suitable for the South-East Asia region. The suitability of having battle tanks remain questionable given the lack of possible deployments which would require this type of armament.