The Russian Way of Regular Land Warfare: A Comparative Case Study of Four Major Russian Operations after the Cold War

Abstract

This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of Russian military behavior through a characterization of the Russian way of regular land warfare. The Russian use of regular military force on several occasions since the Cold War has created an acute need to interpret and predict Russian military behavior. If this fails, the result could be lost wars and unnecessary escalations. Essentially, my research will attempt to find the way in which the Russian way of regular land warfare since 2007 has evolved from the Soviet version of the late 1980s.

The analysis is divided into three parts. Firstly, the Soviet way of regular land warfare in the 1980s is established as a “model” for the subsequent analyses. Secondly, this model is then used as a frame of reference for four case studies of Russian military behavior since 2007. Finally, the findings from these case studies are then synthesized and contextualized with the help of Russian military theoretical literature. In sum, these three parts, providing different perspectives, create a comprehensive and well-founded description of the Russian way of regular land warfare.

As the reader will learn through this thesis, in broad terms, the Russian way of regular land warfare is characterized by an emphasis on penetrating the enemy defensive system and swiftly reaching decisive objectives. This is achieved through a range of characteristics that are largely continuations of the Soviet version in the 1980s and even before. Firstly, the element of surprise is crucial to the Russians and largely achieved through high combat readiness, strategic mobility, secrecy and deception. The advantage of surprise helps to seize the strategic initiative, which is then retained by aggressive and relentless operations, particularly in the initial period of war. Russian combined arms warfare is largely fires-centric and systemic: that is, the use of fires is put into a system, embodied by, for example, the Russian concepts of the “reconnaissance-strike (fire) complex” and the “fire destruction of the enemy”. New technology, such as precision-strike weaponry, UAVs and electronic warfare, has been key to these conceptualizations and incrementally implemented into the Russian combined arms warfare system.