Putin has transformed Russian army into a lean, mean fighting machine
President Vladimir Putin has turned a once-moribund Russian military into a lean, quick-strike force that can invade Chechnya, Georgia and now Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Under Mr. Putin, Russia has developed the world’s third-largest defense budget, at $70 billion. The underpaid army of post-Cold War conscripts has given way to special operations troops and experienced guns for hire, some of whom showed up in Crimea in not readily identifiable uniforms. Overall, headquarters have been consolidated and soldiers fight out of brigades, not large divisions.
“What you saw in Georgia was a test bed for that new force structure, basically a brigade force to replace the old divisions and regiments,” Mr. Glantz said. “I think the judgment on the part of Putin was, what he sent in there, this multiple brigade and battalion groups, worked quite well.”
“The Russian military today is clearly intended early on to conduct initial combat operations. The problem is it doesn’t have the capacity to conduct protracted combat operations.”
“There is no great mobilization capacity in Russia today,” he said. “What that means is, in a crisis, if the military gets into problems, the Kremlin has some very unappealing options. What they’ve been doing in their exercises is, when the conventional forces fail in defense, they go nuclear.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/6/putin-has-transformed-russian-army-into-a-lean-mea/?page=all
From the same article:
[i]James Russell, an instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., said regardless of Mr. Putin’s incursion and ramped-up military, Russia is in dire economic straits, existing on energy resources and hamstrung by deep corruption.
“Events in the Crimea do not alter this basic fact,” Mr. Russell said. “Russia is passing from the scene in this sense, with an unsustainable economic and maybe even political model. It could be argued that a central challenge of the 21st century will, in fact, be the collapse of the Russian state when the oil runs out and Putin’s mafia cronies are all enjoying themselves in their villas in the French Riviera.”
That is why, he said, the U.S. pivot to Asia should continue.
“The political, economic and military epicenter of the world is moving inexorably eastward, and the United States needs to move along with it,” Mr. Russell said. “Our continued economic health and well-being depends upon our continued economic, political and military integration with Asia.”[/i]
To that I would add, “and an unsustainable demographic model.”
It’s a scary thought, they get in a large conflict and they can’t sustain forces against a counter-attack, so they will start chucking nukes around.
“Hida ya pie, hide ya peaches, they invading GA!” Jk folks…