Russians = Backwardness = Savages = Orcs

Jamestown |   Since 2008, Russia has consistently sought to adopt and introduce command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities to the Armed Forces as part of its conventional military modernization plans. At their core, those efforts are rooted in developing a Russian variant of network-centric warfare, reflecting changes in the international strategic environment as well as accompanying transformation in the means and methods of conducting warfare.

After many years of analysis, discussion and planning, the Russian military is now well on the path toward the fuller formation of a network-centric capability that will present challenges for any potential adversary. Thus, Russia’s Armed Forces, together with their numerous technological advances, are confidently entering the high-tech battlespace.

• Military science and military forecasting;
• The character of future conflict;
• Rooting future warfare in the lessons of the past;
• Strategic deterrence and strategic foresight;
• Network-centric warfare;
• War in space;
• Deep defense in information warfare;
• Asymmetric warfare;
• Psychotronic weapons;
• Climate weapons;
• Reflexive control;
• Nanotechnologies.[60]

The concept of network-centric warfare is closely tied to the RMA, with the advances and practical application unfolding through complex processes in the enhancement of US military combat power, particularly in the 1990s. According to Russian military specialists, this meant new means and methods of conducting warfare, integrating “technical reconnaissance, automation and control of fire damage by means of information and telecommunication networks and data transmission to enhance the effectiveness of combat operations through harmonization and coordination of available forces and means based on a common information space.”

The upsurge in interest in network-centric concepts among Russian military scientists since 2008 reflects a clear influence from the senior military and defense leadership. In 2010, Russia’s General Staff Academy published an extensive collection of open-source materials dealing with the concept of network-centric warfare: Setetsentricheskaya voyna: Daydzhest po materialam otkrytykh izdaniy i SMI (Network-Centric Warfare: Digest on Materials of Open Publications and Mass Media).[67] Moreover, the Russian military scientific community continues to maintain considerable focus on network-centric warfare, especially following and analyzing its evolution within the United States military. In 2018, for example S. I. Makarenko and M. S. Ivanov published a 901-page study: Setetsentricheskaya voyna—printsipy, tekhnologii, primery i perspektivy (Network-Centric Warfare—Principals, Technologies, Examples and Perspectives).[68]

It is clear, therefore, that within the existing body of professional Russian science, there is persistent interest in network-centric warfare. But the emerging view of the capability in the Russian context is cautious, and many specialists warn against the state investing too heavily in this area, fearing wastage of resources. As such, these experts tend to counsel against seeing its adoption as a panacea. It is also vital to understand that Russian theorists see network-centric warfare capability as an offensive rather than defensive capability, and they envisage it serving as a tool against other high-technology adversaries.^[69]

In the published writings of Russian military scientists, a deep understanding and body of knowledge exists concerning Western military approaches to network-centric warfare; they tend to analyze the operational experience of such operations and draw conclusions concerning the relative strengths and weaknesses of such approaches. Additionally, Russian specialists have sought to study and draw lessons from examples of Western militaries, such as Sweden’s, that tried and later abandoned efforts to introduce network-centric warfare—in order to avoid these pitfalls in Russia. Russian analyses of US/NATO network-centric capability are also closely linked to how Main Intelligence Directorate (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye—GRU) specialist officers follow, assess and understand the concept and the key trends involved. An outstanding example is Colonel Aleksandr Kondratyev.