How to welcome in 2010 like a true Russian

With an AK-47 shaped bottle of Vodka, that's how! Thank you Mikhail Kalishnikov.

H/T to Danger Room Sphere: Related Content

Start of the 2012 Presidential elections already?

Over the weekend it was reported that the Nevsky Express was derailed by a bomb on the track as it traveled from St. Petersburg to Moscow. While the details are still coming out and no one has yet to claim responsibility for the attack, one has to wonder if this is the opening act of the elections for 2012. While Putin may be a lock for another term as the President of Russia, will there be similar attacks with other murky identities of terrorists and terrorist groups? As Patriarch Kirill stated in his sermon Sunday "“Russia is a peaceful country,” he said, “but when the hand of the enemy is raised up against our way of life, we will ably protect our fellow citizens.”

So this raises the question, who is the enemy in this latest bombing? The Chechen wars were partly driven by the bombings of the apartments in Moscow, in which several things seemed askew, such as the third bomb which failed to go off and also the fact that none of the government building in Moscow were never bombed. Is this a ploy to manipulate voters feelings of security ahead of 2012? It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Sphere: Related Content

More Military Modernization Woes

In the past in this blog I've written about Russia's ongoing military modernization efforts. One point I have made is whether or not Russia can financially sustain its modernization efforts. The latest ISCIP Analyst presents a good argument that Russia will have a very difficult time paying for its modernization.

According to the posting, Russia has begun to underfund it's modernization efforts and many of the technical, command and control, and other like functions and the ability to produce them have atrophied in Russia in the past couple of years. The fact that Russia is now looking to purchase UAVs from Isreal and a Command and Control Helicopter Carrier from France is indicative of the fact that Russia has fallen so far behind in this area that it is willing to buy them from the outside in an effort to jumpstart their ability understand both how systems like this are created but then also are integrated both doctrinally and operationally speaks to how far Moscow still has to travel before it can truly leave the old cold war ghost of the Red Army behind it. Sphere: Related Content

Wow, vodka cures anything...

From Danger Room this morning. Apparently vodka helps cure you of radiation poisoning. Whoda thunk? Sphere: Related Content

Project Sapphire, the good old days

The early nineties were great. Your biggest concern was not bumping into an unmarked, left over minefield in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, Russia and the US held joint manuevers, it was good times for all.

Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, the US paid the Kazakh government 27 million dollars to take several hundred tons of highly enriched uranium off of its hands. David Hoffman, in the Washington Post, tells the story of a US counter proliferation project called Project Sapphire. While it's not George Clooney chasing a rogue nuclear bomber around the world, it does show how good policy can effectively keep nuclear genies in the bottle. Nuclear material has value to countries as either a source of energy, or a source of power to cow their neighbors or bring parity with another nuclear power in the region.

Our best policy in this region would be to keep encouraging Russian and Central Asian counter proliferation efforts both within their borders and in the region. The latest revelation about Iran's nuclear weapons efforts only make their cooperation more important. Sphere: Related Content

Shades of '91

Pavel Felgenhauer has reported on a Russian Army incursion into Moscow earlier this week. What is most disturbing about this incident is that is was a senior military officer who had chosen to use his own power to subvert what appeared to be a legal investigation into the mis-doings of his son-inlaw.

The sending of armed troops, unasked for by the Russian government, into Moscow does bring to light some serious command and control issues for both Medvedev and Putin. Felgenhauer rightly points out the implications for the Kremlin. This may result in Medvedev and Putin becoming prisoners in their own city unless Shamonov is crushed and made an example of.

Shumanov has also been a very vocal supporter of COL Budanov, a Russian Tank Regiment who was charged with and found guilty of the murder of a teenage Chechen girl during Russia's campaign there. The Budanov case has been an irritant for Moscow due to the constant attention brought to it by Anna Politkovskaya in her articles and books. While Putin has poo-poo'd her death, the reason she was killed can probably be tied back to her work on Chechnya, amongst other things. Shumanov unearthing Budanov in his defense probably does little to help him. Shumanov did serve in Chechnya.

While this does provide Moscow with an embarrasing and very thought provoking incident, their is a silver lining in all of this. Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov has been leading the charge for Medvedyev's military reforms and professionalization of the military. His biggest obstacle so far has been the general officer corps, who see the changes as a threat to them and the Russian military officer corps as a whole. What better hammer to have to beat them into submission than that of a russian general officer using elite special troops to barge into Moscow for his own personal interests.

Use it wisely, well and often is the only advice I could give. Sphere: Related Content

Pulling the plug on missle defense in Eastern Europe

At the end of the week, President Obama announced that he is changing America's concept for missle defense in regards to countering Iran's future nuclear ballistic missile capabilities. Previously, the US had planned to counter Iranian missiles through a series of radars and interceptors stationed in Europe. This obviously has been an irritant to Moscow since it was announced. Since the end of the cold war, and even prior to it, Moscow has considered it's strategic nuclear capability as an answer to what it percieved as NATOs and the US military edge. It believes that what keeps Russia safe at night is it's strategic nuclear forces.

If we were still looking to fight a nuclear WWIII, that line of thought would hold some water, but Russia, through its recent military history, and it's observation of recent US military history, I think has seen that it can no longer think that way. Statements by Medvedev over this past year have shown that the political leadership want to break that old way of thinking. Russia now wants a military that is professional, flexible and agile. He needs a force that can quickly move to trouble spots and get control before the violence spreads. Medvedev knows that the threats that Russia faces will be along and inside its border and nuclear weapons will do nothing to solve them.

Consider this also. Russia has a strong concern about the part of the Near Abroad that encompasses the caucuses and the central asia. This part of the near abroad have invasion routes in the past into Russia and also now host a growing muslim population that chafes under Moscow's rule and influence. With our withdrawal from a robust and very public missile defense program in eastern europe to a more low key program, it may put the onus on Russia to become more involved in counter proliferation in the area. Why? For one thing, having a nuclear armed Iran in the vicinity of it's near abroad runs counter to its own national security. Secondly, Russia has been a major provider of military equipment to Iran. By this virtue of arms sales that Iran really needs, Russia has a greater stick and carrot effect than we could hope for. Thirdly, Russia and Iran have much in common, government wise. Both countries are "managed democracies". They both hold open and democratic elections (for the most part), but the powers that be, whether it be the Siloviki/United Russia Party or the Revolutionary Council and Supreme Leader maintain a very strong sway over the government and its actions. As we see in international relations, similar countries tend to associate, cooperate, build concensus and create coaltions with like countries. That is why it is possible that Russia would also have more of an influence over Iran than we could hope to have in the near future.

So in the end, I believe that this is a shrewd move by the Obama administration which opens doors for Russia to contribute more positively to the global community in terms of counter proliferation. But what does Putin think... Sphere: Related Content