China’s military doctrine puts a high premium on concealment, deception and surprise. Gen. Viktor Esin, a former commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, told officials and journalists in the U.S. on a visit in December that he had concluded China might have 850 nuclear warheads ready to launch, while others were kept in underground tunnel storage for use in an emergency. He estimated the total size of the Chinese nuclear arsenal at between 1,600 and 1,800 warheads.
Esin, now a professor at the Russian Academy of Military Science, said that Moscow was so concerned that it would consider abandoning the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed with the U.S. in 1987 if the Chinese build-up did not stop. The INF Treaty bans the U.S. and Russia from having missiles with ranges of up to 5,500 km, as well as their launchers and related support facilities. The ban covers short-, medium- and intermediate-range missiles.
China’s nuclear program still shrouded in secrecy | The Japan Times
Tag Archives: Military Doctrine
China’s nuclear program still shrouded in secrecy | The Japan Times
Russia Prepares for War with the US and NATO, While Lacking Resources | The Jamestown Foundation
At the same time, according to Arbatov, the Russian military doctrine, adopted in 2010, de facto implied that the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are the main threat and Russia must prepare to fight them (http://www.lawinrussia.ru/node/247260).
Today, Arbatov noted, Russian defense and foreign policies have been streamlined and are not “controversial” anymore. It has been decided:
1) Russia is surrounded by enemies led by the US.
2) The US is using the pro-democracy opposition inside Russia to subvert the regime.
3) The US with its allies may invade Russia anytime.
4) The West plans to use military power to seize Russia’s natural riches.
5) Russia will use its own technologies to rearm its military.
6) Russia’s allies are the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or SCO nations together with Belarus, Armenia and possibly Syria.
7) Nuclear weapons are the cornerstone of Russian security, while calls for nuclear disarmament are a malicious US swindle.
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The personal wealth and political power of Putin and his close cohorts is based on the control and distribution of wealth created by exporting oil, natural gas, metals, diamonds, fertilizer and other natural riches. Putin and his supporters took over Russia in the 2000s and began to project power over neighboring nations after sidelining or destroying a previous generation of oligarchies that controlled Russia’s multiple natural resources in the 1990s. Putin and his team seem to truly believe that Russia’s riches make it the envy of the world and that the US wants to appropriate Russian oil and gas so much it is ready to risk war, if Russia is weak enough. Both Putin and his top general—First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff, Army General Valery Gerasimov—have recently spoken publicly of mounting military threats and enemies surrounding Russia from all sides. Putin’s highly expensive rearmament program has, therefore, been presented as a desperate attempt to preempt Western-led military aggression (see EDM, February 14).
The Jamestown Foundation: Russia Prepares for War with the US and NATO, While Lacking Resources
Netanyahu mulls a Six-Day War surprise
Despite all the signs to the contrary, an Israeli operation is hardly off the table – and as Ben-Yishai hinted, it may not be off the table next year, either. The Israeli military doctrine emphasizes the element of surprise, and in the past the Jewish State has been able to achieve it even in situations where war has been long in the making. In this way, at least, the situation prior to the Six-Day War in 1967 paralleled the one today, while the Israelis could perhaps afford to make a new appointment or two if this would soften the watchfulness of their enemies.
Foreign Policy: The Pentagon Misses The Big Picture : NPR
Haunted by these and other shortcomings, the U.S. intelligence community is now engaged in long-term comprehensive research projects such as Global Trends 2030, a large strategic forecasting report the National Intelligence Council will release later this year. Global Trends 2025, released in November 2008, described long-term demographic, economic, environmental, and institutional trends and discussed their implications. With money increasingly short, policymakers will be under pressure to prioritize defense spending, and they will look to the intelligence community to help them identify the threats that matter and those they can safely ignore. However, the Global Trends reports show the cultural gap between policymakers and intelligence analysts; while the report was undoubtedly insightful to its authors, it is hard to find any connection between reports such as Global Trends and changes policymakers have made to actual policies and programs.
… According to the Pentagon’s 2011 report on China’s military power, China’s military doctrine emphasizes surprise, deception, and offensive operations. …
Russia May Boost Nuclear Potential – Deputy Defense Min. | Defense | RIA Novosti
Russia may have to boost its nuclear potential in future amid emerging nuclear proliferation threats, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s deputy defense minister and a negotiator on the European missile shield, said on Monday.
“New challenges emerge, including missile and nuclear proliferation. Look at how unstable the situation in the Middle East is. That’s why Russia’s military doctrine envisages the use of nuclear weapons in specific cases. I do not rule out than under certain circumstances we will have to boost, not cut, our nuclear arsenal,” Antonov said in an interview with the Kommersant daily.
Russia May Boost Nuclear Potential – Deputy Defense Min. | Defense | RIA Novosti
Obama wants to cut the American nuclear arsenal while the Russians wants to increase their nuclear arsenal. What is wrong with this picture?
Russian Military Chief Warns of Nuclear War Risks – ABC News
Russia is facing a heightened risk of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that have the potential of turning nuclear, the nation’s top military officer said Thursday.
Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, cautioned over NATO’s expansion eastward and warned that the risks of Russia being pulled into local conflicts have “risen sharply.”
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Makarov added, according to Russian news agencies, that “under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.”
A steady decline in Russia’s conventional forces has prompted the Kremlin to rely increasingly on its nuclear deterrent.
Makarov warned that the planned pullout of NATO forces from Afghanistan could trigger conflicts in neighboring ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that could “grow into a large-scale war.”
In its military doctrine, Russia has also described U.S. missile defense plans as another major security challenge, saying it could threaten its nuclear forces and undermine their deterrence potential.
Russian Military Chief Warns of Nuclear War Risks – ABC News
Please note the general thinking – the Russian leadership is prepared for nuclear war. If it is prepared (mentally) for nuclear war involving local conflicts, then it’s not a big leap to be prepared for larger nuclear wars.
Let us attach a red flag to the end of a 2×4 and beat those in the west with it. Do you get it? The risk of a major nuclear war involving Russia and the west has never been greater.
US Military Security Paper On China – Analysis
How China’s ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons does not imply no first use of nuclear weapons. If China feels the slightest threat then it may initiate the first use of nuclear weapons in self-defense.
China’s professed military doctrine of “Counter attack” only if China is attacked is delusive. India is a victim of this deceptive strategy. Attack against India (1962), the Soviet Union (1969) and Vietnam (1979) were described as “Self-Defence Counter Attacks” by the Chinese. That is, it translates to the doctrine of “Forward Defence”-attack if it is perceived that the enemy may be planning an attack or deal it a psychological blow before it can even think of really challenging China. The 2011 paper finally acknowledged that the doctrine of “Active Defence” or “Forward Defence” does not mean a passive position of reacting following an attack, but an attack well outside its borders at a time of its choosing to debilitate a potential enemy even before an enemy has planned an attack. This can be applied to China’s official stance “no first use” of nuclear weapons.
US Military Security Paper On China – Analysis
Russia’s Bear Slouching Under Furniture Salesman
As the American public turns its attention to the growing military threat posed by China — sparked by this month’s visit to the U.S. by President Hu Jintao and the unveiling of China’s stealth fighter prototype — the once-great military of an older foe appears to be falling apart.
A report called “The New Russian Army” released in Moscow this week by the Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a widely respected Russian think-tank, says Russia’s post-Cold War military suffers from a lack of modern weapons, vague military doctrine, no significant allies, and an alarming depletion of manpower.FoxNews.com – Russia’s Bear Slouching Under Furniture Salesman
Europe’s Nuclear-Disarmament Delusion – WSJ.com
Removing American nukes from European soil won’t make the Continent safer.
The underreported and underappreciated fact is that, since the end of the Cold War, Russian military doctrine has grown more, not less, reliant on nuclear forces.There is a logic to this that we in the West should understand. America’s early Cold War doctrine of “massive retaliation” was an implicit admission of the USSR’s long term conventional superiority and a threat to use our own nuclear might to counteract it. A congenitally weak Russia is simply taking a page from that book. Its enormous arsenal is one reason the Kremlin feels free to bully not just erstwhile Soviet states and formerly captive Warsaw Pact nations, but even countries at the heart of the EU.
Michael Anton: Europe’s Nuclear-Disarmament Delusion – WSJ.com
NTI: Global Security Newswire – Russia Drills for Nuclear War
Russia’s strategic missile forces today launched a three-day drill expected to simulate the use of nuclear weapons, RIA Novosti reported (see GSN, Sept. 9, 2009).
Russian military personnel would follow procedures in the nation’s recently adopted military doctrine for dealing with nuclear and conventional conflict, said strategic missile forces spokesman Col. Vadim Koval (see GSN, Feb. 9).
NTI: Global Security Newswire – Russia Drills for Nuclear War
