...THE BEAR'S MILITARY MESS
RUSSIA's military is succeeding in its invasion of Georgia, but only because Moscow has applied overwhelming force.
This campaign was supposed to be the big debut for the Kremlin's revitalized armed forces (funded by the country's new petro-wealth). Well, the new Russian military looks a lot like the old Russian military: slovenly and not ready for prime time.
It can hammer tiny Georgia into submission - but this campaign unintentionally reveals plenty of enduring Russian weaknesses.
The most visible failings are those of the air force. Flying Moscow's latest ground-attack jets armed with the country's newest precision weapons, pilots are missing far more targets than they're hitting.
All those strikes on civilian apartment buildings and other non-military targets? Some may be intentional (the Russians aren't above terror-bombing), but most are just the result of ill-trained pilots flying scared.
They're missing pipelines, rail lines and oil-storage facilities - just dumping their bombs as quickly as they can and heading home.
Russia's also losing aircraft. The Kremlin admits two were shot down; the Georgians claimed they'd downed a dozen by Sunday. Split the difference, and you have seven or more Russian aircraft knocked out of the sky by a tiny enemy. Compare that to US Air Force losses - statistically zero - in combat in all of our wars since Desert Storm.
As one US officer observed to me, the Russian pilots are neither professionally nor emotionally toughened for their missions. Their equipment's pretty good (not as good as ours), but their training lags - and their pilots log far fewer flight hours than ours do.
Russia has been planning and organizing this invasion for months. And they're pulling it off - but the military's embarrassing blunders must be infuriating Prime Minister Putin.
nypost.com
A close examination of video and photos of the Russian force also reveals top of the line equipment--late model T-80 and T-90 main battle tanks, and BMP-2 IFVs. Now, the Caucasus Military District is something of a backwater, home of Category II and Category III divisions, most of which are kept below strength and equipped with older systems, such as the T-72 MBT. On the other hand, the Category I divisions are kept close to Moscow and the western military districts, because that is where the main threat is perceived, and also because that's much better terrain for tank warfare. Obviously, the Russian army carefully transferred the forces for
this operation from central Russia all the way to the Caucasus--in secret--and also accompanied the move with a comprehensive maskirovka intended to put us at our ease (e.g., Putin did go to the Olympic opening ceremonies, after all).
From this we can infer what most experts already know--that the Russian army, though still numerically large, has relatively few competent, deployable formations--there are the airborne divisions and the air assault brigades, and a few tank and motor-rifle divisions, but not much else. Similarly, the Russian air force doesn't have very many fully operational aircraft or deep reserves of fuel, spare parts and munitions. This invasion has probably eaten deeply into Russian operations and maintenance funding, to say nothing of its war reserve stockpiles of ordnance and equipment. Russia must have bet on a short and fairly bloodless war, because it cannot afford--militarily or politically--a protracted slog. Not only doesn't it have the equipment to do so, but it doesn't have enough highly trained troops to sustain heavy casualties. The Russian military consists of a small, diamond-hard point on the end of a wooden stick. If the point shatters or wears down, you are left fighting the stick. (It should be noted that Ralph Peters, writing in the New York Post, has been scathing in his assessment of the Russian army's performance in Georgia, so by Western standards even the best of the Russian army would be considered rather mediocre).
weeklystandard.com
One of the interesting points he raises is that the Georgia Army was set up to deal with an insurgency and was not prepared for a conventional combined arms assault. that is the same circumstance the South Korean army was in when the North invaded. It took awhile and took a lot of help to recover.
This dilemma is behind the argument at the Pentagon on training for future wars between those who want to focus on counterinsurgency and those who want to train for a combat persisting combined arms approach. The fact is you need both and we need enough troops to train for both.
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