{"id":80898,"date":"2023-07-04T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T20:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=80898"},"modified":"2023-07-03T15:47:18","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T05:47:18","slug":"from-the-bookshelf-putins-wars-from-chechnya-to-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-putins-wars-from-chechnya-to-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"From the bookshelf: \u2018Putin\u2019s wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Russia\u2019s military crossed the Ukrainian border on 24 February 2022 to march on Kyiv, they were expecting an easy victory. Instead, they were held back by Ukraine\u2019s highly motivated defence forces, suffered humiliating tactical defeats, got bogged down in logistical problems and had to pull back within a month. How could the world\u2019s fourth largest military force\u2014and one with extensive recent battlefield experience\u2014have made such an enormous miscalculation<\/a>?<\/p>\n

In Putin\u2019s wars<\/em><\/a>, Mark Galeotti sets out to answer that question and many others about Russia\u2019s armed forces. Galeotti is a well-known scholar of Russian political and security affairs, on which he has published widely, and an honorary professor at University College London\u2019s School of Slavonic and East European Studies.<\/p>\n

Galeotti\u2019s ambitious book could hardly be more timely. He provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the wars waged by Russia from the 1990s to the present day, including the two Chechen wars, Russia\u2019s incursion into Georgia, its Syria campaign, and the different stages of its war of aggression on Ukraine, from the \u2018little green men\u2019 who took over Crimea in 2014 to the current full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n

With decades of experience observing Russia, Galeotti provides a warts-and-all account of its military\u2019s strengths, weaknesses and future prospects.<\/p>\n

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia\u2019s armed forces were in disarray, underfunded, corrupt, inefficient and in urgent need of reform. As a result, the first Chechen campaign (1994\u20131996) was an abject failure. The second Chechen war (1999\u20132000) drew lessons from the first and ended in an uneasy peace, leaving the Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov in power and heavily subsidised by Moscow.<\/p>\n

This was followed by Russia\u2019s intervention in Georgia (2008), which was intended to rein in the independent-minded president Mikheil Saakashvili and remind other former Soviet republics not to cosy up to the West. Russia\u2019s intervention in Syria\u2019s brutal civil war, again, was meant not only to support its long-time ally president Bashar al-Assad but to remind the US of Russia\u2019s stake in the region.<\/p>\n

From Moscow\u2019s perspective, the invasion of Crimea\u2014taking advantage of Russia\u2019s established military presence and a largely Russian-speaking population\u2014was a success. This may have misled the Kremlin to assume that taking over the rest of Ukraine would be as easy. But it also prompted Ukraine to revamp its military in anticipation of further aggression.<\/p>\n

However, Galeotti\u2019s book is about much more than simply Russia\u2019s recent conflicts. He discusses in detail the uphill struggle of successive defence ministers to reorganise Russia\u2019s top-heavy and outdated armed forces. Putin\u2019s first defence minister, Sergei Ivanov (2001\u20132007), came from the KGB and tried hard to convince the generals of the benefits of a contract army over mass conscription.<\/p>\n

Ivanov was followed by Anatoly Serdyukov (2007\u20132012), who had headed Russia\u2019s tax service. Serdyukov brought fiscal efficiency to military planning and purged the armed forces\u2019 senior ranks, but was himself brought down by a corruption scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The current minister, Sergei Shoigu, is the most successful of the three. Politically savvy, he has implemented sweeping reforms, while skilfully using his position to cultivate his public image. Shoigu is the only member of Putin\u2019s inner circle who comes from neither the KGB, Putin\u2019s bailiwick, nor his hometown, Saint Petersburg. Among other achievements, Shoigu is credited with giving the dog-loving president a black Labrador, which Putin famously used to intimidate<\/a> German chancellor Angela Merkel at a summit meeting. Shoigu is widely considered a potential successor to Putin.<\/p>\n

The book includes a fascinating chapter on Russia\u2019s military expenditure, much of which is buried in non-military budget lines. In Galeotti\u2019s assessment, on a purchasing-power-parity basis, Russia has the world\u2019s fourth largest military budget, behind the US, China and India, but ahead of the United Kingdom. Galeotti notes that Russia\u2019s indiscriminate arms exports, second in volume only to those of the US, are one of its few economic success stories.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s military is centred around its huge army, with tanks and artillery a comparative strength. Logistics, again, has been Russia\u2019s Achilles\u2019 heel, as evidenced by its failed assault on Kyiv. Galeotti reminds us that Russia\u2019s railways operate on a different gauge from almost all of Western Europe, which would make it difficult for Russia to sustain combat operations far from its borders. The book also reviews Russia\u2019s air force and navy, which are predominantly regional, its Spetznaz<\/em> special forces, and its nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n

Looking to the future, the words \u2018hybrid\u2019, \u2018ambiguous\u2019, \u2018non-linear\u2019 and \u2018political\u2019 figure frequently in Galeotti\u2019s narrative. Russia has invested extensively in information warfare, including electronic jamming and spoofing, and in drones.<\/p>\n

Due to the poor state of its armed forces, Russia has relied heavily on mercenaries, in particular the Wagner Group, a private military company. While giving Russia some deniability regarding war atrocities, the mercenaries have posed a constant threat to Russia\u2019s military chain of command<\/a>, and even to Putin\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n

The situation came to a head in late June, when the Wagner Group\u2019s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin staged a rebellion against Moscow. Russia quickly brought the insurrection under control<\/a>, consigning Prigozhin to Belarus, announcing steps to disarm the Wagner Group and integrate its soldiers into the mainstream armed forces, and reorganising its security forces. But the episode left Putin severely weakened.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s wars<\/em> is essential reading for defence and security professionals. However, its engaging style also makes it an excellent read for generalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Russia\u2019s military crossed the Ukrainian border on 24 February 2022 to march on Kyiv, they were expecting an easy victory. Instead, they were held back by Ukraine\u2019s highly motivated defence forces, suffered humiliating tactical …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1230,"featured_media":80900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,689,163,744],"class_list":["post-80898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-book-review","tag-military-spending","tag-russia","tag-vladimir-putin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the bookshelf: \u2018Putin\u2019s wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine\u2019 | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-putins-wars-from-chechnya-to-ukraine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From the bookshelf: \u2018Putin\u2019s wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine\u2019 | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Russia\u2019s military crossed the Ukrainian border on 24 February 2022 to march on Kyiv, they were expecting an easy victory. 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