General Walerij Gerasimov, Russia’s New Generation Warfare Brain (photo: Wikipedia)
Along with the consolidation of Putin’s power, nearly 20 years ago six goals of Russian political and military strategy were defined which have been in place until today. These are:
It is important to understand what is perceived in the Kremlin as the greatest danger to Russia. The dominating threat is to maintain Russia’s internal stability. This goal is not only the sum of other threats, but it also consists of the threat of external impact, through the so-called “color revolutions” or through separatism resulting simply from the civilisational attractiveness of powers located close to Russia, but which may attract areas subject to Moscow’s power, and which would gladly gravitate, for example, to the West and to Poland.
In addition, threats perceived in the Kremlin as those arising from political instability, the so-called “near abroad” (mainly countries of the former Soviet Union). In this context, the Russians are concerned about the westernisation of Eastern European countries, the presence of the US and western countries in the Eastern NATO Flank, or European Union programs that would impact these areas.
As nowadays, during the increasingly fierce competition for international order (i.e. who sets the rules of the game), the clear boundary between a hot kinetic war and peace has disappeared, so the decision was taken to replace the previous dominant strictly war doctrine with one that would have at its disposal a wider range of activities.
These actions are often not the classic tools used during conflict, which can all the more introduce uncertainty in planning and predicting the behavior of the opponent. This is known as the indirect action strategy. These include tools in the field of economics (sanctions, restrictions on strategic flows), daily politics (isolation of the state on the international arena), diplomacy, and even modern technologies, or humanitarian operations, although used instrumentally (protection of human rights) – as we have seen in Georgia or in the Donbass. Of course, the range of indirect actions includes information and disinformation activities (destabilisation and undermining the prestige of this country on the international arena) and all kinds of activities, e.g. in traditional and social media, degrading the efficient and coherent decision-making process and the strength of leadership or questioning the credibility of the opponent towards his allies or towards international opinion).
There are eight phases of indirect action.
Economic, diplomatic and even psychological tools are also used during this period. The confusion of military and political command is another important step. The so-called disinformation of the opponent through contradictory signals transmitted by the media, diplomacy, or their own explicit and hidden actions. Then comes the time for agent recruitment or at least to intimidate people in decision-making circles to weaken the decision-making process and command. Next, open propaganda comes into play.
Open actions aimed at the opponent herald the next phase of a new generation war. It begins with blocking routes and transport hubs, or the activities of local paramilitary groups hostile to the current power in their country. It conducts intelligence to establish the conditions in which military operations will occur (if the need arises), which, thanks to the situational awareness system (C4ISR), can carry out tasks assigned to them relatively easily, and the command has insight into team situational awareness.
At the same time, reconnaissance and special forces units operate on the opponent’s territory, continuing e.g. previous activities preparing the area for further actions of the Russian state. Another task may be, for example, to identify the enemy’s territory so that long-range weapons can be used. It is important to distinguish between an armed struggle, which aims to physically defeat an opponent, and a confrontation using non-military means, described above. Their task is to deprive the opponent of the mental and physical ability to resist.
These are designed to reduce the sense of security in the country and the quality of information, to create political tensions and an atmosphere of suspicion, and even to create an atmosphere favourable to the rejection of the history and culture of their own country. It is de facto manipulation of social consciousness, and all this in order to internally destabilise the target of aggression.
Often used are non-governmental organisations, foundations, groups unfavourable to power, influencers, the media, the so-called useful idiots and many others. All these efforts are to create a potential for protest in the state, which reduces the support of the authorities, and in time may even lead to protests and a coup.
Special services are another important component of the new generation war. We can distinguish more or less nine types of special operations: intelligence, subversive, intelligence and subversive, army and service support, internal security protection, protection of Russian state property, search and rescue, psychological as well as formation, support and use of irregular forces. Particularly the first 3 and last 2 are extremely well suited to the concept of a new generation war, which shows how important the operations of special groups are. And so they were used in 2014 during the attack on Crimea, which the public and the Ukrainian side did not expect.
Finally, it is worth realising that the next generation war is not only actions on the border of facts and guesses. At the moment when all of the above actions do not lead to the expected result, or vice versa – as soon as the actions of the new generation war prepare the ground for open military operations – the war machine is set in motion and it is to lead to the achievement of the objectives. With the difference, however, that nowadays long-range weapons play and will play an increasingly important role in the framework of the changes we described in Strategy&Future caused by the revolution in military affairs or (as the Russians prefer to say) as part of the reconnaissance and striking complex, which has been discussed since the 1980s in the Soviet Union, and then in Russia, and to what the Russian military brain often refers during his speeches – Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces – General Gerasimov.
The Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium is the highest priority area of Russian action in the new generation war and the basic operational direction that will determine whether Russia will remain a power in Europe and Eurasia or not. Therefore, one should take into account the intensification of activities under the new generation war in the coming decades in the area that was, is and will always be the vital interest of Poland.
Autor
Jacek Bartosiak
CEO and Founder of Strategy&Future, author of bestselling books.
Strategy&Future
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