Posted on 02/23/2010 12:09:59 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
In the immediate aftermath of President Dmitry Medvedev signing the new Russian military doctrine most attention focused on the fact that a first preemptive nuclear strike was not mentioned in the document and on the attention given to NATO as the chief source of “danger” to the security of the Russian Federation. Comments by NATO’s leadership that the doctrine was not a realistic portrayal of NATO were reported by the press, but there was no strong criticism of that aspect of the doctrine. Instead, Russian authors drew attention to the gap between Russia's conventional military capabilities vis-a-vis NATO and its reliance on nuclear weapons in a conventional conflict.
Oleg Nikiforov, however, addressed the issue of NATO-Russian relations and explored Western assessments of Russia’s military power in a review of a recent article by Margarete Klein for the German Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. Klein had opined that Russia’s great power pretensions are not based on real military capabilities and that economic and demographic problems mean that it is unlikely to achieve military modernization. Nikiforov notes the prominence of the think tank and its close relationship to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. For Nikiforov, the article asked whether Russia is a “paper tiger or a real threat,” and answered with a qualified both. Russia’s military modernization will not pose a direct threat to NATO members, but its increased capabilities might permit it to more effectively intervene in its periphery, where it will be a real threat to successor states and with it the possibility of NATO intervention. In this regard, the Russian-Georgian conflict in 2008 appears to be a sign of the willingness of the Russian government to act even at the risk of creating an international crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamestown.org ...
“The silence about the rise of China and its implications for Moscow has been deafening.”
Yes. Are the russkis hoping that by ignoring the chicoms, they will go away? Red China is a mortal threat to Russia. NATO isn’t.
Actually the reverse is the case. NATO has been expanding ever closer to the Russian heartland. Most of Russia’s industrial and agricultural potential is located in Western Eurasia. That’s the area that NATO is directly threatening.
The french invaded russia and lost, as did the germans. The mongols invaded russia and conquered. China is getting more and more aggressive and will need more resources and space to expand.
The russians can do as they please, defensewise, meanwhile the east is going to kill them.
While I have mixed feelings about NATO expansion, that organisation has not attacked russia.
China won’t need to invade Russia. They can just walk in and take it when demography leads to the depopulation of Russia’s far East. Russia is a dying nation....
Too true.
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