Free Republic

International warfare has created some of the most profound advances in technology and concepts, and the underwater arena is no exception. APS Underwater Rifle The APS or Avtomat Podvodnyj Spetsialnyj Underwater Rifle was developed during the early 1970s by the Soviet Central Institute for Precision Machine Building (TsNIITochMash plant). The inspiration for this was that Russian combat divers only had knives and the SPP-1 underwater pistol as their sole means of weaponry. The APS was meant to provide considerably more firepower to their combat divers. The APS, initially only used by the Russian armed forces, has been available on the...

The well-organized Crimea operation also suggests improvement in the quality and training of the Russian military. Their troops had operated with far less precision a decade ago in Chechnya and in the 2008 invasion of Georgia . A botched attempt to free 850 hostages in a Moscow theater in 2002 resulted in the deaths of 130 of the captives. Russia evidently has been getting results for increased spending on its military: The 2012 edition of an annual survey by the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated that Russia would spend 3.78 percent of its GDP on defense in 2013, by...