Latvian army officer Jānis Bērziņš has produced in English, a good article on what the Russians are now calling New Generation Warfare.
The Journal of Military Operations. (Free, but you have to register).
The key changes from previous Russian views of war:
1. From direct destruction to direct influence;
2. from direct annihilation of the opponent to its inner decay;
3. from a war with weapons and technology to a culture war;
4. from a war with conventional forces to specially prepared forces and commercial irregular groupings;
5. from the traditional (3D) battleground to information/psychological warfare and war of perceptions;
6. from direct clash to contactless war;
7. from a superficial and compartmented war to a total war, including the enemy’s internal side and base;
8. from war in the physical environment to a war in the human consciousness and in cyberspace;
9. from symmetric to asymmetric warfare by a combination of political, economic, information, technological, and ecological campaigns;
10. from war in a defined period of time to a state of permanent war as the natural condition in national life.
Phases of such an operation are:
First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).
Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.
Third Phase: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the objective of making them abandon their service duties.
Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population, boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.
Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units.
Sixth Phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic,
and secret service intelligence, and industrial espionage.
Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous air force harassment, combined with the use of high-precision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery,
and weapons based on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).
Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker’s missile and artillery units; fire barrages to annihilate the defender’s resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by ground troops.
I just found this interesting. Berzin feels that the Russians will assess at Phase Five to see if conditions exist to go forward. If not, they wait.
Note that this is for what the Russians call the "near abroad" not a potential war against the US.
The Journal of Military Operations. (Free, but you have to register).
The key changes from previous Russian views of war:
1. From direct destruction to direct influence;
2. from direct annihilation of the opponent to its inner decay;
3. from a war with weapons and technology to a culture war;
4. from a war with conventional forces to specially prepared forces and commercial irregular groupings;
5. from the traditional (3D) battleground to information/psychological warfare and war of perceptions;
6. from direct clash to contactless war;
7. from a superficial and compartmented war to a total war, including the enemy’s internal side and base;
8. from war in the physical environment to a war in the human consciousness and in cyberspace;
9. from symmetric to asymmetric warfare by a combination of political, economic, information, technological, and ecological campaigns;
10. from war in a defined period of time to a state of permanent war as the natural condition in national life.
Phases of such an operation are:
First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).
Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies by leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.
Third Phase: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the objective of making them abandon their service duties.
Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population, boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.
Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units.
Sixth Phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic,
and secret service intelligence, and industrial espionage.
Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous air force harassment, combined with the use of high-precision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery,
and weapons based on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).
Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker’s missile and artillery units; fire barrages to annihilate the defender’s resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by ground troops.
I just found this interesting. Berzin feels that the Russians will assess at Phase Five to see if conditions exist to go forward. If not, they wait.
Note that this is for what the Russians call the "near abroad" not a potential war against the US.
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