Recently the possibility of the WWIII became a popular subject in the world media. An article by Max Fisher in www.vox.com entitled “How World War III became possible” analysIs the situation in detail, quoting a lot of the top experts.
Here is the basic idea of the article:
“Both sides came to believe that the other had more drastic intentions. Moscow is convinced the West is bent on isolating, subjugating, or outright destroying Russia. One in three Russians now believe the US may invade. Western nations worry, with reason, that Russia could use the threat of war, or provoke an actual conflict, to fracture NATO and its commitment to defend Eastern Europe.”
There is even a special web site”http://www.3world-war.su“, in Russia, which publish predictions of the type:
“The World War III with use of the nuclear weapon may start already this year!”
Nevertheless not all the Russian comments on the subject are so apocalyptic and I‘d like you to make the acquaintance with some, which I consider more realistic.
The recognized Russian war expert and columnist Pavel Felgengouer in his article in www.the-village.ru provides a detailed description of the Russian army’s current condition. According to Felgengouer, Russia is a provincial country, not acquainted with the world progress, and, in particular, with the modern armies. The Russian military does not understand what a modern war is. They missed the revolution in military affairs. They are still taught by the lessons of Second World War.
Russia does not make modern small arms, does not produce ammunition, artillery shells – they use what was made before the fall of Communism. There is no modern sniper rifles. A handful of specialists in the FSB have foreign guns and bullets which they were able to buy abroad in very small quantities.
Recently large sums of money were invested to restore the new missile attack warning system. The system that existed until recently was created in 1970-s on the basis of Soviet copies of the IBM mainframes and fully entered into operation in 1980’s. Entry of information into the system was made on punch cards, and it had ten preplanned scenarios of nuclear war. Therefore the creation of the new system Skynet was an absolute necessity. All the information about the new system is a secret; most probable it was built with use of foreign components. Nobody knows how it will work – usually new system works with failures and errors.
All the modern Russian military equipment uses a lot of foreign components. So there is a serious doubt that this equipment would be capable of working in the face of a Western boycott.
There have been serious attempts to modernize the Russian army, but noticeable success is not achieved. It is proved by the fighting in the Eastern Ukraine, where the war is run in style of 50 years ago.
One can fight this way if one’s opponent is exactly the same. But it is better for Russians not to face modern armed forces of the West on the battlefield.
Pavel Felgengouer quotes Chief of Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who said openly, that Russian armed forces are preparing for World War III. According to Gerasimov the war is almost inevitable. But the program for modernization of the Russian army was launched with the expectation that the need to be prepared for either world war or a series of major regional conflicts after 2020. And the more realistic deadline for the readiness was 2025.
Pavel Felgengouer writes:
“When there is a collision of a modern army with an outdated one, it looks like the fight of the Spaniards against the Indians. Or Zulu with spears against the British with machine guns. Large masses of solders are useless. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the enormous army of Saddam Hussein was completely useless. When you, as a sitting duck, got shot by high precision weapons, which hit exactly whatever it is necessary, you cannot attack. You are demoralized very fast. People just abandon their weapons and run.”
“Of course”, writes Felgengouer, “Americans are superior to our strength in the conventional sense. Without the use of nuclear weapons we have no chance.”
But is Russia ready for a Nuclear war?
For nuclear weapons to present a real threat, two conditions are required: combat-ready nuclear warheads that could explode and means of their delivery to the target. But according to many sources Russia has problems with both.
Ukrainian web site www.gocman.com claims that Russia today has no nuclear warheads at all.
Nuclear warheads, unlike conventional bombs and shells, cannot be put into a warehouse and be forgotten until there was a need for them. The reason is the process constantly running inside of nuclear weapons. This process results in changing the isotopic composition of the charge, which is rapidly degrading.
The functional period of operation of a nuclear charge of the Russian ballistic missile is ten years, and then the warhead must be returned to the plant, because it is necessary to change plutonium. Handling nuclear weapons is a very expensive process, requiring the entire industry for the continuous maintenance and replacement of charges.
Oleksandr Kuzmuk, Ukraine’s defense minister from 1996 to 2001, said in an interview that Ukraine had 1740 nuclear warheads, “but the life of those nuclear weapons expired before 1997”. Therefore, adoption of the denuclearization of Ukraine was no more than a nice gesture.
Why “until 1997”? Because Gorbachev stopped production of new nuclear weapons, and the warranty period of the old Soviet charges ended in the 90’s. According to V. Rybachenkov, advisor to the Department of Security and Disarmament of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “during more than 10 years both Russia and the United States do not produce weapons-grade uranium or weapons-grade plutonium.”
Another Russian commentator Vladimir Marakhonov in his article in www.novayagazeta.ru claims that Russia lost about 60% of it’s nuclear potential thanks to the conflicts with Ukraine in Crimea and Donbas. More then half of the components for Russian ballistic missiles had been produced in Ukraine and now Ukraine stopped providing Russia with these parts.
Russian journalists often quote words of Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Ambassador to NATO since 2008 and Deputy Prime Minister in charge of defense and space industry since 2011, who said that the US can destroy up to 90% of our nuclear potential in just a couple of hours.
Is the Russian government ready for suicide?
Wow!
Well, Western upgraded forces in Georgia started a war with Russia and that didn’t end well for the Georgians. It is definitely true that the Russians don’t spend (and incur debt like the U.S. does) a trillion dollars a year on “defense.”
The “modern” military of the U.S. sure looked quickly bogged down and incapable in Iraq when they couldn’t even counter IED’s which in a lot of cases were unspent ordnance that Saddam’s forces recovered from the tons of bombs the U.S. dropped in the first Persian Gulf War. Afghanistan doesn’t look much different with U.S. forces in garrison waiting orders to leave and turn the country over to the Taliban.
The U.S. military still has a doctrine of never invading a country that can defend itself and never defending one that can’t.