Europe & Russia

Russian Ballistic Missile Defense: Rhetoric and Reality Mr Keir Giles Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "Russia has made air and space defense, including ballistic missile defense (BMD), a top priority, while at the same time protesting vehemently against the deployment of U.S. missile defense technology in Europe, which Moscow claims upsets strategic stability and increases the danger of war. Russian declaratory policy provides U.S. policymakers with significant material to develop an approach intended to mitigate Russian obstructionism over European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) and U.S. plans for BMD more broadly. Put simply, Russian complaints at the dangerous irresponsibility of the United States introducing new anti-missile capabilities ring hollow, when Russia is forging ahead with its own program to do precisely the same."

From Cooperation to Competition - The Future of U.S. - Russian Relations COL Gregory K Anderson, COL Karen L Briggman, COL Joseph E Hilbert, COL Gert-Jan Kooij, Lt Col Christopher T Lay, Dr James C McNaughton War Game Report by the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership, Carlisle Scholars Program, Strategic Studies Institute "Russian aggression in 2014 caught U.S. policy and strategy off guard, forcing reactive measures and reevaluation of the U.S. approach toward Russia. Moscow employed nonlinear methodologies and operated just beneath traditional thresholds of conflict to take full advantage of U.S. and NATO policy and process limitations. In light of this strategic problem, the U.S. Army War College (USAWC), conducted a wargame that revealed four key considerations for future policy and strategy."

A Russian View on Landpower Mr Keir Giles, Maj Gen Aleksandr V Rogovoy Letort Paper by US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "In a time of rapid change for the U.S. Army, it is essential to retain awareness of how potential adversaries are also developing their concepts of Landpower. This Letort Paper, written by an influential Russian general, lays out an authoritative view on the importance of substantial conventional land forces, as seen from Moscow."

Parsing Chinese-Russian Military Exercises Dr Richard Weitz Letort Paper by US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "China and Russia have engaged in an increasing number of joint exercises in recent years. These drills aim to help the two countries deter, and if necessary defeat, potential threats—such as Islamist terrorists trying to destabilize Central Asian governments—while also reassuring their allies that China and Russia will protect them from such threats. Furthermore, the recurring exercises, and other joint Russia-China military activities, have a mutual reassurance function insofar as they inform Moscow and Beijing about the other’s military potential and thereby build mutual confidence."

Strategic Insights: From Ideology to Geopolitics: Russian Interests in Latin America José de Arimatéia da Cruz Article by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "The implosion of the Soviet Union on the eve of December 25, 1991, has been heralded by pundits and Sovietologists as an unprecedented event in world history. No one expected the powerful Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to come to an end as uneventfully as it did. The implosion of the Soviet Union sent shockwaves throughout the world. Not only did the Soviet Union cease to exist on that Christmas night, but it also lost half of its territory and half of its population. Furthermore, the Soviets came to find out the morning after that most of its weapons of mass destruction were now in the hands of the newly independent states—former members of the USSR..."

Project 1704: A U.S. Army War College Analysis of Russian Strategy in Eastern Europe, an Appropriate U.S. Response, and the Implications for U.S. Landpower COL Douglas Mastriano, LTC Derek O'Malley Document by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In the summer of 2014, Russia forcibly annexed Crimea from Ukraine and then actively supported ethnic Russian separatists in an on-going irredentist bid in Eastern Ukraine. This aggressive policy threatens to challenge NATO and the United States in its support of Ukraine and other nations of Eastern Europe. From this changing strategic environment, three central questions emerge: (1) What is the Russian strategy in their periphery? (2) What is the appropriate U.S. response? (3) What are the implications for U.S. landpower?"

Breaking the Nordic Defense Deadlock Dr Stefan Forss, COL Pekka Holopainen Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "Events in Ukraine in early-2014 have prompted a re-evaluation of national defense capabilities across Europe. In the case of the Nordic states (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland), this renewed attention has highlighted the lack of military resources to fulfill nationally stated defense tasks. Two decades of underinvestment in defense, force reductions, and focus on expeditionary crisis management in support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), have combined to hollow out the once fundamental principles of territorial defense. Northern Europe has been left dangerously exposed to military coercion in a time of greatly increased uncertainty."

The Effective Use of Reserve Personnel in the U.S. Military: Lessons from the United Kingdom Reserve Model Dr Shima D Keene Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "The U.S. Army and the British Army are undergoing similar processes of rebalancing between regular and reserve personnel. The British armed forces are currently at a more advanced stage of this change than the United States, and consequently there are useful lessons to be drawn from their experience to date. This is particularly the case in a time of growing defense austerity; in addition to their smaller scale, the United Kingdom’s (UK) armed forces have great familiarity with undertaking missions and maintaining close to full-spectrum capability while subject to severe and apparently insurmountable resource constraints. Studying how this is made possible may also provide valuable pointers for a U.S. defense force in an era of sequestration and budget cuts."

Regionalizing East Mediterranean Gas: Energy Security, Stability, and the U.S. Role Ms Laura El-Katiri, Dr Mohammed El-Katiri Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press "In recent years the distribution of the world’s exploitable energy reserves has shifted markedly. One major change is the discovery of substantial gas deposits offshore the Levant. But while these deposits have the potential to revolutionize the economies of the net energy importers, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Israel, they also bring into sharp focus long-running disputes over maritime boundaries and sovereignty. In short, these deposits provide yet another cause for conflict in an already deeply troubled region. This monograph explores both the positive and negative implications of the Eastern Mediterranean’s new gas reserves for the region, and the implications of both for U.S. interests. It combines the recognized expertise of two researchers with long experience in regional and energy studies, respectively. Their conclusion is that the management of these new energy resources is likely to influence significantly the relationships among the states in the region, particularly between Israel and its neighbors, including the Palestinian Territories. "