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Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

The Russian Military: A Spent Force?

MiG-41 Russian Military
Artist Rendering of MiG-41 stealth fighter. Image Credit: Russian internet.

Is the Russian Military Done? Key Points and Summary: A RAND Corporation study outlines four scenarios for Russia’s post-Ukraine war military: Shoigu’s legacy plan, a return to mass conscription, a smaller modernized force, or comprehensive institutional reform.

-Experts question Russia’s ability to implement ambitious reforms due to economic collapse and corruption.

-Analysis from Carnegie highlights Russia’s deteriorating economy, projecting a potential crisis in 2025, making significant defense investment unlikely.

-Rampant graft further stifles innovation, with new leadership failing to curb institutional corruption.

-Specialists argue Moscow’s military will likely revert to older models emphasizing quantity over quality, as hopes for a modernized force face insurmountable financial and systemic challenges.

Post-War Russian Military: Can It Rebuild After Ukraine?

Most predictions are that the Ukraine war has no immediate, not even a short-term, end in sight.  

The Ukraine side has no appetite to give in to Russian demands for territorial concessions that Moscow is demanding.  

It would leave a crippled and broken Ukraine with numerous and invaluable strategic assets under Russian control.

On the Russian side, the most common comment one hears is that President Vladimir Putin lives in his reality and does not realize the damage the war is inflicting on his nation. 

This creates a mindset, as one Polish defense analyst who has studied the war from its outset said, “where you have a Russian leader with no reverse gear.  He has no idea how he would survive or even live in a world where his military had failed to achieve what he could sell to his population as a victory.”

Therefore, the question is what the future of the Russian military would be – once the war is over.  

Will a cadre still be left that could form the core of a new armed forces?  

Or will the Russian services have suffered too many losses in personnel and materiel to be able to reconstitute themselves?

The RAND Study: Four Pathways for Russian Military 

The US Air Force-owned FFRDC, the RAND Corporation, has recently concluded a 200-plus page study by authors that examines four possible scenarios for the Russian military in a post-war era.  

MiG-31 from Russian Military.

MiG-31 fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The authors have assessed how any reconstitution of Moscow’s armed forces would be influenced by: 1) historical Russian defense reforms, 2) the Russian armed forces’ performance in the Ukraine conflict, and 3) political, economic, demographic, technical, and foreign relations factors.

The authors also analyzed official Russian statements and the writings of military academics.  

Additionally they have factored in “findings from discussions with experts on Russia and government advisers in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Sweden.”

The potential scenarios the authors identify are:

-The Shoigu Plan – a plan to rebuild the Russian military after the war compiled by the former Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, before he was shunted aside and sent to run Russia’s security council.

-Revisiting Old Models – a return to an emphasis on mass and a heavy reliance on conscription, mobilization, nuclear capabilities, and domestic production.

-A New, New Look – rebuilding in the mold of a smaller, yet qualitatively superior, force.

-A New Operational Model – a top-to-bottom re-work of the Russian military that would require significant and major institutional reforms.

A Realistic Projection

Specialists in the Russian military who have looked at the assessment have made several observations about the study’s conclusions, stating that in the end there are some potential outcomes for Moscow’s military machine that are more likely to be seen than others.

One of several who spoke to 19FortyFive referenced another assessment produced by the Carnegie Endowment that emphasizes long-term and somewhat hidden costs of the war economy that Russia’s Putin has imposed on his nation.

MiG-31 Hypersonic Kinzhal from Russian Air Force

A Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ALBM being carried by a Mikoyan MiG-31K interceptor.

The overall conclusion of this analysis is “Russia’s economy has operated like a marathoner on fiscal steroids—and now those steroids are wearing off. Growth is slowing, key sectors are cooling, and the arguments underpinning Putin’s claims of economic ‘invulnerability’ are unraveling.”

Another point the Carnegie document makes is the under-reported economic deterioration in Russia could reach crisis-like proportions in 2025. “The domestic economy cannot meet the demand driven by aggressive state and household spending, necessitating greater reliance on imports.  This, in turn, increases demand for foreign currency, putting downward pressure on the rouble and fueling inflation.”

“These numbers more or less rule out the 3rd and 4th RAND scenarios,” said the same specialist who referenced the Carnegie conclusions. “These plans for a modern and more qualitatively-centred force would require levels of investment in the defense sector – much of it in the industrial base – which would be dead on arrival.  The money is just not going to be there.”

Crippling, Suffocating Graft

A major factor that would likely drive the Russian military into one of the first two scenarios is that prior attempts at modernization, specifically the 2011-2021 effort,  have been derailed by massive levels of corruption.

The new Defense Minister who replaced Shoigu, Andrei Belousov, has also been assessed as someone who has not been able to stamp out this culture of corruption.

“All he has been able to do is fire the people engaged in that corruption, but they have been replaced by people who then say to themselves, ‘fabulous – now it’s my turn to steal,” said the same Polish defense analyst.

MiG-29 from Russian Military.

MiG-29 fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Another well-known Russia analyst in the UK, Mark Galeotti, spoke to a MoD insider in Moscow not long after Belousov took over last May.  “He ‘may be able to cut’ the high-level, industrial-scale corruption ‘by perhaps one ruble in four, one in three, if he’s really lucky and really good,’” said his contact in the ministry.  

Diminished expectations seem to be the watchword in Moscow.

Large-scale graft – the kind that hobbles and ultimately suffocates innovation and reform – shows no signs of going away.  

Until it does there is probably no chance for a modern and reorganized Russian military machine.

About the Author

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw and has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defence technology and weapon systems design.  Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.

Written By

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw and has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defence technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided at one time or another in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.

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