Some Links about Russian Arms

My own thinking about arms is grounded, primarily in my own experience in the Army and a lifelong proximity and love of aircraft.  I don't think a lot about the Navy, but I should.  The past few weeks have provided a number of interesting articles about the Russian navy and arms acquisition and manufacture, which have many applications for I think about the problem of arms in general. 

The first link is to a story about the sinking of the dry dock and damage to Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier.   The story highlights the importance of infrastructure for both building and servicing military equipment. In addition to the need to think about infrastructure, is a discussion about the shift in strategy and acquisition to favor small ships over a large blue-water navy. For states with arms production capability, the acquisition process is still tied to strategic priorities and bureaucratic politics. This is an issue that has been explored with a bit of depth in the US case and its often dysfunctional arms acquisition process. Opening the black box of other states and understanding what drives the purchasing decisions beyond economic necessity is an under-explored area in the literature on arms transfers.

A two-part article on the Russian Defense Policy Blog discusses the issue of nuclear submarines in the Russian fleet.  Part I of the article is basically a translation of an article that ran in the Russian press that asks hard questions about the priorities of the Russian fleet. Part II of the article provides more commentary on the primary arguments in the original piece. The gist of the piece is that the focus on nuclear subs with a capability that lags behind the US is starving the entire fleet of necessary resources that could provide stronger strategic value.

An interesting question to ask here is how the priority to export weapons interferes with or enhances the strategic capabilities of states.  Jonathan Caverley and Ethan Kapstein have written about this in the US context. They advocate updating the arms acquisition in the US to favor "good enough" weapons that can be exported as well rather than simply focusing on building the top of the line systems. When the state is both dependent on exports for reasons of status and economics (as I found in my dissertation), how do strategic priorities shift?  How can the state allocate resources efficiently under conditions of competing priorities?

In the case of Russia does chasing great power status and a posture that follows the Soviet Cold War allocation of naval resources (in terms of aircraft carriers for power projection and nuclear submarines for nuclear deterrence) harm its ability to meet its new strategic demands and realities?


_______

Caverley, Jonathan, and Ethan B. Kapstein. (2012) Arms Away. Foreign Affairs 91: 125–132.

Russian Arms Propaganda?

I wonder about the effectiveness of propaganda sometimes.  In this post I share two different stories that seem to be part of Russia's propaganda offensive.  One has to do with the capabilities of Ukraine, and the other a disputed version of events. I wonder about the audiences for these particular pieces and the larger strategic thinking - and whether this is strategic or simply business as usual.
__________

There is an article in the "Sputnik" news about the state of the arms export business in Ukraine. It's the type of article that I am interested in reading in a region that I am interested in reading about.  

The article details some shady deals and shoddy workmanship and highlights the fact that Ukraine's Military Industrial Complex is dependent on reworking or simply reselling its stock of inherited Soviet weapons - not on the development and sale of new weapons.

The problem isn’t however, that a lion’s share of those exports consisted of decades-old weapons and parts Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Union. 

Even before the 2014 “Maidan revolution” the head of the Verhovna Rada’s defense and security committee Anatoly Kinakh admitted that weapons developed and built in post-Soviet Ukraine accounted for less than 20 percent of its exports.

By these standards, it would be interested to note what percentage of weapons sold by Russia have been developed and built post Soviet Union. Furthermore, an interesting question is the extent to which those more advanced weapons are used in the Russian military.

The Russian military industrial complex is still in fairly bad shape from top to bottom.  There has been some new development of weapons, but production has been sporadic and there has been a problem in delivering those weapons to the Russian military - and to foreign customers.  The fact that Ukraine is experiencing these problems is not surprising.  It is also questionable, to what extent the sale of arms is a priority for the Ukrainian government and economy.

The arms industry was highly integrated during the Soviet Era, and many firms have struggled to find markets and to integrate.  The Motorsich firm in Zaporozhye was building motors for Russian helicopters through the 2000s, but the number or orders was a fraction of what it used to be.

Dispute over incident in Mediterranean Sea

RT, Russia's official propaganda station airs this video and accuses the USS Gravely of breaching international safety protocols during the encounter shown in the video below.  The version of events as told by the US is much different.  In their version, the Russian Frigate claimed to be having problems with maneuverability, but was constantly trying to interfere with the USS Truman.  The video shown is the USS Gravely maneuvering to stay between the Frigate and the Truman - this is its job as part of the Carrier Battle Group.  (US Version)





________

It is interesting to me that Russian media is starting to fight back against the propaganda shown on domestic channels.  I don't know much about propaganda as a subject, but it is fascinating to see how much it comes up in relation to the subjects that I study.