Category Eastern Europe

Short and Sweet

_88778322_syria_control_map_624_v7

 It would be nice to have short, quick, sharp interventions. Basically, go into a troubled country, kick tail, and then leave shortly thereafter with everything resolved. Sort of like we did in Libya in 2011; or that peacekeeping mission in Lebanon in 1982-1984 that was effectively ended by the barracks bombing that killed 241 Marines; or the brief humanitarian mission to Somalia 1992-1994 that generated the book and movie Black Hawk Down; or the 1991 Gulf War; or one-year deployment to Bosnia in 1995; or any number of short and sweet interventions that were not always so sweet and short.

Obviously the real “short and sweet” list is pretty short. Panama 1989, Grenada 1984 and….and….and…… Most commitments either take much longer that that (like Bosnia), or the conflict continues rattling on long after we left (pretty much the rest of the cases mentioned in the first paragraph), and sometimes they require us to re-engage or they mutate in ways we did not expect (for example: Libya and Somalia). Getting in, kicking tail, taking names, and getting out sounds like a great idea. Just doesn’t work out that way very often.

Russia is now wrapping up its 5 ½ month commitment in Syria. It was not that big, maybe 3,000 to 6,000 uniformed personnel, plus aircraft. Still, this mission was unique in many ways. It was really the first case of Russia doing an intervention away from its immediate borders (and pretty much one of the few cases of the Soviet Union doing one also). Neither Russia nor the Soviet Union had ever played far from home, if you ignore the communist international, world wide revolutionary movements and a few dozen missiles sent to Cuba. Still, Russia/Soviet Union had rarely actually committed conventional forces into combat in a country that is not connected to it by border. Even their failed war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) was connected by a border. They were part of the Kosovo peacekeeping forces. But besides that, Syria is the only case I can think of in the last 100 years of a Russian or Soviet ground invention in a country not connected by a border.

They are now withdrawing (so they claim). Syria is the location of the only Russian military bases outside their country, so obviously some forces are remaining.

But, Syria remains Syria. It is a country of 18 million people that is only around 13% Shia (primarily Alawite). Up until the civil war started five years ago, the Alawite minority ruled the country under Bashar Assad. It is around 10% Christian (which were sometimes allied with their fellow minority, the Alawites), 3% Druze, 9% Kurds (Sunni) and 60% Sunni Arab (and no…these numbers don’t add up to 100%). Of course, having an Alawite minority over the top of the Sunni majority pretty much guaranteed that there would eventually be a conflict. Now the Russia intervention has bolstered the Alawites. Hard to imagine if Russia actually pulls out, how the bolstered Alawites maintain their current position.

Still, perhaps Russia has given Assad and the Alawites enough breathing space for them to now stand on their own. This has not been the case in a number of past interventions (U.S. in Vietnam, USSR in Afghanistan, U.S. in Iraq).

A Brazilian Protestors

1036220179

If you watch the international news (probably best done by not watching American news channels) you may have noticed a few protestors in the streets of Rio and Sao Paolo, more than a million actually. This is a very big set of protests against a government that recently won reelection with 51% of the vote in October 2014. What happened?

Well, without going into depth into all the issues, the Brazilian economy is now declining. The Brazilian economy, which grew at annual average of 3.3% to 3.4% a year over the course of 14 years (from 2000-2013), only grew 0.1% in 2014 and then declined 3.8% in 2015. Now it is forecasted to decline 3.5% in 2016 (IMF forecast). This is a big deal and we are seeing the natural backlash.

There are a couple of countries in Eastern Europe with similar large economic declines. The Russian economy declined by at least 3.7% last year (official figures) and will be continuing to decline this year. The Ukrainian economy did even worse, declining by something like 12.5% in 2015.

Walls

20090529_Great_Wall_8125

Walls are all the rage now. According to various articles, Ukraine is planning on building a wall along its border with Russia. This is some 1200 miles and costs $200 million. It is not a wall, it is a actually a 2 meter (7 foot) tall fence, with a tank ditch 6 meters wide and 2-3 meters deep.

See:

http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/the-great-wall-of-ukraine/27573891.html

https://www.rt.com/news/258837-ukraine-fence-russian-border/

http://uatoday.tv/politics/lsquo-great-wall-of-ukraine-rsquo-russian-border-fortification-less-than-10-built-478829.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/27/the-great-wall-of-ukraine.html

(Note: The Daily Beast article may not link).

We actually did do a chapter on the effectiveness of border barriers in America’s Modern Wars (Chapter Ten: Sanctuaries, Border Barriers and Population Resettlement). In our 83 examples there were 13 in which the counterinsurgency force utilized border barriers. Thus, barriers were present in approximately 16% of our cases.

  1. Indochina War (1946-1954)
  2. Algerian War (1954-1962)
  3. Vietnam II (1961-1964)
  4. Vietnam War (1965-1973)
  5. Namibia (1966-1989)
  6. Rhodesia II (1972-1979)
  7. Polisario Rebellion (1973-1991)
  8. Cambodia (1978-1989)
  9. USSR in Afghanistan (1979-1989)
  10. Kashmir (1988 – present)
  11. Second Intifada (2000-2005)
  12. Hamas War (2006)
  13. Hezbollah War (2006)

We conducted a statistical analysis of the relationship between outcome and the presence or absence of border barriers among the 83-case MISS dataset using Fisher’s Exact Test (see below).

 

Outcome by Presence/Absence of Border Barriers
Outcome Yes No Total
Blue 2 40 42
Gray 2 9 11
Red 9 21 30
Total 13 70 83

 

When we test the hypothesis about a nonrandom relationship between insurgency outcome and the border barriers factor in the two-by-three table above using Fisher’s Exact Test, the p-value is 0.0090. The data suggest strong evidence that the two factors may be associated.

We also tested the more specific hypothesis that the odds of a Blue outcome are different in the absence vs. the presence of border barriers by ignoring the gray observations in the testing procedure. The p-value from the Fisher’s Exact Test is 0.0045 in this case, which can be considered strong evidence in support of this hypothesis.

Thus, it appears that the tests confirm that border barriers have not been significant in combating insurgencies, based on the outcome. This is not unexpected, although it could perhaps be considered counterintuitive. Overall, the insurgents won 69% of the time when there was a border barrier vice 30% of the time when there was not one. We suspect that there is another factor in play here (for example: border barriers are usually built in response to large, intractable insurgencies).

Third-Party Insurgencies

Not a whole lot of analytical work has been done on third-party insurgencies. A third-party insurgency is a conflict where an external state or trans-national organization played a major role in initiating, sustaining, bringing to victory, or otherwise supporting a rebellion or insurgency. Kind of like what is going on in Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine.

We did do a little work to examine if the level of outside support results in insurgent victory. It was been the perception of the number of counterinsurgent theorists that significant outside support is important for an insurgent victory. Our analysis, based upon an examination of 89 cases was that it was in fact, not a primary driver of insurgent success. To provide a table from page 79 of America’s Modern Wars:

Outcome by Type of Outside Support
Outcome Primarily Indigenous Some Considerable Not Applicable Total
Blue 11 20 9 2 42
Gray 5 6 0 0 11
Red 7 18 5 0 30
Total 23 44 14 2 83

This table compares the amount of outside support (primarily indigenous, some, and considerable) to the outcome (blue = counterinsurgent victory, red = insurgency victory, and gray = outcome is not a clear victory for either side). Outcome compared to type of outside support produced no discernable pattern. The counterinsurgents or intervening force tended to win more often then not, no matter what the degree of outside support was for the insurgency. Our statistical test indicated that there was no correlation here.

There was no correlation whether we tested to our entire dataset of 83 cases, limited the test to only those 62 cases that were clearly insurgencies (did not include the peacekeeping operations and interventions in our larger dataset), or only those 36 case that were insurgencies against outside intervening forces. If there was a consistent trend in this data, it was that insurgencies with considerable outside support lost more often than insurgencies that were primarily indigenous. This is counterintuitive, but it made of cases that include almost every major and not-so-major insurgency since World War II. But there appears to be little correlation between the degree of outside support for an insurgency and the outcome of the insurgency.

Of course, the purpose of the third-party insurgency may not be to obtain clear victory, but for lesser political purposes, including disrupting an opponent or forcing concessions from them.

Series of Tubes

clip_image002

RAND has published a report on its analysis of “NATO’s Eastern Flank” (meaning the three Baltic states). The PDF can be obtained here: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1253.html  Of particular interest to us is Appendix A: Methodology and Data (page 12).

RAND is using a hex board game with counters that appears to have strength and movement factors on them. This is Tactics II…Avalon Hill…..SPI. RAND does have their own combat model, JICM (Joint Integrated Contingency Model), so why are they using a hex board game? According to their article:

RAND developed this map-based tabletop exercise because existing models were ill-suited to represent the many unknowns and uncertainties surrounding a conventional military campaign in the Baltics, where low force-to-space ratios and relatively open terrain meant that maneuver between dispersed forces—rather than pushing and shoving between opposing units arrayed along a linear front—would likely be the dominant mode of combat.

The problem is that JICM does movement down to having a series of “places” that are connected by “links.“ These links are tubes of variable width, connecting between each “place”. So for example, there might be a tube between St. Petersburg and Talinin. All combat would occur up and down this tube, but there could be no real movement out of the tube. This is a limited and somewhat inflexible movement system that has been used in a few other models (SOTACA comes to mind).

Now, I gather RAND has the whole map of the world set up for JICM as a “series of tubes.” According a 1995 report, there were nearly 1000 “places” and 2000 “links” for the entire world. This does not give a lot of fidelity, as the map of Korea shows at the top of the post. I suspect the fidelity is such that there are few tubes in an area as small as Estonia.

Estonia is small. It is 17,505 square miles. This is smaller than West Virginia (24,038 sq. miles), and it is a lot flatter. But, somehow, they have managed to maintain an independent language of over a million speakers (1.2 million actually). This language has managed to survive for over a thousand years! I am always impressed by that. Their capital is only about 100 miles from several points along the Russian border. This is about the distance between Washington DC and Richmond. Now granted, it took several years to cover that distance during the American Civil War, but there was a significant Confederate Army in the path. Therefore, to examine scenarios, I suspect they needed a map of considerably more fidelity than JICM and its “series of tubes.”

What Russia’s Failing Economy Means

An article in the Huffington Post caught my attention: What Russia’s Failing Economy Means

A few lines from it:

“But the economic decline in Russia started in the very beginning of 2012. The growth rate was only 1.3 percent in 2013, for example, when oil was well above $100 per barrel”

“The key problem of the economy, and the key reason for the decline, was the decline in investment. The economy cannot grow without investment…In 2012, investment stopped growing. In 2014, investment started to decline. That’s the main reason why the Russian economy is contracting.”

“That means that the only one real chance the Russian economy has is if the government improves the investment climate and boosts investment. But in order to do this, Russia needs to implement the rule of law. Once again, that’s not in the interest of Putin, because implementing the rule of law is the best way for him to lose power” (I put this line in bold)

The increase in military budget by 0.8 percent when inflation in the country is 13 percent actually means shrinking of the military budget. I would not pay big attention to the nominal numbers because inflation in Russia is very high.

“It’s important to note that the Russian economy is not in free fall. It’s not like a landslide, like in Venezuela” (which nicely serves as a lead-in to my next post)

And finally:

“They [poverty and unemployment] may change the political climate, but it won’t happen in a year, or in two years. It may take a decade, maybe, but it’s not a very fast and rapid process.”

 

Five Percent Cut in Russian Defense Spending

Russia could cut defense procurement spending

To quote a couple of paragraphs towards the end of the article:

“When Putin announced his defense revamp in 2011, the government expected GDP growth of 6 percent throughout the decade. This year the economy is facing its second year in row of falling GDP, its longest recession in two decades.

Oil, which together with a small basket of other commodities makes up half of state revenues, is now selling at slightly above $30 per barrel, just over half the level the Russian government had expected for this year in late 2015.”

 

March 2018

This is the date that sticks in my mind. The Russian economy was pretty much in freefall in 2015 with at least a 3.7% drop. In 2016 it is estimated to drop another 1.5%. After that, it really depends on the price of oil, which the government of Russia has a hard time controlling.

If in 2017 the price of oil has not risen above $50 a barrel, then expect the Russian economy to continue to contract. Even if there is a bump in oil prices, the economy would most likely remain in the doldrums, especially with the trade sanctions that are in place. In the U.S. any incumbent coming into an election with three years of a declining economy would be out of office faster than you can say “Herbert Hoover.”

On the other hand, elections may work a little differently in Russia. Both Putin and Medvedev have been elected to office with majority vote. This has been the case for the last four elections. In 2000 Putin had 53.4% of the vote, in 2004 Putin had 71.9%, in 2008 Medvedev had 71.2% of the vote, and in 2012 Putin had 63.6% of the vote. But, in the last election, which Putin won comfortably, there were allegations in some areas of election fraud. Allies of Putin do control all four television stations and most of the press has remained timid. The Russian opposition is often organizing by internet, vice more formal structures.

In March 2018, Putin may face the first truly contested election in his career. In the last election a half-dozen significant candidates were simply ruled ineligible to run by the courts. Part of the application process was that they needed to get two million valid signatures, which was a difficult undertaking (in contrast, it only takes a $1,000 to get on the ballot in the New Hampshire presidential primary, something that was achieved by 58 people in 2016).

Will Putin still be able to win a 2018 election using current methods (control of the television stations and breaking up the opposition) or will they have to consider wide-spread voter fraud (like was done in Georgia in 2003 and was done by Yanokovych in Ukraine during the 2004 election)? It is doubtful that Putin would choose to loose the election and step down. To date, no one in power in Russia has lost an election, and this is the case in several other countries that made up the former Soviet Union. Furthermore, there are the pesky corruption problems among many in high levels in the government. The last thing they need is a hostile regime in power who may choose to vigorously investigate. There does seem to be a tradition that the losers of elections are investigated for corruption. This includes Timoshenko in Ukraine in 2010 (who was jailed but is now released), Yanokovych in 2014 (who decamped to Russia), and Saakashvili of Georgia in 2014 (who decamped to Ukraine). These prosecutions were often with cause.

So, it appears that most people are expecting Putin to win the election regardless. It really depends on how sketchy winning the election “regardless” becomes. Will it be outrageous enough that there is another color revolution (as in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 that thwarted Yanokovych the first time). This is the question. We have seen people power in Georgia throw out the regime of Sheverdnadze (Gorbachev’s old foreign minister) in November 2003 with the Rose Revolution. We have seen people power in Ukraine twice take on the Russian backed Yanokovych (thwarted in the 2004 Orange Revolution and thrown out of power in 2014). Is this possible in Moscow in 2018?

It was people power that helped halt the coup in August 1991 as Yeltsin stood in Red Square. This directly led to the end of the Soviet Union. These things are hard to predict and they often quickly take on a life of their own. Yanokovych was legitimately elected to be president of Ukraine in February 2010. Protests started against his rule in November 2013 and he was out of office and left the country in February 2014. Similarly, Gorbachev became the head of the Soviet Union in 1985. The hardline coup against rule occurred in August 1991 and the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991. Not sure many “Sovietologists” in July 1991 expected the Soviet Union to cease to exist by the end of the year.

The Russian Landscape

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO...Title: DOCTOR ZHIVAGO Year: 1965 Dir: LEAN, DAVID Ref: DOC037IF Credit: [ MGM / THE KOBAL COLLECTION ]
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO…Title: DOCTOR ZHIVAGO Year: 1965 Dir: LEAN, DAVID Ref: DOC037IF Credit: [ MGM / THE KOBAL COLLECTION ]

Russian evokes images of snow, tundra, vast expanses of country, brown bears, head scarf wearing peasant women and balalaikas. Of course, most Russians live in cities. The county is 73% urban (the U.S. is 82% urban). Commies loved concrete and it shows.

Moscow is a very big city, with a population of 12.2 million people in the city limit and 16.8 million in the urban area. This is 12 percent of the population of a country of 144 million people (and 2 million in Crimea). It is the political center of the country, it is the business center of country, and it is the cultural and entertainment center of the country. Even many of their famous hockey players come from Moscow. It is sort of like Washington DC, New York and Los Angeles all rolled up in one. In contrast the expanded Washington DC metropolitan area makes up 2 percent of the U.S. population (6 million out of 322 million) and America’s largest metropolitan area, centered around New York with 20 million people makes up 6 percent of the U.S. population. Moscow is the largest city in Europe.

The second largest city in Russia is the beautiful St. Petersburg at 5.2 million and after that, it is Novosibirsk with 1.6 million. Moscow simply towers over the rest of the country demographically, politically and financially. Russia has a second city (St. Petersburg), but not a clear third or fourth city. Moscow accounts for 22% of the Russian GDP.

This centralization means that most likely any political change, be it a reform movement, a palace coup, or any actual demonstrations are going to be centered in Moscow. Movements are probably not going to start in the provinces and then move to Moscow.

Moscow will be the center of change in the governance of Russia if there is such a change. There is nothing like an Iowa caucus or a New Hampshire primary. In the last election in 2012, Putin won with 63.6 percent of the vote in a campaign that included only one outdoor public speech! The vote for the Moscow Oblast (region) for Putin was 56.6%. Moscow might tire of his regime quicker than the rest of the country, and being the center of burgeoning Russian middle class (which now under assault due to the economic downturn), their allegiance and well-being is critical in the long-run to regime survival. If the Russian electoral system does not allow for them to properly express their displeasure and make governmental changes (and there are many reasons to believe that it will not), then this is where the change will come from.

On the other hand, many people have a strong interest in maintaining the current system in some form (especially considering the degree of corruption). So as they begin feel the pressure to change, they may try to internally reform themselves. There have been several examples of top-down reformers in Russian history. Their track record is not particularly good. Gorbachev lost control of the government five years after he instituted reforms. Khrushchev was sent off to retirement in late 1964, two years after he actually backed away from his reforms.

So the question becomes, does the Russian government attempt reforms before the next elections (which are coming in March 2018), what is their nature, and what is going to be the long-term result of that?