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happy to put you in touch with our experts and get your questions answered as quickly as possible. i want to tell you a little bit about today's topic. with the authorization act that was passed by the house. the policy through the nine seats to obtain the insurance. when we are thinking about that we can benefit from having an understanding of how an adversary would be with employed forces. an important question for policymakers. how would they fight in the wave of conflict. today our speakers will discuss three main issues. first russia's military posture. the key characteristic of russian warfare. i think there are ten. and finally an importantly for this room but this all means for u.s. policy.

i'm delighted to welcome dara at nasa go. on the army modernization. he is a former army officer. with the international relations with yale university and a graduate of the u.s. military academy. it is a policy researcher. previously she served as the senior analyst for russian military capabilities. for the department of defense. for the strategic studies. with that in the inter- directory time. to start this discussion. please join me in welcoming him.

good morning. we are here to talk about how we think russia would fight with adversaries particularly nato based on a short report that we released last year and plenty of copies outside. the copies are integrally filled with spoilers. this is all we are to talk about today. before we get into those remarks i want to say a few words about the origin of studies. we drew inspiration from it earlier study. from the military's scorecard. that study started from a higher level of understanding. but how they would fight and how to understand the specific scenarios in particular taiwan.

we needed to take a step back and take a stab step edit introduction of how we thought they would fight before they could talk about comparisons like those that were made in that report. it was essentially a precursor. the report is 12 pages long. it is really intended to serve as a distillation of the best judgment. it shouldn't be too many surprises for people that follow russia. we structured a little bit differently from how we wrote the paper. we started the strategic level and worked our way down. i'm in a talk about some of the army step.

and finally i will make a note of that. they will actually lead into their. so starting in 2009. one of the things they did right away was the cat a significant number of their ground units and transition a lot of lower readiness. they backtracked a little bit in the last year or two. and now they are taking some of those brigades back in. it has been preserved. they had been improving armored vehicles. in particularly reconnaissance in strike capabilities. in this case we are showing a comparison of the way to fire from the artillery systems.

in fairly typical russian motorized brigade. our those of you that are aware a typical united states brigade well had three or four maneuver units by a single artillery unit. and the russian ground forces its three to four supported by three or four. it will actually see more like a one-to-one unit supported by the artillery rocket systems and service missiles. they have modern houses. and they all had high rates of fire. they support tanks and armored vehicles. and so essentially this is an army that is designed to move fast into hit hard. this is an area that has been considerable improvement.

it's important to put this into context. russia is at a severe disadvantage in the long contact. nato has considerable advantages in the quality and quantity and it takes time to bring the advantages to bear the ground forces are about a quarter of the size. three and 50,000. in the ground forces. .. ..

so with that in the some of these other challenges facing them, we think if they were compelled to take action they tried to benefit from surprised. they tried to conduct an operation swiftly and terminate the conflict as swiftly as possible in light of that longer-term disadvantage. so there's plenty of historical cases where russia has done something like that, mostrecently the criteria example. if you give them time to plan and not far from their borders they can do a lot continuously and quickly . taken together, we believe russia's posture at the strategic level is often to a crowd.

they invested in anti-ship capabilities to protect russia's homeland , these population centers and moscow and st. petersburg but that also provide them a shield behind which they can launch offenses operations against essentially states or adversaries near to them on their borders. now that said, the idea that russia is on the strategic defensive might come as news to the ukrainians or the georgians. russian theorists believe very clearly the advantage in modern warfare had the tactical operations level goes to the side that has the best offense though they worry about maintaining buffer states like belarus and ukraine and a defensive stronghold about which i will stay more in a second but the

intent there is to buy space and time so they can mobilize a reaction and mitigate some of their longer-term disadvantages if they came under attack from nato. this is a graphic, actually my final slide and i'll be having this over to dara massicot. this shows russian air defenses. the solid circles are where those units are located in peacetime and my children where they were on russian borders or in russian allied roots, they would become nato territory. but there's three things i want to say about this chart. first, those hair defense levels over over parts of nature and that's obviously potentially offers them some ability to cover those, they were going to do anything very near their borders, doesn't even cover in this case, doesn't even cover all

or some of those states. you may have seen other versions of graphics like this. this is a relatively conservative version based on systems that are fielded. some of the systems russia is working on when extendable at most two 400 kilometers so those are two of the largest of those, about 500 kilometers across. second, russia is very large. there's a whole lot of russia to defend this is the densest part of their air defense network and there are still so there concentrated around moscow, st. petersburg which is not shown as deputies of estonia and also it's worth noting you may notice the slave of kaliningrad, small islands of actual russian territory that is on the vulcan seabetween lithuania : that is among other things an opportunity for them to push their defensive umbrella,, air defense, navy ships, long-range capabilities and i

know i want to make cautious about focusing exclusively on air defense, air defense doesn't get you the kind of air superiority you would get from a largecapable air force . what it does is it buys time. the other side to side when they fly they operate outside of your air defenses, the other side gets to decide volume and how often they're going to enter and essentially given numbers that russia faces, in terms of nato and the united states and especially united states air power, it will take us time but they are going to run out. >> they're going to run out before we run out. >>. >> morning everyone. are you okay?

>> so i'm going to take this to the operational and strategic level" questions. i want to reiterate an important caveat that there is no single style aggression work there, are paper outlines key features against our adversaries, as stated in our doctrine and the first foster and what we know about their operational planning, it's inclusive of everything so we can talk about other topics . in question portion of today. it should be noted the military has been straightened a great deal of flexibility for different contingencies and we do not mean to suggest russia is going to apply a good key approach to operations plan so i'd like to talk a little bit about how russia will incorporate nongenetic and nonmilitary disabilities and actions for enduring a conventional conflict. these are techniques you may have heard referred to as hyper- warfare gray zone, russia for to it as indirect action .

electronic warfare, cyber attack, disinformation on social media state media, techniques like the inclusion of special operations forces and military contractors who operate behind anyone, even sympathetic to do a variety of roles like targeting missions. we see all these and ukraine and many of them in syria, they're experimenting today. >> like to say a few words about russian power projection. there's a question as to the capabilities involved, where the endpoint of this?are they fostering themselves to become an expeditionary military like ours? where that line going to stop in terms of enhancement russia continues to emphasize rapid reaction capabilities and high readiness rates across the general-purpose forces, those armies, navy, air force, these forces are

required to maintain certain management levels and certain equipment in working order so they can respond quickly to orders , to deploy. the drill this capability often you may have heard things called exercises or unannounced exercises, about testing the ability to respond quickly and directly to orders from the general staff. this is not a new concept but it's even more important now as they drawn their forces down evidently over the last 10 years. overall today the number of russian forces has fallen so positive strategic mobility it is the ability to go from the center to the border region or from one border to another quickly is important for moscow. russia is also enhancing what we referred to in the west as anti-access aerial capabilities in areas like western russia and the black sea and avoid engagement within their opponents. russia does this by telling

air defense systems, range and position strikes, coastal defense and other capabilities to complicate power projection but these are not purely defensive capabilities especially when you're talking about ballistic missiles and these defensive lanes. in 2018 we see russia use military contractors in areas outside of its region like syria and moscow approaching several countries for poor access agreement abroad. they are becoming expeditionary or a military designed to operate globally like ours. i would argue for no structural reason. russia does not appear to be investing in an expeditionary force so by this i mean a whole network of basis, logistics halls to support global power ambitions an order their long-term procurement plans particularly in the well as they have not invested and do not run a blue water navy other than their submarines in 2005.

finally, a brief word about the evolution of russian military capabilities since the start of the new reforms in 2008 2009. russian military has improved to the point where it can be considered a reliable tool to defend russia's national interest . it is a military operations in many areas of the globe based on willingness to engage. russian assessments and this is i think the point, their own self-assessment about their ability to prevail against a near. adversary like nato remains unchanged. they do not believe they have the superior, potential and that's a big word intheir doctrine of thinking . they are constantly measuring personnel availability, equipment availability, technology, r&d, budget, things like this and they compare themselves to nato as a whole including us and in their view, theysee this publicly and in their

writings and in their speeches , they do not come out ahead in the fight with that in mind there are nuclear weapons, remains the ultimate protector of russian national security our military is operating closer and closer to in proximity to one another these days with crisis stability mechanisms remaining in place. this gives an opportunity for engagement for both sides so with that i will close and scott and i are happy to take any questions or discuss any concept in further detail, thank you. >>. >> i'm congressman ron

bishop's office, i was wondering if you could talk more about contractors and the russian forces, how well are they integrated and the us strikes with russian contractors in syria, if there are any lessons learned from that experience you can share with the group. >> when you say contractors, humane the private military? so syria i think is the first story that we had where we can confirm they are operating abroad on behalf of the government. in time. where your thinking about when the strikes were conducted, they were operating on half of the syrian government to protect oil infrastructure that is a learning or the russians and particularly the military. we were willing to engage russian contractors but not uniformed russianpersonnel so that a day on moving forward . >> there's talking about using the same approach russia did in countries where

possibly take it vantage of russian populations in countries on it order now large portions of eastern russia are likely chinese because they move. have you seen anything where russia is trying to come up with a strategy in those areas against future chinese aggression? >> i would say very little directly about china. even when they hold some of the most exercises in the far east like very large commitments of troops, they don't testify adversary so they can be playing that a little close to the chest and being very open about nato's potential adversary so they don't talk about it verymuch . and did you have any? >> none that i can think of but i think that concerned with permeating the russian government would be the responsibility of the national guard and

intelligence services or the military. >>. >> are we still seeing them practice the potential for low yield device as part of the defensive structure? >> to escalate, to de-escalate? >> so they do, they are continuing to experiment with attacks on nuclear weapons. complicated right now because they are not actually discussing the doctrinal uses so we are all left to interpret what this means and how they will be used. they have said over time no particular time point specified there, that they hope to advance to the point conventionally where the role of nuclear weapons is less overtime against a near here adversary but they don't actually put date on so we're

watching them feelprecision strikes and hoping the threshold is moving . >>. [inaudible] you mentioned in the paper the russian military is gaining experience from operations in ukraine and syria. i was curious, what are situations in the future this could help them prepare for and are there any wrong lessons they could learn from these experiences? >> i can think of a few answers to that. you saw in the first slide picture of the attack. i follow a lot of weapon systems. and we're seeing them implement changes to weapons already. so for example there's a lot more side armor on the new versions of the p 72 so there's certainlythinking through that, working some of the kinks out . i think the big thing to be what they call the crhus to call the recon fire and recon

strike complex though the integration of various reconnaissance assets, sensors and different fire technologies. they are continuing to experiment with that, some of those experiments are happening in a live fire environment against a live adversary but they are shortening the time it takes them to find something and then transmit that information to a firing unit and employ those weapons more accurately if they're doingit from the air and the service days and also from maritime systems . >>. >> in terms of other lessons they are learning, and ukraine. there personnel experience and in syria in particular they are cycling officers room as rapidly as they can. particularly in the air forces to get them combat experience. there also learning advanced coalition management if you will in syria so they have to work with the iranians and syrians to coordinate how

they deployed into syria, managing operations on the ground. so also from the technical perspective, they have learned how to works in different environments. there seeing how it works in the desert, works in the woods things like electronic warfare, how does that change with climate. deploying any scientists from their defense industries into the combat zone to help them tinker around with and work on technologies and they encounter problems so there's a technological component and then there's a confidence building aspect of this that they will take on board with them at multiple salons. in terms of what are some wrong lessons or unlearned lessons from this, they still don't know and just as we don't what it is like to operate in a contested environment with a beer competitor like russia. they never had to fight their way in ukraine. never have to fight their way in syria.

a little bit in georgia and that was quite the combat loss, they lost georgia and their own air defenses. so. >> i'll tie into something deborah said, we've announced they put more than 40,000 officers through rotations to syria, including leadership of all for military districts, all of the combined arms, armies and air force headquarters so they are pushing, as most of their combat pilots as well, all the transport pilots who had syria time so there leveraging that as a combat training experience without question . >> lane, congressman boris office kentucky. is there a focus area or region russians are more interested in in potential aggressive actions like the baltic states, estonia, those areas or is it more towards, more towards syria?

>> so if you look at the new unit is created, the new divisions since 2013 ukraine is when the process started. i think it's one of six or seven divisions. most of those are located near the u ukrainian border so i pay less attention to what they're saying where they are doing anything if you look at the ground forces one would say the focus is in the southern military district and around the corners of ukraine and belarus. it's a forecasted area of instability is what i would say that tells me. in terms of other forces, we haven't seen that kind of revision in terms of the navy or air force is. i think the air force is our duty to get larger over the next couple years back across russia, not necessarily with one particular region. and in the baltics ofcourse, western military district .

>> first i wanted to thank you for coming in and speaking and i wanted to ask, you were talking about how the russians best option in the world with nato would be a short war that was likely a surprise attack. what do you think would be the best way to force them into a long war where nato's advantages that come into play? >> i'm trying to think of a good way to answer this.but the problem in part is if you're severely overmatched at the beginning because they're going to leverage -- there like 60+ brigades are forces, airborne forces and naval infantry so they have some ability to ship to those around so they can gain an

advantage in the very short term numerically that they can pose against her example if they wanted to baltic states that they have to have a story for themselves about how this is going to end and it really relies on nato's will or the other side down and they will just take it and if they don't believe that's going to happen, then that's a problem for them because they don't have a story for how this works in the long run. some of the rand work you might be familiar with and the reports have talked about the conventional correlation of forces. the balance of conventional capability inthe baltic region . pointing out all the capability and posture gaps that pose that short-term possiblyunlikely scenario , it is, there's a larger deterrence discussion there which i think is important and i don't want to get into

too much unless there's or interest in or we can go off-line after an arrow will sound more intelligent about that. >> but like they don't have a story or a how they deal with blue air without using a nuclear weapon. which should give us pause as well. if they're going to think the risk of going into an operation that is an incredible risk for them from their perspective compared to theway they paid in the past . i know if that's answering your question . dara. >> they had a certain domain specific sensibilities so it is their belief that their domain is going to be a center of gravity in warfare moving forward and then look at our capabilities in that regard and make us deeply uncomfortable in terms of their ability to carry and present types of mass strikes into russia likeshock and all kind of campaign . so i think some of the work

that ran. i do have an advantage on the ground in terms of getting there quickly advantage is not convey to the air war. so i think as long as there's a conventional, air deterrence and an ability to degrade theirrapid online , >>. >> question on it and as you said, i said in a way that it would be russia seems to kind of be alone on its own but do you think that may be looking for a potential eye or just india as it's been cooperating increasingly in terms of military development but not having a military alliance with them yet. do you think they may be looking for possible allies?

>> there's a few ways i like that part. if you look at their strategy and how they think about developing the polycentric role in the future where there's not the united states, it's all this remaining superpower, they look to races like china, west india, like the united states and europe as these, and again this is an idealized strategy in future where there are regional powers and everybody cooperates and gets along, nobody dominates one another, they are less descriptive about using the word allies in their strategy documents short of belarus. they want to have strategic cooperation, how they were in the strategy with china. pretty much comprehensively but i don't know that's extending towardmilitary alliance. >> . >> i was wondering if social issues, drug use, hiv, how is

that affecting the current force and also the recruitment pool going into the future? >> i understand that you may have more recent research on the issue. they done pretty well and getting their numbers for what they all contract soldiers, the professional volunteer soldiers . but they've actually struggled in several of the past years fighting the sufficient numbers of their short-term conscripts. for a variety of reasons to include health, fitness, those things. the demographics as i understand it will time being and that problem as well fora bit . roughly how many, you know how many russians will turn 18 every year though that these smoothed out but it's notgreat . i don't know if you have anything else to add. >> the social issues are not as bad as they were 15 years

ago in terms of drug use. some of the main problems they're finding with the contract, the constant school is being too underweight so they actually have a pretty comprehensive policy to see these kids," emma. you really put weight on them. high calorie food, working out, they are coming home pretty healthy and pretty beefed up which is his own type of recruiting point . particularly in russian culture. they have to lower their standards in some regard in terms ofpsychological readiness . it's our attention here but they have had to lower that to maintain recruiting levels. >> i'm curious when you talk about their high capability for country and rapid reaction, some of the

standards that nato has four members state's defensive capabilities. the city is under a, they have to have highways where large amounts of civilians and can wait while military forces going, infrastructure, things like that for liability. other similar things in russia set up to allow these cross-country abilities? >> yes, there's actually been an acceleration of the trend of the 13. so you see them doing traditional things like purchasing more red stocks. after 2025 refurbishing their so heavy carriers to goacross country . and they move people quickly. you can also shoot outwards and can get you to north africa, the same distance to easter and northern russia. they are also changing the legislature a bit and where dressing well outside the scope of the paper but there

is business on sure they can reach into the civilian architecture when they need it. so the roads are still problematics ground transport is not really the option. but yes, we see them working on this and their exercises, how to command and control civilian things, territorial defense of cities and things like that it's awork in progress . >> you saw a lot of simple crisis response integrated into or at least happening at the same time as those exercises in the hall. to include at least one point they had a, like they use , and to make sure they had a phase of the shoulders of the crisis and all this stuff so they're trying to hold variety of different capabilities. >>. >> how do you foresee the balance between russia's soccer power operations which is cyber attack and

interference in your european us election and their military operations, particularly the office? >>. >> so one would, if there's writings and their doctrine are any road back to the future you would expect these things are going to become more integrated over time so the military and by that i mean the military defense and general staff, they have a specific way of thinking about cyber activity so it's defending their own architecture, and also on the battlefield, that is somewhat different than the rest of the russian government. and the intelligence services and kremlin and what they're doing. it is part of their doctrine and we discussed back and in the paper that you essentially want to even the playing field. if you believe you are outbound on the battlefield, what can you do so chaos and confusion will fight before

the battle starts or even after it started, you can break apart coalitions and alliances. >>. >> the security concerns surrounding russian military buildup, i'm pretty sure i've read russians are opening airbases and increase the presence in the region. this suggested as glover temperatures rise, sea lanes could open and of course economic opportunities are therefore natural resources. how do you interpret these elements and you see them as a threat? >> i have struggled with how tothink about some of the arctic stuff myself . as you point out, the sea lanes are opening. as i understand it we had the first transit in february, this winter transit through the north and we're actually seeing those effects there building capabilities in the

form with air defense strikes . part of that traditionally was also built around the northern fleet and the murmansk area, thisis obviously more centered on solving natural resources . i mean, i'm certain that the country of norway borders russia in the far north is, they're very active in talking about this and thinking about this . but i spent a little bit myself to figure out how you 50 figure this out from a military perspective is a lot of what we're seeing as i understand it is coordination or search and rescue. your lifespan is measured in minutes if you go down to the north so it makes they would want to worktogether . >> there's also a resumption of cold war type flavor to this.

if you google images of their new arctic basis, they are pretty cool looking.there's clovers painted in the russian fly but essentially what you're seeing is an opening of soviet era airbases so they can deploy up there. why would you need to deploy up there? there's an economic side of trolling the seed, investing in icebreakers. they clearly want to be someone who's voice is heard loud and clear with economic expectations in the resources eventually. there's also a military application in which is very concerned that we're going to resume over the whole strikes on russia. that's why you would need interceptors there, palmer bases up there so it's a mixed bag of economic and military posturing. x. >> in their doctrine and in their training, do they usually start on the offense?

in other words, their philosophy is primarily geared toward doing something preemptively or doesn't usually start with them being on the defensive? >> most of the ones i looked at they will start on the defensive and launched a counterattack.in the order that you do it, it could go either way, your training a lot of the same capabilities for acounterattack but they really think , i'm inclined to agree. in modern warfare with all reconnaissance and distractibility abilities, that a modern state canbring to bear, that probably is a good offense . >> from a policy standpoint they often are anticipating that they will have to be proactive in a crisis. >> they have to start on the offense. >> i would divide that 2. if you're looking at a non-nuclear competitor, ukraine or georgia, it looks

like this is breaking not in moscow'spaper, the consequences are far lower . theoretically against a here competitor, they would want to do the same thing but the stakes are so high. it's an open question for me. >> back on the arctic issue, russia is starting to feel arctic versions of air defense systems and other systems. have there been any feedback on whether or not those arctic modification systems have been successful and whether or not the systems are functioning in that environment or if they failed to adjust for the departure of the climate? >> publicly, yes, everything is working and they don't really discuss as much as they used to challenges that they are facing. i've noticed this trend, this current military leadership over there, they would

discuss more typically when there were delays. you don't see that as much anymore so i can't saywhether or not they are having problems but they are not discussing them as much .>> they also actually keep some of their old systems that are overly reliable around the stairs. they have amazing mobility so some of the systems that are still in use in the north and the far north are like soviet air systems that they can, they literally can swim, they are amphibious capable. have low ground pressure and they got their entire since the invention of the internal combustion, they had arctic think about so they found things that work for them and actually, as i think you were implying, there are actually equipping units in the far north with a different kind of tank because the gas turbine engine is more suitable for starting at extremely low temperatures.

so there's some experience about that. >> so it seems like russia's traditional military is focusing more on defenses but we've seen cases of opposite action with the election interference and the new missiles have been unveiled in the state of the union address so what does that mean foramerica might not be coming under attack . >> from very close but more remote opposite action? >>. >> so this i think is wrapped up in their concept of noncontact warfare. this is state warfare, extended range decisions strikes. that comes from their interpretation of how we have chosen to fight wars for the last 18+ years. so a lot of what he unveiled were systems designed to defeat or evade defense so it

goes back to this traditional concept of nuclear strategic civility and making sure they have the ability to deliver certain levels of nuclear strikes and certain percentage of their trial will survive. those are authentic capabilities. >> i would add that the feeling of very well include range missiles. they acknowledged that initial call 85101 in flex 4500 kilometers. so during the conventional cruise missiles, previously it was all new golf time or their bomber force . is actually relatively recent , close to 2000 to say. they start getting into that. there thinking more about how they can employ all of their capabilities long even extreme ranges. >>.

>> i'm from senator joe moran's office and i was wondering yet in the history of russia chinese military industrial cooperation, what do you expect to see going forward between the two states whether it's more industrial cooperation or maybe more a strategic, i know they have a history of military exercises but do we expect that to increase in the next few years? >>. >> there has been a very recent update in terms of their military cooperation because they have greater online interests now. in terms of the deployment about a missile defense capabilities . there is a growing tension in the defense industrial relationship, china is increasingly exporting military equipment and they're coming into very slightly coming into russia's market so how have you balanced this moving forward?

they had shown the ability to coordinate and work together well in the road initiative in central asia, so if anyone can work this out, i think those two have shown significant deference to one another work large issues. >>. >> i was going to ask if you could talk about russia's reliance on space you cannot military operations. >>. >> so population is more fragile than our. when we were doing research for this report we were trying to track the status of varioussatellite constellations . i did not realize that until i think 2015 a really didn't have much space-based warning which is kind because they only have land-based a missile launch warning which warning time but the assistance, they said. the spaces playing and increases percentage, the

ordinances growing as a percentage. so there newest weapons are space-time and grown on the center and things like but it's far more fragile and less redundant than ours so they have work to do and there's an opportunity there so if you invest heavily in space constellation and space,you're taking money away from other programs . so i think we will learn something they were to change their plans and frontloaded workspace, be the opportunity cost there and what does that tell us about how they plan on running in the future ? >> any other questions for anyway? >>. >> i have a question on how well russian regular forces, nonuniform contracts degrade into the russian command structure. >> so we have limited data

points on the topic but i think watching the reaction from moscow after the strike on the group in syria was very telling. there was high level coordination in the press between their military side and independents how to avoid uniforms, russian casualties. however, after significant personnel were killed it was pretty much radio silence from the russian military other than they work hours. so to me, distance that was put out there in the public domain was very interesting. there was almost a sense of well, they didn't coordinate their positions so they brought down upon themselves. i'm paraphrasing here but i thought the tone was interesting. i think operationally there is a need for them and there

is a use for them from the kremlin's perspective. this is me hypothesizing. i wonder if it's a begrudging acceptance that now these people are here, we have to deal with them that i don't know, that's just how it seemed to me in the press. >> that's the case where as you pointed out earlier, we are working for a foreign government, the russian government and i can't think of many good reports that can suggest on that. they're definitely doing it. >> i think it was the kremlin responses that was interesting because there was a great deal of distance. it was almost as if it were more important to save space that was to be angry about russian citizens being killed and it was only they felt the blowback from that decision a few days later they parsed up their language a little bit. it's something they are learning and it's just the tip, when something happens and they go quiet for two or

three days it's because it's something new for them and they are essentially buffering theirresponse . that was aninteresting learning lesson .>> any other final questions? thank you all for coming this morning. thank you dara massicot, jayme fuglesten. if you have any questions we will be here after the briefing and pick up some of on the table there. >>. >> tonight tv is in prime time with a look at recent books on politics, first

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