What is more necessary for Russia: fleet or army?
Russia is land. Eurasia. Huge by any measure continental mass. The blessing of the people who live on it, because it gives them a place in the sun, freedom of movement, freedom of maneuver in the war, extensive resources and communication, equal to which few people can find. Curse to the people who live on it, because such a territory cannot be reliably protected, it is not possible to build an effective economy on it, it is very difficult to master it and it is very expensive to maintain. Unique education by any standards.
Our homeland.
The vast majority of its population lives in the depths of the continent and in the depths of the continent are the main and most important economic centers, natural resources and the main symbols of the state. In addition to St. Petersburg and Sochi. And Vladivostok, about which the inhabitant of the depths of the continent does not usually recall. Yes and story the local population is also connected with land, with forests and fields. Anyone to take - the descendants of Russian farmers and woodcutters, or nomads who gave their genes to the Kalmyks and Tatars. And the most terrible invasions of these lands have always occurred on the ground. Even if the question arose - will the local population and the state built by them, the faith that has grown on these lands and the culture pulling everything together continue to exist - then it was raised by the people who came across the land. On foot, on horseback, on tanks and armored personnel carriers, but on the ground. And mentally our people almost always recognize themselves as natural inhabitants of this land landscape.
In our time, this worldview has begun to generate extremely dangerous cognitive distortion, which can, in principle, be fatal. In some circumstances, at least, for sure.
Ask a question to anyone: what is more important for Russia - the army or the navy? Any person to whom such a question will be asked will surely answer that the army. After all, we live on land. Well, what fleet in Voronezh? In Moscow? In Novosibirsk? After all, traditionally our fate was decided in land wars, and the fleet there, of course, could play an important role, but never played a major one. In the history of Russia on the move and do not remember the wars, where vital issues would be solved exclusively or almost exclusively in sea battles - except that the Russian-Swedish war 1788-1790, when the army was almost completely connected with Turkey. But it is rather an exception.
It is not necessary to describe the level of threats our country is facing now. In fact, the only thing to which the West has not yet descended is the conduct of a terrorist war on our territory. In the meantime, they will tamp off on the sly and beat in the back, crush them with sanctions and arrange provocations, they are sure that time is working on them, and that we just need to finish them off, correcting the mistake made in 90's, when it could be done, but when it was not done. They will not stop.
All this happens under conditions when economists brought up on imported methods and textbooks simply cannot achieve economic growth. In such conditions, spending on defense should be simply infallible. And here the question arises before us - what to finance in the first place, what the second and so on.
Someone will say again that the ground forces, but let's think about it.
The issue of military construction is inextricably linked with military threats to the state, and political ambitions in the world, which must be supported by military force. About the second later, but for now let's analyze the threats.
Is a land attack possible on the Russian Federation? Let's try to imagine it, rejecting the nuclear factor weapons (and then we will return this factor, it has not gone anywhere).
In general, as we know from history, many tried to “break Russia”, and some even managed to fix the victory “on points”, but no one was left either happy or satisfied. Even the British, who won the Crimean War, remember it without smiles. To fight on land against Russia is still a pleasure. This is well remembered, for example, by the Germans. There was, of course, foreign intervention during the Civil War, but then the country was completely disorganized, for the first time in several centuries. Now is not the case.
So does the land war threaten us, in order to prepare for which we must make the financing of the land forces a priority?
To attack Russia from land, you need this land itself. The territory where the enemy troops will be deployed, where their rear will be deployed, where the reinforcements will arrive, and where the invasion will be made from.
And then the lobbyists injecting all the money into the ground forces, there is a problem - there is no such land.
We look at the map. In the West, our country borders, from south to north, with Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Norway.
Of these countries, Ukraine and, in some cases, Poland would join the attack on Russia. Norway might have been able to incline to passive participation in the form of infrastructure provision. The Baltic countries could also connect. But these territories are not enough. Ukraine does not control itself, and Russia has not only advantages in speed of deployment, but also the ability to sharply intensify and aggravate the internal conflict in this country, up to the full-fledged incitement of new hotbeds of war. Moreover, this will be done many times faster than some aggressor will be able to transfer some contingent of substantial strength and strength to it.
Poland can geographically attack only the Kaliningrad enclave; it is impossible to inflict a decisive defeat of the RF Armed Forces from its territory. It’s the same with the Baltic States - the Russian Federation is near, and it will be ahead with deployment. Norway, with its jammed population, with participation in a similar operation itself will be conquered, and very quickly - the Arctic brigade from the front and the Airborne Forces from the rear will not allow NATO to defend a narrow strip of northern Norway, if we happen to be ahead of them with deployment - and we will be ahead of them. With Svalbard can also turn out "sad." And if not, that the attack from Norway is extremely inconvenient, the grouping of the invasion in that area and deploying is difficult and difficult to supply. Heavier than us troops. General Dietl would confirm.
At the same time, the West obviously cannot form the same united political space to the west of our country, which Hitler had in 1941. So it will not be able to deploy a single grouping of the invasion either. Plus, Europe is extremely dependent on Russian energy sources, whose supplies in the event of war will immediately stop, and this is guaranteed to keep the same Germany from participating in any adventures. Thus, a full-scale invasion by land from the West to Russia at this historical stage is simply technically unrealizable, even without taking into account our tactical nuclear weapons - and it is taken into account!
A limited war somewhere in the vicinity of Kaliningrad or the Baltic states, will no longer be purely land. Any opponent who wants to fight with us from the territory of the Baltic countries, or near Kaliningrad, will have to - attention! - to keep open sea communications in the Baltic. Otherwise, either he will not be able to supply his groupings (in the Baltic States) or we will be able to supply ours in Kaliningrad, and then to the west, in Gdansk, the same.
Hence the first and second conclusions.
The first — an invasion by land into Russia from the West is currently technically impossible.
Secondly, if the Baltic Fleet is able to hold communications to the sea west of the Kaliningrad enclave, then a limited war with Russia on land is impossible.
Not on the Norwegian border to arrange it.
In fact, we have only one threat, which can be considered purely land-based - the suicidal offensive of Ukraine on the territory of Russia or the republics of Donbass. What happens in such situations, we have already seen. The idea that the Ukrainians "pulled up" the level of their army and it became something significant you can safely fold. Ukrainian society is not able to organize itself into complex structures, and the army is a complex structure.
That is, there are no threats of attacks by land from the West, such an attack is technically unfeasible, and limited provocations can be parried by the control of maritime communications in the Baltic from our side.
Maybe we can face an attack on the ground in the East? But there is only one country there, technically capable of such an attack, and having a long enough border for it - China. The attack of China on Russia is currently impossible politically. China is in the clinch with the United States, the topic of the war with China is very popular in the American information space, in blogs, in books, popular technotriller series are written about it (for example, David Poyer, with his TV series “War with China” is one of the most popular series of books in the USA last year), the American destroyers regularly check the Chinese for strength around their bulk islands, India slowly but surely turns to the USA, Japan is being remilitarized, which is also “under the USA”.
China itself is still technologically dependent on the Russian Federation, in any case, a number of equipment supplied from here and components for military equipment, the Chinese have nothing to replace, like similar products related to nuclear energy. In addition, Russia is a potential “road of life” for China, in the case of its hypothetical sea blockade. Attacking Russia under such conditions is pure suicide, even if you do not take into account Russian nuclear weapons, and you will have to take it into account again.
From whom, then, will the army defend the Motherland? From the DPRK? From Mongolia?
To attack us by land or by no one, or from nowhere, the threat of an attack on Russia by land is almost non-existent, or is retaliated by the fleet (Baltic), or is not serious (Ukraine).
In fact, the army for Russia is a whip to educate neighbors. While Ukraine. And if everything goes the way it goes, then only Ukraine, and this is not forever.
But everything changes, and it changes very dramatically if we begin to assess the risks for Russia that come from the sea.
Among the inhabitants of our vast land mass, the myth that Russia does not depend on sea communications is popular.
However, even a banal look at the map says the opposite.
Starting from Sakhalin, there is a gigantic “arc” of Russian lands, the connection with which is carried out only by coastal shipping by sea and rare air flights. Sakhalin, Magadan, Kuriles, Kamchatka, Chukotka, northern regions of Yakutia, settlements on Kolyma, Norilsk, Yamal, Nenets Autonomous District - these territories depend on sea communications to a critical degree, and are lost without them. Apart from Kaliningrad, which also has no border with the rest of Russia by land, about 1,3 million people live in these territories. There are located mineral deposits, military bases important to the country's security, such enterprises as Norilsk Nickel, ports, and some industries (for example, in Magadan). Russia's sovereignty over these territories ensures its military security, guarantees exclusive rights to the shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk, and, in the long run, to the Arctic shelf.
If we add the Kaliningrad region to all this, then it turns out that about 2,2 million people live on the territory of Russia “tied up” to the sea communications. This is more than Iceland in terms of population, and disproportionately more in terms of resources and industrial potential. This is only nine hundred thousand less than it lives in Mongolia. And also incomparable in resources and industrial potential.
And all this is kept by sea communications. By sea.
Moreover, Russia's foreign trade also depends on sea communications. At the beginning of the 2000s, roughly 60% of our entire foreign trade (in monetary terms) passed through seaports. And although, on the whole, the share of sea transportation in the general structure of transportation in Russia is not large, but it is vital.
And the enemy, having strong and well prepared Navy is able to interrupt these communications.
How to get on tanks to Tokyo? Is it possible to start a nuclear war with the death of all or almost the entire population of the Russian Federation due to the blockade of Egvekinot? Would you start?
Today, the problem of our continentally located country is that our enemies are not going to invade us by land - they threaten us from the sea. Moreover, their superiority at sea gives them the opportunity to manage the escalation of the conflict as they please - to build it up or vice versa. And in our country, in connection with the almost complete collapse of the Navy, it is simply not possible to oppose such an escalation. Nothing. There are not even a dozen ships in the Pacific Fleet capable of escorting convoys from merchant ships within the framework of the Northern Delivery. No anti-submarine forces, almost no. There are no landing forces capable of landing at least one battalion with equipmentwithout resorting to unsuitable ships or mobilized ships. Yes actually we have bad ships everywhere, naval aviation too.
Or take a higher level - limited local war, even nuclear. The Americans have a large number of URO ships and submarines capable of carrying cruise missiles, and carrier-based aircraft may well carry nuclear bombs. During the NorPac Fleetex Ops'82 and 83 exercises, Americans showed that even the Soviet Navy was not able to prevent their attacks on Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands, in any case, allocated to counter the forces of the marine missile aviation and the fleet was always late and ended up where the US Navy’s AUS was no longer there, and when they invaded our airspace, no one could stop them. What can we say about the current extremely small forces of the RF Armed Forces. Today, the Americans are quite able to conduct an extremely destructive offensive operation against the Far East, the Kuril Islands or Kamchatka, even against the Kola Peninsula. Moreover, actions from the sea give them the opportunity to simply simply drop everything and leave without bringing the matter to nuclear weapons.
This is another important feature of the war at sea that we do not understand - you can just go and leave, giving the enemy the opportunity to crawl with his weak forces against a superior enemy somewhere in the world’s ocean, without support, trying to “save face” and carry out what - the action of retribution, most likely doomed to failure. For the time being, they are being held back by the fact that we can arrange an escalation somewhere else, where, for example, our Gauges reach out to their bases. And the possibility of a disproportionately aggressive response, for example, the physical capture of Norway to ensure the operation of its fleet in the Norwegian Sea. And the fact that, although with losses, we can send to the bottom of a number of their ships, but they do not want this.
Let's see how much more it will be, their patience is clearly running out, they want blood, and statements about the naval blockade of Russia from their officials last year have already sounded. Will we start a nuclear war because of the blockade? We have no other tools in this situation. Nor did Norway seize in response to arrests of tankers and bulk carriers.
By the way, about the blockade.
You can not touch our coasters. You can turn those who come to us and from us on international lines from third countries or to these countries. Stand in the English Channel, the Sea of Japan, somewhere near the Danish Straits, at the exit from the Dardanelles and implement the blockade there. And stop only ships under neutral flags operating on lines from and to Russia. And here we even have no formal reason to intervene. And such a measure can bring the economy to its knees.
Again, this will be a big “minus to karma” of Americans who declare themselves to be defenders of global freedom of navigation. They will need for such actions a very serious reason. While it is not. But if it appears, then again we have nothing to answer. And goodbye, foreign trade.
The consequences will be disastrous.
And yet, if someone does not remember, we are waging war. In Syria, on the theater of turbine isolated from our country. With grouping, the supply of which is almost completely carried out by sea. Through communications controlled by a potentially unfriendly (so far) Turkey. A member of NATO and a participant in the terrorist war against our friendly Syria, the country that shot down our military aircraft in front of the television cameras that had been brought to the point of provocation beforehand.
Note that the fleet in this war plays a much more important role than ground forces, albeit auxiliary to the VKS. And this is very significant.
Let us see which countries are hostile to the Russian Federation in general and with whom we may encounter in some local war, even if it is fierce, but limited. Ukraine, Poland, Turkey (if Erdogan again “brings”), Japan, the United States, possibly with Britain, maybe with Norway. Of these countries, Poland, Ukraine, and Norway have a land border with us, but not only the army, but also the fleet will be needed to deal with them. And with the others - only aircraft, including the sea, and the fleet.
Well, in a strategic, global war with the United States or the united West, for us the army is insofar as. The Strategic Missile Forces, aviation, submarines with missiles ... and again we run into the fact that we need a full-fledged and efficient fleet, anti-submarine defense, naval aviation. After all, the most dangerous thing for us that such an enemy has in such a situation is its nuclear submarines, and no army can cope with them.
The priorities of military construction should be rethought. After the Strategic Missile Forces and combat aviation, which should take the first places without options, instead of ground forces there should be a subtle and well-thought-out combination of financing specific areas important for the development of military power - for example, ship repair for the Navy, and the expansion of the line of ammunition for army men, a couple new frigates, and modernization of hundreds of tanks. Financing priorities should be repelled by threats, and threats from the sea are more dangerous and more real than the threat of an attack over land. And we ourselves, on land, will easily attack anyone, and we will roll out this anyone into powder now, it would be enough just shells. With the fleet, everything is getting worse, and its quickest possible bringing into a combat-ready state should be one of the state priorities. right now. While this is not, instead, the Main Marine Parade, gunboats with the "Gauges" and the telecast "Shock Force".
And of course, with the security of some political ambitions, the army loses to the fleet. If only because the fleet in theory can do it anywhere. Maybe in Venezuela, in Cuba. It can send a landing brigade to the ships and maneuver them near Gibraltar. May show the flag to the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands. The army can only crush and only neighbors, so it is arranged, and nothing can be done about it. Although it can be transported somewhere on ships ...
So, those who still repeat the mantras like “we are a land power”, “we do not have sea communications that we should protect” and the like, it’s time to think.
All wrong.
The threat from the sea and the degree of danger to the population of the Russian Federation, and the likelihood of becoming a military conflict, has already surpassed the hypothetical attack on Russia by land. There will be no hordes of tanks, and the chains of enemy infantry going right through the burning native birches, there will be some semblance of the Crimean War, only small-scale and sluggish, so as not to bring to nuclear weapons, and the stakes in such a conflict will not be very large, but the loss will be from one the sides are humiliating and hitting badly for reputation, and on the other, inevitable. After all, our surface fleet has long been inferior not only to the Chinese, but also to the Japanese, underwater mainly for repairs, only a shadow has remained of naval aviation ...
However, we have excellent tank troops. They will not reach Tokyo or at least Sapporo, but they look great on TV, and several dozens of battalions from their composition can completely curtain one inadequate neighboring state. You can console yourself with this, since there is nothing more.
Or nuclear torpedo.
Our homeland.
The vast majority of its population lives in the depths of the continent and in the depths of the continent are the main and most important economic centers, natural resources and the main symbols of the state. In addition to St. Petersburg and Sochi. And Vladivostok, about which the inhabitant of the depths of the continent does not usually recall. Yes and story the local population is also connected with land, with forests and fields. Anyone to take - the descendants of Russian farmers and woodcutters, or nomads who gave their genes to the Kalmyks and Tatars. And the most terrible invasions of these lands have always occurred on the ground. Even if the question arose - will the local population and the state built by them, the faith that has grown on these lands and the culture pulling everything together continue to exist - then it was raised by the people who came across the land. On foot, on horseback, on tanks and armored personnel carriers, but on the ground. And mentally our people almost always recognize themselves as natural inhabitants of this land landscape.
In our time, this worldview has begun to generate extremely dangerous cognitive distortion, which can, in principle, be fatal. In some circumstances, at least, for sure.
"John Lehman" power demonstration: a Romeo battle group of the Long Beach nuclear missile cruiser, the New Jersey battleship, the Spryuance class Merrill destroyer, a pair of American frigates and Australian URO ships. Plus a tanker and integrated supply ship. Somewhere in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of North Korea, 1986. Group 48 has the Tomahawks. This is less than what one Arly Burke destroyer did not yet exist, comparable to how many Caliber, for example, the Black Sea fleet RF today. And somewhere there is still an atomic submarine in the depths. Or two
Ask a question to anyone: what is more important for Russia - the army or the navy? Any person to whom such a question will be asked will surely answer that the army. After all, we live on land. Well, what fleet in Voronezh? In Moscow? In Novosibirsk? After all, traditionally our fate was decided in land wars, and the fleet there, of course, could play an important role, but never played a major one. In the history of Russia on the move and do not remember the wars, where vital issues would be solved exclusively or almost exclusively in sea battles - except that the Russian-Swedish war 1788-1790, when the army was almost completely connected with Turkey. But it is rather an exception.
It is not necessary to describe the level of threats our country is facing now. In fact, the only thing to which the West has not yet descended is the conduct of a terrorist war on our territory. In the meantime, they will tamp off on the sly and beat in the back, crush them with sanctions and arrange provocations, they are sure that time is working on them, and that we just need to finish them off, correcting the mistake made in 90's, when it could be done, but when it was not done. They will not stop.
All this happens under conditions when economists brought up on imported methods and textbooks simply cannot achieve economic growth. In such conditions, spending on defense should be simply infallible. And here the question arises before us - what to finance in the first place, what the second and so on.
Someone will say again that the ground forces, but let's think about it.
The issue of military construction is inextricably linked with military threats to the state, and political ambitions in the world, which must be supported by military force. About the second later, but for now let's analyze the threats.
Is a land attack possible on the Russian Federation? Let's try to imagine it, rejecting the nuclear factor weapons (and then we will return this factor, it has not gone anywhere).
In general, as we know from history, many tried to “break Russia”, and some even managed to fix the victory “on points”, but no one was left either happy or satisfied. Even the British, who won the Crimean War, remember it without smiles. To fight on land against Russia is still a pleasure. This is well remembered, for example, by the Germans. There was, of course, foreign intervention during the Civil War, but then the country was completely disorganized, for the first time in several centuries. Now is not the case.
So does the land war threaten us, in order to prepare for which we must make the financing of the land forces a priority?
To attack Russia from land, you need this land itself. The territory where the enemy troops will be deployed, where their rear will be deployed, where the reinforcements will arrive, and where the invasion will be made from.
And then the lobbyists injecting all the money into the ground forces, there is a problem - there is no such land.
We look at the map. In the West, our country borders, from south to north, with Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Norway.
Of these countries, Ukraine and, in some cases, Poland would join the attack on Russia. Norway might have been able to incline to passive participation in the form of infrastructure provision. The Baltic countries could also connect. But these territories are not enough. Ukraine does not control itself, and Russia has not only advantages in speed of deployment, but also the ability to sharply intensify and aggravate the internal conflict in this country, up to the full-fledged incitement of new hotbeds of war. Moreover, this will be done many times faster than some aggressor will be able to transfer some contingent of substantial strength and strength to it.
Poland can geographically attack only the Kaliningrad enclave; it is impossible to inflict a decisive defeat of the RF Armed Forces from its territory. It’s the same with the Baltic States - the Russian Federation is near, and it will be ahead with deployment. Norway, with its jammed population, with participation in a similar operation itself will be conquered, and very quickly - the Arctic brigade from the front and the Airborne Forces from the rear will not allow NATO to defend a narrow strip of northern Norway, if we happen to be ahead of them with deployment - and we will be ahead of them. With Svalbard can also turn out "sad." And if not, that the attack from Norway is extremely inconvenient, the grouping of the invasion in that area and deploying is difficult and difficult to supply. Heavier than us troops. General Dietl would confirm.
At the same time, the West obviously cannot form the same united political space to the west of our country, which Hitler had in 1941. So it will not be able to deploy a single grouping of the invasion either. Plus, Europe is extremely dependent on Russian energy sources, whose supplies in the event of war will immediately stop, and this is guaranteed to keep the same Germany from participating in any adventures. Thus, a full-scale invasion by land from the West to Russia at this historical stage is simply technically unrealizable, even without taking into account our tactical nuclear weapons - and it is taken into account!
A limited war somewhere in the vicinity of Kaliningrad or the Baltic states, will no longer be purely land. Any opponent who wants to fight with us from the territory of the Baltic countries, or near Kaliningrad, will have to - attention! - to keep open sea communications in the Baltic. Otherwise, either he will not be able to supply his groupings (in the Baltic States) or we will be able to supply ours in Kaliningrad, and then to the west, in Gdansk, the same.
Hence the first and second conclusions.
The first — an invasion by land into Russia from the West is currently technically impossible.
Secondly, if the Baltic Fleet is able to hold communications to the sea west of the Kaliningrad enclave, then a limited war with Russia on land is impossible.
Not on the Norwegian border to arrange it.
In fact, we have only one threat, which can be considered purely land-based - the suicidal offensive of Ukraine on the territory of Russia or the republics of Donbass. What happens in such situations, we have already seen. The idea that the Ukrainians "pulled up" the level of their army and it became something significant you can safely fold. Ukrainian society is not able to organize itself into complex structures, and the army is a complex structure.
That is, there are no threats of attacks by land from the West, such an attack is technically unfeasible, and limited provocations can be parried by the control of maritime communications in the Baltic from our side.
Maybe we can face an attack on the ground in the East? But there is only one country there, technically capable of such an attack, and having a long enough border for it - China. The attack of China on Russia is currently impossible politically. China is in the clinch with the United States, the topic of the war with China is very popular in the American information space, in blogs, in books, popular technotriller series are written about it (for example, David Poyer, with his TV series “War with China” is one of the most popular series of books in the USA last year), the American destroyers regularly check the Chinese for strength around their bulk islands, India slowly but surely turns to the USA, Japan is being remilitarized, which is also “under the USA”.
China itself is still technologically dependent on the Russian Federation, in any case, a number of equipment supplied from here and components for military equipment, the Chinese have nothing to replace, like similar products related to nuclear energy. In addition, Russia is a potential “road of life” for China, in the case of its hypothetical sea blockade. Attacking Russia under such conditions is pure suicide, even if you do not take into account Russian nuclear weapons, and you will have to take it into account again.
From whom, then, will the army defend the Motherland? From the DPRK? From Mongolia?
To attack us by land or by no one, or from nowhere, the threat of an attack on Russia by land is almost non-existent, or is retaliated by the fleet (Baltic), or is not serious (Ukraine).
In fact, the army for Russia is a whip to educate neighbors. While Ukraine. And if everything goes the way it goes, then only Ukraine, and this is not forever.
But everything changes, and it changes very dramatically if we begin to assess the risks for Russia that come from the sea.
Among the inhabitants of our vast land mass, the myth that Russia does not depend on sea communications is popular.
However, even a banal look at the map says the opposite.
Starting from Sakhalin, there is a gigantic “arc” of Russian lands, the connection with which is carried out only by coastal shipping by sea and rare air flights. Sakhalin, Magadan, Kuriles, Kamchatka, Chukotka, northern regions of Yakutia, settlements on Kolyma, Norilsk, Yamal, Nenets Autonomous District - these territories depend on sea communications to a critical degree, and are lost without them. Apart from Kaliningrad, which also has no border with the rest of Russia by land, about 1,3 million people live in these territories. There are located mineral deposits, military bases important to the country's security, such enterprises as Norilsk Nickel, ports, and some industries (for example, in Magadan). Russia's sovereignty over these territories ensures its military security, guarantees exclusive rights to the shelf of the Sea of Okhotsk, and, in the long run, to the Arctic shelf.
If we add the Kaliningrad region to all this, then it turns out that about 2,2 million people live on the territory of Russia “tied up” to the sea communications. This is more than Iceland in terms of population, and disproportionately more in terms of resources and industrial potential. This is only nine hundred thousand less than it lives in Mongolia. And also incomparable in resources and industrial potential.
And all this is kept by sea communications. By sea.
Russia can be like that.
Moreover, Russia's foreign trade also depends on sea communications. At the beginning of the 2000s, roughly 60% of our entire foreign trade (in monetary terms) passed through seaports. And although, on the whole, the share of sea transportation in the general structure of transportation in Russia is not large, but it is vital.
And the enemy, having strong and well prepared Navy is able to interrupt these communications.
How to get on tanks to Tokyo? Is it possible to start a nuclear war with the death of all or almost the entire population of the Russian Federation due to the blockade of Egvekinot? Would you start?
Today, the problem of our continentally located country is that our enemies are not going to invade us by land - they threaten us from the sea. Moreover, their superiority at sea gives them the opportunity to manage the escalation of the conflict as they please - to build it up or vice versa. And in our country, in connection with the almost complete collapse of the Navy, it is simply not possible to oppose such an escalation. Nothing. There are not even a dozen ships in the Pacific Fleet capable of escorting convoys from merchant ships within the framework of the Northern Delivery. No anti-submarine forces, almost no. There are no landing forces capable of landing at least one battalion with equipmentwithout resorting to unsuitable ships or mobilized ships. Yes actually we have bad ships everywhere, naval aviation too.
Or take a higher level - limited local war, even nuclear. The Americans have a large number of URO ships and submarines capable of carrying cruise missiles, and carrier-based aircraft may well carry nuclear bombs. During the NorPac Fleetex Ops'82 and 83 exercises, Americans showed that even the Soviet Navy was not able to prevent their attacks on Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands, in any case, allocated to counter the forces of the marine missile aviation and the fleet was always late and ended up where the US Navy’s AUS was no longer there, and when they invaded our airspace, no one could stop them. What can we say about the current extremely small forces of the RF Armed Forces. Today, the Americans are quite able to conduct an extremely destructive offensive operation against the Far East, the Kuril Islands or Kamchatka, even against the Kola Peninsula. Moreover, actions from the sea give them the opportunity to simply simply drop everything and leave without bringing the matter to nuclear weapons.
UDC "America" and F-35B. New ship and new aircraft for him. Americans are mostly not reinforcing the army, they think about something else.
This is another important feature of the war at sea that we do not understand - you can just go and leave, giving the enemy the opportunity to crawl with his weak forces against a superior enemy somewhere in the world’s ocean, without support, trying to “save face” and carry out what - the action of retribution, most likely doomed to failure. For the time being, they are being held back by the fact that we can arrange an escalation somewhere else, where, for example, our Gauges reach out to their bases. And the possibility of a disproportionately aggressive response, for example, the physical capture of Norway to ensure the operation of its fleet in the Norwegian Sea. And the fact that, although with losses, we can send to the bottom of a number of their ships, but they do not want this.
Let's see how much more it will be, their patience is clearly running out, they want blood, and statements about the naval blockade of Russia from their officials last year have already sounded. Will we start a nuclear war because of the blockade? We have no other tools in this situation. Nor did Norway seize in response to arrests of tankers and bulk carriers.
By the way, about the blockade.
You can not touch our coasters. You can turn those who come to us and from us on international lines from third countries or to these countries. Stand in the English Channel, the Sea of Japan, somewhere near the Danish Straits, at the exit from the Dardanelles and implement the blockade there. And stop only ships under neutral flags operating on lines from and to Russia. And here we even have no formal reason to intervene. And such a measure can bring the economy to its knees.
Again, this will be a big “minus to karma” of Americans who declare themselves to be defenders of global freedom of navigation. They will need for such actions a very serious reason. While it is not. But if it appears, then again we have nothing to answer. And goodbye, foreign trade.
The consequences will be disastrous.
And yet, if someone does not remember, we are waging war. In Syria, on the theater of turbine isolated from our country. With grouping, the supply of which is almost completely carried out by sea. Through communications controlled by a potentially unfriendly (so far) Turkey. A member of NATO and a participant in the terrorist war against our friendly Syria, the country that shot down our military aircraft in front of the television cameras that had been brought to the point of provocation beforehand.
Note that the fleet in this war plays a much more important role than ground forces, albeit auxiliary to the VKS. And this is very significant.
Bashar al-Assad owes much to our fleet. If it were not for the Navy, then neither he, nor his country, nor, possibly, his family, would have existed, and the Alawite co-religionists would have been cut out
Let us see which countries are hostile to the Russian Federation in general and with whom we may encounter in some local war, even if it is fierce, but limited. Ukraine, Poland, Turkey (if Erdogan again “brings”), Japan, the United States, possibly with Britain, maybe with Norway. Of these countries, Poland, Ukraine, and Norway have a land border with us, but not only the army, but also the fleet will be needed to deal with them. And with the others - only aircraft, including the sea, and the fleet.
Well, in a strategic, global war with the United States or the united West, for us the army is insofar as. The Strategic Missile Forces, aviation, submarines with missiles ... and again we run into the fact that we need a full-fledged and efficient fleet, anti-submarine defense, naval aviation. After all, the most dangerous thing for us that such an enemy has in such a situation is its nuclear submarines, and no army can cope with them.
The priorities of military construction should be rethought. After the Strategic Missile Forces and combat aviation, which should take the first places without options, instead of ground forces there should be a subtle and well-thought-out combination of financing specific areas important for the development of military power - for example, ship repair for the Navy, and the expansion of the line of ammunition for army men, a couple new frigates, and modernization of hundreds of tanks. Financing priorities should be repelled by threats, and threats from the sea are more dangerous and more real than the threat of an attack over land. And we ourselves, on land, will easily attack anyone, and we will roll out this anyone into powder now, it would be enough just shells. With the fleet, everything is getting worse, and its quickest possible bringing into a combat-ready state should be one of the state priorities. right now. While this is not, instead, the Main Marine Parade, gunboats with the "Gauges" and the telecast "Shock Force".
And of course, with the security of some political ambitions, the army loses to the fleet. If only because the fleet in theory can do it anywhere. Maybe in Venezuela, in Cuba. It can send a landing brigade to the ships and maneuver them near Gibraltar. May show the flag to the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands. The army can only crush and only neighbors, so it is arranged, and nothing can be done about it. Although it can be transported somewhere on ships ...
So, those who still repeat the mantras like “we are a land power”, “we do not have sea communications that we should protect” and the like, it’s time to think.
All wrong.
The threat from the sea and the degree of danger to the population of the Russian Federation, and the likelihood of becoming a military conflict, has already surpassed the hypothetical attack on Russia by land. There will be no hordes of tanks, and the chains of enemy infantry going right through the burning native birches, there will be some semblance of the Crimean War, only small-scale and sluggish, so as not to bring to nuclear weapons, and the stakes in such a conflict will not be very large, but the loss will be from one the sides are humiliating and hitting badly for reputation, and on the other, inevitable. After all, our surface fleet has long been inferior not only to the Chinese, but also to the Japanese, underwater mainly for repairs, only a shadow has remained of naval aviation ...
However, we have excellent tank troops. They will not reach Tokyo or at least Sapporo, but they look great on TV, and several dozens of battalions from their composition can completely curtain one inadequate neighboring state. You can console yourself with this, since there is nothing more.
Or nuclear torpedo.
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