The Missions and Objectives of the Russian Armed Forces

While we may have a surficial understanding of the mission and objectives of the Russian military, much of which is communicated to us through the eyes of the biased Western media which seems quite certain that Russia's goal is to conquer the better part of Europe.

 

Using a VPN, I was able to access the website of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and the pertinent webpage which outlines the Objectives of the Russian Armed Forces as shown here:

 

The mission statement opens with this:

 

"Given the foreign policy shifts of recent years and new national security priorities, the Russian Armed Forces now have a totally new set of objectives..."

 

The four objectives are as follows:

 

1.) Deterring the military and political threats to the security or interests of the Russian Federation

2.) Supporting economic and political interests of the Russian Federation

3.) Mounting other-than-war enforcement operations

4.) Using military force

Note that "using military force" is not the first objective of the Russian Armed Forces, rather, deterrence, supporting the homeland and other-than-war operations would appear to be priorities.  You will also notice that their objectives do not include having 750 military bases in 80 nations around the world:

 

Let's look at each objective in turn.  Here are some of the tasks that Russia's Armed Forces will use to deter war and military-political threats and to provide for national security:

 

- tracking the rising military-political tensions and uncovering war preparations to attack the Russian Federation and/or its allies;

- sustaining the status, operational availability and mobilizational preparedness of the strategic nuclear forces and the relevant support capabilities to assure their functionality and usability; keeping the C2 systems ready to inflict the desired losses on the aggressor under any conditions;

- maintaining operational capabilities, war and mobilizational preparedness and training of the peacetime general purpose forces on the level high enough to beat back local aggression;

assuring readiness for strategic deployments as part of a state-run effort to put the nation on a war footing;

- making arrangements to put in place territorial defenses.

Here are some of the tasks that Russia's Armed Forces will use to support its economic and political interests:

 

- providing for security of Russian citizens in war zones and areas of political or other sort of instabilities;

- creating the friendly environment for Russian state or government-related economic activities;

- safeguarding Russian national interests in the territorial waters, continental shelf, exclusive economic zones and the World Ocean;

- staging and conducting information counter-balancing operations.

 

Here are some of the tasks that Russia's Armed Forces will use in other-than-war operations:

 

- living up to the commitments in keeping with the relevant international treaty obligations and inter-governmental agreements;

- fighting international terrorism, political extremism and separatism; preventing and putting in check sabotage activities and terrorist acts;

- undertaking a partial or full-fledged strategic deployment, maintaining operational availability of the nuclear deterrence capabilities;

- running UN/CIS-mandated peace-keeping/peace-enforcement operations while operating either as part of a coalition set up by an international Russian-participated organization or on an ad-hoc basis;

assuring a martial law/emergency regime in one or several constituent units of the Russian Federation pursuant to express directives from the National Command Authority;

- safeguarding the national borders of the Russian Federation in the air and underwater media;

Of most interest to us is the use of military force to assure the security of the Russian Federation.  According to the Russian government, Russia's Armed Forces are trained to engage in four types of war:

 

1.) Armed Conflict

 

A form of conflict waged to resolve political, ethnic, religious, territorial and other kind of difference through the use of arms, with the country (countries) involved in the relevant military operations coming short of letting the tensions be escalated to the special status generally known as war.

 

2.) Local War:

 

A war between two or more countries pursuing limited political goals, where combat operations are generally prosecuted within the confines of the warring sides. Under certain circumstances, local wars can escalate into a regional or large-scale war.  In my opinion, this is the type of war currently being fought in Ukraine and is on the brink of becoming a regional war given Washington's unfettered support for Ukraine's military.

 

3.) Regional War:

 

A war involving the given region’s two or more countries (groups of countries) operating through the use of either national or coalition armed forces commanding both conventional and nuclear capabilities within a single region confined by the waters of seas/oceans and aerospace, with the warring sides pursuing critical military and political goals. A regional war requires a full-fledged deployment of the armed forces and economic capacities, as well as the enhanced engagement of the material resources and moral courage available to the warring countries. Should any nuclear-have countries or their allies happen to participate in a regional war, such a war can feature the threat/risk of nuclear weapons being eventually employed.  In my opinion, this is the type of 

 

4.) Large-Scale War:

 

A war between coalitions of countries or larger world powers. It can be precipitated by escalation of an armed conflict, local or regional war by way of a significant number of countries from different world regions being effectively involved. In a large-scale war, the warring sides would pursue radical military and political goals. It would require that participating countries mobilize all of their available material resources and moral courage.

 

Modern Russian defense planning, while being reflective of the realistic grasp of Russia’s current resources and capabilities, is based on the assumption that the Russian Armed Forces together with other national troops should be prepared to repel aggression and rout the aggressor. Besides, the Russian Armed Forces should be ready to mount active (offensive and defensive) operations under any scenario of armed conflicts being unleashed and carried on in the conditions of the adversary resorting to massive use of modern and advanced lethal weapons, with assorted WMDs making no exception.

 

It is important to note that Russia's Armed Forces are trained to effectively wage two concurrent armed conflicts of any type in peacetime, during an emergency and to prosecute two local wars following completion of the full-fledged strategic deployment of the nation's Armed Forces.

 

Now you have some idea of how Russia's leadership views the missions and objectives of its armed forces.  Given the recent threats to the Russian homeland from overly and overtly aggressive Western politicians who wish to see their long-range weapons used to attack the fatherland, putting the missions and objectives of the Russian Armed Forces into perspective is important to understanding how they will respond to these provocations.

Turkey - The Next BRICS Member State?

The first NATO member state has applied to join the ever-growing and increasingly powerful global alliance.  Turkey, looking to increase its presence on the world stage and stepping away from the traditional geopolitical and economic alliances that have increasingly lost their power in the new multipolar reality, has formally requested membership in the BRICS alliance of the world's developing economies.

 

As background, BRICS currently consists of founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and, effective in 2024, have added Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia to their full membership list with Algeria, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Bangladesh, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Belarus, Kuwait, Senegal, and Bolivia also being in line to join.

 

BRICS advocates for the reform of the United Nations Security Council and, most importantly to the global economy, the abandonment of the "imperial currency", the United Sates dollar.  

 

Here is a quote from a recent article on the BRICS website:

  

"Joining the BRICS means accepting currencies other than the dollar and connecting to new international payment systems. It is about “addressing what we consider an unjust and costly payment system”, said South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs earlier this year."

 

Interestingly, on September 1, 2024, Russia launched a platform that will allow large Russia companies to settle their export and import transactions in Bitcoin since it is an "absolute, stateless and uncensorable store of value that the world needs to trade on equal terms".

 

As it stands now, BRICS has a significant and growing advantage to the Western economic powerhouse, the G7.  Here is a comparison:

 

1.) Population - BRICS - 46 percent  G7 - 10 percent

 

2.) Global share of GDP (PPP) - BRICS - 35 percent   G7 - 30 percent

 

3.) 2050 share of GDP - BRICS - 50 percent  G7 - 20 percent

  

At a the recent sixth edition of the BRICS International Municipal Forum, held in Moscow on August 27th and 28th, 2024, 120 foreign countries met with 5000 participants from 500 cities in attendance to discuss cooperation between megacities and the BRICS framework:

 

As well, between October 22nd and October 24th, 2024, the BRICS Summit will be held in Kazan, Russia.  While Washington in specific and the leaders of the West in general would have us believe that Russia has been sanctioned and shunned by the global community into oblivion, in fact, their role in the BRICS alliance seems to be very strong. 

  

Let's go back to Turkey, a new potential member of BRICS.  Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and the G20.  Its economy is the 17th largest in the world according to the IMF and the nation had a GDP of $1.024 trillion in 2023.  In June 2024, Turkey exported $17.1 billion worth of goods and imported $22.7 billion resulting in a negative trade balance of $5.6 billion for the month.  Turkey's top exports for the month were cars, tractors, trucks & parts thereof ($2.22B), machinery, mechanical appliances, & parts ($1.53B), electrical machinery and electronics ($1.03B), iron & steel ($862M), and precious stones, metals, & pearls ($775M). Top imports for the month were mineral fuels, mineral oils and products  ($4.14B), machinery, mechanical appliances, & parts ($2.7B), cars, tractors, trucks & parts thereof. ($2.31B), electrical machinery and electronics ($1.78B), and iron & steel($1.58B).  In June 2024, Turkey exported mostly to Germany ($1.33B), United States ($1.19B), United Kingdom ($1.03B), Italy ($921M), and Iraq ($729M), and imported mostly from China ($3.14B), Russia ($2.96B), Germany ($1.72B), the rest of the world ($1.41B) and United States ($1.05B) 

 

Here are visualizations showing Turkey's trade data:

  

1.) Exports:

 

2.) Imports:

 

If you wish to see the visualizations in more detail, please click here.

 

Turkey's economy grew by 4.5 percent in 2023 and is projected to grow by 3.0 percent in 2024.  Turkey has a significant inflation issue; inflation decreased from 57.7% in January 2023 to 38.2% in June 2023. However, inflation escalated to 68.5% by March 2024, driven by factors including the lira's depreciation, significant minimum wage hikes, tax adjustments, and strong demand.  Public debt is around 30 percent of GDP. 

  

While Turkey certainly isn't one of the world's most influential economies, it still has a significant presence in the world's trading ecosystem and its interest in joining the BRICS alliance will certainly impact the economic power of the group.  What will be interesting to watch in the future is whether Turkey abandons its membership in the OECD and becomes part of the global anti-United States dollar "club" as a means of preventing Washington from influencing their domestic agenda.  It will also be fascinating to watch the machinations as NATO negotiates the new reality of having a partner state that currently forms a key part of its bulwark against the "Russian hordes" joining the "evil empire" as part of a move to reduce the power of the aging unipolar global alliance.