18.10 Uhr: Pistorius - Bundeswehr schnellstmöglich kriegstüchtig machen
Verteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius (SPD) hat die Notwendigkeit der schnellstmöglichen Ausstattung der Bundeswehr bekräftigt. Bis 2029 müsse man damit rechnen, dass Russland seine militärische Rekonstitution abgeschlossen haben werde und in der Lage sein könnte, einen militärischen Schlag gegen Nato-Gebiet zu führen, sagte Pistorius angesichts des russischen Angriffskriegs gegen die Ukraine.
src: click
Kann man das bitte mal genauer begründen, oder ist schon Vorwahlkampfphase?
Hintergrund: Weder Chatham House, noch Kofman, noch CSIS, noch Gressel, noch… Also niemand hat das bisher auch nur angedeutet.
Selenskyj behauptet Sieg Ende 2025 - gut, hörn wir nicht drauf, der Rest mehr so 3-10 Jahre war of attrition, aber der SPD Kanzlerkandidat in spe…
edit: Ah, schau an - der Pistorius liest Atlantic Council Copy, und BR24 weist das als Eigentleistung aus…
[edit: Korrektur, er liest doch nicht Atlantic Council, der sagt das schon länger (seit Juni)…]
NATO-Russia dynamics: Prospects for reconstitution of Russian military power
Executive summary
The Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, brought war to the North Atlantic Alliance’s doorstep—altering the political-military dynamics between NATO and its neighbor to the east. Since the Russian invasion, NATO has been undergoing a dramatic change that has impacted its plans, command structure, force model, and capabilities requirements. The effectiveness of this change must be gauged against the adversary’s ability to field its forces and resource them in a way that negatively impacts the Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s ability to execute the new regional plans. The delta between how quickly Russia can rebuild its military and how quickly NATO can rearm, especially the European allies, will define the risk level for the Alliance should deterrence fail. A credible assessment of the speed with which Russia can reconstitute and expand its military—especially its land forces component, which has been significantly attritted during the current campaign in Ukraine—is crucial to accurately assessing NATO’s overall force posture and ability to respond should Russia choose to attack a member of the Alliance. Here, the expertise and assessments of the United States’ allies most exposed to the Russian threat along the eastern flank offer valuable insights from the frontline, augmented by their regional expertise and understanding of Russian culture, politics, and military infused with centuries of experience of living next door to Russia.
In support of United States European Command’s Russia Strategic Initiative, the Atlantic Council organized two workshops—in Warsaw, Poland, and in Helsinki, Finland—to gain a better understanding of alternative futures for Russian military reconstitution and its implications for security on the European continent. The workshops were designed to assess (1) how Russia will reconstitute its land forces in response to ongoing developments in Ukraine and NATO force adaptation, (2) the vulnerabilities hindering Russia’s vision for the reconstitution of its military, and (3) the threat of future Russian capabilities to the transatlantic security architecture.
Key takeaways from this line of effort include:
Russia has demonstrated that it can fight and mobilize at the same time.
The pace of Russian military reconstitution has been faster than Western analysts expected, including both refurbished and new equipment and manpower mobilization. Still, the readiness of the Russian armed forces is not likely to be the principal driver of decision-making in Moscow; rather, any decision to attack a NATO member will factor in the “correlation of forces,” with the goal of exploiting the Alliance in a moment of weakness.
Based on production data, the biggest risk of Russia attacking a NATO member will be in 2025–26 when peak production, refurbishment, and training/readiness lines intersect. One analyst projected Russia will produce well over one thousand tanks annually by then.
Moscow will not, however, make decisions based on objective indices of readiness alone. It will decide to move against a NATO state when it deems that the window of opportunity has opened—hence, understanding the political culture that undergirds Russia’s decision-making is as important as having an accurate assessment of its military capabilities.
The West is in a race against time, with the delta between Russian force reconstitution and NATO’s investment in real, exercised military capabilities constituting the level of risk in the European theater in the event of a full-scale war. Closing the gap will require NATO to prioritize rearmament across the board, including its defense industrial base in Europe and the United States.
src: click (Atlantic Council)
edit: Oh Wunder, oh Wunder, Chathamhouse sah das noch im Juli ganz anders… Pick your favourite Anlaysts! I KNOW, I KNOW, I’M BORIS PISTORIUS, I’M PICKING ANALYSTS FROM Warsaw, Poland, and Helsinki, Finland, THOSE WILL TELL ME THE UNFILTERED AND BALANCED TRUTH! (Well in EU terms, you got to listen to the most freaked out members, I guess…)
08 Conclusion
Mathieu Boulègue
Consulting Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme
Just as the war in Ukraine has highlighted both weaknesses and resilience in the Russian military, the lessons for the West are equally mixed. Signs of Russian vulnerability offer no grounds for Western complacency – but point to the importance of reducing Russia’s war-making capacity by attrition. Above all, continued Western support for Ukraine will remain crucial.
More than two years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia remains able simultaneously to continue to prosecute the war and to effect wartime adaptations to its command structure. With varying degrees of success, the Kremlin has been able to rapidly mobilize reservists, employ private military companies, sustain military-industrial production for basic systems, and heavily militarize the public information space in support of the war.
In terms of command structure, the separation of the Western Military District into Moscow and Leningrad districts in March 2024 is also telling.163 Moscow is now reverting to its ‘comfort zone’, namely Soviet-era command structures in the European theatre. The new Moscow Military District will concern itself exclusively with Ukraine, Belarus and Kaliningrad, which will inevitably be of direct concern to the US and NATO in the Baltic theatre as well as on the eastern flank of the Alliance.
The pace of implementation and the efficiency of continued reforms in the command structure, however, remain to be seen. They will partly depend on the effectiveness or otherwise of the new minister of defence, Andrei Belousov, appointed in May 2024. Similarly, it is unknown if the Russian Armed Forces can be a ‘learning organization’ able to implement genuine changes, whether structural or cultural.164
On top of wartime adaptations in the command structure, the military industry has displayed resilience in its ability to deliver military equipment and hardware in the war against Ukraine. The ongoing reconstitution of military equipment and hardware will inevitably inform the next cycle of the State Armament Programme (GPV) after 2027, as well as future plans regarding modern military technology and military innovation.
The Russian Armed Forces remain a credible threat to NATO and its allies. In Ukraine, the Russian military has shown it can absorb losses and maintain tactical-operational credibility despite strategic failures. Russian forces can count on improved reconnaissance fire and strike complexes equipped with a vast arsenal of long-range precision munitions, as well as larger quantities of improved uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). Russian long-range strike and stand-off munitions, coupled with multi-layered air defence systems, represent the biggest conventional threat to NATO.
The Aerospace Forces (VKS) and the Russian Federation Navy (RFN) remain critical parts of the nuclear and conventional strategic deterrence force, potentially holding NATO assets at risk of destruction. Finally, asymmetric capabilities – especially the use of cyber and information warfare; electronic warfare for counter-UAV and counter-precision-guided-munitions operations; and space-based assets – are still able to offset NATO and US conventional superiority.
Russia’s prospects for regenerating its military machine remain mixed, both in terms of speed and effectiveness. Yet as the war against Ukraine continues, and regardless of the depth of the reconstitution of Russia’s military power, the current Kremlin leadership will remain a threat to European and transatlantic security as well as a strategic competitor to NATO and its allies.
Analysis of Moscow’s nuclear declaratory policy suggests that if Russia were to suffer sufficiently severe degradation of its conventional military power, such that the leadership deemed the existence of the Russian state to be under threat, this would create conditions under which Russia might consider the use of nuclear weapons.165 However, this possibility remains remote, especially while Russia’s air arms, and its naval forces beyond the Black Sea, remain relatively intact.
Furthermore, Russia will continue to exploit its toolkit of asymmetric capabilities and ambiguous sub-threshold tactics. These tools must no longer be analysed as part of a ‘grey zone’ or ‘hybrid’ range of measures aimed at blurring the line between war and peace. They are fundamentally part of Russia’s continued low-intensity warfare against Western interests.
Continued assessments of Russia’s military reform and of its ongoing reconstitution of equipment are vital to understanding in which sectors Moscow still represents a threat to Western interests. Such assessments will be essential for the US and NATO in terms of retaining both a technological and overall deterrence advantage against the Kremlin.
The single most significant factor that can impair Russia’s ability to reconstitute its overall military power and leverage asymmetric capabilities in coming years will be ongoing Western support for Ukraine.
Finally, the single most significant factor that can impair Russia’s ability to reconstitute its overall military power and leverage asymmetric capabilities in coming years will be ongoing Western support for Ukraine. Western countries must continue to work together to provide Ukraine with arms, ammunition, financial support and refugee assistance, and to show moral solidarity with the Ukrainian war effort.
Denying Russia victory and forcing it to continue in a long attritional struggle will further degrade all elements of its war-making capacity, including its ability to invest in and produce cutting-edge technological enablers. Critically, these efforts will also further undermine the Kremlin’s informational strategy both at home and abroad, diminishing its ability to destabilize Western democratic systems and, ultimately, weakening its long-term hold on power.
src: click (Chathamhouse)
