1

Russian Military Art and Advanced 

Weaponry 

Author: Timothy Thomas

July 2020

Sponsor: US Army Futures and 

Concepts Center

Dept. No.: P622

Contract No.: W56KGU-19-F0004

Project No.: 0720A150-MD

The views expressed in this 

document are those of the 

author and do not reflect the 

official policy or position of 

MITRE, the Department of 

Defense, or the US 

government.

Approved for Public Release, 

Distribution Unlimited. Public 

Release Case Number 20-1890.

©2020 The MITRE 

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All rights reserved.

McLean, VA
2

Executive Summary

Russian General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov has continually requested that the Academy of 

Military Science provide him with ideas about new forms and methods of warfare. One source 

defined “methods” as the use of weaponry and military art.

1 Weaponry is now advanced and is 

characterized by new speeds, ranges, and agilities, which introduce new ways for Russian 

commanders to apply force. Military art takes into consideration advanced weaponry’s 

contributions to conflict along with a combination of both old and new combat experiences, the 

creativity and innovative capabilities of commanders, and new ways for considering or adding to 

the principles of military art (mass, surprise, etc.). 

In its simplest form, Russian military art is the development of recommendations for the 

application of military and nonmilitary actions. Military art changes in accordance with 

contemporary developments. Proof of this statement lies in the various and unexpected ways that 

Russian forces can now disorganize an opponent’s command and control systems, are developing

strategic aerospace axes for deep operations, are considering new forms of maneuver and 

geophysical weaponry, and are developing new applications of electronic warfare and military 

stratagems. In addition, Russian military art avoids stereotyping, which along with several other 

items have serious implications for commanders of multi-domain operations (MDO) to take into 

consideration.

An expanded discussion of all these issues make up the report below.

Introduction

Russian military art, until a few decades ago, was confined to the battlefield, where the 

strategies of politicians and military leaders, and the operational art and tactics of commanders 

were used to win conflicts. That has changed. Today, the capabilities of modern weaponry, 

especially their speed, range, and agility based on new technological achievements, have made 

operations capable of affecting a situation anywhere on the planet in minutes or seconds. Such 

dramatic change is likely to do one of two things. It might potentially add a new element, planetary,

to military art’s past triad of strategy, operational art, and tactics; or it might mandate the expanded 

thinking of the triad well beyond the battlefield and into the realm of global thought, where it is 

satellites that do the maneuvering instead of tanks and where cyber elements and not bullets do 

most of the damage. 

The speed of contemporary operations is well beyond the old tank “blitzkrieg” concept, as 

cyber capabilities are nearly instantaneous and can strike anywhere with the push of a button.

Range is shortened due to the increasing number of satellites that circle the globe to pinpoint areas 

of concern or unrest for hypersonic weapons. Agility is inbred in cruise missiles, which use maps 

to navigate over or around potential obstacles or areas under surveillance and zig zag across 

continents. Thinking is no longer confined to two dimensional games like chess or Go. Thought 

 

1 M. G. Valeyev and N. L. Romas, “Choosing Methods of Warfare,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 6 

2010, pp. 5, 6, 8.
3

must now consider the global reach of capabilities that have made conflict a three- or fourdimensional game, with integrated eyes, ears, and brain capabilities imbedded in military and 

civilian equipment. 

The only hair trigger safety mechanisms that remain to offset Armageddon are the minds 

(currently at least, until robotics take over) of those individuals in charge of operations. The 

scariest reminder of the human safety valve’s continued importance was, of course, the intuitive 

“non response” by Soviet LTC Stanislov Petrov in September 1983, who ignored a Soviet earlywarning system indicating that a US ballistic missile attack against the Soviet Union was 

underway. The system, code-named Oko, was composed of satellites designed to detect US missile 

attacks. It misinterpreted the sun’s reflection in clouds as the start of a missile salvo. The system

was wrong, Petrov guessed right, and planet Earth was saved.

Russia has long recognized that such huge changes were coming to military art. Beginning 

as long ago as 2001, General-Major (now deceased) Vladimir Slipchenko offered thoughts on newgeneration warfare. In 2015 two Russian analysts, S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, two 

important Russian military officer theorists, indicated that advanced forms of combat (advanced 

information technologies, remote noncontact operations, etc.) are becoming the chief methods of 

combat operations. They ominously added that, “Under these conditions differences among 

strategic, operational, and tactical levels [that is, military art] will be obliterated, as will the 

difference between offensive and defensive activities.”2

Russian General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov stated this exact notion two years earlier in 

his 2013 presentation at the Academy of Military Science. Gerasimov preceded his statement with 

questions of his own: what is contemporary war? For what must the armed forces be prepared? 

How should they be armed and what forms and methods of their employment should analysts 

envisage? Gerasimov asked members of the Academy to conduct research in these areas to help 

answer his questions.

3

The report below offers some results from Russian analysts who supported Gerasimov’s 

request to develop new ways of thinking about military art. The findings of the Academy’s 

research along with that of members of the General Staff Academy and others have implications 

as well for the US concept of multi-domain operations (MDO). The report begins with a very short 

discussion of Russia’s understanding of the laws of warfare. That is followed with Russian

definitions of military art and the theory of military art. Then a longer discussion is presented about 

Russia’s principles of military art (PMA) and principles of military combat (PMC) (plus warnings 

about stereotyping), along with the views of four prominent Russian military experts on the PMA. 

Finally, the analysis examines specific and important subcomponents of military art 

(disorganization, deep operations, maneuver, the initial period of war, indirect actions and 

 

2 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “Military Art in the Initial Period of the 21st Century: Problems and 

Opinions,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No 1 2015, p. 39.

3 Valery Gerasimov, “Principal Trends in the Development of Forms and Methods of Employing Armed Forces and 

Current Tasks of Military Science Regarding their Improvement,” Vestnik Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the 

Academy of Military Science), No. 1 2013, pp. 24, 26, 29. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for 

the translation of this article.
4

stratagems, and geophysical weapons). It is the latter two aspects of the analysis (PMA [especially 

the views of four experts] and the subcomponents) that are the most important aspects of the 

analysis and should be the focus of attention.

The conclusion reached is that military art is changing quickly due to the capabilities of 

new weapons and how they (and the concepts [maneuver, deep operations, etc.] exploiting their 

use) are being reflected in the PMA. These weapons and concepts will impact how contemporary 

war may start, be conducted, and finish, and will impact the MDO concept. Four appendixes are 

offered. The first offers two discussions of current and past correlations among strategy, 

operational art, and tactics, demonstrating that the PMA change. The second offers diagrams of 

maneuver types from a 2019 Military Thought article, thoughts that could also apply to space 

maneuvering. The third appendix offers a diagram as to how Russia classifies military conflicts. 

The fourth appendix offers a few official definitions associated with military art and lists Russian 

articles on the “disorganization” concept from 2016-2020.

Russian Understanding of the Laws of Warfare

Military art is the reflection of two processes, Russian theorists write, the objective laws 

of war and armed struggle, and the subjective and creative activity of leaders. Thus, this report 

must begin with a simple and short explanation of the laws of war. It covers a commander’s 

creativity later in the discussion. 

Russia’s military encyclopedia explains that the most general laws governing warfare “are 

the laws of the dependence of victory or defeat in war on the correlation of material and spiritual 

factors and the political aims of the belligerents (their economic, social, moral-political, and 

military strength, among others).”4 Wartime laws are in effect only during war and permit 

requisitioning and commandeering, labor mobilization, and the impressment of civilians to 

perform various duties. Laws and customs of war are represented by the aggregate of moral and 

legal provisions in international law, to include the 1899, 1907, and 1954 Hague Conventions, the 

1925 Geneva Protocol, and the 1949 Geneva Conventions.5 The knowledge reflecting the laws of 

war is integrated in the PMA and it is in these principles where a leader’s creative activity is found. 

Thus, the laws of warfare can, simultaneously, be considered as reflecting principles of military 

art.

Definitions of Russian Military Art

Much has been written over the years in the Soviet Union and Russia about military art. 

The term has been the topic of numerous articles in journals as well as entire books. Several 

definitions of military art since 1965 begin the discussion. They provide a perspective on the topic

over time and the subtle changes that have occurred in its essence. That is followed by three

definitions of the theory of military art, one each from 2004, 2013, and 2015.

 

4 S. F. Akhromeev, main editor, The Military Encyclopedic Dictionary, Edition Two, Moscow, Military Publishing 

House, 1986, p. 262.

5

Ibid.
5

Russia’s 1965 Dictionary of Basic Military Terms defined military art (voennoe iskusstvo)

as follows:

The theory and practice of engaging in combat, operations, and armed conflict, with

the use of all the resources of the service branches and services of the armed forces, 

and also support of combat activities in every regard. Military art, as a scientific 

theory, is the main field of military science, and includes tactics, operational art, 

and strategy, which constitute an organic unity and are interdependent.6

In 1999, military art was defined, in a broad sense, as the theory and practice of preparing 

for and conducting military operations on land, at sea, and in the air; in a narrow sense, it is the 

activities of personnel (individual officials) and actions of military formations that have the highest 

degree of perfection and that are characterized as skillful, unconventional, unique, etc.7 General of 

the Army Makhmut Gareyev, President of the Academy of Military Science for over 20 years and 

a professional voice in Russian military affairs, defined military art in 2013 as follows:

Military art is the sphere of practical activity, the ability to employ knowledge while 

taking into account the specific conditions of the situation where, besides 

knowledge, developed theoretical thinking and high organizational and volitional 

qualities are also needed, which are capable of ensuring the implementation of the 

decisions that have been made and achieve victory.8

Other Russian military experts offered varying opinions on the concept. I. N. Vorobyov and V. A. 

Kiselev noted in 2014 that the “evolution of military art is the chain of a continuous quest to 

perceive the nature of war, to establish rules to prepare and conduct war (where it is critical to 

avoid miscalculations), and to rout the enemy.”9

In 2015 Chekinov and Bogdanov offered two definitions of military art. The first definition 

was in an article on problems and opinions about military art in the 21st century:

Military art is a sphere of theoretical and practical activity that involves the ability 

to creatively employ knowledge, taking into consideration the specific conditions 

of a situation when preparing for and conducting military operations (combat), 

where, in addition to knowledge, developed creative thinking and high 

organizational and strong character qualities are necessary for the commander.

Taking into consideration specific changes in the content of interstate confrontation 

when achieving the political and military-strategic goals of wars and armed 

 

6 No author or editor provided, Dictionary of Basic Military Terms, 1965, Military Publishing House, Ministry of 

Defense of the USSR, Moscow, p. 39. Translated by the DGIS Multilingual Section Translation Bureau, Secretary 

of State Department, Ottawa Canada.

7 Zherebtsov, V. V., Kopytko, V. K., and Orlyanskiy, V. I., “The Theory and Practice of Fooling an Opponent in 

Operations,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 1 1999, pp. 17-22. 

8 Makhmut Gareyev, “On the System of Scientific Knowledge and the Scientific Level of Command,” Krasnaya 

Zvezda (Red Star) Online, 30 May 2013.

9

I. N. Vorobyov and V. A. Kiselev, “The Evolution of the Principles of Military Art,” Military Thought (in 

English), Eastview Publications, Volume 3 2008.
6

conflicts, in our opinion the following theories comprise the structure of military 

art: the theory of military art with the interacting theories of nonmilitary measures 

and “indirect” actions and related sciences and disciplines; the theory of all-round 

support of the Armed Forces; the theories of the military art of services and 

branches of the Armed Forces.10

Chekinov and Bogdanov’s second definition of military art appeared in an article the same year 

in an article devoted to systemology: 

Military art is the theory and practice of preparing for and conducting military 

operations on land, at sea, and in near-earth space, encompassing the principles of 

the organization, conduct, and all-round support of combat operations and the 

command and control of these actions, and influencing the forms of employment 

of the armed forces and methods of their conduct of military operations, as well as 

using “nonmilitary” measures and “indirect” actions and other forms of struggle.11

As differentiated from military art, in an article he penned alone, Bogdanov defined the 

theory of military art (teoriya voennogo iskusstva) in 2004 as one of the main components of 

military science. It studies and understands the nature, regularities, principles, forms, and methods 

of preparing for and conducting all ranges of armed struggle. In its research and at a new stage this 

theory will be based on objective laws and will use the tenets and conclusions obtained by other 

branches of military science that take part in studying the problems of military affairs. In the near 

term, the structure of this theory will remain unchanged: strategy, operational art, and tactics.12

Gareyev stated that the theory of military art is the nucleus of military science. The theory 

studies the laws, nature, principles, and methods of the conduct of armed combat and consequently 

includes the theory of strategy, operational art, and tactics.13

Chekinov and Bogdanov offered another definition of the theory of military art in 2015, 

stating that it was “the theory that studies and understands the nature of wars and armed conflicts, 

their regularities and principles of conduct, and issues of developing and preparing armed forces 

and the country for defense.”

14

In 2018 A. A. Korabel’nikov, writing in the Journal of the Academy of Military Science, 

stated that today, there is a hierarchy of factors affecting military art. The concept has not only 

broadened but structurally changed. He noted that these factors (with factor defined as a moving 

force, a reason for some process) are now the political, social, economic, scientific-technical, 

 

10 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “Military Art on the Verge of the 21st Century: Problems and Opinions,” 

Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 1 2015, pp. 32-43.

11 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “The Development of Modern Military Art from the Vantage Point of 

Systemology,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 11 2015, p. 24. 

12 S. A. Bogdanov, “On the Structure and Content of Military Science in the Contemporary Phase of the 

Development of Military Science,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 5 2004, pp. 19-28.

13 Ibid., Gareyev.

14 S. G. Chekinov and S. G. Bogdanov, “Military Art on the Verge of the 21st Century: Problems and Opinions,” 

Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 1 2015, p. 34.
7

demographic, historical, subjective, military, and other issues. While the political factor retains its 

priority, all remaining factors should now be thoroughly considered in the military factor. He 

added that methods of conducting military operations is defined as “a selected combination, 

sequence, and procedures for employing forces and means” where the primary factors to consider 

are the “nature of enemy operations, the condition of one’s own troops, and the means of armed 

struggle to be employed.”15

To summarize, when most analysts are asked “what is military art?” they reply that it is the 

use of strategy, operational art, and tactics. This is true but, as the definitions of professional 

Russian officers above note, military art has other characteristics, to include: the ability to employ 

knowledge while taking into account the specific conditions of the situation; actions characterized 

as skillful, unconventional, unique, etc.; the chain of a continuous quest to perceive the nature of 

war, to establish rules to prepare and conduct war; the theory and practice of preparing for and 

conducting military operations on land, at sea, and in near-earth space; and, in addition to 

knowledge, military art is developed creative thinking that requires high organizational and strong 

character qualities. In 2004, Bogdanov noted that “in the near term, this theory will remain 

unchanged: strategy, operational art, and tactics.” It would be interesting to know if he feels the 

same way today, 16 years later. 

The theory of military art, the analysts noted, studies and understands the nature, 

regularities, principles, forms, and methods of preparing for and conducting all ranges of armed 

struggle; studies the laws, nature, principles, and methods of the conduct of armed combat and, 

consequently, includes the theory of strategy, operational art, and tactics; and studies and 

understands the nature of wars and armed conflicts, their regularities and principles of conduct, 

and issues of developing and preparing armed forces and the country for defense.

On Russia’s Principles of Military Art and Stereotyping

The PMA offer recommendations for action based on generalizations in combat experience 

over the years. It is here where such knowledge is integrated with the creativity of commanders to 

produce skillful, unconventional, and unique actions designated as military art. Principles are not 

eternal but change in accordance with military technology and a commander’s knowledge and 

innovation. Therefore, based on the changes in weapon capabilities today, the principles should be 

expected to change today as well as into the future. 

Russia’s 1965 Dictionary of Basic Military Terms defined the PMA as follows:

The fundamental propositions which follow from the objective laws of war, and 

which determine trends in the preparation for, and conduct of, armed conflict, 

corresponding to given historical conditions. In contrast to the objective laws, the 

principles give recommendations for action. Use of the principles of military art by 

commanders and staffs at all levels, taking the actual situation into account, gives 

the highest possible assurance of successful attainment of the goals of the armed 

 

15 A. A. Korabel’nikov, “Factors Influencing the Methods of Operation of Formations, Military Units, and 

Subunits,” Vestnik Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the Academy of Military Science), No. 1 2018, pp. 39-40. 

The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.
8

conflict operations, or battle. Soviet military science considers that principles of 

military art are a concentrated scientific generalization of combat experience. 

Soviet military science denies the existence of eternal, immutable principles of 

military art. Such principles may be modified and perfected according to the 

specific military-political situation, the state of military technology, etc.16

In 1998 Harriet Fast and William F. Scott noted in their book Soviet Military Doctrine, an 

excellent work that covered Soviet doctrine and art of war, that Soviet PMA had not been 

permanently established. The 1965 definition seemed to confirm this finding, since PMA are 

general in nature and not eternal since principles may be modified. As a result, the Scotts attempted 

to summarize the PMA they had noted in Soviet writings from the 1960s through most of the 

1980s:

 High combat readiness

 Surprise

 Activeness and the regaining of the initiative

 Coordinated employment and close interaction of forces

 Concentration of main efforts at the crucial moment.

The Scotts stated that more than one strategist noted the following:

 Decisiveness

 Complete use of all means and methods for achieving victory

 The simultaneous defeat of the enemy to the entire depth of his configuration 

 Firm and continuous command

 The creation and prompt replacement of reserves

 Complete support for battle tasks, to include material-technical support

 Correlation of the goals and missions in war according to the forces, means, and 

planned methods of military actions.

Finally, the Scotts stated that a single author noted the following:

 Economy of forces at the expense of secondary theaters of military action or

operational direction

 Bold maneuvering and building up of forces

 Consideration and full employment of the moral-political factor

 Mobility and high rates of combat actions.17

 

16 No author or editor provided, Dictionary of Basic Military Terms, 1965, Military Publishing House, Ministry of 

Defense of the USSR, Moscow, p. 174. Translated by the DGIS Multilingual Section Translation Bureau, Secretary 

of State Department, Ottawa Canada.

17 Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott, Soviet Military Doctrine, Westview Press, 1988, p. 155.
9

In 2005 the journal Military Thought carried an article that examined several principles of 

military art, some of which are well known. They were: 

 Readiness to resolve assigned tasks

 Concentration of efforts when resolving a specific task

 Surprise (uniqueness) of military operations for the enemy

 Setting tasks that form a goal and determine the level of resolution of each one

 The methods determine the suitable forms for resolving the tasks

 Centralization of command and control (unity of command)

 Allocation and economy of forces, means, time, and space

 Maintenance and regeneration of combat capability

 Freedom of maneuver.18

In 2006 Russian theorist N. M. Ilyichev wrote on the PMA and offered a shorter but similar 

way to understand the concept, noting:

Thus, the principles of military art constitute the rules of actions for the military 

leader, which are generated on the basis of the profound and comprehensive 

knowledge of the laws of war and of armed struggle. They are historically oriented, 

i.e., they emerge at a definite stage of the evolution of military art, they are prone 

to changes, and some of them become inoperative.19

Again, changes in the PMA are understood to be inevitable. Further, Ilyichev noted that the PMA 

have a dual nature, where on the one hand they reflect the objective laws of war and armed struggle 

and, on the other hand, represent man’s creative activity, the expression of subjective matter. This 

indicates that commanders have the freedom to create situations within the scope of objective 

reality. The PMA are rules for action worked out on the knowledge of the laws of war and represent 

“the guiding ideas and major recommendations concerning the methods and forms of troop warfare

for winning victory over an opponent.”20 PMA’s are aimed at pointing out how and with what 

resources, to include a commander’s creativity, war may be conducted. The PMA are as necessary 

for military leaders as “notes for musicians” and are influenced by other conflict experiences.21

In 2008 I. N. Vorobyov and V. A. Kiselev wrote on the “Evolution of the Principles of 

Military Art.” The principles they discussed reflected the fact that the evolution of military art “is 

the chain of a continuous quest to perceive the nature of war, to establish rules to prepare and 

conduct war, and that it was critical to avoid miscalculations and to rout the enemy.”22 Just as 

 

18 E. V. Vasil’ev, “On Several Principles of Military Art,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 4 2005, pp. 23-

29. 

19 N. M. Ilyichev, “The Essence, Contents, and Significance of Warcraft Principles Revisited,” Military Thought (in 

English), Eastview Publications, Volume 3 2006.

20 Ibid. 

21 Ibid.

22 I. N. Vorobyov and V. A. Kiselev, “The Evolution of the Principles of Military Art,” Military Thought (in 

English), Eastview Press, No. 3 2008, pp. 84-90.
10

important was the observation that military art must be brought into line with the character of the 

new technical era. 

The authors highlighted certain principles in bold in their article and they are presented 

here. 

 The principle of the concentration of efforts in the main direction and at the 

decisive moment remains important. Such synergetic effects are composed of 

two interrelated components, fire and all-out attack, where fire plays the 

determining role.

 The principle of the dovetailed employment of heterogeneous and multiservice 

forces and assets in the operation and battle requires the maintenance of 

permanent coordination between them.

 The principle of suddenness has acquired multifarious forms and methods of 

application in modern operations. It is achieved with the employment of 

ingenious models of preparing and conducting operations, and a departure from

stereotypes. 

 The principle of maneuver has undergone a significant evolution, involving an 

array of aviation, sea-based, and air-based cruise missiles, naval forces, 

remotely piloted vehicles, reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire 

complexes, and aerial space equipment. The real new type of maneuver is by 

means of electronic countermeasures and the use of the ethereal medium.

 The principle of developing a creative approach to command and control

organization has continued, making it possible to realize the requirements of 

other principles of military art.

 The principle of achieving victory with minimal losses of friendly manpower 

and materiel remains important. 

 The principle of the all-round support of military forces now includes 

reconnaissance, electronic countermeasures, information-psychological

(reflexive control, complex measures to deceive the enemy, collection of 

information about friendly troops, etc.), technical, and logistical support. 

 The principle of the protection of military forces includes those actions against 

weapons of mass destruction, weapons based on new physical principles, 

precision, thermobaric, and psychotropic munitions, and so on.23 

The same year, Vorobyov and Kiselev discussed basic principles of battle in Armeyskiy 

Sbornik (Army Journal). These principles appear much like the PMA: 

 Constant readiness of subunits

 Decisiveness, dynamism, and the uninterruptedness in battle’s conduct

 Coordinated employment of branch subunits and Special Forces, and the 

maintenance of continuous interaction among them

 

23 Ibid.
11

 Surprise use of actions and the employment of military stratagem (deception of 

the enemy)

 Decisive concentration of efforts on the main axis and at the decisive moment

 Maneuver of subunits, strikes, and fire

 Timely reestablishment of the combat capability of subunits

 All-around support of battle

 Complete exertion of moral and physical power and the use of the moralpsychological factor in the interests of executing the combat mission

 Solid and continuous command and control of subunits

 Accordance of the combat missions of units and subunits with their combat 

capabilities.24

In 2010 another definition of the PMA was offered. They were stated to be “the guiding 

tenets, rules, and most important recommendations regarding the organization and conduct of 

military operations.”25 Kiselev, this time alone, reiterated the same principles of combat he shared 

in the 2008 article with Vorobyov in a 2014 article in Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army Journal). 26

Finally, and of importance for analysts to remember, is that the PMA, due to the increasing 

capabilities of weaponry, refuse to be stereotyped. Soviet military science “denies the existence of 

eternal, immutable principles of military art,” since they can be modified by specific situations and 

the state of military technology. Russian authors note that “the employment of ingenious models 

of preparing and conducting operations” cannot be made by officers who stereotype and do not 

think creatively. Likewise, theorists stress the need to avoid stereotyping warfare methods in 

general. From noted Russian historic theoretician and commander Alexander Svechin to the 

current General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov, the following short citations reinforce this Russian 

preference:

1907: We cannot stay with old stereotypes. If our concepts do not change in 

accordance with the progress of military affairs, if we stop at the freezing point, 

then, by worshipping unchanged laws, we will gradually lose sight of the entire 

essence of phenomena.27 (Svechin)

1991: The task for officers lies not in using stereotypes or ossified ways of 

thinking or “minted coins,” the latter being something ready-made. The task is to 

extract something different or create something new.28 (book Culture of Military 

Thought)

 

24 I. N. Vorobyov and V. A. Kiselev, “Principles of Combat are the Theoretical Framework of the Art of Tactics: 

Combat Training Experience and Methodology,” Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army Journal), No. 4 2008, pp. 15-17. 

25 M. G. Valeev and N. L. Romas’, “A Methodological Basis for Determining the Basic Determination of Methods 

of Military Actions,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 6 2010, pp. 3-10.

26 V. Kiselev, “Principles of Battle—Theoretical Framework of the Art of Tactics,” Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army 

Journal), No. 1 2014, p. 35.

27 V. Iu. Mikriukov, “Theory of Warfare,” Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army Journal), 2014, p. 43.

28 F. F. Gaivoronsky and M. I. Galkin, The Culture of Military Thought, Moscow: Voennoye Izdatelstvo, 1991, p. 

120. 
12

2013: ...technological suddenness becomes the characteristic feature of modern 

wars. In no less degree the suddenness is achieved by the employment of 

ingenious models of preparing and conducting operations and battles, by ever 

greater departure from the stereotype, which was developed in two World Wars.29

(Vorobyov and Kiselev)

2016: Gerasimov noted in 2016 that “We cannot operate in stereotyped fashion. 

We need to seek atypical solution options which result in the achievement of the 

set goal.”30

2017: General of the Army Makhmut Gareyev, one of Russia’s greatest military 

theoreticians, stated in 2017 that the greatest enemy for the art of war is a 

“stereotyped and schematic approach.”31

The impression one is left with is that as warfare evolves, there are issues that appear (use of 

military and nonmilitary forms and methods, advanced use of robotics and other new technologies,

etc.) that must be taken into consideration. These new recommendations result in different, 

nonstereotyped approaches to warfare. However, Russian theorists and leaders still tend to apply 

terms to “types” of warfare, implying a degree of stereotyping. For example, discussions of war’s 

characteristics from 2001 to today have included the following terms or types (listed as to where 

they first or most prominently appeared): noncontact and new generation warfare (NGW) (2001 

Major General V. I. Slipchenko; 2013 work of Chekinov and Bogdanov ); new-type (2013 General 

Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov and 2015 General Staff Operations Director Lieutenant-General 

Andrey V. Kartapolov); and classical and asymmetric (2019 Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and 

2019 Gerasimov). 

Expert Discussions of Military Art: V. I. Slipchenko, S. G. Chekinov, S. A. Bogdanov, and A. V. 

Serzhantov

There are many Russian experts who have written on the importance of military art over 

the past 20 years. The four influential military authors selected above offer a progressive look at

military art over the last two decades. Three authors, Slipchenko, Chekinov (in an article separate 

from Bogdanov), and Serzhantov, offered interesting lists of military art’s development. The 

articles authored by Chekinov and Bogdanov together were less provocative and more general. 

Retired (deceased) General-Major Vladimir I. Slipchenko wrote often and with great 

fanfare in the late 1990s and early 2000s on Russian military issues. One of his most prominent 

works was the 2001 Noncontact Wars. In this book, not only did he outline the various generations 

of warfare but also his perceptions of noncontact and new generation warfare concepts. In his view,

they would occur after 2010. Slipchenko noted that the PMA would be filled with new content 

and new meaning. He then listed the following:

 

29 I. N. Vorobyov and V. A. Kiselev, “Evolution of the Principles of Military Art,” Military Thought (in English), 

Eastview Publications, Volume 3 2008, p. 88.

30 Aleksandr Tikhonov, “In the Southwest Sector,” Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) Online, 16 September 2016. 

31 Gennadiy Miranovich interview with Makhmut Gareyev, “Knowledge and Skill. Reflections on What Qualities and 

Skills the Modern-Day Officer Should Possess,” Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) Online, 29 September 2017, at 

http://www.redstar.ru.
13

 There will be compressed simultaneous operations of reconnaissance-strike 

combat systems created especially for destroying the enemy’s economy, wars 

in which variously based high-precision weapons will become the principal 

means of destruction. Most weapon platforms will not be in direct contact with 

the enemy.

 The influence of nuclear weapons on attaining strategic and political goals will 

diminish sharply and perhaps will disappear entirely. Nuclear weapons will be 

retained in the inventory of several countries, but no one will employ them in 

critical situations of any kind.

 Groupings of ground troops, forces, and assets and battlefield weapons will 

cease to be necessary in connection with the noncontact nature of wars.

 The efforts of armed force branches and combat arms will be coordinated in 

two interconnected but opposite directions—operations of strategic nonnuclear 

strikes and strategic defensive forces and assets.

 Of the three elements of the battle and engagement familiar in the past (fourth) 

generation of wars—fire, strike, and maneuver—only the strike by high 

precision forces and assets launched from zones beyond the reach of the 

defending side’s weapons will be preserved.32

In 2010, S. G. Chekinov forecasted the evolution of military art at the start of the 21st

century on the pages of Military Thought. Chekinov focused on the methods associated with 

producing next-generation weapons and their employment in armed struggles. He noted that as 

scientific knowledge is applied, “new means of warfare are invented” and outdated ones are 

modernized or cast aside. This results in the development of new forms and methods of strategic 

and operational concepts and in the planning and conduct of actions in theaters of operations.33

Chekinov offered a host of US lessons learned from the war in Iraq which, he noted, 

demonstrated the following trends in warfare:

 Constantly improved weaponry is a new trend in military art’s development.

 The method of quickly introducing new weaponry has created a new time factor 

in military art.

 The technological superiority of one side can easily offset a quantitative 

superiority of the other side.

 There was a clear absence of lines of contact between warring sides.

 Space technology supported combat at all levels of military art.

 Reconnaissance, fire, electronic, and information warfare facilities were 

integrated into a single spatially dispersed reconnaissance-strike system.

 Military space may include the use of orbiting weapons that can hit targets at 

any point on the planet, offering a global dimension to armed struggle.

 Information warfare will evolve into an independent form of struggle.

 

32 V. I. Slipchenko, Noncontact Wars, Moscow Gran-Press, 2001, pp. 108-109.

33 S. G. Chekinov, “Predicting Trends in Military Art in the Initial Period of the 21st Century,” Voennaya Mysl’ 

(Military Thought), No. 7 2010, p. 21.
14

 New warfare approaches will improve the organizational factor of the armed 

forces.

 Greater weight will be given to long-range fires delivered by high-precision 

weapons.

 Electronic warfare has become a key element in disorganizing an opponent and 

undercutting his combat potential. It accounts for about a third of capabilities, 

along with nuclear and conventional weapons.

 The nature of future war will involve a war of surprises in the full sense of the 

term, using unknown weapons and new methods of military operations.

 Remote operations will prevail over contact operations.34

Chekinov’s conclusion was that recent US wars have demonstrated a significant change in 

the forms and methods of operations for the course and preparation of strategic operations.35

Foresight as to how wars will start and end must include the assumption that “so-called information 

weapons will be able to paralyze the enemy’s poorly defended computerized troops and weapons 

control systems” and thereby deprive an opponent of his capability to transmit information. 

Further, “armed struggle in the future will spill over into outer space” and could include 

geophysical weapons and weapons based on new physical principles, such as “radio frequency, 

laser, infrasonic, psychotropic, genetic, ethnic, beam, acoustic, electromagnetic, and other 

weapons.”36 Chekinov stated that Russia must be prepared in advance for war, thereby 

underscoring the article’s title that included the phrase “the initial period of war.” New forms of 

warfare will be multidimensional and fought in all areas with the aim of achieving fast results 

while blocking an opponent’s initiative and freedom of maneuver. Amidst a new revolution in 

military art, classical wars are replaced with wars developed based on advanced technologies.37

In 2015 Chekinov and Bogdanov wrote two articles on military art. Early in the year, they 

stated that the idea of war includes not only direct military interference but also economic, 

diplomatic, ideological, and other kinds of confrontation as essential constituents.38 Military art 

was defined as the ability to apply knowledge about war. Military art interacts with nonmilitary 

measures and indirect actions.39 Modern information activities now have reached the strategic 

level, able to disorganize military and state governance and systems of aerospace defense. Such 

activities also include the ability to delude adversaries by creating a desired public opinion, 

organizing antigovernment demonstrations, and conducting other events to reduce an opposing 

side’s determination to resist.40

The authors stressed on several occasions that 21st century military art will encompass its 

constituent theories, other forms and methods of struggle, and military stratagems and surprise.41

The development of forms and methods of fighting will be influenced by technological 

 

34 Ibid., pp. 23-28.

35 Ibid., p. 29.

36 Ibid., p. 31.

37 Ibid., pp. 32-33.

38 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “Military Art in the Early Period of the 21st Century: Problems and 

Opinions,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 1 2015, p. 32

39 Ibid., pp. 33-34.

40 Ibid., p. 42.

41 Ibid., p. 39.
15

breakthroughs related to aerospace weaponry modernization, weapons based on new physical 

principles, robotized technology, the computerization of command and control assets, and the 

creation of artificial intellect.42 Command and control efficiency will require a single information 

analytical and control space, fundamentally new principles of work algorithms for command and 

control organs, and robotized systems with enhanced stability, associativity, and interference 

immunity.43

Problems remain for the advancement of military art in Russia, however. They include the 

following: staff units of command and control do not match the number of tasks set before them; 

existing control systems are in need of reform; a single system of logistical support needs to be

created; and a legal basis is needed to define the order of subordination of elements to the unified 

command.44

In late 2015, the same authors advanced their theory of military art in the context of military 

systemology. Military art’s primary task, they noted, is generating effective methods of conducting 

a war.

45 Military systemology was defined as:

A theory of systems fulfilling military purposes...It develops its own tool kit 

(definitions of concepts, criteria for quantifying effectiveness, methods, models, 

and methodologies serving various purposes) to conduct research from a common 

vantage point of modern military theory and practice. As a set of conceptual 

systems used for military purposes, military systemology studies primarily military 

science, in general, and military art as its principal component.46

Military art must be studied as a system with three components, an integral whole, a complex unit 

(one consisting of many elements), and as an element of a supersystem (an indivisible unit).47

The authors noted that both strategy and tactics are used often in sciences well beyond 

military science. Operational art, on the other hand, belongs only to military art and science. It can 

also be thought of as “programming art.” It is necessary to guess ahead about the end goal and to 

include the human factor or personnel; the technical factor or vehicles and weapons; and the natural 

factor or terrain features, weather, and other processes on the ground.48 The authors summed up 

their analysis with this paragraph:

To sum up, the synthesis of the definitions of the concepts strategy, program 

(operational art), and tactics reveals the relationships between them: strategy is an 

art of reflecting the tasks fulfilled by the system through its problems; program 

(operational art) is an art of reflecting the problems of the system through its 

 

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid., pp. 40-41.

44 Ibid., p. 41.

45 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “The Development of Contemporary Military Art from the Viewpoint of 

Military Systemology,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 11 2015, pp. 23-24.

46 Ibid., p. 25.

47 Ibid., p. 26.

48 Ibid., p. 32.
16

objectives; and tactics is an art of showing the objectives of the system through the 

tasks it fulfills.49

The authors added that a problem is a model of disharmony, an objective is a model of harmony, 

and a task is a model of the transition from disharmony to harmony.50

Finally, in 2019 Alexander V. Serzhantov, the Deputy Chief of the Military Academy of 

the General Staff for Scientific Work and Chief of the Center for Military Strategic Research, 

discussed military art. Ten years earlier he was the deputy chief of the Military Art Chair at the 

same Military Academy.51 His interest in military art clearly continued, as he noted that roles 

among the spheres of armed confrontation include not only traditional ones (land, sea, etc.) but 

new ones, such as social, digital, energy, and others. He stressed that the center of power struggles 

in the world have shifted to the aerospace, information, and economic administration spheres; and 

that military operations of the future are associated with the following issues: 

 The constant threat of a surprise preemptive electronic-fire strike

 The use of new types of weapons

 The lack of front lines and the exposure of open flanks

 The struggle for the initiative

 And dramatic changes in the situation.52

Serzhantov then stated that the following changes in military art are deserving of the closest 

attention of researchers:

 The concentration of men and equipment on the decisive axis will be 

determined by the massive employment of weapons, not troop maneuvers.

 Strategic weapons can be used in support of missions at the operational and 

tactical levels.

 Offensive and defensive operations will converge with the combination of fire 

and electronic strikes in the future.

 New methods are needed for transforming operations from contactless war into 

contact war.

 The disablement of an opponent’s political and economic management 

infrastructure facilities, communications, and electronic warfare systems is 

acquiring special significance.

 Air defense systems will have to be hardened and jam-proofed and become 

echeloned and multilevel.

 The need for ground troops continues.

 

49 Ibid., p. 33.

50 Ibid.

51 A. G. Sokolov interview with Aleksandr Vladimirovich Serzhantov, “The Development Trends of Military Art. 

Doctor of Military Sciences Aleksandr Serzhantov on the Developments of the Center for Military-Strategic 

Research. Candidate of Military Sciences A. G. Sokolov Conducted the Interview,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta Online 

(Independent Paper Online), 4 October 2019.

52 Ibid.
17

 Fire destruction of an opponent prior to the moment of close contact will ensure 

the continuity of the offensive, surprise, and the momentum of strikes. 

 The fight for air supremacy will be an important characteristic of 

engagements.53

Serzhantov’s analysis closely follows what Gerasimov discussed in his recent presentations at the 

Academy of Military Science, to include Gerasimov’s statement that it is now necessary to wage 

wars and armed conflicts using classical and asymmetric methods of operations. Serzhantov noted 

that based on the strategy for achieving goals, operations can be classic (the strategy of the 

destruction and attrition of the enemy) or asymmetric (the strategy of indirect operations).

To summarize, early on it was difficult even for US experts such as the Scotts to locate and 

identify Russia’s PMA. In the past decade this has become easier. The focal point of Russia’s PMA 

is recommendations for action. Combat experience over the years, developments in weapon 

capabilities and new technological achievements, and the situational creativity of commanders all 

cause changes in the PMA and indicate that will always be in a state of flux and cannot be 

stereotyped. Some general categories do exist (new generation, new type, asymmetric and 

classical, etc.) but even under such categories commanders still influence their application when 

they inject their own creativity to influence outcomes in their favor.

Updating a Few Military Art Specifics: 

1. Disorganization Concept

2. Forms of Radio-Electronic Warfare

3. Deep Operations and Space Theaters of Operation (TVD)

4. Initial Period of War

5. Maneuver

6. Fires

7. Indirect Operations

8. Stratagems

9. Geophysical Weapons

10. Modeling Operations

There are several recent conflicts that have influenced military art in Russia. They include 

Russian lessons learned and knowledge gained from combat experiences in Chechnya, Georgia, 

Ukraine, Syria (especially the testing of robotics and weapons under combat conditions), and now 

Libya as well as through the close scrutiny of US lessons learned in the fighting in Afghanistan, 

Iraq, and Syria. Military art is affected as well when US and NATO weaknesses are uncovered

 

53 Ibid.
18

and ways to exploit them advanced. When placed side by side with the implications of the changing 

nature of warfare (speed, agility, reach), there is abundant evidence that military art is being 

affected by numerous internal and external criteria. Some of the specific ways that military art is 

being affected are summarized below.54

Disorganization, a most important new element of military art: The disorganization concept is an 

aspect of Russian military art that is often overlooked in Western commentaries. Russia’s armed 

forces aim to disorganize an opponent’s information, command and control, electronic warfare, 

and robotic systems, and Russian theorists write about them openly. Disorganizing an opponent 

can also originate from simply denying global positioning signals to an opponent’s equipment. 

Disorganization prohibits opponents from integrating operations and ensures chaos in the 

organization of combat affairs.

The concept of disorganizing information operations was advanced by other Russian scientists as 

early as 1995 at conferences in Moscow at which this author attended. Chekinov and Bogdanov 

noted in 2011 that strategic information confrontation “plays an important role in disorganizing 

military and state control and the aerospace defense system, in deceiving the enemy, creating the 

desired public opinion, organizing antigovernment protests, and other undertakings aimed at 

reducing the other side’s resolve to resist.”55

In 2017, in the Journal of the Academy of Military Science, author P. I. Antonovich noted that one 

of the principal tasks when creating a strategic radio-electronic warfare (REB) system for Russia’s 

Armed Forces would be “the comprehensive disorganization of the operations of a potential 

enemy’s systems of state administration and military command and control in the integrated 

information domain.”56 This would include the command and control of an opponent’s troops and 

weapons.

Major General Yuriy Lastochkin, who is in charge of the Defense Ministry’s REB force,57 stated 

in 2018 that REB’s men and equipment will permit them “to decide the fate of all military 

operations” in the near future.58 REB will be used to disorganize an adversary’s command and 

control capability. The military is experimenting with REB maneuver units and has requested that 

REB forces develop a disorganization plan for confronting an opponent’s use of command and 

control issues. Lastochkin stated that the disorganization of enemy troop and weapons command 

and control and the reduction of the effectiveness of the conduct of reconnaissance and weapons 

employment by them “is the primary goal of the conduct of electronic warfare.”59

 

54 For a discussion of Russian military art applied in Syria, see “Russian Military Art and the Creative Employment 

of Knowledge,” in Timothy Thomas, “Russian Military Thought,” MITRE Corporation, August 2019, Chapter Two.

55 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “The Influence of the Indirect Approach on the Character of Modern 

Warfare,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 6 2011, p. 6.

56 P. I. Antonovich, “Radiofrequency Space and Some Problem Questions of Modern Strategic Electronic Warfare,” 

Vestnik Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the Academy of Military Science), No. 4 2017, p. 133. The author 

would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

57 Russian sources and translators use the terms electronic warfare (EW and radio-electronic warfare [REB]) 

interchangeably. 

58 Aleksandr Stepanov interview with Yuriy Illarionovich Lastochkin, “They Have Deployed a Dome, Which 

Defends from Missiles, Over the Russian Bases in Syria. Unique Electronic Warfare Systems, Which Are Capable 

of ‘Blinding’ Any Precision-Guided Weapon, Provide It,” MK Online, 15 April 2018.

59 Ibid.
19

In 2019 Russian analysts proposed a methodology for the operational calculations that determine

the effectiveness of disorganizing command and control under fire, radio-electronic, and other 

types of destructive effects. First, the real strength of the enemy’s army formation is computed. 

Second, the efficiency of disorganizing control over enemy troops requires the preparation and 

implementation of measures that impact the functional elements of an opponent’s systems and 

rupture control over troops, weapons, electronic warfare, and reconnaissance capabilities. Control 

disorganization efficiency reduces strength indices. Three ways that control can be disorganized

are when it is disrupted, upset, or utterly disabled.60 

In 2020 Russian authors discussed ways to disorganize the control systems of robotic means in 

foreign armies. A model organization was developed for the preparation of REB specialists to 

disorganize such systems.61 Thus the disorganization concept is one for MDO proponents to study 

closely and protect US systems against its use.

Forms of REB in military art: “Forms” answer the question of how operations are organized.

62

Forms of REB forces are applicable to peacetime, a period of direct threat of aggression, or 

wartime.63 Twelve forms of REB were discussed in a 2019 article, offering new ways to consider 

the application of REB. Each is followed by a simple explanation of the form in question, and all 

may be used in conjunction with strategic-operational or operational-tactical considerations: 

1. Radio-electronic (RE) protection of structures and troops: protects weapons, 

military equipment, military structures, and troops against technical intelligence 

and targeted strikes.

2. RE-strike: short, powerful RE damage to an opponent’s RE apparatus or their 

suppression and to software employed in technical intelligence sources.64

3. RE-fire strike: used with the forces and means of Aerospace Defense and 

Missile Defense large formations, classified as the number of resources 

enlisted, time of delivery, priority of destruction, tasks being resolved, or type 

of destruction or suppression.65

4. RE battle: uniform concept and plan (usually for a short time) for the purpose 

of RE damage of RE apparatus and software, or their suppression. 

5. RE-fire battle: totality of RE-fire strikes conducted by REB and large 

formations of the Aerospace and Missile Defense.

6. RE blockade: the radio isolation of encircled enemy large formations and 

diversionary and reconnaissance groups or the disruption of their external 

communications for a long interval of time.

7. Radio curtain: the creation of massive radio interference in a specific range of 

frequencies of an opponent’s RE resources.

 

60 V. A. Anokhin, G. D. Vystorobsky, D. V. Kholuyenko, and N. M. Gromyko, “Assessing Combat Capability of 

Army Formations in Terms of Disruption of Control,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 12 2019, pp. 48-56.

61 S. V. Golubev, V. K. Kir’yanov, and M. V. Zhirnov, “A Model Organization for Military-Professional Training of 

Radio-Electronic Warfare Specialists for Missions to Disorganize Command and Control Systems of RoboticTechnical Means of Foreign Armies,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 2 2020, p. 150.

62 V. K. Novikov and S. V. Golubchikov, “Forms of Radio-Electronic Warfare under Modern Conditions,” Vestnik 

Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the Academy of Military Science), No. 2 2019, p. 139. The author would like 

to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

63 Ibid., p. 143.

64 Ibid., p. 140.

65 Ibid., pp. 140-141.
20

8. RE disinformation: creation of active and passive false RE targets and 

information resources for misleading an enemy’s technical intelligence.

9. RE camouflage: concealment from enemy technical intelligence of RE targets 

and information resources.66

10. Electronic attack: coordinated actions against an informationtelecommunications system for command and control of troops and weapons.

11. RE-psychological strike: short, powerful effects against sensory organs and the 

bodies of servicemen by microwaves, light, and sound.

12. Surveillance: comprehensive technical control of a large formation, regarding 

the control of emissions of artificial and natural origin, arising from the 

employment of weapons, and so on.67

Deep Operations, Space Theater of Operations (TVD): In 1985 Russian General of the Army 

Makhmut Gareyev stated that an outstanding achievement of Soviet military art in World War II 

was the elaboration of the theory of deep operations, a concept that emerged from changes in the 

nature of armed combat. Today, when the nature of armed conflict is characterized by weaponry’s 

speed and reach, deep operations have acquired serious consideration since they can strike 

anywhere on earth almost instantaneously and without warning.

Russian specialistsrecognized these changes in war’s character early on. In 2011, Gareyev stressed 

that the nature of armed struggle had changed so radically that a conflict’s center of gravity and 

efforts had shifted to the aerospace domain, a position later backed by Defense Minister Sergey 

Shoygu. Aerospace campaigns, consisting of space and air operations, must be planned before war 

breaks out, Gareyev noted, and should be implemented at the very beginning of a conflict. The 

course and outcome of war and a country’s fate can depend totally on thwarting such aerospace 

attacks making aerospace defense the main mission of Russia’s Armed Forces. Gareyev called for 

a Strategic Command for Aerospace Defense within the General Staff structure as an operational 

control element, adding that the organization’s missions indicate “one can already speak of an 

aerospace theater of military operations (TVD).”68 He added that missions can be accomplished 

from remote basing regions.

In 2018 the Journal of the Academy of Military Science carried an article on space zones. It noted 

the following, which continues Gareyev’s 2011 focus:

The appearance and development of space weapons has resulted in the emergence 

of the concepts ‘strategic aerospace axis,’ ‘strategic space zone (SSZ),’ and ‘space 

theater of military operations,’ which reflect the view of near-earth space as a new 

sphere of armed struggle.69

 

66 Ibid., p. 142.

67 Ibid., p. 143.

68 M. A. Gareyev, “On the Organization of the Russian Federation’s Aerospace Defense,” Vestnik Akademiy 

Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the Academy of Military Science), No. 2 2011, p. 40. The author would like to thank Dr. 

Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

69 S. P. Nikolaev, V. N. Kuz’min, and O. E. Kaminskii, “The Features of an Assessment of the Strategic Space Zone 

as an Element of the Geostrategic Area,” Vestnik Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the Academy of Military 

Science), No. 2 2018, p. 93. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.
21

The authors noted that there are three operational space zones (OSZ), determined by altitudes. 

They are from 100 km to 2000 km (near OSZ), 2000 km to 20,000 km (mid OSZ), and greater 

than 20,000 (distant OSZ).70 Orbital resources in the operational space domain are allocated as 

follows: 48 percent to geo-stationary and quasi-stationary orbits, 36 percent to low orbits, 10 

percent to highly elliptical orbits, and 6 percent to mid-altitude orbits.71 It was further noted that:

From the point of view of international law, the basic feature of the space domain 

is its extraterritoriality: in accordance with the Treaty on the Principles of Activities 

of States for the Exploration and Use of Space, including the Moon and Other 

Celestial Bodies, the space domain ‘is not subject to national appropriation’ by 

declaring national sovereignty in it. This circumstance makes it possible for states 

to implement detailed reconnaissance and other activities from space, which is 

excluded with respect to the airspace over the territories of other states.72

Operational art is being taught at the Aerospace Academy in Russia, where satellites naturally are 

one of its main maneuver components. This implies that Russian analysts understand the 

configuration of contemporary deep operations, which now imply the use of operations anywhere 

on earth. Satellites provide the reconnaissance and precision capabilities required for modern 

warfare. New forms of military operations in near space can be expected to block and defeat orbital 

alignments of forces while suppressing radio communication systems in specific areas. One recent 

example trumpeted by Russia President Vladimir Putin is the Peresvet ground based laser that is 

designed to blind US satellites tracking mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Satellites, due to their ability to maneuver and move singularly or in swarms, could be capable of 

acting as an operational maneuver groups (OMG) in space. A contemporary space OMG would 

potentially consist of reconnaissance-strike units, satellites of various types, counter 

communication units, and other assets combined into a single organism. What plans are under 

consideration at the Operational Art Department at the General Staff Academy using these assets 

in a space TVD are unclear. Gareyev stated that even though OMGs were liquidated with the fall 

of the Soviet Union they will “obviously be used in some form or another” in the future.73

Initial Period of War: Over a decade ago it was noted that a principal conclusion regarding war’s 

experience is that warfare’s nature and control is so exceptionally complex and fast that preparing 

in advance all command and control agencies and troops has become mandatory. In the past it was 

possible to learn as war’s were being fought. This is unlikely in future high-technology wars. 

Russian analysts know that one of the most important and difficult tasks is not only to foresee the 

possible nature of future war but also an aggressor’s actions at the very outset of a war. It is equally 

difficult to prepare friendly force combat readiness for a multitude of potential attacks (nuclear, 

cyber, recon-strike, asymmetric, etc.) and to consider which strategic deployments might best 

thwart an opponent’s initial attacks and help friendly forces gain a strategic initiative before 

warfare begins. Underestimating these changes can result in severe consequences to the more 

 

70 Ibid., pp. 93-94.

71 Ibid., p. 95.

72 Ibid., p. 98.

73 M. A. Gareyev, “The Living Embodiment of the Brain of the Army,” Arsenal Otechestva, No. 2 2012, published 

17 June 2013 at http://arsenal-otechestva.ru/article/111-mozg-armii. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold 

Orenstein for the translation of this article.
22

passive side. The consideration of surprise attacks to disorganize both locally (command and 

control) or globally (homeland infrastructure) cannot be discounted in an era highlighted by the 

increased capabilities of electronic and cyber warfare preemptive capabilities. An opponent, 

whether it be Russia, China, or Iran, will do everything convenient and advantageous for its 

leadership. Further, the speed of contemporary operations may not allow for the attacked side to 

recover if the initial assault is overwhelming. One’s freedom of maneuver may evaporate. Thus,

the initial period of war has increased dramatically in importance and planning.

Maneuver: Fifty years ago, in an article in Military History, Russian General Major A. A. Strokov 

noted that the character and methods of maneuver in the attack were tangibly changing. Rapid 

advances into the depth of an opponent were advocated instead of just moving to a more favorable 

position.74 One can only imagine Strokov’s thoughts today in an age of hypersonic weaponry. In

2008, in one of many articles on maneuver in the interim, it was noted that the evolution of the 

principle of maneuver was growing, involving an array of aviation, sea-based, and air-based cruise 

missiles, naval forces, remotely piloted vehicles, reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire 

complexes, and aerial space equipment. Another new type of maneuver was by means of electronic 

countermeasures and the use of the ethereal medium.75

In 2018 A. I. Kalistratov discussed maneuver in the context of both the 1971 and 2008 discussions. 

He noted that maneuver can quickly change a battlefield situation and achieve surprise. It can be

planned or carried out spontaneously. Operational art maneuver implies troop transfers to new 

sectors to take advantage of openings and create a necessary grouping of troops, indicating it can 

be performed during a fight. Strike and fire maneuver consist of concentrating resources on

adversary facilities and transferring them to new targets or dispersing them over several targets. 

Logistical maneuver consists of moving or handing over material means to troops fighting in the 

main sector. 

Operational maneuvering was defined as follows:

This is a maneuver by troops, forces, combat assets, strikes, fire, and reserves of 

material-technical means on the scale of operational formations in order to take a 

more advantageous position than that of the adversary, concentrate efforts in major 

sectors, improve or restore the combat efficiency of certain troops (naval 

groupings), remove them from the range of adversary fire, transfer efforts from one 

sector to another, repulse a surprise action by the adversary, and solve other 

problems during preparation of all kinds of operations and in the course thereof.76

Operational maneuver can include the following strike and logistic examples:

 

74 A. A. Strokov, “Changes in the Methods and Form of Conducting Military Operations,” Voennaya Istoriya 

(Military History), Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1971, pp. 340-345, excerpts in Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott, 

The Soviet Art of War, Westview Press, 1982, p. 224.

75 I. N. Vorobyov and V. A. Kiselev, “The Evolution of the Principles of Military Art,” Military Thought (in 

English), Eastview Press, 2008, page unknown.

76 A. I. Kalistratov, “Operational Troop Maneuvering: Multiplicity of Form,” Military Thought (English edition), 

Eastview Press, No. 2 2018, pp. 15-29.
23

 Concentration of nuclear and fire attacks delivered by missile forces.

 Attacks of aircraft or artillery groups on adversary troops that are the most 

dangerous at the moment or in the interests of exploiting main group successes.

 Transfer of weapon attacks to adversary targets of operational significance that 

have emerged.

 Transfer of one or several formations from the depth or passive section to 

sectors where success has been attained or to critical points of the operational 

formation. 

 Concentration or redistribution of logical forces and assets.77

There was an extended discussion of the “form” of maneuver as well. The form of an operational 

troop maneuver was defined as a configuration of the troop (force, asset) movement direction 

conditioned by the maneuver purpose during an operation and the method of doing so. Offensive 

troop maneuver “types” are frontal, flank, concentric, and air. “Forms” of frontal maneuver are 

dissection and operational raids; forms of flank maneuver are severance, operational envelopment, 

and operational bypasses; forms of concentric maneuver are encirclements; and forms of air 

maneuver are severance, airmobile raid, vertical envelopment, and vertical bypasses.

78 (see 

Appendix Two for illustrations of dissection, severance, and encirclement attacks from 

Kalistratov’s article)

The officially acknowledged troop maneuver “forms” in the defense are retreat and withdrawal. 

Actual combat experience suggested to Kalistratov that there are more forms of operational troop 

maneuvering than is alleged in official military theory in Russia, and so he discussed other forms. 

Defensive types of troop maneuver are the same as for offensive maneuver (front, flank, 

concentric, air). Frontal forms of maneuver are retreat, withdrawal, and frontal advances; flank 

forms of maneuver are operational lateral movements; concentric forms of maneuver are 

concentric advance and concentric withdrawals (concentric maneuver was said to even out the 

correlation of forces and assets in adversary attack sectors, and it was Clausewitz who said this 

maneuver was the soul of defense);

79 and forms of maneuver by air are severance, airmobile raid, 

airmobile lateral movement, and airmobile retreats.

80

The author concluded by stating that “in present-day conditions it was noted that when conducting 

both offensive and defensive operations, virtually all forms of the operational maneuver can be 

used.”81 However, operational maneuver today is “practically impossible unless superiority of the 

adversary in the air has been neutralized.”82

Fires: Long-range fire destruction, to include rocket forces, artillery, and aviation, is determining 

combat potential. In 2017 an article in Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army Journal) noted that at the 

contemporary state of military art’s development it has become characterized by a “substantial 

 

77 Ibid., p. 17.

78 Ibid., p. 27.

79 Ibid., p. 25.

80 Ibid., pp. 25-28.

81 Ibid., p. 29.

82 Ibid.
24

increase in the role and place of fire destruction of the enemy.”83 A new generation of conventional 

weapons indicates that arithmetical superiority (the quantitative correlation of forces) no longer 

creates “decisive prerequisites for defeating an enemy,” since the qualitative component dominates 

the quantitative component. A correlation of forces change also occurs in a shift from the targeted 

destruction of an area to the destruction of a specific target.84 The planning and implementation of 

fire destruction will most probably be the zonal-targeting method, and the main form of employing 

forces will be according to a maneuver-fire design. One of the new forms of fire destruction is

recce-fire methods and operations. The recce-fire method of operations for artillery formations is 

defined as follows:

Operations of forces and means of reconnaissance, automated command and 

control, and fire destruction, coordinated with respect to targets, tasks, place, and 

time, for effects against the most important and high-mobility enemy targets, 

including direct laying fire. These operations are to be implemented in real time, 

according to the principle of ‘reconnaissance-hit...’

85

A short statement about fire destruction ended the article, noting that “The need to create artillery 

groupings (army artillery groups, division artillery groups, brigade artillery groups, etc.) will 

disappear, because the recce-fire resource itself envisions the effective selection for the means of 

destruction.”86

Indirect Operations: Authors Chekinov and Bogdanov wrote on the indirect approach in 2011, 

noting that it uses a variety of forms and methods of indirect military and nonmilitary means, such 

as information, remote (noncontact) confrontations, polycentric, electronic, fire-based, land-sea, 

aerospace attack, and antisatellite operations. They stated that the concept is so important that 

Russia must “map out and eventually also implement a strategy of the indirect approach as its state 

strategy without an alternative.”87 Moreover, they wrote that the term “nonmilitary means” shows 

an affinity for the indirect approach concept.88 Nonmilitary means, when there is strife among 

states, was defined as “a combination of state and social institutions (organizations), political, 

legal, economic standards, spiritual values, general-purpose information, and technological 

systems” that are used to influence internal and external relations between states.89

In 2019 Colonels A. S. Fadeev and V. I. Nichipor updated the concept of indirect actions. They 

noted that warfare nowadays is never declared or finished. The ongoing scenario is that a threat 

has emanated from a victim state, followed by a vigorous information campaign, and ending when

a coalition of interested states is formed to achieve the victim state’s goals, which often are tied to 

 

83 S. Tolochko and V. Litvinenko, “Forms and Methods of the Selective Destruction of the Enemy,” Armeyskiy 

Sbornik (Army Journal), No. 4 2017, pp. 32-33. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the 

translation of this article.

84 Ibid., p. 33.

85 Ibid., p. 35.

86 Ibid., p. 36.

87 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “The Influence of the Indirect Approach on the Character of Modern 

Warfare,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 6 2011, pp. 6, 13.

88 Ibid., p. 4.

89 Ibid., p. 7.
25

energy markets.90 Efforts such as attempting to ruin a country through the destabilization of that 

nation’s economy is the type of approach that has been named indirect. Their essence is covert 

effects that foment internal contradictions in states. Third forces (countries, blocs of states, 

international entities, transnational companies, extremist organizations, political forces inside the 

state, etc.) are used to conjure up contradictions and provoke parties into armed conflict. 

The real role of third forces (interests, objectives, etc.) include campaigns against human rights 

violations, accusations of tyranny, demonstrations for more democracy, and so on. Of interest is 

that the authors used a 2015 diagram and several statistics (without citing them) from the Journal 

of the Academy of Military Science that A. V. Kartapolov authored. The latter’s diagram has been 

widely disseminated over the past several years in Western nations describing the evolving nature 

of war.91

The leadership and population of a victim state falling to indirect actions often do not realize what 

is happening. A clandestine external invasion takes place while simultaneously nongovernmental 

organization and those advocating humanitarian rights enter as well.92 The authors stated that 

indirect operations help attain military results without the overt employment of the armed forces. 

Results can include demoralizing an adversary and inflicting economic, political, and even 

territorial damage.93

Equating indirect actions to asymmetric ones, the authors added the following:

A most important condition of efficient asymmetric actions is pinpointing precisely 

the most vulnerable and weak spots of the adversary, its critically important 

strategic targets, which, if hit, will have maximum effect with minimal expenditure 

of one’s own forces and resources...However, it does not appear possible to work 

out a universal set of asymmetric actions for all likely conflicts, because each has 

its own specific features.94

Gareyev, who also supports the use of indirect operations, noted that using asymmetrical means 

and methods in space using electronics and other means could reduce enemy advantages in 

communications, navigation, reconnaissance, and command and control. Space, in Gareyev’s 2013 

estimation,

95 is where the US has its greatest weakness due to its overreliance on the domain.

In early 2019 the journal Military Thought published an article on asymmetric ways to combat 

high tech adversaries. Asymmetric responses were defined as nonstandard methods that find the 

weakest links in an opposing troops weapon systems and infrastructure, and inflicting selective, 

 

90 A. S. Fadeev and V. I. Nichipor, “Military Conflicts of Today, and the Perspective Development of their Methods 

of Conflict. Direct and Indirect Actions in Armed Conflict of the 21st Century,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), 

No. 9 2019, pp. 34-35.

91 Ibid., pp. 36-37.

92 Ibid., pp. 38-39.

93 Ibid., p. 40.

94 Ibid., p. 41.

95 M. A. Gareyev, “Forecasting and Planning of the Development of Arms and Military Equipment in the Context of 

Future Threats,” at http://i-korotchenko.livejournal.com, 28 March 2013.
26

precision damage on them. An asymmetric response will surprise an opponent.96 Nine methods

were offered:

 Apply a systemic approach that examines all four hierarchical levels (national 

security, strategy, operational art, tactics) when addressing asymmetric 

responses.

 Maintain scientific and technological independence, refusing to use foreign 

technologies. 

 Seek out weak points in an adversary’s strike and defensive systems and 

complexes.

 Reject symmetric interventions and develop original asymmetrical measures to 

cause maximum damage to adversary troops and infrastructure that disrupt 

command, information support, and navigation. Fire assets that destroy 

adversary targets are five to ten times less expensive than the cost of active 

means of protection.

 Perform feasibility studies on asymmetric weapon systems that cause a certain 

military-economic damage to an adversary.

 Set military-technical traps for adversaries, leading them to unpromising areas 

of research and development.

 Foster competition among inventors to design breakthroughs in asymmetric 

systems.

 Provide strategic planning and program-targeted technological support for 

asymmetric weapons.

 Use time and cost efficiency as criteria for assessing the development of 

asymmetric weapon systems.97

The authors offered one example, the Mozyr active protective system (APS), an antimissile 

artillery weapon. The system is proclaimed to be able to intercept intercontinental ballistic targets 

and other types of modern high precision weapons, such as cruise missiles, using nonnuclear assets 

at low altitude. The APS “includes radar detection and guidance systems, as well as special gun 

mounts.” It engages with metal arrows and balls with a diameter of 30mm at altitudes up to 6 km, 

firing at an initial speed of 1.8 km/s, comparable to a long-range cannon projectile. The system 

creates an “iron cloud” that in one salvo can release “up to 40,000 items.”98 The APS appears to 

offer two asymmetric advantages. First, it combats missiles with metal balls and arrows (not the 

usual symmetric use of missiles against missiles). Second, it would be less costly and could cause 

some military-economic damage to an adversary who continue to utilize more costly options in 

the confrontation.

Stratagems: The common Russian terms when deceiving an opponent are maskirovka and

reflexive control, about which much has been written. Another term to consider is usually 

associated with Chinese operations, that being stratagems. Former General Staff Chief Vladimir 

 

96 V. V. Selivanov and Yu. D Ilyin, “A Methodological Basis for Forming an Asymmetric Response in a MilitaryTechnical Confrontation with a High-Technology Opponent,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 2 2019, pp. 

6-7.

97 Ibid., pp. 9-11.

98 Ibid., pp. 12-14.
27

Lobov noted in 1992 that Russia defines military stratagem in the art of war as the theory and 

practice of concealment and deception of the enemy. Concealment is a set of measures to remove 

or reduce signs typical of troop presence to make it difficult to detect and identify them and the 

direction of their activity, thereby creating conditions for surprise. Deception consists of forcing 

on the enemy incorrect ideas about objectives and preparations, and the nature, forms, methods, 

techniques, and conditions of operations. Military stratagem, Lobov adds, is the essential condition 

or sine qua non for surprise in troop operations. Stratagem represents the sum of general and 

specialized knowledge. Skill and expertise can be reduced to subjective orientation that considers

its own special form of creativity based on innovation, which is further magnified if an opponent 

is unprepared for the unexpected. To thwart the unexpected Russia must fight against its own 

subjective disorientation and psychological unpreparedness for surprise enemy actions.99

In 2013 another Russian author discussed stratagem use in “Modern War in Terms of Stratagems.” 

While not conclusive evidence that Russia still uses the term, it indicates that the nation pays 

attention to how stratagems might be employed as an element of military art. Author V. Tatarinov 

quoted Clausewitz as noting that stratagem can be of service as the only anchor of salvation to the 

weak side in a confrontation. He then went on to divide the Chinese book 36 Stratagems into eight 

subgroups. Only stratagem 19 is discussed here for its applicability to contemporary events.100

Stratagem 19 concerns how to disempower an opponent (“pull out the firewood from under the 

boiler”). The goal, Tatarinov notes, is to deprive an opponent of internal support (ideological, 

economic, religious, demographic, etc.); to exacerbate internal interethnic and religious conflicts, 

keeping them smoldering, inasmuch as their inflation or attenuation is disadvantageous; to foist 

potential border conflicts upon him; and to deliver surgical strikes against national interests in 

zones of influence.101

Geophysical Weapons: This type of weapon appears to offer an asymmetric method for causing

harm to human life or for inflicting significant material damage. A geophysical weapon is defined 

in the following manner:

Geophysical weapons should be understood to mean the weapons in combat 

employment capable of implementing the mechanism of local activation of natural 

hazards resulting in damaging an adversary’s military, military-political, and 

military-economic assets, armed forces groups, and ecosystems as well as limiting 

its military or economic activity.102

Geophysical processes are influenced most by nuclear explosions, exposure to chemical 

compounds, and electromagnetic emissions. International legal acts have limited nuclear issues 

but the initiation of violent acts of nature (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.) using trigger mechanisms 

 

99 V. N. Lobov, Voennaya Khitrost’ (Military Cunning), Moscow Military Publishing, 1992, pp. 30-38. For more 

information on maskirovka, see Chapter Five, Russia and Military Deception, in the book Recasting the Red Star

2011, Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS.

100 V. Tatarinov, “Contemporary War in Stratagem Terms,” Vestnik Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the 

Academy of Military Science), No. 2 2013, pp. 65-66. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the 

translation of this article.

101 Ibid.

102 V. A. Nikolsky, V. V. Rudenko, and D. Yu. Soskov, “Geophysical Weapons: Distinctive Features and 

Development Prospects,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 10 2019, p. 106.
28

(energy amplification factors) is now an issue. Trigger mechanisms could, for example, influence 

geophysical stress points, such as the junction of tectonic plate movements where a significant 

amount of energy is accumulating. The fast release of this energy could result in earthquakes or a 

tsunami. Authors Nikolsky, Rudenko, and Soskov noted that earthquakes can be initiated directly 

through a naturally occurring electromagnetic or mechanical impulse, citing a Russian work on 

ground-space monitoring and predictions (this was their only mention of electromagnetic 

emissions). Chemical compounds could be used to induce precipitation and thereby delay or 

restrict troop movements or aircraft and reconnaissance equipment employment. Other chemical 

compound uses under consideration were aerosols, smoke, and other active chemical compounds 

to affect combat actions,103 which are not at all “new.” 

Modeling Operations: Russia has developed a modeling complex that supports “decision-making 

for an operation (battle) at four levels of command and control: center, grouping of forces on a 

strategic axis, army, division (brigade), and makes it possible to reduce decision-making by 3-5 

times.”104 The modeling complex supports the following issues:

 Forecasting the results of the course and outcome of combat operations with 

respect to basic parameters (one’s own losses and enemy losses, depth of 

offensive penetration, tempos of advance) for the given period of preemption

 Visualizing changes in the situation on an electronic map

 Automatically determining the type of operation with respect to the situation, 

displayed on an electronic map

 Distributing allocated ammunition reserves to elements of the order of battle 

according to operational days and zones of operation of the first-echelon 

formations for each day

 Modeling individual tactical tasks and episodes

 Taking into consideration the principal effects factors: terrain trafficability, 

weather conditions, degree of engineer preparation of the area of combat 

operations and its changes during combat operations.

There is the possibility of changes in the situation on account of the following:

 A change in the make-up of the formations with respect to areas of 

responsibility

 A change in the width of the areas of responsibility

 Entry of second echelons, air assaults, and naval assaults into battle

 Delivery of air and naval strikes

 A change of the engineer outfitting of the terrain by means of remote mining; 

establishment of obstacle centers (zones)

 

103 Ibid., p. 107.

104 P. A. Dulnev, A. P. Kolesnichenko, and A. V. Kotov, “A Promising Set of Programs for Modeling an Operation 

(Combat). Development and Improvement Experience,” Vestnik Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the Academy 

of Military Science), No. 4 2018, p. 33. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of 

this article.
29

 Deployment of mobile demolition detachment and antitank reserve lines on 

dangerous axes

 Deployment of fire lines of tank and antitank formations

 Simultaneous calculations of several independent axes on a single electronic 

map

 Comparison of plan alternatives and arranging them according to preference.

In addition, models that support the work of other officials during the development of a 

plan, preparation of a decision, and command and control of battle during its conduct, include the 

following:

 A system for monitoring troop combat capability

 A system for automated terrain assessment

 A model for assessing the effectiveness of the functioning of the air defense 

system

 A software set for command and control of fire destruction during combat.105

Implications for MDOs

There are several implications that US leaders should take into consideration after this study of 

Russian PMA. Some of course are more significant than others.

First, an important implication is that, since Russia does not stereotype its operations, there will 

be no “set play” against which to act. A common habit in the West is to announce types of 

operations, such as air-land battle or multi-domain operations. Russia makes no such 

announcements. All that remains is for Western analysts to conceptualize how the elements of 

Russian thought might be applied against an opponent’s more stereotyped operation. Holistically 

this conceptualization must include recent considerations of Russian advancements in military art, 

which would include new weaponry, recent combat experiences, and theoretical announcements 

about topics such as fire or maneuver. 

Second, as the discussion above indicated, the implication is that recent Russian modeling of 

operations most likely includes MDO and other military employments. Modeling works to 

forecast events, takes into consideration any changes in contemporary situations, and assesses

capabilities. Such modeling allows decision-makers to better confront adversary plans to Russia’s 

advantage. For example, Zapad-2017 was an exercise that allowed Russia to quickly assess US 

MDO planning. The movement of Russian forces to the vicinity of its Western border caused the 

US and NATO members to respond with its own force deployment. Russia’s leadership was able 

to visualize at one quick glance just where MDO forces might be arrayed against Russia in the 

event of a future conflict in the region. Further, Russia’s war games center at the General Staff 

Academy was refurbished a few years ago and along with the 27th Central Scientific Research 

Institute, which is also involved in computer war games, a considerable computer wargaming 

ability has been developed. And as long ago as 2014 an article in Military Thought noted that 

 

105 Ibid., p. 34.
30

“measures have been taken concerning the methodology of modelling deep, distance, non-contact 

strike means aimed at groups and targets of the enemy.”106 Which leads to the next implication.

Third, for the Russian military, MDO’s potential deployment in the Baltics could constitute, from 

the Kremlin’s perspective, a direct threat to the homeland, as it would be located just hours away. 

However, multi-domain task forces are still based at US locations, so this is not the case at the 

present time. In the interim, a calibrated force posture has been established in theater, ready to 

deter but act in the event of a Russian advance. Russia might be compelled, if an MDO deployment 

happens, to guarantee its “equal security,” an old concept that still resounds in the halls of strategic 

thought in Russia. The essence of the concept is that if MDO threatens Russia then Russia must 

threaten the US homeland, thereby making both sides feel equally threatened. The concept has 

been implied for potential action for a few years now. For example, in a May 2015 article at the 

Russian news website Svobodnaya Pressa, two influential Russian thinkers, Aleksandr 

Perendzhiyev, from the Association of Independent Military Political Experts, and ColonelGeneral Leonid Ivashov, a member of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, advocated a direct 

threat to the US homeland with nonnuclear deterrents.107 These men advised Russian leaders to

utilize deterrence and collective security strategies as counters to US moves in Europe. The article 

suggested placing a task force off the coasts of the US, so that it would have American territory in 

its sights. The deterrent factor, it was noted, must be moved up to the border of the US.108 That 

clearly implies the potential for a task force stationed in Cuba. In 1962 it was possible to find

Russian missiles in Cuba and, through the Cuban Missile Crises, get them off the island. If Russia 

creates a task force in Cuba with a nonnuclear deterrent such as armed UAVs or cruise missiles, it 

will be incredibly hard to find them. They could be hidden in buildings or hangers, and this could 

strongly affect US responses to such potential actions. 

Such a threat against the US could be augmented with the use of deep operations initiated from 

Russia. Russia’s global reach capability includes weaponry such as hypersonic missiles, cyber 

issues, lasers in space, and so on, all capabilities which Putin is trumpeting. For this reason,

Russia’s development of strategic axes in space along with space theaters of military operations 

need to be taken as serious indications of the development of Russian “strategic operations for the 

destruction of critical infrastructure targets (SODCIT),” which the Kremlin professes to have. US 

targets most likely have been determined, whether they be political, economic, or military. Of 

course, the US also has similar capabilities to threaten Russia.

Fourth, what would be the implications of a two front conflict involving Russia in the west and 

China in the east for the US, NATO, and their Asia-Pacific allies? Can MDO be spread that widely

as it currently professes? One Russian theorist has already noted that in conjunction with China, 

Russia has developed asymmetric responses to the US’s network centric capabilities. They include 

 

106 V. I. Vypasnyak, A. M. Guralnik, and O. V. Tikhanychev, “Simulation of Combat Actions: The History, Current 

State, and Prospects of Development,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 7 2014, p. 29, as discussed in 

Steven J. Main, “How Russia ‘Plays’ at War,” The British Army Review 171: Winter 2018, p. 54

107 Andrey Ivanov, interviews with Aleksandr Perendzhiyev and Leonid Ivashov, “United States Transitioning to 

‘Number One’ Combat Readiness. Any Provocation Would Give the United States the Opportunity to Attack 

Russia,” Svobodnaya Pressa (Free Press), 7 May 2015. 

108 Ibid.
31

creating forces, systems, and means that, for example, cause fire and electronic damage to the 

elements of the information grid (command posts, communications centers, orbital grouping of 

reconnaissance and control satellites, etc.).109 There has been much written about Russian and 

Chinese collusion to support such an implications. Further, how seriously is Russia considering 

the use of Chinese stratagems in its cyber operations? As the Tatarinov article above indicated, 

they are at least considering the possibility of using cyber stratagems.

Fifth, some of the far-reaching consequences of specific aspects of Russian military art mentioned 

above hold serious implications for MDO. Of first concern is the disorganization concept, which 

is designed to seriously disrupt an opponent’s information, robotics, and command and control 

mechanisms whether in an MDO setting or in the continental US. The resulting consequence for 

MDO would be an inability to integrate operations and result in chaos regarding attempts to 

coordinate planning. Maneuver would be seriously affected as well. A side effect implication for 

MDO is that the development of modular designed forces may work better against an adversary 

focusing on the use of the disorganization concept than those based on interdependence.110 As 

demonstrated above, Russia continues to write on the disorganization concept. The most recent 

example is a 2020 article in Military Thought devoted to training radio-electronic operators with 

the necessary skills to disorganize robotic complexes in foreign armies. The article noted that 

operators must be familiar with foreign army control systems, their vulnerable links, and the best 

radio-jamming targets to make decisions on the employment of such units.

111

Sixth, the recent additional Russian focus on asymmetric and indirect operations112 must be 

considered as thoughts on how to counter MDO and thus new implications for consideration, since 

they have grown in relevance if compared with traditional military options. For example, Russia’s 

Journal of the Academy of Military Science published an article in 2019 titled “Social Media as a 

Theater of Information War in Today’s Hybrid War.” The implication is clear that the US is using 

social media as a new theater of war that Russia must counter, and Russia considers the US as the 

main proponent of hybrid war. The implication is that MDO will face numerous attempts to cajole 

the population via social and other media forms and cause havoc and chaos. Russian analysts note 

that military conflicts and armed struggles are distinguished by national affiliation, religious 

practices, degree of legitimacy, attitude toward international laws, and other factors,

113 and each 

point may serve as a vector of attack against MDO forces. For Russia, all forms of armed struggle 

 

109 V. Litvinenko, “Comprehensive Integration of Reconnaissance, Control, and Destruction Systems under 

Conditions of 21st Century Military Concepts,” Armeyskiy Sbornik (Army Journal), No. 8 2015, pp. 33-36.

110 Modular comment based on discussion between the author and Mr. David Farrell, July 2020.

111 S. V. Golubev, V. K. Kir’lanov, and M. V. Zhirnov, “A Model for Organizing the Military-Professional Training 

of Radio-Electronic Warfare Specialists to Execute the Tasks of Disorganizing Command and Control Systems of 

Foreign Armies by Means of Robotic Resources,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 2 2020, pp. 155-156. 

The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

112 For example, in June 2019 Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu offered that “conflicts of a new generation 

involve a combination of classical and asymmetrical methods of conducting armed combat, where hostilities are 

fleeting, and there is simply no time for correcting mistakes.” (Interfax, June 2019, no author or title provided)

113 A. V. Romanchuk, P. A. Dul’nev, and V. I. Orlianskiy, “Changes in the Nature of Armed struggle According to 

the Experience of Military Conflicts at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 

4 2020, p. 67.
32

are in play and they reflect changes in military art that go beyond the battlefield and extend into 

politics and economics.

Russia now has an adequate quantity of new weapons, some of which are asymmetric, and plans 

to employ them under various conditions. Asymmetric actions and weaponry developments are 

conducted to eliminate advantages that an adversary enjoys. A 2017 article on “For What Kind of 

Warfare Should the Russian Armed Forces Be Prepared?” noted that there are four areas where 

asymmetric operations should focus attention: keeping secret preparations for and the conduct of 

combat actions (i.e., no stereotyping); searching for and discovering an adversary’s weak points; 

concentrating efforts on vulnerable spots (facilities) of an adversary; and imposing one’s version 

of conflict and how it unfolds on an adversary.114

Seventh, the military’s recent construction of the ERA Technopolis in Anapa on the Black Sea is 

an excellent indicator of the scientific endeavors that are the most important capabilities for

President Putin and Defense Minister Shoygu to develop. These priorities may have been the

result of an investigation of MDO’s capabilities. In February 2019 it was noted that eighteen 

laboratories and eight scientific-technical fields were organized at the Technopolis. The latter 

fields included the following: 

1. robotics 

2. information security 

3. information-telecommunication systems

4. power supply technologies, equipment, and life-support machines 

5. artificial vision and pattern recognition 

6. informatics and computer equipment 

7. biotechnical systems and technologies

8. and nanotechnologies and nanomaterials.

115

Artificial intelligence (AI) information security technology, supercomputers, and robots are also 

under development at Anapa.116 AI will be applied to reconnaissance systems and precision 

weaponry, and the development of microelectronics for AI along with the development of digital 

and microwave technology and artificial neural network technologies will be established in 

defense and security areas.117 Also of importance is that quantum computer developments are 

being studied at Anapa, which can assist in the design of new weapons (asymmetric ones?) and 

allow for hacking an opponent’s military and infrastructure encryption systems. For Russia this is 

“an overarching strategic task for preserving national sovereignty and defense sufficiency.”118 AI, 

 

114 V. A. Kiselyov, “For What Kind of Warfare Should the Russian Armed Forces Be Prepared?” Voennaya Mysl’ 

(Military Thought), No. 3 2017, p. 46.

115 No author provided, “What is the ‘Era’ Military Innovation Technopolis in Anapa?” Abakan AIS, 24 February 

2019.

116 No author provided, “Ministry of Defense to Spend 390 Million Rubles on Artificial Intelligence,” Vesti Online, 

1 April 2020.

117 Irina Belova, “Electronics for Military Artificial Intelligence to be Created in Anapa,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta

Online, 26 July 2019.

118 Oleg Maslennikov, “Quantum Breakthrough: Era of Domination by ‘Classical Computers’ is Drawing to a 

Close,” VPK Voyenno-Promyshlennyy Kuryer Online, 18 February 2020.
33

quantum, and other such advancements (nanotechnologies, etc.) all are considered to be indirect 

ways to defeat an opponent without firing a shot.

Naturally, the nature of armed struggles on the battlefield will be influenced as well by the 

development of directed energy weaponry and other weapons based on new physical principles 

that will result in sharp changes in all parameters of warfare.119 The characteristic features of armed 

struggles at the beginning of the 21st century on the battlefield, according to one source, include 

the following features that offer indirect and asymmetric avenues of approach:

 An extensive spatial scope

 The mass employment of precision weapons and radio-electronic resources

 New forms and methods

 Military operations in all spheres

 Struggles to attain the strategic initiative and superiority in command and 

control

 Destruction of important objectives and infrastructure by fire to an opponent’s 

entire depth

 Extensive maneuver of forces of all types

 A constant threat of widening the operations scale.120

The many aspects of military conflicts under consideration in Russia is demonstrated with the 

diagram at Appendix Three that was taken from a Russian military analysis. 

Conclusions

When Western analysts of Russian military affairs are asked “what is military art?” they 

usually reply that it is the use of strategy, operational art, and tactics. This is true but, as the 

discussion above has demonstrated, it is not only much more but is also continually adaptable to 

changes. Military art includes the employment of knowledge that has benefited from combat 

experiences and technological advances in equipment and weaponry. It is the creative employment 

of knowledge applied against specific conditions or the development of decisions to fit situations 

at hand. Some decisions are unconventional and unique, while others may be based more 

decisively on older principles of military art or combat experience used in a new fashion. The focal 

point of Russia’s PMA is recommendations for action based on a commander’s creative ability 

and knowledge accumulated over time. These recommendations are apt to change regularly along 

with the development of new capabilities or ways to use them. The PMA will always be in some 

slow or fast state of flux and cannot be stereotyped. Of equal importance is whether military art 

will add “planetary” or “global” to its context of strategy, operational art, and tactics. As has been 

noted before, technology determines strategy today with its reach and speed. Likewise, technology 

enables global operations. It will be of interest to follow this discussion when it evolves. 

 

119 A. V. Romanchuk, P. A. Dul’nev, and V. I. Orlianskiy, p. 67.

120 Ibid., p. 74.
34

The characteristics of military art outlined above indicate that the concept remains flexible 

and able to change based on contemporary developments. Two extensive lists of various ways to 

consider developments in Russian military art were offered. The first was a direct listing of PMA 

and other recommendations from both military art’s history and from four military professionals 

in Russia. The second was a listing of other issues accumulated from the work of numerous 

Russian authors that offer a list of specific areas of military art not usually recognized by Western 

analysts to the same degree. Russians note that they will lead to new forms and methods of 

conducting military operations. 

The four Russian military specialists offered various methods of applying military art. 

Slipchenko noted that there will be compressed simultaneous operations by reconnaissance-strike 

combat systems that are created specifically for destroying an opponent’s economy. Chekinov 

noted that future war will involve surprises since unknown weapons and new methods of military 

operations will be used. Chekinov and Bogdanov focused on the obliteration of military art as we 

once knew it along with differences in offense and defense. And Serzhantov stated that the decisive 

axis will be based on the massive employment of weapons and not troop maneuvers. Military art 

is changing. 

Various and unexpected ways that Russian forces can impact the forms and methods of 

conflict were developed. Military art can be used to disorganize an opponent’s command and 

control systems, create strategic aerospace axes for deep operations and attacks on a planetary 

scale (to ensure equal security), develop military stratagems and geophysical weaponry, and apply 

new forms of maneuver and electronic warfare among other issues. In this latter list, 

disorganization and REB forms seem to go together in regard to the conduct of combat as do deep 

operations and the initial period of war. Maneuver and fires are components of both, while indirect 

operations and geophysical weapons are more asymmetric in design. All of the information in both 

lists offer areas of consideration to watch.

What the discussion indicates is that Russian theorists are thinkers who incorporate both 

historical lessons learned, national priorities, and new capabilities to advance their knowledge base 

about conflict and new ways to apply force. This, naturally, has implications for MDO

developments, as developed above. US commanders and analysts should, based on the analysis 

above, take the following implications more seriously than the others:

 A MAJOR IMPLICATION for MDO is that it had better procure jam proof 

command and control systems and other such electronic warfare offset 

equipment if it hopes to avoid Russian disorganization efforts.

 AI will continue to be integrated into robotics and other equipment. Military AI 

ensures that conflicts will be lethal, sudden, and unpredictable, depending on 

the state of development of AI in various nations. For example, in Russia the 

Bylina EW system will reportedly be controlled by AI by 2025 and will be able 

to find, analyze, and classify targets in real time with instant calculations and 

then determine the best means to suppress them. Targets include 
35

communication systems, radars, and satellites.121 Other weaponry, such as socalled kamikaze drones that can independently attack targets, are under 

development in Russia and elsewhere.

 Strategically, there are three major implications to keep in mind. First, the US 

should keep a close eye on Russian operations in Cuba (ports, airfields, etc.) for 

the introduction of UAVs, cruise missiles, and other equipment so that Russia 

can guarantee its equal security. Second the speed of contemporary operations 

indicates that there must be a laser focus for US planners to protect 

infrastructure, since operational speed can imply that an intervention (using 

cyber, etc.) could be over before an opponent recognizes it has begun. 

Reconnaissance efforts against critical infrastructure designed to insert 

malicious viruses or spot weak links must be thwarted, as access to information

capabilities offers preemption opportunities. Finally, it must be remembered 

that technology no longer determines tactics—it now determines strategy due 

to its extended reach and capabilities. Russia is organizing operations in space 

to assist in this effort. Battlefields can now be controlled from anywhere on the 

globe by several adversaries, which may result in the development of a global 

aspect for military art, changing the triad to a quadrilateral. 

 

121 Aleksey Ramm and Bogdan Stepovoy, “Target is Visible: Bylina Will be able to Attack Opponents without 

Operator Involvement,” Izvestia, ru, 16 April 2020.
36

APPENDIX ONE: EVOLUTIONS IN THE CORRELATION OF STRATEGY, 

OPERATIONAL ART, AND TACTICS

Two authors, nearly 50 years apart, wrote on evolutions in military art’s components of

strategy, operational art, and tactics. Their reports are summarized here in order to demonstrate 

how objective and subjective factors exert change on the evolution of military art, and why military 

art’s principles change and are not locked in stone.

Writing in Military Thought in 1971, author I. Zav’yalov, a gold star recipient upon his 

graduation from the Academy of the General Staff, wrote on the evolution in the correlation of 

strategy, operational art, and tactics. He noted the following about the practical significance of a 

correct understanding of this correlation:

It enables command cadres to evaluate more deeply and to see more clearly the role 

of each element of the complex military organism, each unit, formation, and field 

force in the multifaceted process of military operations, in the execution of their 

assigned combat missions, and in the achievement of the general aims of war, to 

make purposeful and expedient decisions on the engagement or operation, and to 

plan the combat utilization of manpower and hardware with greater confidence.122

As an example of the correlation’s importance, he noted that in WWII the introduction of 

intensified motorization and mechanization increased troop tactical mobility and maneuverability. 

This increased rates of advance, depth of offensive operations, reduction in length of operations, 

and the achievement of stated objectives.123 The interrelationship among these three components 

works in a downward direction expressed with methods of warfare, strategic objectives, and 

actions determined by the political aims of a war and the combat capabilities of the armed forces. 

The interrelationship moves in an upward direction along the line of executing combat missions 

and achieving stated objectives.124

In the past the combination of fire and movement became the foundation of tactics. The 

appearance of nuclear weapons disrupted this concept, since there was a huge increase in a 

weapon’s potential to inflict casualties or death, while tactical protection means from the weapon 

hardly changed. Yet this is how it is, a new weapon can negate old methods and cause new ones 

to develop as well. This can cause changes in military art, that is, new tactics, operational art, and 

strategy are developed. Nuclear weapons changed the traditional stepped interrelationship between 

strategy, operational art, and tactics, giving them greater independence. New nonnuclear weapons 

 

122 I. Zav’yalov, “The Evolution in the Correlation of Strategy, Operational Art, and Tactics,” Voennaya Mysl’ 

(Military Thought), No. 11 1971, p. 121, as translated into English in Volume 5, Part II of Selected Readings from 

Military Thought 1963-1973. Selected and Compiled by Joseph D. Douglass, Jr and Amoretta M. Hoeber, 

Biographical data by Harriet Fast Scott.

123 Ibid., p. 122.

124 Ibid., p. 123.
37

do the same, making military art more complex due to a side’s increased combat potential and 

scope of combat operations.125

Decisions still consist of a leader assessing objective conditions and then using his ability 

and skill (his subjective factors) to influence the situation to his advantage. This could include an 

assessment of the following: the correlation of forces, character of hostile activities, and the combat 

capabilities of manpower and weapons of the strategic and operational echelons of both sides. In 

so doing, the strategic echelon influences decision-making at the operational echelon, and the latter 

plays a similar role with respect to the tactical echelon. The correlation among these levels depends 

on the specific conditions of a given war and thus is not a constant.126

Years later, the initial words of a 2019 article in the Journal of the Academy of Military 

Science echoed these thoughts. In an article titled “The Interrelation among Military Strategy, 

Operational Art, and Tactics in Modern Conditions,” author A. Korabel’nikov noted that military 

art had changed under the influence of objective and subjective factors, among which are the 

development of means and technologies of armed conflict; the make-up and conditions of the 

opposing side’s troops; opinions of a potential enemy on the methods of starting and conducting 

military operations; the experience of military conflicts; the content of the military doctrine of 

states; and so on.127

The principal content of military strategy was stated as follows:

 The implementation of a set of measures to safeguard state security and public 

safety.

 The ability to reliably guard and protect the state border

 The requirement to eliminate emergency situations of a natural and technogenic 

nature.

 And the systematic development of forms and methods of strategic deterrence 

aimed at preempting or reducing destructive actions on the part of an aggressorstate (coalition of states).128

The principal content of operational art was noted to be:

 A set of measures for strategic deterrence (nuclear and nonnuclear), prevention 

of military conflicts, information operations, and operations in the informationcommunications domain.

 Protection of the state border by ground units.

 

125 Ibid., pp. 127-128.

126 Ibid., pp. 129-131.

127 A. Korabel’nikov, “The Interrelation among Military Strategy, Operational Art, and Tactics under Contemporary 

Conditions,” Vestnik Akademiy Voennykh Nauk (Journal of the Academy of Military Science), No. 2 2019, p. 35.

The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

128 Ibid., p. 36.
38

 Conduct of operations (combat) in armed conflicts and in actions to maintain 

(regenerate) international peace and security.129

Tactics included the following:

 The theory and practice of maintaining the combat and mobilization readiness 

of formations, military units, and subunits at a level that guarantees their joint 

execution of combat tasks in the form of service-combat and operationalservice activities.

 Employing weapons, military and special equipment, and special resources in 

the sphere of public safety and state security in peacetime.

 Preparing for and conducting tactical operations as part of interservice and 

interdepartmental groupings under conditions of using all types of means of 

destruction to prevent and interdict acts of aggression.130

Korabel’nikov stated that there is a close relationship among the three components of military art. 

He also stated that the tasks presented below in relation to tactics “are in agreement with the tasks 

of military strategy” and “tactical tasks contribute to the execution of operational art tasks.”131

Those tactical tasks are:

 Studying the laws and principles of tactics.

 Developing measures to support a high level of combat and mobilization 

readiness.

 Developing the essence of concepts of operations (tactical operations, combat).

 Developing the content of tactical tasks to be carried out by formation and 

military units when executing assigned tasks.

 Developing methods of carrying out tactical tasks.

 Maintaining the combat and mobilization readiness of formations, military 

units, and subunits.

 Studying and generalizing combat experience.

 Improving methods of combat training for formations, military units, and 

subunits.

 Adopting verified decisions and preparing combat operations.

 Exercising command and control of military units and subunits during the 

execution of assigned tasks.132

 

129 Ibid., p. 37.

130 Ibid.

131 Ibid, p. 40.

132 Ibid., p. 39.
39

Korabel’nikov then stated that the “realization of an all-purpose military strategy and operational 

art is possible through the timely identification of trends in the development of tactics.”133 Principal 

trends were identified as follows:

 Increases in the spatial scope of armed struggle at the tactical level.

 The dynamic use of the surface layer of the air domain (which included the use 

of UAVs for air reconnaissance, enemy reserve identification, reconnaissance 

of earlier detected targets, corrected artillery fire, target indication, and 

verifying results of strikes).

 The increased role of fire destruction of an enemy and augmenting its power 

with maneuver directly on the battlefield. 

 The increased role of information superiority.

 The important role of tactical camouflage.

 The continued increase in the decisiveness of combat goals (most important is 

the disorganization of enemy efforts with the use of the latest weapons, gaining 

the initiative, and short-term enemy destruction).

 The increasing dependency of success on the reliable resolution of issues of allround troop support (reconnaissance, radio-electronic warfare, tactical 

camouflage, moral-psychological, rear, and technical support).

 The increasing role of the quality of command and control.134

Tasks “interconnected with military strategy and operational art that stand before tactics” included 

the following: 

 Refining the structure and content of tactics as a field of military art.

 Developing the essence of the concept of combat and its content.

 Developing the content of tactical tasks carried out by formations, military 

units, and subunits in various types of combat operations.

 Developing methods for formations, military units, and subunits to carry out 

tactical tasks under various situational conditions.

 Improving issues of all-round support of formations, military units, and 

subunits under various situational conditions.

 Refining the structure and content of legal documents.

 Introducing theoretical issues into the practice of troop training.

 Developing a set of measures for the preparation for battle and their gradual 

introduction into educational activities, with subsequent military testing.

 Improving the organization of the work of commanders and staffs while 

carrying out assigned tasks and introducing this into educational activities and 

troop training.

 

133 Ibid., p. 40.

134 Ibid., pp. 40-41.
40

 Directing the scientific, creative, and research activities of pedagogical workers 

toward developing issues of tactical theory and introducing this into educational 

activities.

 Creatively employing the experience of the combat operations of formations, 

military units, and subunits into educational activities, considering the issues 

being worked out in exercises and the experience of students.

 And improving the forms and methods of training and creatively employing 

them in educational activities.135

Trends and tasks and other issues were thus very different when Korabel’nikov wrote than when 

Zav’yalov did 50 years prior. Objective and subjective conditions change, and this causes change 

in the PMA.

 

135 Ibid., p. 41.
41

APPENDIX TWO: EXAMPLES OF DISSECTING, SEVERANCE, AND 

ENCIRCLEMENT OPERATIONAL MANEUVERS

Figure 2. Three dissecting attacks by the army with the subsequent defeat of an adversary 

troop grouping part by part.136

 

136 Kalistratov, p. 21.
42

Figure 3. Severance of a portion of an adversary grouping to isolate it from main forces 

and to press it against a major water obstacle.137

 

137 Ibid., p. 22.
43

Figure 4. Encirclement of an adversary troop grouping.138

 

138 Ibid.
44

APPENDIX THREE: A CLASSIFICATION OF MILITARY CONFLICTS

Outline of the “Basis of Domestic [Russian Federation] Classification of Contemporary Military 

Conflicts”

139 (Russian version is followed by the English translation of each “number” below).

 

139 O. M. Gorshechnikov, A. I. Malyshev, and Iu. F. Pivovarov, “Problems of the Typology of Contemporary Wars 

and Armed Conflicts,” Journal of the Academy of Military Science, No 1. 2017, p. 53. The author would like to 

thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.
45

Basis of Domestic [RF] Classification of Contemporary Military Conflicts

1. Aggressive (threat to peace, violation of peace, act of aggression)

2. Liberation (individual and/or collective defense against aggression)

3. Peacekeeping (struggle for peace on the basis of a mandate from the UN Security 

Council, OSCE, CTSO

4. As a third side in a conflict

5. With respect to military-political goals
46

6. Military conflict

7. War

8. Armed conflict

9. Large scale; regional; local

10. International; internal

11. With respect to method of unleashing

12. With respect to subjects

13. Surprise attack

14. Gradual involvement in conflict

15. After strategic deployment

16. Covert operations

17. Military intervention

18. Civil war

19. Ethnic conflicts

20. Military expansion

21. Military coup

22. With respect to medium of conduct

23. With respect to participants

24. Aerospace

25. Ground

26. Naval

27. Information

28. Coalition

29. States

30. Private persons

31. With respect to principle of employment of forces

32. Dependent on dynamism of the sides

33. With respect to duration

34. With respect to forms

35. With respect to types

36. With respect to method of pressure on the enemy

37. With respect to the resources employed

38. Classical operations

39. Asymmetric operations

40. Network-centric operations

41. Hybrid operations

42. Maneuver operations

43. Positional operations

44. Retaliatory (retaliatory-meeting) operations

45. Preemptive (preventative) operations
47

46. Blockade operations

47. Blitzkrieg (up to several days)

48. Fast-moving (up to several months)

49. Protracted (up to several years)

50. Long (more than ten years)

51. Strategic operations and actions

52. Operations and combat operations

53. Joint special operations and actions

54. Operations to force peace on the aggressor

55. Peacekeeping operations and actions

56. Counterterrorist (antiterrorist) operations and actions

57. Offensive (counteroffensive) operations

58. Defensive operations

59. Armed struggle to reestablish constitutional order

60. Armed struggle against terrorism

61. Armed struggle against separatism, extremism, and nationalism

62. Simultaneous operations

63. Successive operations

64. Taking a region (territory) under control

65. Isolation of a region of military (combat) operations

66. Sabotage and partisan operations

67. With the employment of nuclear weapons

68. With the employment of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

69. With the use of conventional weapons

70. With the employment of weapons based on new physical principles

71. With the use of information and psychological resources
48

APPENDIX FOUR: A FEW DEFINITIONS ASSOCIATED WITH MILITARY ART 

AND MILITARY THOUGHT ARTICLES ON DISORGANIZATION (2016-2020)

military art (военное искусство) – the theory and practice of preparing for and conducting 

armed struggle on land, at sea, and in near-earth space. Military art encompasses the principles of 

the organization, conduct, and all-round support of all contemporary operations and combat and 

the organization of the command and control of these activities.140

military art (военное искусство) – the theory and practice of preparing for and conducting 

military operations. It consists of strategy, operational art, and tactics, which are closely 

interconnected and interdependent.141

theory of military art (теория военного искусства) – on of the main components of military 

science, it studies and understands the nature, regularities, principles, forms, and methods of 

preparing for and conducting all ranges of armed struggle. In its research and at a new stage this 

theory will be based on objective laws and use the tenets and conclusions obtained by other 

branches of military science that take part in studying the problems of military affairs. In the near 

term, the structure of this theory will remain unchanged: strategy, operational art, and tactics.142

theory of military art (теория военного искусства) – the theory that studies and understands 

the nature of wars and armed conflicts, their regularities and principles of conduct, and issues of 

developing and preparing armed forces and the country for defense.143

principles of military art (принципы военного искусства) – the guiding tenets, rules, and 

most important recommendations regarding the organization and conduct of military 

operations.144

THE DISORGANIZATION CONCEPT IN MILITARY THOUGHT, 2016-2020

2016

 “Methodical Approach to Assessing the Influence of Disorganization of 

Operational Reserves’ Control to the Rate of the Enemy’s Advance,”

Stuchinsky (Issue, 11) 

 

140 Slovar’ voenno-strategicheskikh terminov [Dictionary of military-strategic terms] (Moscow: VAGSh VS RF, 

2012). The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

141 Voennaia entsiklopediia (Military Encyclopedia), Vol. 2 (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1994), p. 150. The author would 

like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

142 S. A. Bogdanov, “On the Structure and Content of Military Science in Contemporary Times and the 

Development of Military Thought,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 5 2004, pp. 19-28. The author would 

like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein for the translation of this article.

143 S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, “Military Art on the Verge of the 21st Century: Problems and Opinions,” 

Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 1 2015, pp. 32-43. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold Orenstein 

for the translation of this article.

144 M. G. Valeev and N. L. Romas’, “The Methodological Basis for Determining the Methods of Military (Combat) 

Actions,” Voennaya Mysl’ (Military Thought), No. 6 2010, pp. 3-10. The author would like to thank Dr. Harold 

Orenstein for the translation of this article.
49

2017

 “Trends in Increasing the Effectiveness of the Organization of the Combat 

Employment of Radio-Electronic Warfare Troops in the Operations of Ground 

Forces Formations,” Nikitin (Issue 5).

 “On the Issue of Complex Defeat of the Enemy and the Ways of its 

Implementation during Control Disorganization,” Pasichnik (Issue, 6)

 “On the Disorganization of Control over Troops (forces) and Weapons,”

Donskov, Moraresku, Panasyuk (Issue, 8)

 “On the Main Provisions of the Theory of the Disorganization of Command and 

Control of Troops (forces),” Klyushin, Ksholuyenko, Anokhin (Issue, 9)

 “Combat Employment of Radio-Electronic Warfare Troops as a Basic 

Component of Ground Forces Operational Art,” Lastochkin, Koziratsky, 

Donskov, Mororescu (Issue 9)

 “Determining the Ways to Disorganize the Control of Enemy Troops and 

Weapons,” Kaminsky (Issue, 11)

2018

 “Achieving Superiority in Command and Control as a Goal for the Use of 

Radio-Electronic Warfare Forces in Ground Force Operations,” Donskov, 

Morarescu, Besidin (Issue 1) 

2019

 “Estimating the Combat Efficiency of Army Formations Adjusted by the 

Effect of Control Disorganization,” Anokhin, Vystorobsky, Kholuenko, 

Gromyko (Issue 12)

2020

 “The Model of Organizing Professional Military Training of Experts in 

Electronic Warfare for Disorganizing Systems of Robot Control in Foreign 

Armies,” Golubev, Kiryanov, Zhirnov (Issue 2)