The new makers of modern.., p.139
The New Makers of Modern Strategy, page 139
Following the annexation of Crimea, in March 2014, Russian intelligence and special operations forces stoked a wave of popular unrest—and eventually war—in eastern Ukraine. Six different spetsnaz brigades were involved in the Ukrainian operation in its early stages. Over the next several years, Russia continued to wage irregular warfare in eastern Ukraine. Gerasimov and other Russian leaders likely had several goals: punish Ukraine for its pro-Western shift by starting an insurgency in the east; deter a further deepening of relations between Kiev and the West, including possible Ukrainian membership in NATO and the European Union; send a message to other countries in Russia’s sphere of influence that they would be targeted if they turned to the West; and deter further US and Western actions in Russia’s periphery. Russian special operations forces—or “little green men,” as they were called because they wore unmarked green army uniforms—provided training, weapons, money, and other assistance to local militia. They helped create and support separatist political parties and unions; aided paramilitary groups like the Russian Orthodox Army and the Night Wolves; and recruited Cossack, Chechen, Serbian, and Russian paramilitaries to fight in Ukraine.
In addition, Russia established an aggressive offensive cyber campaign. Russia had conducted a limited cyber campaign against the country of Georgia during the August 2008 war in the separatist region of South Ossetia. But Russian operations in Ukraine were a major escalation. GRU units—including Military Unit 74455, which was known within the GRU as the Main Center for Special Technologies (or GTsST)—orchestrated one of the world’s most brazen offensive cyber campaigns by taking down multiple parts of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, including its electricity grid. Russian operatives planted several types of malware—including BlackEnergy, KillDisk, and Industroyer—in the computer systems of companies that supported Ukraine’s electric power grid and against the Ukrainian government’s State Treasury Service and Ministry of Finance. The Russians then used the malware to create blackouts across a wide swath of Ukraine’s capital.31
Russia’s overall campaign in eastern Ukraine was not a clear victory like Crimea, since Russian-backed forces failed to control significant territory. But the campaign was effective in creating a frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine, in which Moscow could dial up—or down—the intensity of war depending on political calculations. After Russian operations in eastern Ukraine and the Crimea, Gerasimov and other military leaders shifted their focus to Syria.
By 2015, Putin, Gerasimov, and other Russian officials had become alarmed at the deteriorating situation in Syria. The war had dramatically escalated over the previous four years. According to Russian intelligence assessments briefed to Gerasimov, there were up to 4,500 operatives from Russia and Central Asia in the ranks of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in the Middle East—particularly in Syria—and a grand total of 60,000 terrorists.32 Russian intelligence also concluded that Syrian government forces controlled a mere ten percent of Syrian territory.33 In northern Syria, Kurdish forces had seized growing swaths of territory at the expense of the Assad regime. In southern and central Syria, the Islamic State also had enlarged its area of control and was conducting brutal attacks in the north and west. Finally, rebel groups such as Jabhat al-Nusrah had expanded their presence in northwestern and southwestern Syria, driving back Syrian government forces and threatening major population centers.
The situation seemed hopeless as cities like Hasaka, Raqqa, Aleppo, and even areas around Damascus fell to rebels. “It was a very difficult situation,” recalled Gerasimov. “There was low morale and high fatigue, as well as a lack of ammunition, materiel, and other types of support.”34 For Moscow, Syria was not just any country. It had long been an important Russian partner, and its warm water port at Tartus could be helpful for Russia’s regional ambitions and power projection into Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. But by 2015 Russian leaders were concerned that Washington was attempting to overthrow the Assad regime and replace it with a friendly government, much like the United States had done in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya—among others. Gerasimov criticized the United States for destabilizing Syria and establishing a terrorist sanctuary in the country. “The development of events in Syria according to the Libyan scenario would lead to the fact that a recently prosperous country would become a source of the spread of terrorist danger for the entire region,” Gerasimov declared.35 As a response to this growing threat, over the summer of 2015, Gerasimov helped oversee planning efforts involving Russian, Iranian, and Syrian political and military leaders. Russia then pre-positioned military forces in and near Syria.36
Unlike Moscow’s campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which had included 115,000 Soviet forces, Russian leaders adopted a smaller-footprint approach in Syria. Based on his assessment of recent wars, Gerasimov helped craft a light footprint strategy. Russia used well-directed air power from Su-24M and Su-24M2 frontline bombers, Su-25SM and Su-25UBM ground-attack aircraft, Su-30SM multirole fighters, and other aircraft, along with Russian naval vessels. The maneuver elements to retake territory included Syrian Army forces; Lebanese Hezbollah; additional Iranian-trained militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestinian territory, and other countries; as well as Russian private military contractors like the Wagner Group. With Russia’s support, the Syrian regime eventually regained control of virtually all the main cities in the country, except for pockets in such areas as Idlib Province.
Yet Syria was only one of many examples of Russia’s embrace of irregular warfare. Increasingly, Russian military leaders saw irregular warfare as an important way to project and expand Russian power. As Gerasimov emphasized, “the methods of struggle are increasingly shifted towards the integrated use of political, economic, informational, and other non-military measures implemented with reliance on military forces.”37 After all, Russia is not a global superpower like the United States or China. Its gross domestic product was more than five times smaller than both the United States and China, according to 2020 estimates.38 Its population was ten times smaller than China and more than twice as small as the United States in 2022.39 Its defense budget was twelve times smaller than the United States and three times smaller than China, according to 2021 estimates.40 Because of these limitations, Russia’s irregular strategy included several components.
First, Russia utilized offensive cyber operations and electronic warfare to weaken its adversaries. These efforts were led by cells like the GRU’s Military Unit 74455, which orchestrated a series of offensive cyber operations against the United States and other international targets—including the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, scores of websites in 2019 in the country of Georgia, the 2018 Winter Olympics, and the 2017 French elections.41 Russia placed malware, such as Triton and BlackEnergy, in critical US infrastructure, thus threatening power plants, electricity grids, communications networks, and financial systems in the American homeland. Other Russian intelligence agencies—especially the Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR—played an important role as well. In 2020, for example, the SVR conducted an attack against dozens of US companies and government agencies by planting malware in a software update from SolarWinds, a company based in Texas that made network monitoring software. In addition, cyber hacking organizations, based in part in Russia, conducted numerous cyber attacks. In 2021, for example, hackers entered the networks of the US-based Colonial Pipeline—which provided nearly half of the US east coast’s fuel, including gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel—and conducted a ransomware attack. In response, Colonial Pipeline temporarily closed its operations and froze its information technology systems, causing massive lines of motorists at gas stations across the east coast of the United States.
Second, Russia conducted aggressive information and disinformation campaigns across the globe, reminiscent of the KGB’s active measures during the Cold War. Some Russian government documents referred to these actions as informatsionnaya bezopasnost (information security), and they included influencing the thinking and, ultimately, the behavior of countries and their populations.42 Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections. Moscow also waged a broad disinformation campaign inside the United States, attempting to inflame social, racial, and political tensions through such issues as Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, the Me Too Movement, gun control, white supremacy, abortion, and immigration. These efforts were led by cells like the GRU’s Military Unit 74455. With Gerasimov’s involvement, Russian agencies also leveraged clandestine organizations to help conduct information operations, such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian organization linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was close to Putin and Russian intelligence. The Internet Research Agency created social media groups and accounts that falsely claimed to be affiliated with US political and grassroots organizations in order to influence US citizens. Russian intelligence agencies also conducted a wide range of disinformation campaigns, including falsely charging the United States with supporting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in countries like Syria and Afghanistan.
Third, Russia leveraged the GRU, SVR, KSO, and other clandestine units to conduct activities such as training foreign forces, directing combat operations, and orchestrating targeted assassinations. For example, Unit 29155 of the GRU, based at the headquarters of the 161st Special Purpose Specialist Training Center on the outskirts of Moscow, was linked to several incidents: the 2014 attack against a Czech ammunition depot; the poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in 2015; a failed coup attempt in Montenegro in 2016; the poisoning in the United Kingdom of Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer that defected to the British; providing aid to Taliban militants in Afghanistan to target foreign forces, including US troops; and the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny in 2020. Russian intelligence agencies also funded white supremacist and other far-right networks in the United States and overseas—mostly through front groups—and spread white supremacist and other far-right propaganda on the internet and social media through clandestine means. In addition, the GRU and SVR ran extensive campaigns to support political leaders in Europe—including far-right organizations like Italy’s Lega Party and Austria’s Freedom Party—in an effort to weaken those countries and to undermine democracy more generally.
Fourth, Moscow expanded its use of private military companies like the Wagner Group to approximately three dozen countries on four continents. The Wagner Group and other private military organizations began operating in countries such as Sudan, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Madagascar, and Venezuela. Gerasimov had watched the United States increasingly utilize private military companies in such campaigns as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and he supported the integration of similar Russian companies into campaigns. The Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, was Russia’s largest private military company. It conducted a variety of missions overseas, providing services that included combat support, training, protective services, and site security. Russia’s strategic aim with its use of private military companies was relatively straightforward: to undermine US power and increase Moscow’s influence. The Russian strategy consisted of using low-profile, deniable forces like militant groups and private military companies that could do everything from providing foreign leaders with security to training, advising, and assisting partner security forces.
Despite Gerasimov’s use of irregular warfare, Russian efforts were not always successful. Russia’s campaign in Ukraine failed to overthrow the pro-Western government and led to several embarrassing incidents, such as the July 2014 shootdown by Russian-backed rebels of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. In addition, the United States and other Western governments enacted sanctions against Russia for a wide range of irregular activities—such as targeted assassinations, offensive cyber operations, and disinformation campaigns to influence US and other Western elections—that hurt Russia’s economy. Furthermore, the United States and European Union blacklisted a number of Russian companies, expelled Russian diplomats from their countries, and enacted travel bans on Russian officials. Washington even barred US banks from buying sovereign bonds from Russia’s central bank, its national wealth fund, and its Finance Ministry. The United States and other Western countries imposed additional sanctions following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Finally, Russia and Russian-backed organizations committed atrocities and human rights abuses that triggered widespread international condemnation and legal action. In 2021, for example, a group of UN experts publicly denounced the use of Russian private military companies—including Sewa Security Services, Lobaye Invest SARLU, and the Wagner Group—in the Central African Republic. The UN experts cited possible “grave” human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law, and they called for investigations into Russia’s abuses.43 In 2021, Human Rights Watch documented the cases of several dozen Libyans that were killed by landmines placed by Wagner Group employees.44 In Syria, Russia blocked several international investigations into the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against its own population. These problems were a stain on Russia’s global image as well as a reflection of the limits of irregular warfare.
IV
The actions of Qassem Soleimani and Valery Gerasimov highlight an important way in which states have competed in the past—and will likely compete in the future. Major powers will continue to build conventional and nuclear capabilities, as well as prepare for conventional and nuclear war. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illustrated that conventional warfare is not dead. But countries like Russia and Iran will also continue to develop irregular capabilities. For several reasons, irregular strategies and capabilities are likely to remain critical—and therefore a focus of the various international powers—in the coming years.
First, war among nuclear powers is likely to be prohibitively costly, especially among states that have a mutual second-strike capability, where no side in a conflict can launch a first strike that prevents retaliation from others. With a second-strike capability, there is a potential for massive destruction of cities, the death of hundreds of thousands of people, significant economic destruction, and long-term health implications. As Charles de Gaulle remarked in May 1960, “[After nuclear war, the] two sides would have neither powers, nor laws, nor cities, nor cultures, nor cradles, nor tombs.”45 In a joint statement decades later, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed, concluding, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”46
The costs of conventional war between nuclear powers are likely to be staggering as well—not least because they risk escalation to nuclear war. “Frontal engagements of large forces at the strategic and operational level are gradually becoming a thing of the past,” wrote Gerasimov in highlighting the growing use of irregular methods.47 According to one analysis, a US-China war could reduce China’s gross domestic product (GDP) by as much as thirty-five percent and the US’s GDP by as much as ten percent, thereby causing widespread economic destruction.48 Both the United States and China in all likelihood would also suffer huge numbers of military and civilian deaths and risk large-scale destruction of their military forces. If war expanded to include their allies—as it did during World War I, World War II, and the Korean War—economic and casualty figures could skyrocket even further.
Many of these wars might take place in—or near—the homeland of competitors: in the Persian Gulf with Iran, in the Baltic countries with Russia, or in South China Sea or Taiwan Strait with China. As some wargames highlight, the United States and its partners could target air defense systems, communications headquarters, missile sites, and other military targets in or around Iranian, Russian, or Chinese territory, thereby risking escalation to nuclear war.49 Based on these considerable costs and risks, leaders are likely to be deterred from engaging in conventional or nuclear war with other major powers—particularly with other nuclear powers. This is especially true for the US.
After all, the United States remains the world’s dominant conventional and nuclear power. In 2020, its defense budget was (by some measures) roughly equivalent to the defense budgets of the next fifteen countries combined.50 The US’s land, air, naval, space, and cyber capabilities are formidable. For Russia, Iran, and even China, choosing to fight a conventional or nuclear war with the United States would be a risky and dangerous proposition indeed.
Second, irregular warfare has already proven to be successful in weakening target countries. As Gerasimov argued, irregular warfare can create “a state of complete chaos, political crisis, and economic collapse” in the target state.51 Moreover, as Gerasimov and Soleimani both recognized, the United States and other Western states are vulnerable to irregular methods. The US military struggled against poorly equipped insurgent groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and other countries. Following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban—whom the United States had been fighting for two decades—overthrew the government of Ashraf Ghani in a matter of weeks. In addition, the United States and other democratic countries have politically divided societies, economies that are heavily digitalized and open, democratically elected governments, as well as a free press—all of which adversaries will attempt to manipulate through irregular means.
These realities create significant incentives for governments to engage in irregular warfare. Qassem Soleimani and Valery Gerasimov were scions of an age-old generation of clandestine warriors. They weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last. But their use of irregular warfare will be studied for generations as examples of how states can try to shift the balance of power in their favor, while remaining below the threshold of conventional and nuclear war.
