JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russian Military Forecasting and Analysis: The Military-Political Situation and Military Potential in Strategic Planning” – RAND
[scroll down for embedded 181-page PDF]
- … Given the large military potential imbalance between the two sides, the continued cohesion of … NATO … will likely force Russia to resolve political grievances without … the use of force against NATO.
- NATO cohesion creates at least three operational problems for Russia. First, [NATO’s combined] preponderance of military potential that could prove decisive in … a protracted conflict.
Second, NATO cohesion could force Russia to launch attacks throughout Europe, making a split in the alliance more unlikely. Third, … Russia’s relatively limited inventory of long-range conventional munitions …. [and] the use of a large swath of European territory to flow in additional forces and … launch attacks against Russian forces.
- Russia will likely seek to avoid simultaneous confrontational relations with China and the West over the next two decades … inhibit[ing] … [foreign policy] flexibility ….
- Current and future … Russian military strategy … from a position of overall weakness relative to the United States and its allies.
- … [this report] emphasizes the deterrence value of strategic nonnuclear capabilities[;] the degree of U.S. and allied superiority in long-range precision munitions offers one key input to gauge … deterrence against Russian military aggression.