It doesn’t appear to be working very well:
The Russian air force practised using weapons from its nuclear arsenal, while in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which neighbours Poland, Red Army forces stormed a “Polish” beach and attacked a gas pipeline.
The operation also involved the simulated suppression of an uprising by a national minority in Belarus – the country has a significant Polish population which has a strained relationship with authoritarian government of Belarus.
Karol Karski, an MP from Poland’s Law and Justice, is to table parliamentary questions on Russia’s war games and has protested to the European Commission.
His colleague, Marek Opiola MP, said: “It’s an attempt to put us in our place. Don’t forget all this happened on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.”
Actually, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion occurred back when the US decided to remove land-based defensive systems from Eastern Europe, leaving their governments twisting in the wind. By 6 October 1939, it was all over.
Mr. Opiola must have somehow forgotten who his friends are.
Russia’s going to be an interesting case to watch, wearily, for the next few years. Like Clint Eastwood with terminal lung cancer in Gran Torino (not to besmirch that great character by associating him with Russia) Russia is facing its own terminal diagnosis in a swiftly declining population and AIDS epidemic which very easily points to possible collapse in the mid term. They kind of have nothing to lose by going crazy, and geopolitically/strategically have a lot of natural resources with very indefensible borders. As an oil exporter they WANT unrest in the middle east. This is to both up the price of the only thing their economy can practically make (other than Su-30′s, S-300′s and Kilo SS’s) and to keep us bogged down, hence freeing them up to bully and control their traditional spheres of influence, a glacis against invasion if you will. But I honestly fear that they can see the writing on the wall. Combined with the traditional Russian paranoia (born, like most traditions, from the bitter experience of frequent invasion throughout their history, plus a perhaps unhealthy degree of machismo in their culture) this could lead them to react in unpredictable and pretty undesirable ways. After all, what IS your foreign policy when your own country has practically no future? Conceal your weakness by billowing up as big as possible is always a fallback. Try to rebirth your country in the purifying flames of war is another, and one that has not been beneath mankind historically. For the most egregious example google Oswald Spengler and then the Nazis.
Meanwhile the “recharge” mistranslated button, waffling on every foreign policy issue, and perception of complete weakness in Obama isn’t giving them any chance to reflect or think twice about their decisions. The Russians under communism may have made poor economists, but they weren’t poor strategists. The KGB and their political intelligence operations in their own and foreign countries were one of the few things they did better than us during the cold war, like rocketry and working with titanium.
We are under the Chine Curse of living in interesting times. Play time for our “Leaders” has to severley truncated.
I had hoped, no, expected, that our countries safety would have come before the political parties desires. Appears not.
Perhaps they do not think we deserve it, the way BHO apologies for us all over the world.
The author of the article (Matthew Day) made one small error: the Red Army no longer exists. What took its place was the Russian Ground Forces under the Russian Federation ca. 1991. That’s the only error that I could see.
I recall us sometimes going thru all sorts of hoops when one us lowly ranked people wrote up a training scenario and used the term “Soviets” to describe the antagonists….
After some more time in service, and some academic time in NPT, I then understood some of the “senstitivities” of my elders…..
These Russians…don’t they know who you name for your field exercises as an enemy can telegraph you strategic planning process….I guess they actually do. My fear is the US State Dept and the White house will count it as a “small mistake” meaning nothing at all…just a paperwork glitch.
Incidentally, Kaliningrad (and the surrounding “Russian” territory) is a post-WWII fabrication renaming the old Prussian city of Konigsberg, which to my knowledge was never considered Russian until the Red Army destroyed it in the spring of 1945. For a gripping account of the horrific end, read “The Forgotten Soldier” by Guy Sager. Sager had the unique perspective of being a French volunteer serving in the Wehrmacht on the eastern front from 1942-1945.
My grandfather was wounded fighting there.