About
"strategy"--the term so abused in pop-media that people simply lost
the meaning of strategy as means of attaining desired objective in general, and
of the political objectives of a war in a military sense. Allow me to quote my
poor dear self (I know, not the ethical thing to do). Here it is, from my piece
from last year:
This
was written long before Vladimir Putin's speech on March 1 this year. Things
changed drastically since then. Against the background of USS Harry Truman CBG doing its thing allegedly against IS targets
in Syria, Russia, whose main objective in the area is not to allow the mess
there go out of control and deter any suicidal desire to unleash wider conflict
made her point today.
"It is a cutting-edge weapon, namely a hypersonic long-range missile capable of overcoming air and missile defenses. It is invincible, having serious combat might and potential. The MIG-31 is its carrier as the jet is the most fitted for accelerating this missile to required speeds," he said. "In support that it is not something exotic, [I’ll say] today ten jets have gone on test combat duty and are ready for use depending on the situation," Borisov said.
This is a clear cut warning against
doing anything stupid since Russia here does control escalation (God forbids)
in a precisely conventional (that is non-nuclear) way--any surface asset of any navy today is
simply defenseless against single, not to speak of ten, hyper-sonic Kinzhals'
salvo. It is one thing to demonstrate force, totally another--having
counter-force capable of defeating any combination of demonstrator's forces.
That is precisely the case here with Eastern Mediterranean and Russian bases in
Syria. As long as the parties involved understand the strategic score, everything
should be fine, otherwise we may be in line for a rather dramatic demonstration
of the weapons which already completely redefined naval warfare and nobody in their own mind
wants this demonstration. My feel (hopefully correct) is that American side on
a political level (the one which only matters in a decision making process) finally
begins to get the
"message" from people who do understand real ramifications and
that is what was needed from the get go. Russia doesn't want to fight the US and
her strategy works. With increasing number of hyper-sonic weapons of Kinzhal or
Zircon capabilities being procured the outcome of purely conventional war in the
Eastern Med is very easy to predict but I hate to even venture there.
![]() |
Over Moscow |
Just a small visual representation
of the kill-zone with the range of 900 miles being covered with possible drop
points for two Kinzhals with Mach=2+ capable Mig-31s launching from immediate readiness
from some airfields in Crimea and Krasnodar. It would take roughly 10 minutes
to reach a drop zone and then with Mach=10 Kinzhals with their speed of 2+
miles per second having about 900/2=450 seconds, or 7.5 minutes to reach
targets in Eastern Med. In all--17-20 minutes to respond. I do not imply
anything here--I merely wanted to demonstrate the order of magnitude of ranges
and speeds involved. In any possible conflict I don't think that Kinzhals will
attack CVN itself. Enough to "peel off" Aegis carrying destroyers and
cruisers. That is basically what Borisov said today.
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