Russian Armed Forces Develop an "Information Pipeline"
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 146
July 30, 2009 11:56 AM Age: 3 days
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, Military/Security, Foreign Policy, The Caucasus, Georgia, Russia

Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev inspects weapons during his visit in 7-th
Airborne Assault Division at Rayevsky firing range in Novorossiysk on
July 14, 2009.
From June 29 to
July 6, the Russian military staged massive Kavkaz 2009 exercises
involving air force, army and naval units. During Kavkaz-2009, forces
were deployed on Georgia's borders and in the breakaway regions of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The official aim of Kavkaz 2009 was to
prepare to counter terrorism, but this was clearly not the main
objective. Unprecedented in Russian military tradition, its top
military commander, the Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy
Defense Minister General of the Army Nikolai Makarov was directly in
command of Kavkaz 2009 - officially a routine regional exercise aimed
at countering terrorism (EDM, June 18).
On July 14 in
Novorossiysk President Dmitry Medvedev, visited the Black Sea Fleet
flagship cruiser Moskva and inspected troops of the 7th Airborne (VDV)
division that were both involved in Kavkaz 2009. In Novorossiysk
Medvedev attended a top brass meeting together with Makarov and Defense
Minister Anatoly Serdyukov aimed at assessing the results of Kavkaz
2009 (EDM, July 16).
Officially, the Kavkaz 2009
"operational-strategic exercises" were declared to be a success. A
spokesman for the press service of the North Caucasus Military District
(MD) Lieutenant-Colonel Andrei Boburin told reporters: "The goal of the
exercise was to examine the actual battle and mobilization readiness of
troops deployed in the southwestern region of Russia. All objectives
were achieved and targets hit in conditions that were as close to real
combat as possible" (RIA Novosti, July 6). Last week in the Kremlin
Medvedev told top military commanders, "By the way, the recent
exercises Kavkaz 2009 in one of the elements of which I participated,
demonstrated that coordinated action by the armed forces, law
enforcement structures and the Federal Security Service (FSB) can
increase manifold the effectiveness of our actions" (www.kremlin.ru,
July 20).
Kavkaz 2009 was held under a tight cloak of secrecy
and the reports of their successful outcome remain vague. No foreign
observers were invited. There are no official explanations as to what
made Kavkaz-2009 so special that it justified putting Makarov in
command, with Medvedev and Serdyukov participating.
Last week a
report in the Moscow Gazeta daily quoted a source in the General Staff
as saying that the main objective of Kavkaz 2009 was to test a new
computerized command and control system. An Akatsia intelligence
gathering system was reportedly tested to supply online-summarized
information from the battlefield to upper-level operational staffs, as
well as to the General Staff. A joint tactical command system Sozvezdie
("Constellation") was deployed to relay orders to battlefield units
directly and online from the main operational staff. The Akatsia and
Sozvezdie systems were designed to create a summarized situation
environment on staff displays using information inputs from commanders,
lookouts, drones and satellites to allow the commanding generals to
make decisions based on online information and directly relay them to
the troops. During a press conference on June 5, Makarov complained
that the military lacks modern intelligence gathering and command and
control systems, as was demonstrated during the war with Georgia in
August 2008. The army, air force, navy and other armed forces branches
has separate intelligence, command and control networks, said Makarov,
but now a new joint "information pipeline" is being built to provide
staffs and commanders of all services with information.
According
to Gazeta, during Kavkaz 2009 the Akatsia and Sozvezdie systems did not
live up to expectations: Makarov in the operational headquarters did
have displays working, but the information did not come directly from
remote battlefield sensors, but was punched in by officers sitting in
an adjacent room. Makarov's orders also did not go directly to the
battlefield during Kavkaz 2009, through the digital information
pipeline, but were relayed by staff officers using voice radios and
field telephones. Replying to a Gazeta request for information, the
North Caucasus MD operational staff stated that they did not know about
any communication mishaps during Kavkaz 2009 (www.gzt.ru, July 20).
After
the visit to Moscow earlier this month by President Barack Obama, the
Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili announced that the threat of a
new war had receded as a direct result of American pressure on Russia.
Speaking at a meeting of the National Security Council in Tbilisi on
July 9, Saakashvili announced: "Russia planned another war against
Georgia, but fortunately due to the support of our strategic partners
and the entire democratic world they were not allowed to do so" (The
Georgian Times, July 14). U.S. pressure could indeed have played a
role, but the reported underperformance of the Akatsia and Sozvezdie
systems during Kavkaz 2009 could have been another serious restricting
factor.
The Russian defense ministry is frantically trying to
improve its battlefield intelligence gathering and its command and
control capabilities. The new VDV commander Lieutenant-General Vladimir
Shamanov told reporters this week that to supplement the lack of
sufficient numbers of intelligence gathering drones, "it is possible to
deploy in Abkhazia or South Ossetia light small propeller-engine manned
An-2 or An-3 planes" for intelligence gathering "if the opposing air
defenses are weak" (RIA Novosti, July 28).
The overall situation
remains very tense. There is no letup in Russian officials making
threatening statements, accusing Georgia of rearming with Western help,
and of preparing "provocations" and planning treacherous new armed
attacks against Abkhazia and South Ossetia (ITAR-TASS, July 23; RIA
Novosti, July 29). It is unclear, whether any possible military action
against Georgia will be postponed until the Akatsia and Sozvezdie
systems effectively go online in the future, or if improvised shortcuts
will be swiftly employed before the good weather season ends this year
in the fall.
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