While the threat of war seems to be easing, Russia is testing our ability to make workable decisions. The logic of Western democracy makes it difficult to interpret Russia’s movements, writes Laura Halminen, HS’s foreign journalist, in her analysis.
Russia seems ready to continue on the path of diplomacy. Last week, the president Vladimir Putin discussed on the phone the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson with. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on several European countries to respond to what they see as indivisible security.
Are dialogue and diplomacy winning?
Bridge does not appear if you follow the transport of vehicles to Ukraine and Belarus in recent days. Researchers following open sources noticed yesterday that armored prisoner trucks belonging to the Russian National Guard, ie Rosgvardia, have been transferred by train from all over Russia, including Petrozavodsk in Karelia.
If one thinks of a conventional ground attack on Ukraine, there is no point in transporting riot police, the National Guard or arrest vehicles.
The crux of the problem is here: common sense is now overrated.
Senior researcher at Chatham House, a British think tank Keir Giles summarized as follows:
“Rejects all assumptions about what Russia is doing that are based on what liberal Western democracy considers rational,” Giles writes Estonian Institute for Security Policy pages.
“To understand Moscow’s choices, it is necessary to look at the world through Russian lenses, rather than being guided by what makes sense in Washington or Brussels.”
What The Russian administration then in this situation wants?
The answer can be found in Putin’s own words. In November, Putin spoke to Russian Foreign Ministry staff. The speech can be found in its entirety From the Kremlin website.
“Our recent warnings have had an impact: however, tensions have escalated,” Putin said, referring to the enlargement of the military alliance and the missile systems allegedly deployed in Poland and Romania.
“In that sense, I have two points. Firstly, it is important that they remain in this state for as long as possible so that they do not have to think of some kind of conflict on our western borders. We don’t need that, we don’t need a new conflict, ”Putin said.
Second, Putin highlighted the need to work to achieve security guarantees because Putin said Russia could not constantly be thinking about what would happen tomorrow.
They it is us. If not Finland, then NATO and the United States at least.
We are kept on our toes. Now let’s see who Pokka likes and for how long.
Deputy Director of the Moscow Center for Political Technology, Professor Alexei Makarkin called the situation a “nervous war” for HS.
Read more: What is Russia trying to achieve with its letters? There is a “nervous war” in which Russia’s unpredictability puts it in a position of superiority, says researcher
A letter requesting clarification sent to various EU, NATO and OSCE countries is also in the same continuum. The tone of the letter is sour, even accusatory. Answers are expected specifically from states and not from alliances.
Director of the Hybrid Center Teija Tiilikainen called Russia’s operations a typical hybrid operation.
“The intention is probably to dig out different answers and break up the situation,” Tiilikainen said.
Professor Makarkin estimates that the letter will test whether there is variation in the responses of the states. References to disagreements could then be exploited to find a wedge between the parties speaking together, the parties speaking as single-member members of NATO, the EU or the OSCE.
Easy thing, many would think: the answers to Lavrov need to be coordinated together. At least that is what Finland and Sweden intend to do. The EU has similar plans.
Russia is playing time: our time. By holding the initiative and requiring others to hurry, it can try to get the other party in a hurry.
Time and the significance of its use needs little explanation. The decision-making model called odda is suitable for this. In English it is known as the OODA loop.
Oodan developed U.S. Air Force colonel, fighter pilot, and war theorist John Boyd (1927–1997). The model consists of four consecutive steps. They are observation, situation assessment and orientation, decision making and action. The ability to take initiative remains with the party who is able to make and implement his decision faster than the opponent.
The task of the observation phase is to produce information about the operating environment for the needs of the orientation phase. In the orientation phase, an analysis of the situation is prepared. Decision making is based on these. The information, experience and cultural heritage gained during the observation and situation assessment phase are influenced.
Ooda model a comprehensive explanation would require a lot of scientific literature, but now we have to go back to the words of researcher Keir Giles.
The Russian cultural heritage reads the situation differently from Meikäläinen. We have observations, but certain information is scarce. Our findings are also contradictory: transport of equipment around continues, military exercises in Belarus are about to begin and diplomatic messages are buzzing.
According to Boyd, the developer of the Ooda model, it is essential to maintain the highest possible level of flexibility and initiative so that measures can be considered rapid and thus difficult for the counterparty to predict.
Implementing decision-making faster than the opponent guarantees the superiority of information over the opponent. In an operation, it allows you to achieve goals and defeat an opponent.
Russia wants to keep the initiative to itself. Now it’s waiting for how much we panic.
Are we doing this ourselves?
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