Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 13

RUSSIAN WARFARE

(Photo by Musa Sadulayev, Associated Press)

A column of Russian armored vehicles move toward the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, 9 August 2008. South Ossetia has a large population of Russians, and in 1990 it declared its independence from Georgia. Russian forces invaded South Ossetia in support of pro-Russian
separatists after Georgian forces tried to regain control of the territory.

asserted responsibility to protect ethnic Russians in
order to justify violating the national sovereignty of
their neighbors.

Operational Ways
According to Berzins, Russian NGW favors an indirect approach of influence instead of a direct influence of physical confrontation. “NGW moves from
targeting an enemy’s physical assets for destruction
towards psychologi cal warfare to achieve inner morale decay.”15 Berzins demonstrated the success of the
Russian indirect approach in the Crimea, stating that
“in just three weeks, and without a shot being fired,
the morale of the Ukrainian military was broken and
all of their 190 bases had surrendered.”16 As Glenn
Curtis points out in his 1989 paper, An Overview
of Psychological Operations, targeting an adversary’s
morale is nothing new to the Russian military. The
central goal of psychological operations is consistent: “If an opponent’s attitude can be influenced
favorably, his physical resistance will diminish.”17 He
MILITARY REVIEW  May-June 2016

states that Soviet psychological operations were “not
invented by the Bolsheviks in 1917; it was used sporadically for centuries by Russian tsars in domestic
and foreign relations.”18
Although psychological operations hold a
time-honored place in Russian military tradition,
their central role against the West received special
emphasis during the Cold War. They were used by
Moscow to influence activities in Western domestic
politics and to shape outcomes in the Third World.
Disinformation, active measures (influencing an
opponent through seemingly unrelated third parties)
and propaganda represented the front lines between
East and West. A few examples include KGB forgeries
of “official” U.S. government documents authorizing
assassinations and government overthrows as well as
the KGB’s use of the World Peace Council to petition
the U.S. government to make nuclear disarmament
terms that were favorable to the USSR.19 Although
Russia lost the Cold War, they did not abandon the
indirect approach of psychological operations.
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