community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/fmso/ Foreign Military Studies Office Volume 9 Issue #5 OEWATCH May 2019 FOREIGN NEWS & PERSPECTIVES OF THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT EURASIA Officers 3 Russia’s Anti-Trojan Horse Strategy 25 China Pushes Military Education Throughout Academia AFRICA 4 Russian Operational Art, Military Science, and Leadership 26 China Claims Lead in Blockchain Projects 50 Why Moscow Backed Sudan’s Embattled President Signaled From Syria 28 India’s Improvements in Artillery 51 South Sudan: Does Humanitarian Aid Fuel the Conflict? 5 The Rising Profile of Russia’s Military Police 29 Military Delegates to China’s “Two Meetings” Discuss 52 Africa’s Crushing Debt to China 7 Turning Back the Clock: Will Russia Revert from Brigades to Enhancing Joint Training, Interoperability 53 Somalia: Worries Over Withdrawal of Kenyan Military Divisions? 31 Learning Without Fighting: New Developments in PLA 54 Concern after French Military Doctor’s Death in Mali 8 Chief of Manpower Sees No End to Conscription in the Artificial Intelligence War-Gaming 55 Malian Interethnic Massacre: Did Army Focus Too Much on Near Future 32 CETC Offers Unmanned Maritime Sensor System for South Islamists? 9 Blades to the Brigades: Northern Fleet Ground Forces China Sea 56 DRC’s Army and Police: Still Not Ready for Primetime Receive Arctic Bulldozers 33 China Launches New Communications Relay Satellite 57 Muhammadu Buhari Comments on Boko Haram in Nigeria 10 How Much and What is to be Shipped on the Northern Sea 34 New Chinese Remote-Controlled Minesweeper on Display Route? in Abu Dhabi Defense Expo LATIN AMERICA 11 Maneuver Defense Training in Preparation for Tsentr 2019 58 Brazil’s Guarani Infantry Fighting Vehicle Gets Another 12 Maritime Requirements for Northern Sea Route MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA Upgrade 13 Year-round Transport of Arctic Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) 35 Iran: Khamenei Threatens to Use Precision Missiles 59 Authorities Transfer Key Leaders of the First Capital Command 14 A Russian View of NATO: Organized Criminal Group 36 Iran Conducts its Largest UAV Exercise in Brazil 15 Achilles Heel of Russian Defense? 37 Supreme Leader: Do Not Let the Enemy Dominate 60 Bolivia Next? 16 Defending Soviet Memory Cyberspace 61 Me-too Colombia 17 The Impact of Azerbaijan’s Statements 38 Iran Cements its Presence in Syria 62 Colombia Roadblock Tactic 18 Russia’s Military Presence in Kyrgyzstan 40 Aspiring Social Media Influencers in Damascus 63 FARC Peace Accords: A 2019 Snapshot 19 Estonian Officials Express Security Concern 41 What to do with ISIS Detainees and Returnees? 65 How Colombia’s President is Dealing with Internal Security 20 NATO’s Latest Drill Shows Changing Threats 43 The SDF’s Role in Syria’s Future Issues 44 Disagreements Between Moscow, Damascus and Tehran 66 Maritime Disarray in Venezuela INDO-PACIFIC 45 Perceived Kurdish YPG Threat May Lead to Turkey, Syria 67 Route 32: Costa Rica’s Gateway to the Silk Road Economic Belt 22 Philippine Officials Allege Communist Insurgents Use NGO and Iran Alliance 68 China’s Aid to Ecuador Through OBOR: Strategic Cooperation Fronts 46 Russia’s Game Plan and Turkish-Russian Joint Patrols in or Strategic Trap? 23 Indonesian Muslim Organization Responds to Idlib 70 CJNG Members Arrested in Veracruz New Zealand Attack 47 Turkish Perspectives on the S-400 Purchase from Russia 24 China’s Expectations Grow for its Non-Commissioned Staff 48 Are Yemeni Southerners Seeking to Revive Soviet-Era Ties? approved for public release; distribution is unlimited The Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is part of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command G-2, whose mission OEWATCH is to Understand, Describe, Deliver, and Assess the conditions of the Operational Foreign News & Perspectives Environment. For over 30 years, FMSO of the Operational Environment has conducted open source research Volume 9 | Issue 5 May | 2019 on foreign perspectives of defense and security issues, emphasizing those topics that are understudied or unconsidered. Regional Analysts and Expert Contributors Operational Environment Watch provides translated selections with Eurasia Chuck Bartles background from a diverse range Geoff Demarest Matti Dimmick of foreign media that our analysts Ray Finch and expert contributors believe will Les Grau give security professionals an added Matthew Stein dimension to their critical thinking Tom Wilhelm about the Operational Environment. Indo-Pacific Cindy Hurst Elsa Kania Matthew Stein The views expressed in each article are those of Peter Wood the author and do not represent the official policy or Jacob Zenn position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US Government. Release of this Middle East, North Africa Ihsan Gündüz information does not imply any commitment or intent Karen Kaya on the part of the US Government to provide any Michael Rubin additional information on any topic presented herein. Lucas Winter The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute Robert Feldman endorsement by the US Army of the referenced site Africa Jacob Zenn or the information, products, or services contained therein. Users should exercise caution in accessing Dodge Billingsley hyperlinks. Latin America Robert Bunker The Operational Environment Watch is archived Geoff Demarest and available at: https://community.apan.org/wg/ Brenda Fiegel tradoc-g2/fmso/. Alma Keshavarz Catalina Wedman ON THE COVER: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei meets with Iran’s Assembly of Experts Editor-in-Chief Tom Wilhelm Source: Gerdab.ir, https://gerdab.ir/files/fa/news/1397/12/25/41546_312.jpg. Editor Karen Kaya Design Editor Thomas Tolare EURASIA Russia’s Anti-Trojan Horse Strategy OE Watch Commentary: The Kremlin’s strategy of restoring Russia’s superpower status is predicated largely on reforming and modernizing the country’s armed forces and related security services. According to their calculus, robust military forces will ultimately translate into greater global influence, which in turn will result in a more prosperous and stronger Russia. From the Kremlin’s perspective, the West (particularly the US) remains the chief obstacle in realizing this strategy. In the brief accompanying excerpt from Russia’s main military newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, Russia’s top general, at a meeting at the Academy of Military Sciences, “gave a report about the main directions of development of military strategy and about tasks of military science.” Some of his comments merit closer attention. After making an obligatory nod to the importance of military science, Gerasimov asserts that “the United States and its allies determined the aggressive vector of their foreign policy.” He suggests that the US strategy is built around a combination of “military actions of an offensive nature such as global strike,” combined with the “technologies of color revolutions and soft power.” The US strategy which “has been dubbed the ‘Trojan horse,’” according to Gerasimov “is the elimination of statehood of undesirable countries, the undermining of sovereignty, and a change of legally elected state authorities.” This presumably includes General V. Gerasimov Russia. Source: Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Valery_Gerasimov_(2015- 05-12).jpg, CCA-SA 3.0 Gerasimov claims that “the Russian Federation is ready to counter any of these strategies,” suggesting that the essence of the Russian response “is the ‘strategy of active defense,’ which… envisages a set of measures for preemptive neutralization of threats to national security,” and which will allow the Russian military to “be a step ahead.” The backbone of Russia’s defense strategy, according to Gerasimov, is the “substantiation and upgrading of nuclear and nonnuclear deterrence measures,” which include “state-of-the-art models of arms, including fundamentally new kinds of weapons.” He then goes on to list some of these modern weapons: “Avangard, Sarmat, and the newest Peresvet and Kinzhal weapons have shown their high effectiveness, and the Poseydon and Burevestnik complexes are going through successful tests. Scheduled work is proceeding on creation of the Tsirkon hypersonic sea-launched missile.” However, unlike the USSR, which invested heavily into defense (and which hastened its demise), Gerasimov points out that “the creation of new weapon models will not draw Russia into a new arms race.” End OE Watch Commentary (Finch) “Any potential aggressor has to understand that any form of pressure on Russia and its allies is pointless.” Source: General Valeriy Gerasimov, “Векторы развития военной стратегии (Vectors of Development of Military Strategy),” Krasnaya Zvezda Online, 4 March 2019. http://redstar.ru/vektory-razvitiya-voennoj-strategii/?attempt=1 General of the Army Valeriy Gerasimov, chief of RF [Russian Federation] Armed Forces General Staff, spoke at a general assembly of the Academy of Military Sciences…. This year we are examining questions of the development of military strategy under today’s conditions…. Meanwhile, Russia’s geopolitical rivals do not conceal that they plan to achieve political goals not just in the course of local conflicts. They are preparing to wage wars against a “high-tech enemy” using precision-guided munitions (PGM) from the air, sea, and space, with active conduct of information warfare…. Therefore, a search for rational strategies of waging war against a varying enemy acquires priority importance for developing the theory and practice of military strategy. …The United States and its allies determined the aggressive vector