forcon
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Post by forcon on Jan 9, 2019 20:37:46 GMT
Nice work!
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 10, 2019 4:41:20 GMT
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forcon
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Post by forcon on Jan 10, 2019 17:18:46 GMT
Eight
Albania and Croatia were soon to become NATO’s newest members, much to Moscow’s horror. Both countries had a long and somewhat complicated history with the western alliance that had lasted throughout the Cold War and the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. Albania’s relationship with NATO had been the lesser troubled one of the two, and the Balkan country had joined NATO’s partnership for peace in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This had, in effect, kick-started Albania’s path to eventually joining NATO. As one of the first eastern European countries to join the partnership for peace programme, Albania was generally a well-received country with a positive relationship with NATO through the 1990s and early 2000s. Albanian politicians considered membership to NATO as a top priority and as a largely bipartisan issue. Croatia had a somewhat less encouraging history with the alliance due to the hugely destructive, multi-sided civil war in Bosnia that had lasted throughout the 90s, involving Croats, Muslims & Serbs all fighting each other. Nevertheless, Croatia had joined the partnership for peace at the turn of the century, joining Albania and several other countries as effective NATO allies without membership. Since 2002, Croatia had contributed soldiers to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Both Albania and Croatia had been on track for NATO membership for several years by the time the alliance fully accepted their memberships on April 1st, 2009. Representatives of both countries had been formally invited to join the NATO alliance at the Bucharest Summit the previous year, and much of what followed was pure formalities. Their ambassadors filed the ‘instruments of accession’ as a final formality at a ceremony in Washington D.C., bringing Albania and Croatia into NATO in the same week as the alliance’s 60th anniversary. Though both of NATO’s newest members had relatively small armed forces, their acceptance as NATO allies was hugely symbolic, given that the region had been in the midst of a horrific civil war only a decade prior. Both countries were welcomed at NATO’s 60th Anniversary Summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany. High on the list of issues to be addressed at the summit was the apparent resurgence of Russia as a major world power hostile to the west. Following the Georgia War and President Medvedev’s ruthless crackdown on protestors, representatives from Eastern Europe tried to draw attention to Moscow’s aggressive behaviour and its newfound sense of confidence. Ultimately, though, Russia’s actions drew little military concern outside of the Baltic States and Poland, apart from the musings of a few NATO officers who attended the summit. Amongst them was Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Shirreff, who commanded NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (AARC). Shirreff, amongst a few others, insisted that Russia needed to be contained and that the successes in Georgia and recent improvements in Russia’s military posture could lead to trouble in NATO’s vulnerable, isolated eastern flank. General Sir Shirreff and his companions weren’t able to publicly air their concerns beyond quite, unofficial conversations with other NATO officials, both military and civilian, though. Brussels kept insisting that Russia was focusing on its own internal strife and couldn’t possibly hope to try to expand westwards.
In Moscow, there was outrage at the ascension of Croatia and Albania to NATO member status. Though it had been public knowledge since the Bucharest Summit last year (and the SVR had known long before then) that the two countries were being invited to join NATO as official member states, President Medvedev – urged by his military Chiefs of Staff and by Prime Minister Putin – needed to react publicly and condemn this event. Serbia, a long-term Russian ally in Europe, was now bordered by yet more NATO countries and was now totally surrounded by the alliance. Moscow had been displeased at NATO’s intervention in the Balkans in 1999, and the idea of a repeat of Operation ALLIED FORCE kept planners awake at night at the Russian Defence Ministry. Though NATO was already at her borders, Russia still frowned at the thought of further nations joining the alliance. Moscow saw it as a direct violation of various agreements made in the 1990s, in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. In looking towards North Africa and the Middle East, Moscow found the perfect way to hit back against what it saw as western encroachment on its sphere of influence.
*
Muammar Gaddafi had become the de facto head of state of Libya in 1969, after leading a coup d’état against King Idris I. Since then, Gaddafi had ruled Libya as any other dictator ruled over his land; with an iron fist. More concerning to the west was Libya’s ongoing sponsorship of anti-western terrorist groups around the world. The United States had carried out numerous military strikes against targets across Libya in response to various terrorist incidents backed, funded, and sometimes even carried out by, Libyan intelligence. One of the worst of such atrocities was the Lockerbie Bombing of 1988, in which 270 people were killed when a Pan-Am airliner was blown up by individuals affiliated with Libyan intelligence, as the jet passed over Scotland. The United States had only reopened its embassy in Libya in 2006, after nearly three decades of refusing to have diplomatic relations with the terrorist state. Libya’s armed forces were in dire need of a major refit. The Libyan Air Force operated ancient MiG-21s & Mig-23s, of which only a few dozen were actually capable of flight after years of neglect and disrepair, while the Libyan Army also desperately needed to replace its ancient T-55 & T-62 tanks. Competence amongst military personnel, from conscripts to generals, was also severely lacking due to poor training and corruption. There had been talks of a major arms deal between Russia and Libya for some years now, but nothing had come of these discussions until Albania and Croatia were allowed to join NATO. Moscow saw it as a hit-back against western interests in the region, and anything that could potentially make the United States bleed in another one of its ‘imperialist’ – in the words of RIA Novosti and such – wars in the Middle East was a good thing. Soon, Libya acquired twenty Sukhoi-30 fighter jets. These were some of the best aircraft in the Russian inventory, armed with ultramodern sensors, radar systems and missiles, and could prove formidable in the hands of a good pilot. Similarly, Russia moved to sell seventy-five T-90MS main battle tanks, almost as good as the American M1A2 systems, to Gaddafi’s Libya. Cargo ships from Russian ports soon began arriving at Tripoli and disembarking such equipment. Most concerningly to outside intelligence sources was the shipment of a pair of S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile systems to Libya. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, had uncovered this particular aspect of the deal from sources in the Libyan military. For several years now, Libya had posed little military threat to the west, with its armed forces trailing far behind even the Iraqi Army of 2003. Now, though, with new equipment and a number of Russian ‘advisors’ operating within the country, Libya’s military looked like it could pose a threat to somebody once again. Egypt and particularly Tunisia voiced their concerns, and the U.S. was deeply displeased with Moscow’s actions. Some hawks in Congress even suggested intercepting ships travelling from Russia to Syria and boarding them to confiscate any weapons systems, but this was not seen as a viable option by the Obama Administration, as it tried to hold relatively friendly relations with the Middle East and North Africa. The new Administration sought to bring an end to eight years of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s neo-conservatism, and taking military action against another Arab state – particularly one with backing from Russia – was the last thing on anybody’s mind.
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Post by redrobin65 on Jan 10, 2019 19:09:47 GMT
Looks like one of Russia's goals is to make sure that NATO is somehow distracted during a conflict. A carrier battlegroup bombing Libya is one less carrier battlegroup bombing Murmansk.
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James G
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Post by James G on Jan 10, 2019 19:55:17 GMT
Looks like one of Russia's goals is to make sure that NATO is somehow distracted during a conflict. A carrier battlegroup bombing Libya is one less carrier battlegroup bombing Murmansk. That certainly would be a very good idea. The Kremlin may wish for other places to provide such a distraction in a wartime scenario... though they might not all be very willing to play a role like that!
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 10, 2019 20:01:13 GMT
Wonder how this might effect the Syrian Civil War a year away.
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James G
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Post by James G on Jan 11, 2019 7:06:43 GMT
Wonder how this might effect the Syrian Civil War a year away. That conflict starts in 2011. So a war in 2010 will naturally play a role in things but butterflies will have an effect.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 11, 2019 9:11:55 GMT
Wonder how this might effect the Syrian Civil War a year away. That conflict starts in 2011. So a war in 2010 will naturally play a role in things but butterflies will have an effect. I think you are right, we are going to see a lot of butterflies going to happen in this timeline.
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James G
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Post by James G on Jan 11, 2019 9:36:02 GMT
That conflict starts in 2011. So a war in 2010 will naturally play a role in things but butterflies will have an effect. I think you are right, we are going to see a lot of butterflies going to happen in this timeline. Many butterflies especially as we get into 2010.
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James G
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Post by James G on Jan 11, 2019 14:57:17 GMT
Nine
Russian military exercises took place while NATO was having its summit beside the Rhine. These were taken serious note of by those meeting on the Franco-German border. However, the exercises weren’t scheduled to take place as an act of intimidation to that event. Small-scale war games had been underway through several months now by the Russian Armed Forces. These included all elements of their armed forces and also included joint exercises with friendly neighbours such as Belarus, Armenia and several of the states in Central Asia. The joint exercises with the Belarusians, inside their country too, occurred when there were protests in late March on the streets of the capital Minsk. These were nothing like what was seen across in Russia five months previously yet took place in spite of that bloody crackdown. Opposition groups in the country celebrated Belarusian Independence Day regardless of what President Lukashenko said about that not being a true event to celebrate. He and his ruling regime had a different idea on celebrations of the country’s independence and they didn’t include March 25th: his opponents disagreed and made it an annual day of civil disobedience. There was some violence in Minsk but nothing of significance. Russian troops inside the country were far away from the capital too.
Last year’s large military exercises following the Russo-Georgia War had brought up many issues to be addressed. The process was underway of attempting to correct problems and test out new methods. It was an ongoing process and not something which was going to be done overnight. Where the different sets of exercises took place throughout Russia itself, inside the territory of its regional allies and also at sea were all part of a bigger picture. The war games which commenced in Western Russia – not that far from the Ukraine whose current relations with Moscow were far from cordial – were all part of that. They could have been cancelled due to the NATO summit but why would the Kremlin want to see that done?
The West wanted to rattle its sabre and so Russia would rattle its own sabre back.
Serdyukov was gone and so were his proposed reforms of the Russian military. There had been too much navel-gazing when it came to the former defence minister and his grand plans for a major military reformation. He had intended to take the Russian Armed Forces into the future, so his ideas had run, and make the nation’s military streamlined and flexible. Terms such as ‘streamlining’ and ‘flexibility’ had been treated by his detractors in the way some of those in the West saw cuts to their own armed forces in the manner of cost-cutting and shrinking capability all behind pretty words. Russia was going to do no such thing, not at a time like this when NATO was acting so aggressively.
Russia would retain its multiple military districts, keep its combat divisions and not ridding itself of its masses of conscripts. There would be some changes because some of Serdyukov’s ideas made a lot of sense but the general overall modernisation wouldn’t take place. There was the issue of funding as well. Russia didn’t have the money to finance the reforms – they would cost a lot to implement all with the intention of making long-term savings – and neither reequip as fully as it would have liked with the latest military gear. In the Kremlin, the recent arms sales to Libya were thought of as a great success yet that wasn’t how the Russian Armed Forces saw things. The Libyans received plenty of new fancy equipment and paid for it… money which wouldn’t be coming to the military in return. It would have been nice to have received even a dividend of that as a cash injection yet that wasn’t to be.
However, it wasn’t a matter of the Russian military itself being shorted everywhere else. They were getting some new equipment and were budgeted for all of the training and exercises they were running. Things were tight but not that tight. There were new tanks, new armoured vehicles, new aircraft, new missiles, new ships, new guns and so on: just not loads and loads. The available money was spent on other things, in less high-profile purchases of equipment which didn’t have the impact as a tank or a missile to those viewing it but were meant to make the Russian Armed Forces more capable. Again, a lot of this came from proposals put forward in Serdyukov’s aborted reforms when the official position was that all that had been scrapped with that man’s time in office.
When fighting Georgia, there had been instances of what was deemed ‘hybrid warfare’.
A lot of problems had occurred when fighting the Georgians but at the same time, successes had come by doing things the non-traditional way when it came to warfare. The rush forward down to Tbilisi had defied what would have been considered the conventional wisdom that Russia’s Fifty–Eighth Army would have had to fight through strong defences in an all-arms battle following long-established doctrine. It had been anticipated on the ground though not met. Part of that was down to Georgia relying on second-rate troops – the best being in Iraq as Tbilisi slavishly followed the Americans there – yet it was more than that. The drive on their capital and entry into it had been made by forward detachments. Russian forces were outnumbered on a tactical basis when going forward through what should have been excellent defensive positions. Wherever they went though, the Georgians couldn’t put up any serious opposition. Russian forces were on their flanks and in the rear. Panic gripped Georgian units at the reports of where other Russian forces were so those ahead of the main elements of the Fifty–Eighth Army melted away. It wasn’t planned that way but that was how it had occurred.
Once in Tbilisi, when faced with no defenders, Russian forces there had followed pre-war existing orders and behaved themselves. This came in the form of not molesting civilians nor directly occupying civilian infrastructure which wasn’t vital for military needs. Just being where they were was enough. Georgian resistance in their capital, where they should have fought for, didn’t crop up. Disruption to Russian communications had come during the war due to geographical factors plus also faulty equipment. If the Russian had problems, they discovered afterwards that the Georgians themselves had had a nightmare trying to communicate during the conflict. A radio electronic warfare unit with the Fifty–Eighth Army had gone under the Roki Tunnel into South Ossetia first and the down into Georgia proper. At the time, claims of the successes it had were treated with caution. Fact-checking afterwards showed how effective this had actually been. The Georgians had been paralysed by this unit which was always on the move and using some very advanced equipment to turn the airwaves into a battlefield which Russian had found itself supreme in.
All of this field experienced was combined with what was going on in the war games using other ideas to practice hybrid warfare once again if necessary. Where that might be, against which opponent, did matter in the grand scheme of things though with the multiple exercises which were taking place that was secondary. What was being done was to get this worked out first so it could be used with ease. Opponents would be decided later by politics. Russia was conducting military exercises where it was having tanks rolling forward, missiles being shot off and aircraft on bomb runs. However, in addition to those, they were making use of more elements of the electronic spectrum and practising navigation by lower-level field reconnaissance units out on their own in unfamiliar terrain… units not using identifying insignia either for the purposes of maximum confusion upon their opponents. There were war games where what militaries in the West would call ‘civil affairs’ tasks were done: dealing with civilian populations on occupied soil without shooting everyone in sight (or looking like they were about to) with the intention of stopping guerrilla actions in their tracks.
The war games would go on all year. Russia’s military capability, rather than its overall composition, was changing shape. This was a difficult process and not something easily done – especially with the refusal to downsize in places where it really was necessary – but it carried on regardless. And as to hybrid warfare, it had more forms than just direct military aspects: other elements of the Russian state were practising the art of those in case they were needed to be used at some point soon too.
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Post by lukedalton on Jan 11, 2019 14:59:31 GMT
Well the 'good colonel' shopping spree will make people here in Italy (and France) a little uneasy, still not overly worried...as Lybian military prowness as not be stellar in the past decades; probably Silvio and the general italian enstablishment will try to made Gheddafi behave (at least for his standard). Lybia is one of our biggest economic patner and despite the 'complicated history' and the colonel mercurial behaviour between our nations there has been always a certain understanding, even if many times things has gone almost to the trashbin.
In any case the italian military presence in Malta will be increased, for both protect the island and our fishermen (libyan coast guard routinely seize them) as the French forces in Africa (Chad expecially).
Well if they want to distract NATO, there is also Chavez in Venezuela and North Korea
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jan 11, 2019 15:24:27 GMT
Well the 'good colonel' shopping spree will make people here in Italy (and France) a little uneasy, still not overly worried...as Lybian military prowness as not be stellar in the past decades; probably Silvio and the general italian enstablishment will try to made Gheddafi behave (at least for his standard). Lybia is one of our biggest economic patner and despite the 'complicated history' and the colonel mercurial behaviour between our nations there has been always a certain understanding, even if many times things has gone almost to the trashbin. If i remember correctly the good colonel also had plans to buy in 2007 some 13–18 Rafales ", if they buy Russian fighters i can see that Paris will not be happy with this.
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James G
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Post by James G on Jan 11, 2019 16:37:15 GMT
Well the 'good colonel' shopping spree will make people here in Italy (and France) a little uneasy, still not overly worried...as Lybian military prowness as not be stellar in the past decades; probably Silvio and the general italian enstablishment will try to made Gheddafi behave (at least for his standard). Lybia is one of our biggest economic patner and despite the 'complicated history' and the colonel mercurial behaviour between our nations there has been always a certain understanding, even if many times things has gone almost to the trashbin. In any case the italian military presence in Malta will be increased, for both protect the island and our fishermen (libyan coast guard routinely seize them) as the French forces in Africa (Chad expecially). Well if they want to distract NATO, there is also Chavez in Venezuela and North Korea Britain's relationship at the time with Libya was rather complicated too. The colonel has a role here in the story. Countries such as those and others will play a role but once the music stops & the shooting starts, some may decide that they no longer want to dance to Moscow's tune. If i remember correctly the good colonel also had plans to buy in 2007 some 13–18 Rafales ", if they buy Russian fighters i can see that Paris will not be happy with this. There are also many other issues with France and Libya at this time including the allegations that Sarkozy's election was brought with Libyan oil cash.
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lordbyron
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Post by lordbyron on Jan 11, 2019 21:39:08 GMT
Good TL so far, waiting for more, of course...
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forcon
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Post by forcon on Jan 12, 2019 14:41:44 GMT
Good TL so far, waiting for more, of course... Thank you very much...more to come later today.
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