About

Is what you read in Russian Defense Policy interesting and useful to you?  If so, the author is available for hire, contracting, or consulting.  Leave a comment with what you have in mind, along with contact information.  Thanks for reading.

5 Responses to About

  1. Michelle | September 28, 2011 at 9:55 am | Reply

    Good morning,

    the piece ‘Military prestige’ you posted on 22 septembre is very interesting. It is interesting to see how the prestige of the military has declined so much the last years. Especially because I am doing research in exactly this subject: the prestige of military service in Russia.
    is it possbible that I call you this week to ask more about this subject?
    you can e-mail me at: michelle.salomons@student.hu.nl.

    I hope to hear from you.

    Best regards, Michelle

  2. Michelle | October 3, 2011 at 10:04 am | Reply

    Okay, thanks. What is, do you think, the main cause, why the prestige of militants has declined that much the last years? And (how) is it possible to uplift the prestige?

  3. John | December 14, 2011 at 11:16 pm | Reply

    Remember Michelle that this is a public blog. We are not getting a classified perspective of Russia in relation to their defense policy. Things could be very different on the inside and it’s not like Putin’s intelligence agencies are going to be running about telling everything about what their defense policies really are.

  4. Russian Defense Policy | December 15, 2011 at 8:00 am | Reply

    You’re right, this isn’t based on classified intelligence reports. In this particular example, it’s understandable every military in the world has its own closely-held internal assessment of the state of its morale. But this author believes if you picked either intel reporting or media reporting, the latter would get you a more accurate picture of what’s happening inside the Defense Ministry. In Cold War days, we had intel and official media. We often disregarded intel that said they were doing poorly. Run this out to its logical conclusion, and that’s how we failed to provide strategic analytical warning of the USSR’s impending collapse. Read correctly (kind of like tea leaves), the official media could tell us about macro changes in defense trends.Today we have large and largely independent Russian (commercial and social) media which can tell us a tremendous amount about what’s happening in the military and elsewhere. And it’s harder (not impossible) for the regime to keep things secret. Don’t take this the wrong way, really good intel reporting can still be a game-changer. But there probably isn’t enough of it to provide a full picture of Russia’s military.

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