The State of Affairs in Russia

[Valmy]

What is Russia's game with this?  Is it childish behavior, intimidation, or a play akin to a training exercise right before invasion?

It's just history repeating itself.  First as tragedy, the second  as Farce.

I read it as "France" instead of "Farce". Which I suppose is the same thing.

The tragedy happens to Poland, the farce happens to France.  Well at least that holds up for WWII.

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/nato-anxious-over-russia-s-nuclear-strategy/515471.html

NATO Anxious Over Russia's Nuclear Strategy

Concern is growing in NATO over Russia's nuclear strategy and indications that Russian military planners may be lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons in any conflict, alliance diplomats say.

NATO officials have drawn up an analysis of Russian nuclear strategy that will be discussed by alliance defense ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

The study comes amid high tension between NATO and Russia over the Ukraine conflict and rising suspicions on both sides that risk plunging Europe back into a Cold War-style confrontation.

Western concerns have also been fueled by increasingly aggressive Russian air and sea patrolling close to NATO's borders, such as two Russian "Bear" nuclear-capable bombers that flew over the English Channel last week.

The threat of nuclear war that once hung over the world has eased since the Cold War amid sharp reductions in warheads but Russia and the United States, NATO's main military power, retain massively destructive nuclear arsenals.

Russia's nuclear strategy appears to point to a lowering of the threshold for using nuclear weapons in any conflict, NATO diplomats say.

"What worries us most in this strategy is the modernization of the Russian nuclear forces, the increase in the level of training of those forces and the possible combination between conventional actions and the use of nuclear forces, including possibly in the framework of a hybrid war," one diplomat said.

Russia's use of hybrid warfare in Ukraine, combining elements such as unmarked soldiers, disinformation and cyber attacks, has led NATO's military planners to review their strategies for dealing with Russia.

All the NATO countries, except France which is not a member, will meet on Thursday as part of NATO's Nuclear Planning Group, which NATO officials describe as a routine meeting focusing on the safety and effectiveness of NATO's nuclear deterrent.

Implications
But all 28 ministers, including U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, will have a broader discussion of Russia's nuclear strategy over lunch. No immediate action is expected from NATO's side.

Ministers are likely to ask officials to look into the implications of Russia's nuclear strategy for the alliance, and only then could there be any consideration of whether any changes were needed to NATO's nuclear posture.

At a time of heightened tension with the West, Russia has not been shy about reasserting its status as a nuclear power.

President Vladimir Putin pointedly noted last August that Russia was a leading nuclear power when he advised potential enemies: "It's best not to mess with us."

A report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service last year said Russia "seems to have increased its reliance on nuclear weapons in its national security concept."

Russia has embarked on a multibillion-dollar military modernization program and Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov, said last week that support for Russia's strategic nuclear forces combined with improvements in conventional forces would ensure that the United States and NATO did not gain military superiority.

He said the Russian military would receive more than 50 new intercontinental nuclear missiles this year.

In December, Putin signed a new military doctrine, naming NATO expansion as a key risk. Before the new doctrine was agreed, there had been some calls from the military to restore to the doctrine a line about the right to a first nuclear strike.

Doctrine
This was not included in the new doctrine, however, which says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear strike or a conventional attack that endangered the state's existence.

NATO's 2010 "strategic concept" says deterrence, "based on an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities, remains a core element of our overall strategy."

Washington and Moscow have traded accusations that the other has violated a Cold War-era arms control agreement.

The United States accuses Moscow of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty by testing a ground-launched cruise missile. Russia argues that Washington's use of drones and other intermediate-range arms amounts to a violation of the treaty.

A senior NATO official said Russia's Zapad exercise in 2013 was "supposed to be a counter-terrorism exercise but it involved the [simulated] use of nuclear weapons."

The Arms Control Association (ACA), a Washington-based advocacy group, estimates Russia has about 1,512 strategic, or long-range, nuclear warheads, a further 1,000 non-deployed strategic warheads and about 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads.

[The Brain]

Russia's use of hybrid warfare

[CountDeMoney]

At a time of heightened tension with the West, Russia has not been shy about reasserting its status as a nuclear power.

President Vladimir Putin pointedly noted last August that Russia was a leading nuclear power when he advised potential enemies: "It's best not to mess with us."

A report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service last year said Russia "seems to have increased its reliance on nuclear weapons in its national security concept."

That's because that's all they have left.  Beating Georgia like an NFC South team and using proxies in the Ukraine just doesn't cut it as geopolitical currency anymore.  Their nukes are all they have left in their Big Boy Pants.

[Tonitrus]

Pentagon 2008 study claims Putin has Asperger's syndrome
Ray Locker, USA TODAY 11:25 p.m. EST February 4, 2015

WASHINGTON — A study from a Pentagon think tank theorizes that Russian President Vladimir Putin has Asperger's syndrome, "an autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions," according to the 2008 report obtained by USA TODAY.

Putin's "neurological development was significantly interrupted in infancy," wrote Brenda Connors, an expert in movement pattern analysis at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Studies of his movement, Connors wrote, reveal "that the Russian President carries a neurological abnormality."

The 2008 study was one of many by Connors and her colleagues, who are contractors for the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), an internal Pentagon think tank that helps devise long-term military strategy. The 2008 report and a 2011 study were provided to USA TODAY as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.

Researchers can't prove their theory about Putin and Asperger's, the report said, because they were not able to perform a brain scan on the Russian president. The report cites work by autism specialists as backing their findings. It is not known whether the research has been acted on by Pentagon or administration officials.

The 2008 report cites Dr. Stephen Porges, who is now a University of North Carolina psychiatry professor, as concluding that "Putin carries a form of autism." However, Porges said Wednesday he had never seen the finished report and "would back off saying he has Asperger's."

Instead, Porges said, his analysis was that U.S. officials needed to find quieter settings in which to deal with Putin, whose behavior and facial expressions reveal someone who is defensive in large social settings. Although these features are observed in Asperger's, they are also observed in individuals who have difficulties staying calm in social settings and have low thresholds to be reactive. "If you need to do things with him, you don't want to be in a big state affair but more of one-on-one situation someplace somewhere quiet," he said.

Putin's actions have been under particular scrutiny since early 2014, when Russian annexed Crimea from neighboring Ukraine. Since then, Russia has backed Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine while the United States and European allies have started a series of economic sanctions that have weakened the Russian economy.

USA TODAY reported in March 2014 about the Office of Net Assessment's support for the research, but the Pentagon did not release the details of its studies. At the time, Pentagon officials said the research did not reach Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel or his predecessors. That is still true, said Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

The Office of Net Assessment provides long-range plans for the Pentagon and helps shape future strategy. It has been particularly active in developing the military's "pivot to Asia," which has emphasized strategies to deal with China.

Connors' team has done several studies on Putin for ONA beyond those from 2008 and 2011, Henderson said.

Connors' program is called Body Leads. Military contract records show the Pentagon has paid at least $365,000 on outside experts to work with her since 2009. The two reports mention other work she and associates have done since Putin's rise to power, including a 2005 study called "An Act of Trust to Move Ahead" and studies in 2004-05 and 2008 by movement pattern analysis pioneer Warren Lamb.

Both reports, the 2008 study of Putin and a 2011 analysis of Putin and then-President Dimitry Medvedev, cite Putin's physical difficulties as shaping his decision making and behavior. "His primary form of compensation is extreme control," which "is reflected in his decision style and how he governs," the report said.

Military analysts first noticed Putin's movement patterns on Jan. 1, 2000, "in the first television footage ever seen of the then, newly appointed president of Russia," wrote Connors, who has been studying movement patterns for the Pentagon since 1996.

"Today, project neurologists confirm this research project's earlier hypothesis that very early in life perhaps, even in utero, Putin suffered a huge hemispheric event to the left temporal lobe of the prefrontal cortex, which involves both central and peripheral nervous systems, gross motor functioning on his right side (head, rib cage, arm and leg) and his micro facial expression, eye gaze, hearing and voice and general affect," the report said.

MPA'S HISTORY

Movement pattern analysis means studying an individual's movements to gain clues about how he or she makes decisions or reacts to events. First developed in Great Britain in the 1940s by Rudolf Laban, a Hungarian movement analyst and dance instructor, the practice was expanded after World War II by Lamb, Laban's protégé and a British management consultant.

Experts believe each individual has a unique "body signature" that tracks how one body movement links to the next. These "posture/gesture mergers" can lead investigators to learn more about a person's thinking processes and relative truthfulness when combined with the person's speaking.

Lamb, who died last year at age 90, believed the patterns were unique as DNA to each person.

Since July 2011, the war college had paid more than $230,000 to Richard Rende, a Brown University psychiatrist and specialist in the field of movement pattern analysis, federal spending records show. Rende received a no-bid contract last year for his work on the Body Leads project.

Timothy Colton, a Harvard University expert on Russia, has been paid $113,915 since 2009 for his research with Connors, military contract records show.

Rende, Connors and Colton published in September 2013 a paper in the academic journal Frontiers in Psychology that detailed the uses of movement pattern analysis to determine leaders' decision-making process. Such analysis, they wrote, "offers a unique window into individual differences in decision-making style."

"The premise of Body Leads," Connors wrote in 2011, "is that meticulous attention to nonverbal signals — to the physical movement of the body and its parts, as distinct from speech — yield insights into the behavior of individuals, including for present purposes political leaders."

TANDEM STYLE

In 2011, Connors finished a study for Net Assessment on the interactions between Putin and Medvedev, who succeeded Putin as president between 2008 and 2012 and who is now Russia's prime minister.

The difficulty in getting accurate, real-time information about Russia and its leaders made the use of movement pattern analysis critical for U.S. officials, Connors wrote. Lamb, she wrote, analyzed Medvedev in the spring and summer of 2008, and they worked together to develop their analysis of the two leaders.

Medvedev, she wrote, is an "Action Man," who "is inclined to size up situations quickly and to do so in black and white terms, shunning subtler shades of gray."

Putin, on the other hand, "has very different predilections," and "methodically cycles back to aspects of the problem facing him, continuing revising data to verify his research and confirm his priorities," the report said.

U.S. officials should present "the information-craving" Putin with "meaty policy research and white papers," Connors recommended. "Putin the private decision maker cannot be expected to enter into public exchanges with others on information interpretation or a final course of action."

Medvedev, she wrote, should be presented with "priorities that both resonate with his values and declared objectives and contain a timeline for commitment, the stage where he is most at home."

[DGuller]

Maybe now Seedy will finally see who our real #1 enemy is.

[CountDeMoney]

lol, Assburgers.

The guy's a stone cold sociopath.

[The Brain]

Putin has been diagnosed with Parkinson's and has accelerated the plans for war.

[KRonn]

Putin has been diagnosed with Parkinson's and has accelerated the plans for war.

[Tonitrus]

Putin has been diagnosed with Parkinson's and has accelerated the plans for war.

[PJL]

Given the diagnosis. I think a Stalin-Putin photo would be more relevant.

[Sheilbh]

Putin could attack Baltic states warns former Nato chief
Vladimir Putin could mastermind a hybrid attack on a Baltic state to test whether Nato would mobilise, warns Anders Fogh Rasmussen
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard5:46PM GMT 05 Feb 2015

Vladimir Putin has dangerous ambitions beyond Ukraine and aims to test Western resolve in the Baltic states, the former head of Nato has warned.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former secretary-general of the Atlantic alliance, said the Kremlin's true goal is to shatter Nato solidarity and reassert Russian dominance over Eastern Europe.

"This is not about Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great power," he told The Telegraph.

"There is a high probability that he will intervene in the Baltics to test Nato's Article 5," he said, referring to the solidarity clause that underpins collective security.

"Putin knows that if he crosses the red line and attacks a Nato ally, he will be defeated. Let us be quite clear about that. But he is a specialist in hybrid warfare," he said.

The fear is that the Kremlin will generate a murky conflict in Estonia or Latvia where there are large Russian minorities, using arms-length action or "little green men" without insignia to disguise any intervention. This may tempt weaker Nato members to play down the incident, either to protect commercial ties with Russia or because of pro-Kremlin sympathies as in Hungary or Greece.

Estonia's relations with Russia worsened significantly last September when a squad of Russian security operatives allegedly crossed into Estonian territory and seized Eston Kohver, a veteran officer in the Estonian Security Service.

Mr Kohver was paraded on Russian television as a spy and is currently being held in a high security prison in Moscow. Analysts believe the abduction - which took place two days after a visit to Tallinn by Barack Obama - was designed to demonstrate Russia's muscle in the Baltics.

Nato has already beefed up its forces in the region with squadrons of fighter jets, chiefly as show of force and as a strategic tripwire to reassure allies. Its Baltic Air Policing Mission intercepted 150 incursions into NATO airspace by Russian aircraft last year.

Article 5 states that a military attack on any one Nato country is an attack on all of them, triggering collective mobilization. It has been invoked just once in the 66-year history of the alliance, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.

Nobody knows what would happen if one of the Baltic states invoked Article 5 protection but was turned down by the Nato Council. Failure to respond would devastate Nato's credibility and undermine the principle of deterrence, though allies could still act as a coalition of the willing outside the treaty structure.

Mr Rasmussen, who had to grapple with the Ukraine crisis until stepping down as Nato chief in September, said Mr Putin's immediate tactic is to create a frozen conflict in the Donbass rather than trying to conquer and hold large parts of the country. "He wants to keep the water boiling," he said.

He called for urgent action by Nato to mount a rapid deployment force of several thousand troops in a permanent state of "high readiness" and able to act within 48-72 hours as a deterrent, but the cost is proving prohibitive. "It is very expensive. Only a few are able to do it," he said.

Mr Rasmussen said the Europeans have slashed military spending so deeply since the financial crisis that they can barely defend themselves without American help. "The situation is critical. We have a lot of soldiers but we can't move them," he said.

"Nato countries have cut defence spending by 20pc in real terms over the last five years – and some by 40pc - while Russia has increased by 80pc. The aggression in Ukraine is a wake-up call," he said.

"We learned in the Libyan crisis that Europe is totally reliant on the Americans for air-refueling, drones, and communications intelligence. We don't have air transport. It is really bad."

Belgium is the most extreme case, famed for its well-armed pension fund while fighting capability fades away. It spends 96pc of defence budget on salaries, retirement, and its Burgundian canteens. The share spent on military kit has been slashed to 4pc. "Military confidence is nearing the point of collapse," said Alexander Mattelear from the Vrije Universtiteit in Brussels.

Mr Rasmussen said there is no truth to Kremlin claims that the West violated pledges at the end of the Cold War that there would be no eastward expansion of the alliance into the territory of former Soviet Union. "No such pledge was ever made, and declassified documents in Washington prove this. It is pure propaganda," he said.

[jimmy olsen]

Even given Europe's problems, I highly doubt that Putin's going to be that bold.

[Tonitrus]

Even given Europe's problems, I highly doubt that Putin's going to be that bold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f8Wd1Uzpek

[mongers]

Even given Europe's problems, I highly doubt that Putin's going to be that bold.

OMG traitor to the Alt-Hist. cause.   

Just imagine maps with vivid red showing a reconstituted soviet union marching across Europe, other states taking the opportunity to settle old grievances, remake old empires, Sweden could occupy Norway and half of Denmark. Come on man don't die on us.