Russian Military Transformation - Goal In Sight?

The questionable performance of the Russian armed forces in the conflict in Georgia in 2008 provided the impetus for a program of far-reaching reform in the Russian military. The progress of this reform has been the subject of intensive study, including in a number of monographs issued by the Strategic Studies Institute. But as Mr. Keir Giles and Dr. Andrew Monaghan describe in this Paper, the most recent phase of military transformation in Russia allows conclusions to be drawn about the final shape of the Russian military once the process is complete-and about the range of threats, some of them unrecognizable to us, that is guiding that process. In this monograph, the authors use a wide range of Russian language sources and interviews to illustrate not only the Russian threat assessments highlighting the United States as a potential aggressor, but also the many unique challenges facing Russia in renewing and rearming its military.