USS Monterey and the US presence in the Black Sea

Josh Kucera from The Bug Pit asked me for my views on recent Russian criticisms of the USS Monterey Aegis-equipped cruiser participating in the Sea Breeze 2011 naval exercises in the Black Sea. The purpose of the exercise is to conduct training in counter-piracy operations, non-combatant evacuation operations, boarding, and search and seizure. As Josh points [...]

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Stratfor’s expanding ignorance

Stratfor, the company that provides  ”global intelligence” to the world, seems to have completely lost its collective mind. It is currently in the middle of publishing a four part series on “Russia’s Expanding Influence.” (The reports are only accessible through the website to subscribers, though they are being reprinted in Johnson’s Russia List.) No author [...]

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Why the Mistral?

I had thought I would be writing this week on what has been accomplished by the December 1 deadline for completing the reorganizational phase of the military reform. But since everyone else is still talking about the Mistral, I’ve inevitably been thinking more about the reasons for the possible purchase. First of all, there is [...]

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The Future of Russian Tanks

In the last month, the Russian media has started to cover the equipment modernization aspect of military reform, after virtually ignoring this topic for the previous nine months. I have already addressed the modernization of the Russian Navy. In this post, I want to briefly touch on the significance of the announced changes in the [...]

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