Russia in Afghanistan and Chechnya: Military Strategic Culture and the Paradoxes of Asymmetric Conflict

Abstract

This study examines and compares the performance of the Soviet military in Afghanistan and the Russian military in Chechnya. It aims to discern continuity or change in methods and doctrine. Because of Russian military cultural preferences for a big-war paradigm that have been embedded over time, moreover, this work posits that continuity rather than change was much more probable, even though Russia's great power position had diminished in an enormous way by 1994. However, continuity- manifested in the continued embrace of a conventional and predictably symmetric approach-was more probable, since cultural change usually requires up to 10 years.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2003
Accession Number
ADA412830

Entities

People

  • Robert M. Cassidy

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Attrition
  • Civil War
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Employment
  • Geography
  • Intergovernmental Organizations
  • International Organizations
  • Military Organizations
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • Rocket Propelled Grenades
  • Terrorists
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare
  • Weapons Effects

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Strategic Security Studies