Dear Readers:
Yesterday, April 4, Finland joined NATO. I have this piece by reporter Mikhail Khodarenok to explain Russia’s likely response to this historic event.
In NATO Headquarters, General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg is popping the champagne corks and raising the Finnish flag up the flagpole. Meanwhile the Russian side had to don their thinking caps and try to figure out what to do. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Grushko declared that Russia will be forced to fortify its military defense on the Western and Northwestern borders.
Next, Russia has to modify its existing war games and scenarios to absorb the new reality. While working through a hypothetical invasion of NATO onto Russian territory, the Russians must figure out how to repel armies on several fronts at the same time. It will be important to hold onto the border regions as long as possible while preparing a powerful counter-offensive fist.
Next, Russia should expect rocket and aviation strikes, and must find a way to counter them. Russia must find ways to block and confuse NATO’s command-and-control centers, while striking back with its own rocket arsenal, from both land and sea.
What should the future army groupings look like on the Northwest and Western fronts? What should be their operative-strategic tasks? How to implement a layered defense, incorporating anti-air complexes and engineering structures, command and control; communications. In addition to everything else, there is part of a shoreline that must be defended by the Russian navy.
The Russians did not wait until the fateful day: Much has been accomplished already. For example, early in 2023 Defense Minister Shoigu already announced the formation of a new army corpus to help strengthen the existing units on the Karelia and Leningrad Oblast portions of the border. The new corpus will include 3 motorized rifle divisions and two air-assault divisions.
Other tasks include perfecting radar systems along with rocket and air cover. It may be time to overall the entire legacy system left over from Soviet times. The Soviet defense system relied on radar and anti-air defenses; but it may be time to significantly increase artillery and rocket systems as well. It is very possible that Iskander-M complexes will be installed on the border, including nuclear ones. Some reliance will be placed on long-range precision missiles, including Kalibrs, that can instantaneously strike the territories of Finland and Sweden.
Russia needs to take into account NATO’s significant superiority when it comes to standard weapons. If Russia cannot match those in battle, then it may be forced to resort to nuclear-armed explosive mines strewn along the border.
It goes without saying that Russia will be forced to increase her military budget to contain this new risk. But unfortunately it has to be done.
yalensis: That’s the end of the story. Personally, I have come around to the opinion that nuclear war is inevitable, and that we are all going to die. Just consider this: with NATO nukes a mere minute away from striking St. Petersburg, there won’t be any time to react with human intervention. There won’t be time for a human to suddenly figure out that it was just a flock of birds and scream “Belay that order!” to launch the nukes. Even a false alarm or computer glitch can trigger a nuclear exchange. Computers coded with Artificial Intelligence algorithms will be responsible for making the split-second decision on their own. As a professional computer programmer myself… Like I said, we’re all doomed!
Awful Avalanche 
We’re also sailing through climate tipping points, nature is getting rid of us one way or another.
LikeLike
Finland as a nation may not be doing a good deal, but its wealthy elite seek to protect their ill-gotten pocket money with NATO weapons and politicians seek to secure their future with a handsome commission in these difficult times.
LikeLike
Russia has enough conventional means to face NATO. The latter is a shadow of what it was in the eighties. The former is a formidable force forged in Georgian and Chechen wars plus new weapons and weapon systems and a solid industrial base, 100% domestic sourced.
Remember 1812-1815, 1918-1923, 1941-1945 and the non-military but no less destructive assault of the nineties.
They’re a tough nut to crack those Ruskies.
LikeLike
I’d like to think that NATO was a paper tiger, but Khodarenok literally wrote that NATO has superiority over Russia in conventional weapons. Of course, maybe that will change, if the Ukrainians continue to use them up at this rate.
LikeLike
Never heard or read Khodarenok before, but he’s obviously wrong about NATO having better conventional weaponry. Look at what has happened in Ukraine with NATO equipment: it lays in ruins all over the front, rusting blown apart hulks as evinced in millions of Telegram video shorts. If NATO/USA equipment is so superior, why are the Ukrainians going through it so quickly? Why are they bitching about it malfunctioning on the battlefield? Howitzers crapping out after firing over 20 rounds? Needing to be sent to Poland to be fixed? USA refusing to send Abrams tanks because they don’t want to lose face when these gas guzzling piles of shit get blown to bits and sink in the mud–not to mention need nonstop maintenance because they are poorly designed to begin with and were only intended to be used against far weaker 3rd world countries with WWII era tanks? Hmmmmmm…….Mr Khodarenok needs to do his homework…..
LikeLike
You make some wise points, Grasshopper!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Define ‘superiority’. Are we talking quality? Because that’s highly debatable; Russia is at least comparable in terms of many types of weapon, very clearly superior in several (hypersonic munitions is a major one. Missiles generally, as well as missile defense, is markedly better, and a lot cheaper for any given level of capability, on the Russian side), and only clearly inferior in a few cases (NATO battlefield surveillance is genuinely better, though it’s also not clear how vulnerable it is if Russia were to go gloves off and just start openly targeting any surveillance plane it found loitering over Ukraine).
If we’re talking quantity, there’s absolutely no contest: Russia is crushing the US side. Ukraine is literally running out of munitions. It uses more 155mm shells in week than all of NATO can produce in a year. And it isn’t Russia saying stuff like this, it’s the UK: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare/
LikeLike
Good points! Maybe Khodarenok meant the industrial capacity of the combined NATO countries? But even that doesn’t make sense… Maybe he’s just being a negative nelly to warn his own countrymen not to get complacent, because NATO/U.S. might always have some tricks up their sleeves.
LikeLike
Thanks for this rather cheerful conclusion of your article….
LikeLike
Always a pleasure, Peter!
LikeLike
…always look on the bright side of life
LikeLike
What an inspiring philosophy! In my darkest moments I open my Bible to the Book of Brian, and it never fails to bring me comfort and solace.
LikeLike
As a professional computer programmer myself… Like I said, we’re all doomed!
As we used to say in the legacy DP days, “If carpenters built houses the way programmers create software, the world would have fallen to termites long ago.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, you get it!
LikeLike
A US strike on St. Petersburg means a poison cloud would kill all remaining Finns (in excruciating pain), I think. That’s why Finland’s alliance with NATO never made sense for 70 years. But GirlBosses aren’t paid to think.
LikeLiked by 1 person
With a population satisfied with parasitizing the Western arms industry, it never made sense as a need for internal social control, but now it is about the danger of “white free trade” throughout the world and apparently it is intended to repeat the indigenous genocide or the Opium Wars to do so. modestly and Finkland does not want to be left out.
Remember that there is an old phrase that says “obscurantism is the last ditch” and do not be surprised by the breezes of religious conflicts that blow with the threat of hurricane winds in the future.
The matter is more serious than it seems.
LikeLike
On the other hand, they have GIRL POWER! Weeee!
LikeLike
Is nuclear war inevitable? I feel that it is not. The feeling comes not from a rational place of analysis, but from some other place that I cannot identify but visit often.
LikeLike
We must not fear, if we carry ourselves by the doctrines of love of humanity, everything must end with Armageddon and although we all run the risk of burning in nuclear fire, we must trust that the heavenly troops will bring salvation for all.
And the earthly shenanigans of heavenly representatives on earth that we are used to are not supposed to happen on the level of the divine.
Human corruption should not have reached paradise. To this day no one believes that the rich can bribe angels as was believed in the past.
LikeLike
I hear you, countrumford. I go to that same place, and it is filled with happy show tunes from Broadway plays:
LikeLike
i’m kinda worried because trey parker – for all his faults – has a pretty great track record at predicting things.
st. pete’s is right over the border but that just means fallout and nuclear winter for helsinki if they act up. i say just color revolution the dumb f_cks out of power but easier said than done, i guess.
LikeLike
“They nuked themselves. Suicide.”
Ah… Nostradamus has spoken!
LikeLike
Well that is a terrifying snippet of South Park. Makes me worry about the source of US policy. I thought it was channeling Tonya Harding now I am yet even
more worried.
LikeLike
Worry you should be. As Yoda might say.
LikeLike
If you are indeed convinced of our collective demise, you should take precautions to arrange a painless end for yourself. Move to a remote rural area to enjoy a few more days or weeks before radioactive contamination will have spread all over the land. Have painkillers or an overdose of sleeping pills or a loaded pistol at hand to end your existance before the devastating symptoms of radiation sickness start to make life unbearable.
If you are a billionaire, flee to your doomsday bunker in New Zealand and wait for diminishing radiation levels. Make sure that essential supplies last long enough (at least several years).
LikeLike
Well, I make a “comfortable” living, as they say, but I am not a billionaire. And I don’t like rural areas, too many bugs. And I don’t own a gun. And I don’t have access to prescription pain killers….
There is always the “Anna Karenina” gambit, I reckon: throw yourself under a train!
🙂
LikeLike
I hope Russia will implement the ‘Simpson’ option, in which it destroys 27 western capitals in one blow. After the dust has settled, time to talk.
I’m so done with the west and its never-ending shenanigans.
LikeLike
Is that the Homer Simpson option?
With exploding donuts?
LikeLike
Endangering or terrorizing the population of any nation seems to be an Anglo-American forte – certainly Russia stoop that low. I’d rather let Russia decide for herself on what to do.
LikeLike
Should say “Russia can’t stoop that low”
LikeLike
I agree, Digby. But, on the other hand, during the Cold War the MAD doctrine (=Mutual Assured Destruction) seemed to act as a powerful deterrent.
Of course that doesn’t work nowadays, because the Westie elites themselves don’t seem to care if they live or die. Maybe they just became too jaded with their meaningless lives. And it doesn’t occur to them that ordinary people want to live.
LikeLike
I once had a girlfriend who emigrated to Finlandistan circa 1999. Before she left she never even mentioned the word “Russia” in my hearing. The last time I met her, around 2011 or thereabouts, she’d become a foaming mouthed rabid anti Russian racist. It must be something in the Finlandistani water.
The point is that rabid Finlandistani anti Russianism didn’t pop up from nowhere; like Swedenistan, it is a “country” that has been de facto in NATO for many years already. There are things Russia can do to punish it, starting with closing the border completely, to everything. Finlandistanis who drive from Hell-sinking to Viborg to buy cheap booze can spend their money somewhere else.
The question of nuclear war over a flock of birds only arises if NATO is stupid enough to put nuclear weapons in Finlandistan, of course. But that doesn’t stop Russia from keeping nuclear weapons ready to wipe Finlandistan from the map of it comes to that.
LikeLike
Until when lasts the contract of using the russian canal in Karelia for the needs of Finnish agriculture?
LikeLike
Finns are ungrateful bastards. As many have pointed out, they would never have gotten the pleasure of having their own country, if it wasn’t for Russia (in its various historical guises).
Somewhere down there, in Dante’s Hell, there is a special circle for the Ungrateful Dead. Where Finns and Ukrainians rub shoulders with American Jewish neocons. Who also conveniently forgot that the Russian people saved the lives of their not-so-distant ancestors. At least those whom the Naughties and the Banderites had not gotten to first, I mean.
LikeLiked by 1 person
P.S. – Raghead, just how many girlfriends did you have, you dog?!
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lo suficientemente claro está es que en todas las relaciones sucede siempre lo mismo : O te respetan ( sea por miedo, sea por “autoritas” ) , o das asco .
A Rusia se perdio el respeto desde ya treinta años y no sugiere ternura, puesto que no es tan debil e indefensa para tal sentimiento, sino que un actor que no utiliza sus recursos ( y Rusia los tiene de toda modalidad ) , será despreciado y peor, decapitado .
Aquí lo que dice el Sr. Lavrov . Da pena :
“Moscú no pierde la esperanza de que Estados Unidos reanude el diálogo con Rusia… La administración estadounidense amenaza cada vez con suministrar más y más armas letales y de largo alcance. (es decir, fascistas ucranianos). Creo que debería ser apoyado. Al menos no perdemos la esperanza de que los estadounidenses se despierten y reanuden algún tipo de diálogo”..
Y así dice ( en VK ) Serguei Rusov :
“Mientras tanto, la mente del enemigo está bien. Ha estado trabajando pacientemente desde 2014, convirtiendo a Europa desde Lisboa hasta Varsovia en un gran trampolín para un ataque a nuestra Patria, logró construir un Reich fascista ucraniano en tierras rusas y enfrentó a los rusos en una guerra fratricida, tiene un poderoso ” quinta columna” en Rusia, que está lista para dar un golpe palaciego y está haciendo todo lo posible para que Rusia pierda la guerra y, como resultado, pierda su condición de Estado. Cruzando desafiante y descaradamente todas las “líneas rojas” descritas por Moscú, Occidente estaba convencido de lo principal: nadie puede presionar el preciado botón nuclear en las oficinas del Kremlin. ¿Por qué necesita negociar con Rusia en condiciones tan favorables para él?
Pero, ¿qué pasa con la mente en el liderazgo ruso? En lugar de luchar por su supervivencia (ahora física), se coloca constantemente en la posición de un perdedor por adelantado, expresando su disposición para negociar con un enemigo que no tendrá piedad de nadie, ni Rusia, ni su actual “élite”, ni el pueblo, para que de una vez por todas nos borre de las páginas de la historia mundial (los fascistas ucranianos ya han demostrado cómo será). Las guerras se pelean de verdad o se pierden. No hay un tercero… ”
¿ Será cierto y tienen razón lo que pretenden los anglosajones , reducir a la Federación Rusa a un ducado de Moscovia ? .
Cada dia es mayor mi hartazgo de la población de una patria ( extensivamente la mayor ), que se comporta con menos dignidad que mi vecina y diminuta Andorra .
O se instala en la seriedad del momento histórico, o será necesario ( por el bien de la salud mental ) enviar, lo que fue una respetada patria hasta 1985, a la m***da .
LikeLike
Ortensio, Ud. preguntó, ‘¿ Será cierto y tienen razón lo que pretenden los anglosajones , reducir a la Federación Rusa a un ducado de Moscovia ?’
En la página 202 de la edición Kindle del libro ‘Grand Chessboard,’ que originalmente se publicó en 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski pidió una ‘confederación suelta’ entre tres ‘repúblicas,’ de Rusia Europea, Siberia y el Lejano Oriente.
Dick Cheney también quería desmembrar Rusia:
Una fuente importante de propaganda NATO, la revista The Atlantic, hace un año publicó una llamada a desmembrar Rusia, bajo el eufemismo ‘descolonización’:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/russia-putin-colonization-ukraine-chechnya/639428/
LikeLike
LOL *desmembrar a Rusia*
LikeLike
Sí, John .
Parece extenderse el juicio de que la Federación Rusa es demasiado extensa para ser administrada por los rusos .
Lo que significa decir que el caracter ruso no merece tener una extension terrestre ( con sus riquezas anexas ), tal y como ahora existe .
Tiempos ” interesantes ” para todos . Tiempos muy , muy , muy “interesantes ” ( por su magnitud geográfica ) tambien para Rusia .
Es imposible estar tan dormidos como está la población de RF en estos momentos . Le sucederán todos los acontecimientos de un solo golpe .
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘Many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip.’
Liborio Guaso is probably right about the Finnish elite and their motivations. It doesn’t help that they’re led by a young woman who appears never really to have outgrown her (early) teens.
Finnish voters, as Raghead says, may be knee-jerk Russophobes. Then there’s the history of Nazi collaboration. They seem collectively to have childish political instincts (hence their choice of teenage leadership).
But the main reason they let their oligarchs sign them up for NATO is probably because, like the coddled denizens of all western welfare states, they’re easily manipulated, prone to hysteria, and thus were simply terrified.
Fear is a double-edged sword. The Finns, because of their collective infantilism, could readily be turned against NATO if Russia took imaginative steps to educate them, and their leaders, about the consequences of allowing NATO to base strategic weapons there. It’s not necessary to make them pro-Russian. But in addition to hatred, there should also be fear.
In more lighthearted news, I’m reading a book, ‘Everyone to skis!’ by William Frank, a former US biathlete. Everyone knows about the Finns’ ferocious ski troops and their success in the Winter War. But Frank recounts how the ‘lessons learned’ prompted the USSR to organize its own ski units for winter fighting, with great effect, which in turn helped promote Soviet domination of international cross-country and biathlon competitions after the war.
The writing is less than vivid and often repetitive, but still, the book is packed with information I didn’t know.
LikeLike
Thanks for your comment, John! That sounds like a very interesting book. I think biathletes are awesome people, to be able to cross-country ski like a demon, and then still be a sharpshooter, wow!
LikeLiked by 1 person