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In reply to the discussion: This was the guy the Russians just sent in to save the day: [View all]Celerity
(47,732 posts)31. I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'
I was the first to write about Russias infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.
BY MARK GALEOTTI | MARCH 5, 2018
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/05/im-sorry-for-creating-the-gerasimov-doctrine/
https://archive.ph/832SB#selection-1353.0-1387.23
Everywhere, youll find scholars, pundits, and policymakers talking about the threat the Gerasimov doctrine named after Russias chief of the general staff poses to the West. Its a new way of war, an expanded theory of modern warfare, or even a vision of total warfare. Theres one small problem. It doesnt exist. And the longer we pretend it does, the longer we misunderstand the real, but different challenge Russia poses.
I feel I can say that because, to my immense chagrin, I created this term, which has since acquired a destructive life of its own, lumbering clumsily into the world to spread fear and loathing in its wake. Back in February 2013, the Russian newspaper Military-Industrial Courier as exciting and widely read as it sounds reprinted a speech by Gen. Valery Gerasimov. It talks of how in the modern world, the use of propaganda and subversion means that a perfectly thriving state can, in a matter of months and even days, be transformed into an arena of fierce armed conflict, become a victim of foreign intervention, and sink into a web of chaos, humanitarian catastrophe, and civil war.
It largely passed unnoticed, but Robert Coalson of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the U.S. government-funded TV and radio service broadcasting to Russia and other unfree countries, picked up on it and translated it. He sent it to me and, with his permission, I published the translation on my blog, with my own comments. A blog is as much as anything else a vanity site; obviously I want people to read it. So for a snappy title, I coined the term Gerasimov doctrine, though even then I noted in the text that this term was nothing more than a placeholder, and it certainly isnt a doctrine. I didnt think people would genuinely believe either that he came up with it (Gerasimov is a tough and effective chief of the general staff, but no theoretician), less yet than it was a programmatic blueprint for war on the West.
But then came the annexation of Crimea, when little green men commandos without insignia seized the peninsula with scarcely a shot fired. This was followed by the Donbass war, fought initially by a motley collection of local thugs, separatists, Russian adventurers, and special forces, accompanied by a barrage of lurid Russian propaganda. Suddenly, it seemed that Gerasimov had indeed been describing what was to come, had we but realized it. Prone, as ever, to overcompensation, Western mainstream opinion swung from ignoring Gerasimovs pronouncements to enshrining them as some kind of bleeding-edge blueprint for a new way of war.
snip
BY MARK GALEOTTI | MARCH 5, 2018
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/05/im-sorry-for-creating-the-gerasimov-doctrine/
https://archive.ph/832SB#selection-1353.0-1387.23
Everywhere, youll find scholars, pundits, and policymakers talking about the threat the Gerasimov doctrine named after Russias chief of the general staff poses to the West. Its a new way of war, an expanded theory of modern warfare, or even a vision of total warfare. Theres one small problem. It doesnt exist. And the longer we pretend it does, the longer we misunderstand the real, but different challenge Russia poses.
I feel I can say that because, to my immense chagrin, I created this term, which has since acquired a destructive life of its own, lumbering clumsily into the world to spread fear and loathing in its wake. Back in February 2013, the Russian newspaper Military-Industrial Courier as exciting and widely read as it sounds reprinted a speech by Gen. Valery Gerasimov. It talks of how in the modern world, the use of propaganda and subversion means that a perfectly thriving state can, in a matter of months and even days, be transformed into an arena of fierce armed conflict, become a victim of foreign intervention, and sink into a web of chaos, humanitarian catastrophe, and civil war.
It largely passed unnoticed, but Robert Coalson of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the U.S. government-funded TV and radio service broadcasting to Russia and other unfree countries, picked up on it and translated it. He sent it to me and, with his permission, I published the translation on my blog, with my own comments. A blog is as much as anything else a vanity site; obviously I want people to read it. So for a snappy title, I coined the term Gerasimov doctrine, though even then I noted in the text that this term was nothing more than a placeholder, and it certainly isnt a doctrine. I didnt think people would genuinely believe either that he came up with it (Gerasimov is a tough and effective chief of the general staff, but no theoretician), less yet than it was a programmatic blueprint for war on the West.
But then came the annexation of Crimea, when little green men commandos without insignia seized the peninsula with scarcely a shot fired. This was followed by the Donbass war, fought initially by a motley collection of local thugs, separatists, Russian adventurers, and special forces, accompanied by a barrage of lurid Russian propaganda. Suddenly, it seemed that Gerasimov had indeed been describing what was to come, had we but realized it. Prone, as ever, to overcompensation, Western mainstream opinion swung from ignoring Gerasimovs pronouncements to enshrining them as some kind of bleeding-edge blueprint for a new way of war.
snip
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The article states he took shrapnel to his leg but it did not break any bones
GregariousGroundhog
May 2022
#40
Is it me or does that military dress gear look as cheaply made as Chinese prom dresses from Alibaba?
TheBlackAdder
May 2022
#57
Read that the first general was transported to Russia for medical treatment ....
Lovie777
May 2022
#14
And in other news, Putin had a stroke because of the Ukraine crisis (Don't I wish this was true)....
COL Mustard
May 2022
#26