Russia’s eight phases of ‘new generation warfare’
The Russian army has developed a strategy it calls “New Generation War”, says the Managing director of the Center for Security and Strategic Research of the National Defense Academy of Latvia, Jānis Bērziņš. According to him, it combines “asymmetric, nonlinear, unconventional tactics with modern forms of traditional warfare”.
According to Bērziņš, the strategy has eight stages:
First phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic and economic measures).
Second phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out through diplomatic channels, media and top government and military agencies involving leaking false data, orders, directives and instructions.
Third phase: intimidating, deceiving and bribing government and military officers with the objective of making them abandon their service duties.
Fourth phase: use of destabilising propaganda to increase discontent among the population, boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.
Fifth phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units.
Sixth phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions of all types, forms, methods and forces, including special operations forces; space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic and secret service intelligence; and industrial espionage.
Seventh phase: targeted information, electronic warfare and aerospace operations along with continuous air-force harassment, combined with the use of high-precision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery and weapons based on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, radiological and ecological disasters and non-lethal biological weapons).
Eighth phase: crushing the remaining points of resistance and destroying surviving enemy units by using special operation units.
