The basic premises were: I have a will to fight, a large but obsolete army, a useless navy, and a moderately competent air force. What can I do with those resources?
Again, I checked all the directions and found no answer. What were the Turks thinking? The only valuable asset was of no use to them. It would be great over the steppes of Central Asia but Turkey is not in Central Asia. Turkey is sitting over the Turkish Straits.
And this is where I had a very cinematic holy sh*t moment: material culture determines material outcomes but material culture is determined by preceding material conditions.
Or speaking plainly: Turkey is not a land power. Turkey is a land bridge power!
Just as Turkic people are born in the saddle, Turkish people are born straddling a narrow strip of land with a narrow strip of water in the middle which connects two landmasses and two bodies of water and served as a pivot point of history for centuries. If there is one person to understand the value of the right amount of space in the right place it will be a Turk.
I looked at the map again and saw the matrix code running.
Yet Azerbaijan suddenly decides it needs to right historical wrongs done to it by Armenia and just by accident they include establishing of the Zangezur corridor to Nakhchivan.
The January 2022 unrest in Kazakhstan didn't happen by accident either, and resulted in completing the removal of Nazarbayev, Russia's man, from influence as well as initiating transition to a more parliamentary system which will ensure that FSB networks won't have the same influence as they did previously.
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine is just an added bonus. Note that Putin meets with Aliyev and signs a number of economic deals to secure his cooperation but the war doesn't go according to his plan.
Possibly it was intended to demonstrate Russia's willingness to defend its sphere of influence not just to the US. I suspected that it may be an attempted flex at China. But both US and China need Russia intact. The only country that doesn't is the one that can use Turkic cultural influences.
Current state of CA land forces by TMB2021:
57 brigades and regiments, ~1800 tanks, ~4000 personnel carriers, ~1500 artillery pieces. Yet at the same time they have ~150 obsolete fighters combined. It's clear what is missing in the picture.
Currently Russia can't muster sufficient force to counter the above but they would have air supremacy that would prove disruptive and destructive. Any effective counter-measure - as the one I suggested earlier - will forever alter the balance of power in the region. Russia doesn't have enough airframes or resources to sustain the fleet and train the pilots to counter air power projection in three theaters - Europe, Central Asia and Pacific. It never had enough to field little more than symbolic (less than 140 fighters) presence in the Far East and the Central Military District has only two regiments (48) of MiG-31s and one regiment (36) of Su-34s as well as six regiments of S-400.
The consequence of losing ability to project power in CA are dire for Russia. Not only is the interior of the country threatened but the low density of transport infrastructure threatens to sever the regions east of Urals from the core of the country (Moscow/Volga).
This is a reduced image of 2010-2030 infrastructure project - blue is waterways, yellow/green and pink are railways and roads.
The distances involved here will benefit whoever has long-range drones with sufficient payload to disrupt transit. Consider that the distance from Samara (blue dot at Volga) to Chelabinsk (blue dot east of Urals) is ~850km. Similar distance exists between Samara and Voronezh (dot) or Samara and Moscow (dot) where some of air force from western military districts is based. Those distances combined are at the maximum range of Russian fighters. There is no easy way to continuously maintain air cover. Not even with aerial refueling which Russia utterly lacks. Russia has no strategic depth against an attack from Central Asia because it developed its infrastructure as strategic depth against attack from the north.
Persistent surveillance and presence is key and in case of conflict involving such unmanned systems Russia would have to physically convoy all transit east of Urals to avoid interdiction. Aerial transit doesn't have the capacity and it too would be threatened. E.g. Akinci cruises at 300km/h but the missile will be fast enough to shoot down a transport aircraft flying at twice that speed.
This is effectively a siege that can end in only one way - the regions under siege will redirect resource flows to other areas and that will inevitably fracture the federative system in an area containing 1/3 of Russia's GDP and 1/4 of population. Even if Russian authority would survive it would be symbolic afterward.
WW2 in the Pacific was won by USN strangling IJN logistics. Any war in Siberia will be won in the same manner.
Let's not forget that if China wanted to weaken Russia it would not do so directly. Supporting Turkey in that effort would be ideal because it would not only weaken Russia but also provide Turkey with incentives to distance itself from the US.
And no, nukes don't matter because what Ukraine showed is that you can shoot at targets in Russia even if you don't have nukes. Russia's entire pillar of deterrence that it so carefully constructed after 1991, mostly with eyes on the US, has been invalidated by actors below threshold of nuclear escalation. Which goes to show many other things related to nuclear blackmail and doctrine and fearmongering but this is not the place to discuss it.
And with that the elaboration of the ideas is complete. We will see if any of my predictions come through or if it was just a glitch in the system. Take care.
Again, I checked all the directions and found no answer. What were the Turks thinking? The only valuable asset was of no use to them. It would be great over the steppes of Central Asia but Turkey is not in Central Asia. Turkey is sitting over the Turkish Straits.
And this is where I had a very cinematic holy sh*t moment: material culture determines material outcomes but material culture is determined by preceding material conditions.
Or speaking plainly: Turkey is not a land power. Turkey is a land bridge power!
Just as Turkic people are born in the saddle, Turkish people are born straddling a narrow strip of land with a narrow strip of water in the middle which connects two landmasses and two bodies of water and served as a pivot point of history for centuries. If there is one person to understand the value of the right amount of space in the right place it will be a Turk.
I looked at the map again and saw the matrix code running.
- Central Asia is not a contested theater but Russia's back yard.
- The plans were made before 2014 so they are based on a different assessment of Russia's potential not yet affected by sanctions
- Russia must overextend itself in as many conflicts as possible for Central Asia to open for rival power projection
- Russia must believe it can benefit from involvement or be forced to intervene to facilitate (3) therefore weakening of NATO and EU is necessary
- Because of Russia's use of historic propaganda, revisionism, irredentism and Orthodoxy Ottoman rhetoric is effective as Russian imperialism was built on anti-Ottoman policies more than anything else.
- Despite (5) Russia must not perceive Turkey as overtly hostile or overtly competent power.
- All actions leading to creation of a Caucasus link must not be the result of Turkey's actions.
Yet Azerbaijan suddenly decides it needs to right historical wrongs done to it by Armenia and just by accident they include establishing of the Zangezur corridor to Nakhchivan.
The January 2022 unrest in Kazakhstan didn't happen by accident either, and resulted in completing the removal of Nazarbayev, Russia's man, from influence as well as initiating transition to a more parliamentary system which will ensure that FSB networks won't have the same influence as they did previously.
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine is just an added bonus. Note that Putin meets with Aliyev and signs a number of economic deals to secure his cooperation but the war doesn't go according to his plan.
Possibly it was intended to demonstrate Russia's willingness to defend its sphere of influence not just to the US. I suspected that it may be an attempted flex at China. But both US and China need Russia intact. The only country that doesn't is the one that can use Turkic cultural influences.
Current state of CA land forces by TMB2021:
| Azerbaijan | Turkmenistan | Uzbekistan | Kazakhstan | total | |
| tank bde/rgt | - | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| mech bde/rgt | 4 | 8 | 11 | 3 | 26 |
| inf bde | 19 | 1 | 1 | - | 21 |
| air bde | - | - | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| MBT | 440 | 650 | 340 | 350 | 1780 |
| IFV | 200 | 1030 | 270 | 600 | 2100 |
| APC | 480 | 870 | 260 | 340 | 1950 |
| 40km MLRS | 60 | 130 | 100 | 100 | 390 |
| 90km MLRS | 60 | 6 | - | 6 | 72 |
| SP ART | 100 | 40 | 80 | 240 | 460 |
| ART | 230 | 420 | 200 | 150 | 1000 |
57 brigades and regiments, ~1800 tanks, ~4000 personnel carriers, ~1500 artillery pieces. Yet at the same time they have ~150 obsolete fighters combined. It's clear what is missing in the picture.
Currently Russia can't muster sufficient force to counter the above but they would have air supremacy that would prove disruptive and destructive. Any effective counter-measure - as the one I suggested earlier - will forever alter the balance of power in the region. Russia doesn't have enough airframes or resources to sustain the fleet and train the pilots to counter air power projection in three theaters - Europe, Central Asia and Pacific. It never had enough to field little more than symbolic (less than 140 fighters) presence in the Far East and the Central Military District has only two regiments (48) of MiG-31s and one regiment (36) of Su-34s as well as six regiments of S-400.
The consequence of losing ability to project power in CA are dire for Russia. Not only is the interior of the country threatened but the low density of transport infrastructure threatens to sever the regions east of Urals from the core of the country (Moscow/Volga).
This is a reduced image of 2010-2030 infrastructure project - blue is waterways, yellow/green and pink are railways and roads.
The distances involved here will benefit whoever has long-range drones with sufficient payload to disrupt transit. Consider that the distance from Samara (blue dot at Volga) to Chelabinsk (blue dot east of Urals) is ~850km. Similar distance exists between Samara and Voronezh (dot) or Samara and Moscow (dot) where some of air force from western military districts is based. Those distances combined are at the maximum range of Russian fighters. There is no easy way to continuously maintain air cover. Not even with aerial refueling which Russia utterly lacks. Russia has no strategic depth against an attack from Central Asia because it developed its infrastructure as strategic depth against attack from the north.
Persistent surveillance and presence is key and in case of conflict involving such unmanned systems Russia would have to physically convoy all transit east of Urals to avoid interdiction. Aerial transit doesn't have the capacity and it too would be threatened. E.g. Akinci cruises at 300km/h but the missile will be fast enough to shoot down a transport aircraft flying at twice that speed.
This is effectively a siege that can end in only one way - the regions under siege will redirect resource flows to other areas and that will inevitably fracture the federative system in an area containing 1/3 of Russia's GDP and 1/4 of population. Even if Russian authority would survive it would be symbolic afterward.
WW2 in the Pacific was won by USN strangling IJN logistics. Any war in Siberia will be won in the same manner.
Let's not forget that if China wanted to weaken Russia it would not do so directly. Supporting Turkey in that effort would be ideal because it would not only weaken Russia but also provide Turkey with incentives to distance itself from the US.
And no, nukes don't matter because what Ukraine showed is that you can shoot at targets in Russia even if you don't have nukes. Russia's entire pillar of deterrence that it so carefully constructed after 1991, mostly with eyes on the US, has been invalidated by actors below threshold of nuclear escalation. Which goes to show many other things related to nuclear blackmail and doctrine and fearmongering but this is not the place to discuss it.
And with that the elaboration of the ideas is complete. We will see if any of my predictions come through or if it was just a glitch in the system. Take care.
