This was the Defense Ministry’s response to the poor performance in the war against Georgia in 2008, when combat operations were affected by a total lack of coordination between the branches of the armed forces. Columns of ground forces moved without aerial reconnaissance and fell into enemy ambushes.

Eventually, a Tu-22 strategic bomber was sent to conduct reconnaissance, but it was shot down by Georgian air defenses. Interoperability with the fleet was a disaster, as well. Commanders had planned to use marine units in combat operations, but by the time the orders reached the fleet command and embarkment commenced, the war had already ended.

Rejection of joint operations and the Ukraine war

In the initial stages of the wars that the US waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, enemy forces were routed in so-called joint operations, where all forces – land, air and sea – follow a single plan, reporting to one commander.

It was so the Russian military could catch up with the US and conduct such operations that air force and navy units were subordinated to military district commands in the first place. Not long after, however, Serdyukov and Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov were dismissed, and the idea of joint operations was left to die. A unified battle management system was not developed, nor was interoperability across the branches of the armed forces made the focus in combat training.

Troops from each of Russia’s four regular military districts formed separate groups, headed by the commanders of these districts. The extent of their interaction can only be guessed at. When expectations of a quick Russian victory were disappointed and the war dragged on, General Alexander Dvornikov was named ground commander in Ukraine in April 2022. Months later, in October 2022, he was replaced by General Sergei Surovikin. Eventually, command of the Russian military in Ukraine passed to Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

As for interaction with the air force and navy, it proved necessary to create an unheard-of structure – the “joint staff of military branches involved in the special military operation” – the existence of which became known through reports about Putin’s visit to its headquarters in Rostov-on-Don in late 2022.

In other words, nothing beyond very loose “coordination” between the branches of the armed forces has been on the table. Whereas the inability to conduct a joint operation was the reality before, Putin’s recent decree has now formalized it.

Cold War stockpiles come in handy

This seemingly isolated case points to a general trend: the Russian military does not want to modernize. If modernization is understood as adapting to use the most advanced technologies in the most effective way, then the Russian army simply does not need it right now. The fact is that combat operations in Ukraine are radically different from “future warfare” scenarios that emerged based on the experience of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those wars demonstrated the triumph of the so-called revolution in military affairs: the qualitative technological superiority of one side over the other resulted in military defeat of the enemy in a short time. Yet the Ukraine war has not required modernization from the Russian side: it is being waged by armies that are at roughly the same technological level. Modern weapons – drones and electronic warfare systems – have not given either side a decisive upper hand on the battlefield.

The Ukraine war long ago took on a positional, attritional character. In this war, quantity – of men and equipment – is much more important than quality. In Russia, superiority in troop numbers is achieved through “voluntary mobilization,” where recruits are paid huge amounts of money (by Russian standards) for enlisting. With an estimated 450,000 men being recruited each year, this amounts to mass mobilization.

As for weapons, Soviet tanks and artillery, produced 60-70 years ago, have proven rather successful against the relatively modern equipment provided to Ukraine by Western countries. Basically, the Ukrainians and Russians are fighting with arsenals from the (first) Cold War.

Because the means of conducting combat operations have not changed, the Russian military command has few incentives to change their tactics and strategy. Notably, combat training has now been reduced to preparing small units for ground assault operations.

The upshot is that increasing the effectiveness of the armed forces now has only an indirect connection to modernization.

The issues of training, the quality of equipment and the effectiveness of the battle management system are of secondary importance. Moreover, with the Kremlin spending about 40% the state budget on the war effort, the issue of cost-effectiveness also loses relevance.

Back to the USSR?

It is after the end of the Ukraine war that modernization may become a priority again. Representatives of the Russian military-political leadership have repeatedly flagged the possibility of an armed conflict with NATO. In particular, speaking at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board in December 2024, defense chief Andrei Belousov said the ministry needs to “ensure full readiness for any development of the situation in the medium term. Including a possible military conflict with NATO in Europe in the next decade.”

In such a war, the Russian armed forces could not count on the advantages they enjoyed in the war against Ukraine: superiority in manpower and an abundance of outdated military equipment.

But with the proliferation of modern weapons, especially unmanned vehicles, an advanced battle management system will need to be developed. In addition, the “demographic hole” into which Russia continues to sink will limit the size of the military and require higher quality training.

If the current political regime remains in place, however, the military-political leadership will face a practically insoluble dilemma. Moving toward a model like those of Western states’ armed forces, with their relatively small numbers and high technological sophistication, would inevitably require backtracking on the concept of mass mobilization and reorganizing the armed forces along the lines of Serdyukov’s reforms.

Creating an effective combat command and control system, in turn, means accepting the concept of network-centric warfare, where information about the situation on the battlefield is provided to junior commanders in real time. Since the battlefield changes rapidly in modern warfare, conducting network-centric operations presupposes the independence of soldiers to make decisions and even, if dictated by circumstances, refuse to follow orders immediately after receiving them.

Under the current political regime, this cannot be. Giving junior commanders the independence to assess the situation on the battlefield completely contradicts the fundamental organizational principle of a mass mobilization army – strict execution of received orders, down to the smallest detail, under the penalty of serious punishment. In this sense, the integration of “unmanned systems forces” – planned to be formed as an independent branch as soon as this year – into the battle management system will pose a huge problem.

The bottom line is, attempts to modernize the Russian armed forces inevitably come into conflict both with the main demand put on them (the ability to wage a long conventional war to capture swaths of territory) and with the core ideological principles of the regime, which are based on steadily growing militarism.

Judging by the recent presidential decree, we can assume that the military will recommend to Putin the same old “modernization,” which in reality entails weakening the capabilities of the armed forces. It is about steadily going back to the Soviet model: maintaining the largest possible army in peacetime and renationalizing industry so the country’s entire industrial potential can be used to prepare the country for war.

It remains to be seen how sustainable this model will be in 21st-century Russia.