Face the Facts: Russia's Military Is Modernizing Into a Lethal Fighting Force

Dan Goure

Security, Europe

Know this: The Russian military is not yet ten feet tall. But it is five foot ten inches and growing.

Thankfully, the Russian military is not ten feet tall. No one said it is. But that is the way some unnamed “senior Pentagon officials” want to spin the legitimate concerns of senior military officers regarding the challenges posed by the improved capabilities of a rapidly modernizing Russian military. It is even worse when some in the media try not only to make such a case but to demean the reputation and honesty of a military officer who is courageously attempting to get the Obama Administration and the American people to take seriously a growing threat to our national security and that of our allies.

Russian military modernization and the challenge it poses to the nation and the military has been publicly acknowledged at the most senior levels of the Department of Defense. Explaining the need for the so-called Third Offset Strategy, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work explained that one of the motivations was the need to respond to the challenges posed by the Russian military. “It’s modernizing a military that was in steep decline throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Its naval and air units are operating at a pace and an extent that hasn’t been seen in quite some time, to include a large increase in trans-oceanic and global military operations.” The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics has been telling anyone who will listen that the United States is losing its technological advantage vis-à-vis China and Russia in the air and maritime domains, electronic warfare, space, reliable communications and ISR.