Reminds me of the phrase "False sense of security..."
A snake is a snake. See it, kill it. There will still be more; just somewhere else.
Great book, but it seemed a little obsolete; at the time...
I think Putin read it anyway, and now what we see..., has been afoot for decades.
Maskirovka.., from the book.
Modern doctrine
Russian military deception is broadly equated with
maskirovka,
[14][15][16] but other terms are also used in the area, including the "fog of war",
tuman voyny.
[17] Khitrost means a commander's personal gift of cunning and guile, part of his military skill, whereas deception is practised by the whole organization and does not carry the sense of personal trickiness; nor need the Russian use of deception be thought of as "evil".
[18] Indeed, Michael Handel reminds readers, in the preface to the military analyst
David Glantz's book, of
Sun Tzu's claim in
The Art of War that all warfare is based on deception; Handel suggests that deception is a normal and indeed necessary part of warfare.
[19] The goal of military deception is however surprise,
vnezapnost, so the two are naturally studied together.
[20]
However, the military analyst William Connor cautioned that in the Soviet sense, the doctrine covered much more than camouflage and deception. It had, he suggested, the connotation of active control of the enemy. By the time of Operation Bagration in 1944, Connor argues, the Russian doctrine of military deception already included all these aspects.
[21] The meaning evolved in Soviet practice and doctrine to include strategic, political, and diplomatic objectives, in other words
operating at all levels.
[3] This differs from Western doctrines on deception, and from
information warfare doctrines, by its emphasis on pragmatic aspects.
[3] According to the analyst James Hansen, deception "is treated as an operational art to be polished by professors of military science and officers who specialize in this area."
[22] In 2015, Julian Lindley-French described strategic
maskirovka as "a new level of ambition"
[23] established by Moscow to unbalance the West both politically and militarily.
[24]
A Western view: Soviet military deception at different
operational levels of war as theorized by the American defence researcher Charles Smith
[4]
In
military intelligence, the Russian doctrine roughly corresponds to Western notions of
denial and deception.
[25][3][26][27][28] The
United States Army's
Glossary of Soviet Military Terminology from 1955 defined
maskirovka as "camouflage; concealment; disguise."
[11] The
International Dictionary of Intelligence from 1990 defined it as the
Russian military intelligence (GRU) term for deception.
[11] Robert Pringle's 2006
Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence defined it as strategic deception.
[29] Scott Gerwehr's
The Art of Darkness summarized it as deception and
operational security.
[30] The historian Tom Cubbage commented that military deception was enormously successful for the Soviets, and whatever the United States might think, for the Soviet Union it was something to make use of both in war and in peacetime.
[31] An article in
The Moscow Times explained: "But маскировка has a broader military meaning: strategic, operational, physical and tactical deception. Apparently in U.S. military terminology, this is called either CC&D (camouflage, concealment and deception) or more recently D&D (denial and deception). It is the whole shebang—from guys in ski masks or uniforms with no insignia, to undercover activities, to hidden weapons transfers, to—well, starting a civil war but pretending that you've done nothing of the sort."
[27]
In his comprehensive study,
Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War, Glantz summarized the Russian doctrine as involving both active and passive deception and surprise. For the Soviets, deception permeated all levels of war. And since they thought of war as just an extension of politics by other means, deception could and should be used and constantly considered in politics before a war began, if it was to work effectively.
[32]
The American defence researcher Charles Smith identified different dimensions of Russian military deception. He divided it into multiple types – optical, thermal, radar, radio, sound/silence; multiple environments – aquatic, space, atmosphere – each involving active or passive measures; and organizational aspects – mobility, level, and organization. The levels are the conventional military ones, strategic, operational, and tactical, while organization refers to the military branch concerned. Finally, Smith identified principles – plausibility, continuity through peace and war, variety, and persistent aggressive activity; and contributing factors, namely technological capability and political strategy.
[4][33]
Smith also analyzed the Soviet doctrine, considering it as "a set of processes designed to mislead, confuse, and interfere with accurate data collection regarding all areas of Soviet plans, objectives, and strengths or weaknesses".
[4]
Measures employed in Russian military deception
[4]
| Measure | Russian name | Western equivalent | Techniques | Example |
|---|
| Concealment[4] | сокрытие
(sokrytiye) | Camouflage | Awnings, smoke screens, nets, radio silence | Building tanks in an automobile plant |
| Imitation[4] | имитация
(imitatsiya) | Mimicry | decoys, military dummies | Dummy tanks with radar reflectors; decoy bridges created by a line of floating radar reflectors |
| Simulation[4] | симуляция
(simulyatsiya) | Simulation | Decoys, etc. | Dummy artillery battery complete with noise and smoke |
| Disinformation[4] | дезинформация
(dezinformatsiya) | Disinformation | | False letters; untrue information to journalists; inaccurate maps; false orders; orders with false dates |
| Demonstrative manoeuvres[4] | демонстративные маневры
(Demonstrativnyye manevry) | Feints | False trails | Attacks away from the main thrust; pontoon bridges away from attack routes |
Described as 'In development...'
