Russia Floats Pre-Emptive ‘Intimidation’ Strike to Counter U.S. Strategy

Russian military scientists have proposed a pre-emptive strike using manned and unmanned aircraft to counter the United States’ multidomain war-fighting strategy against adversaries, according to excerpts cited in an Armed Forces academic journal.

The Russian Aerospace Force academics describe the Pentagon’s air, land, sea, cyber and space integration strategy to paralyze an enemy — known as multi-domain operations — as an existential threat to Russia’s national security.

The scientists propose countering the U.S. strategy with a comprehensive air operation to disrupt its integrated massive air strike “by causing intolerable damage to the enemy.”

Russian forces would need to strike critical NATO targets with aircraft, drones, missiles, electronic warfare and new hypersonic weapons to prevent them from attacking first, according to the military scientists’ academic paper. 

The authors emphasized the role of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile, which Russia is preparing to enter into service, in its ability to evade enemy radars and air-defense systems. They noted that manned and unmanned aircraft could also deploy laser weapons to damage unprotected equipment and impair the vision of enemy observation post soldiers.

“Aviation, as one of the most mobile means of intelligence and attack in modern warfare, plays a key role in inflicting comprehensive damage to critical objects that ensure the enemy’s integrated mass airstrike,” the academics wrote.

“Russia is able to switch from nuclear deterrence to a policy of intimidating potential enemies with intolerable and complex destruction by all types of weapons as part of preventive actions in the face of the threat of local war hanging over the Russian Federation,” they added.

The detailed proposal authored by Zhukovsky-Gagarin Air Force Academy professors Stuchinsky and Korolkov appeared in the December issue of its “Aerospace Forces. Theory and Practice” quarterly.

The U.S. Army has said its multi-domain operations doctrine is “a couple years” away from completion.