The ancient philosophers said: The future will be as we lay it in the present. This truth is well known and confirmed by many years of experience, both in the development of society and in the development of an individual. Today, both military and civilian experts perfectly understand: without a clear understanding and awareness of the scale and nature of wars of future generations, without their own strategy for waging them, in principle, it is impossible to give your Armed Forces a proper new look. While transforming, and in fact creating completely new Armed Forces, it is reasonable to proceed not from the current, but from the future threats and dangers, taking into account fundamentally new forms and methods of their neutralization or elimination. First of all, a thorough and practical analysis of the measures for the creation of the aerospace defense complex is required.
With such an approach, it will become quite obvious that priorities must be given not to the modernization and development of individual branches and types of troops of the Armed Forces, but to work towards the creation of completely new operational-strategic and strategic reconnaissance-combat (defensive, as well as offensive) systems, on based on groupings of troops for specific combat missions in strategic directions.
The transformation of the Armed Forces, which today is proceeding at a speed exceeding the flight of thought, is moving by its own, only understandable methods. The turn has come to the solution of the next, already sixth, task, which is provided for in the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation for execution in the Armed Forces in peacetime: ensuring reliable air defense over all the most important objects of Russia and preparedness for a possible strike by means of attack from near space.
During his speech on March 18, 2011 at an expanded meeting of the board of the RF Ministry of Defense, President Dmitry Medvedev set a task for the military department: "This year, a new aerospace defense system must be built without fail." Russian Defense Minister A. Serdyukov, speaking after the President at the same meeting, said: "… in 2011 we plan to form a new branch of aerospace defense forces." There is an obvious disagreement in the above statements made by the President and the Minister of War. If the president indicates that the system should be made, then the minister only speaks about planning the creation of such a kind of troops!
Considering that the creation of aerospace defense as a system included in one of the branches of the armed forces, or separate troops of the Aerospace Defense Forces, may ultimately turn out to be very expensive and together with the same stupid and unclaimed plan in the future. Let's start with the differentiation of 2 concepts: a separate branch of the military and the aerospace defense system. As you know, VKO is a complex of military and national measures to protect Russia and its allies from attack, both from the air and from near space. With all this, two methods of protection are provided: deterring or repelling an attack and retaliating against the enemy. A specific feature of VKO will be that containment measures are carried out continuously and without interruption in peacetime and during a period of specific danger of armed confrontation, and an attack is, of course, repelled only in wartime.
Apparently, according to modern criteria, the aerospace defense is one of the most important combined units of the state's defense. With all this, attention should be focused on the fact that the aerospace defense system, both in peacetime and in the period of growing danger of an armed conflict, is a set of measures to contain and prepare the state, the Armed Forces and other troops to repel an attack. And during a period of specific danger and with the beginning of a military conflict, aerospace defense can be carried out in various forms of tactical military operations. For example, in the form of a tactical aerospace land-sea combined arms operation carried out simultaneously with offensive and defensive purposes. Such an operation foresees the coordinated combat use of all troops and assets capable of solving complex missions of aerospace defense, according to a general plan, with joint command and control.
According to official documents, the physical base of the aerospace defense is based on the aerospace defense system. But it is quite admissible to subject this statement to some doubt for several well-grounded reasons: first, it is not clear what is meant by the term "physical base"; secondly, there are several common definitions of the air defense system, but oddly enough none of them is officially fixed; thirdly, it is quite clearly visible that no separate system, either physical or any other base of aerospace defense, can be, because aerospace defense is a complex of military and national measures.
It is reasonable to imagine that the military-economic potential of the country, multiplied by the wisdom and freedom of its military-political command structure, constitutes the base of the VKO. Natural questions arise: what is the aerospace defense system needed for, what is it all the same, how to create and improve it? Not many of these questions have definitive and comprehensive answers, but they are.
1. The specific features of the aerospace defense system can be attributed to its ability, under certain criteria in peacetime, to solve some combat missions with the forces and means of the units on duty.
2. The main goals of creating an aerospace defense system can be: assistance in preventing an attack with the use of air defense systems and the defense of tactically significant objects that are located on the territory of Russia.
3. Based on the goals of creating the aerospace defense system, it seems logical to conclude that the aerospace defense system is a state military-civil defense system of an unlimited type, created to facilitate tactical deterrence and defense of especially important military and civilian objects available on the territory of Russia from an attack using SVKN.
4. The aerospace defense system is a "complex of systems" and structurally can be a matrix consisting of vertical and horizontal components.
5. There is a need to determine the main functions and main tasks, the solution of which is assigned to the aerospace defense systems.
The missions of the aerospace defense system should be: constant control over space and reconnaissance of the aerospace defense system; maintaining a high level of combat readiness of various components of the system; participation in hostilities for the effective destruction of SVKN both in the air and in space.
The functions of the aerospace defense system should be: defense of selected objects from attacks by air defense missile systems; determination of the location, composition and state of the internal control forces of other states; warning about the initial stage of preparation and use of ICS; combat and special support for other systems.
6. Today, in the development of the aerospace defense system, two main tasks should be distinguished.
The first, which the president put forward, is to create a system of aerospace defense by the method of vertical integration under the common control of the existing systems of PRN, air defense, missile defense, KKP. This task is administrative. It can and undoubtedly must be resolved in accordance with the terms set by D. Medvedev.
The second is, undoubtedly, the creation of new horizontal components that make up an integral aerospace defense system: united systems of constant reconnaissance and instant warning, fire and multifunctional destruction, control and support. Almost all statesmen, representatives of military science and industry, and high-ranking military officials have tried and are trying to solve this problem over the past 30 years, but so far they have not been solved.
The aerospace defense system is obliged to work as an integral structure under a single leadership, which also implies individual responsibility for the implementation of tasks assigned to the structure being created. To this end, it would be applicable in the Armed Forces to concentrate the troops and assets of the aerospace defense system as a separate service or with the introduction into the active branch of the armed forces, but with separately set tasks and a clearly structured control system.
Today, most Russian experts are well aware that the United States has advanced far ahead in the development of completely new types and systems of weapons, including space weapons. At the same time, having learned that a ballistic target at an altitude of 180-220 km in the range, but close to combat conditions, was destroyed by the combat means of the US missile defense system, there is no need to panic, one can recall how such tasks were successfully solved in the USSR back in the sixties - seventies years of the twentieth century. Apparently, it is necessary to drastically change the direction of the main vector of efforts to ensure adequate military security. It is necessary to end the pursuit of our opponents in this area and get rid of the feeling of our own powerlessness, and ensure the rich growth of the potential of the military-industrial and technological complexes of the state in the interests of forming strong global systems of tactical deterrence.
