Book Summary:
This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A586724. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: Since the 1994 Chechen war, analysts have written volumes about the evolution of -- and lessons learned from -- this ongoing conflict. Why has success eluded this Cold War superpower in subduing the small Caucasian republic? Russia has since hiccuped back and forth across the spectrum of conflict in the region and the years have provided much speculation as to why. For a decade, researchers have described Chechen terror, erosion of the Russian military, and the inconsistent resolve of the Russian population to support the Kremlin's actions. These are significant independent variables that might explain the Russian failure in 1994. However, another less tangible factor -- Richard Szafranski's paradigm of Neocortical Warfare -- may explain Russia's poor performance in the initial invasion and its improved performance in 1999. To evaluate this concept, the author examines the influences of intelligence preparation of the battlespace, public affairs, psychological operations, and battlefield communications -- prime factors in influencing combatants' perceptions -- to gauge these factors' effects on the relative Russian performances in the two invasions. He then holds the results up to the Neocortical lens to evaluate whether that concept is pertinent to the ongoing conflict in Chechnya. The paper concludes with a bibliography of 38 books, 33 journal articles, 9 papers and reports, and 7 web sites. (2 tables) |