The army is not a pride at all, but a disgrace to Russia/RF Ministry of Defense about a legend popular with the apologists of the “Russian world”. This legend is about the “great Russian army”.
The legend sounds like this: “Whoever fought with Russia, the Russian army defeated everyone; they, adversaries, have long been gone, but Russia is alive. Here now the US wants to defeat Russia – apparently they do not know how to learn from history.
The future is not determined by the past
It is unlikely that history (any history, by the way) is suitable for extracting information about the present; I would not advise making forecasts based on the past, at least, because there are no identical wars, and “Russia” [in quotation marks intentionally] has changed so much over time that it is not necessary to talk about the inheritance of traits.
Whatever the military past of “Russia”, its military future is not determined by the past.
However, this legend itself is not true.
An analysis of the wars and military campaigns waged by the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Russian kingdom, the Russian Empire, the USSR, and finally the Russian Federation (that’s how many options there were only names) shows the widest range of outcomes – from crushing defeats, such as when conquered by the Mongol-Tatars or from the Poles in the Time of Troubles, through serious defeats, as in the first northern war, the first war with the Kazan Khanate, the Crimean, Russo-Japanese war, the first world war or the invasion of Afghanistan, through “draws” of various kinds, including the seven-year war or the war of the third coalitions or the Finnish war, to victories (mainly over the Central Asian satrapies and Turkey) and unconditional victories – as in the second northern war, the second war with the Kazan Khanate, domestic wars.
Everything is like everyone else, but there are nuances.
The price of victory
It is easy to see that Russia created the image of an invincible Russia by winning “big” wars, which were initially accompanied by a deep penetration of the enemy into its territory (at least this is true for the Northern War and two Patriotic Wars, propaganda recalls them) – nevertheless, Russia lost in this situation to the Mongols-Tatars, and it took many years to defeat the Poles in the 17th century, so it was not those who lost who defeated them. tied up significant resources and led to collapse.
Nevertheless, these victories were given to the Moscow Principality – the Russian Tsardom – the Russian Empire – the USSR extremely hard; with the exception of the Second World War, when Moscow was saved by a miracle (Guderian made a serious mistake and did not take Moscow, although it was not protected), the Russian army rolled back to the capital and surrendered it, years and millions of victims were required to achieve a turning point and victory in all cases, the economy Russia was collapsing (it should be noted that during the First World War Russia did not surrender Moscow and did not lose as much territory as in other cases, but lost the war).
Unsuccessful expansionists
More one extremely interesting observation is that Russia has almost always lost or drawn wars on foreign soil.
The exceptions are numerous small conflicts on the outskirts associated with the conquest of small and less technologically advanced peoples, and a couple of wars with Turkey over the Balkan territories, which Turkey lost to a large extent due to the resistance of the Balkan peoples themselves. The war of 1733-38, the “War of the Austrian Succession”, many other such wars, the last of which was the Finnish War of 1939, ended in a “draw”, and Russia each time suffered heavy losses.
It was no less direct defeats – including the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 or the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Being on foreign territory, Russia instantly experienced all the “charms” of the aggressor's logistical problems, the Russian army could not go far and even temporarily capture the capital of any serious rival; Afghanistan is an exception in terms of the capital, but not in terms of the outcome of the war.
There is no Russia without allies
Finally, Russia in all its guises rarely fought seriously alone – without powerful allies. Most often, these were European countries and the United States, local allies played a big role – the same Balkan peoples or friendly peoples of Central Asia or the Caucasus.
Russia's most prominent ally was Britain. Over the past 250 years, Russia has won almost every war, big and small, in which Britain was an ally (only lost the First World War), and lost all in which Britain was openly opposed to Russia.
In the last 250-300 years (and even more), Russia, in any successful wars, did not always enjoy direct military support from Western countries, but invariably used European allies both to supply weapons and as a source of personnel for military leadership (in World War II, the USSR almost never used European officers, but the supply of weapons, equipment and food was gigantic, and the USSR was far from fighting alone).
Conclusions
What does all this mean? Firstly, about nothing – as I said, history in this case does not carry information about today. But two facts are still important:
- It is very difficult to be the aggressor. The Russian army was traditionally not strong, but it managed to drive the aggressor out of its territory; when she was an aggressor (we exclude from consideration the option with Turkey, in this case the locals were on the side of Russia, it is not clear who the aggressor is here), she did not succeed except in cases of completely disproportionate forces, and even then the last successes were 200 years ago .
- An alliance with at least part of Europe is essential to Russian military success; this is not surprising, given the higher technological level of Europeans. Britain is the most effective historical ally (not only for Russia, for everyone who wants to win in Eurasia).
Without drawing any conclusions, if you were the commander of the Russian army and you were asked what you have a chance in an aggressive war on foreign territory against a relatively large state whose population is hostile to Russia, provided that all of Europe, the United States and in general most of the countries of the world oppose you and not only do not help with weapons, officers and food, but directly block trade Russia and helps the enemy – what would you say?
