A report by Canada’s primary intelligence agency warns in stark language that Russia is “retooling its military for a fight” and appears to be “mobilizing for war”. The classified report was accessed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the country’s state-owned broadcaster. According to the CBC, the document was produced by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada’s primary national intelligence service. It is titled 2018 Security Outlook and is described by the CBC as a “distillation” of information from open sources and publicly available academic research, without input from internal CSIS assessments.
The 104-page report contends that, in the absence of any serious opposition inside Russia, the hardline nationalistic policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin are going unchallenged and becoming “more deeply entrenched”. When assessed collectively, Putin’s maneuvers in the area of national defense reveal that he is “retooling [the Russian] military for a fight”, claims the CSIS report. It goes on to add that Moscow “is not modernizing its military primarily to extend its capacity to pursue hybrid warfare”. The term ‘hybrid warfare’ is used by some experts to describe Russia’s utilization of irregular military tactics during its invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and many believe that it points to the future evolution of Russian military thinking. But the CSIS document argues that President Putin is primarily modernizing Russian “conventional military capability on a large scale” and argues that “the state is mobilizing for war”.
The CSIS report is believed to be among several reasons why Ottawa is considering contributing hundreds of troops to a new 4,000-strong North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force that is expected to be stationed in the Baltic States in the coming months. The Canadian intelligence agency argues in favor of a more aggressive NATO policy vis-à-vis Russia in its report, stating that the economic sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow after the annexation of Crimea are not working. Instead of faltering due to outside economic pressures, the Kremlin “appears to be coherent, durable and united”, says CSIS. Consequently, “Western assessments that Russia is vulnerable to economic collapse and disruptive internal discontent are exaggerated”, according to the report. The document concludes that Russia is “adapting to diversity [by] deliberately tilting [its economy] to security, rather than economic freedom.
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And here i thought Russia’s military were always gearing up for a fight – always trying to prove how tough they are.
If they are that tough, let’s see what they can to do with ISIS.