ABSTRACT
Sir Winston Churchill famously said that ‘Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’. The same sentiment seems to apply to Russian air power. Today the Russian Air and Space Force (RuASF) bear responsibility for all the Russian military operations in the air and space domains, including strategic air, ballistic missile defence, and ballistic missile early warning. In the latter role the RuASF is the vital element of the Russian nuclear triad’s command and control system; the Russian air force’s strategic bombers are the second part of the triad. This chapter argues that the deterrent role of the RuASF is not limited to its nuclear dimension (‘deterrence by punishment’). Moscow believes that an adversary will not initiate conflict if it knows that it cannot decapitate and disarm Russia; encouragement of the Western perceptions of the RuASF’s defensive capabilities, including ‘anti-access/area denial bubbles’, is therefore aimed to enhance Russian ‘deterrence by denial’. The work goes through the Russian modernisation program that started in earnest in 2008 and lessons from recent operational experiences. The RuASF, for all its strengths and weaknesses, is an important political tool in the Russian government’s possession that provides assets for the nation’s modern-day version of ‘gunboat diplomacy’.
