Estimating Foreign Military Power

Philip Towle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000370713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architektur
• Subtopic: Architekturgeschichte

This book, first published in 1982, addresses the problem of assessing the central and regional balance of power. The collection of essays by experts on the different countries looks at the miscalculations about the military power of foreign countries which have been made in the past and the difficulties which have to be overcome today before we can reach a correct estimate of the power of other states.

PART ONE:
RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION

1 British Views Of Russia: Russian Views of Britain

C.D. Bellamy

Early Years

Western Europeans were aware of the existence of a Russian state at least as early as the thirteenth century,¹ although Russia only became a power of interest to Westerners — whether as friend or foe — much later. This was not because of Russia’s lack of resources or the size of its territories but because of its remoteness and internal divisions. Even by the twelfth century, the Russian principalities, although fragmented, extended from the shores of the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean and from the Western Dvina and Dnestr rivers to the Volga. Tales of Russian wealth, reinforced no doubt by its proximity to the mysterious East, excited the imaginations of Western poets. Russia was considered distant and unconquerable and the expression ‘to wage war on Russia’ became a byword for an enterprise which would result in disaster. Russia is also mentioned in English folklore of the thirteenth century when Russian merchants are reported to have come to Southampton ‘laden with rich goods’.²

Soviet historians have stressed the role of Russia in the Thirty Years War. Some have even attempted to show that Russia was part of the European balance of power as early as the sixteenth century.³ Certainly, Ivan III (Grand Prince of Moscow 1462-1505) concluded an alliance with the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian at the end of the fifteenth century inspired by their mutual antipathy towards the Turk.⁴ Ivan IV (the Terrible), who reigned as Tsar from 1547 to 1584, conducted negotiations with the English government of Mary Tudor and with Elizabeth I in 1567 and again in the 1580s. He also entered into negotiations with Erik XIV of Sweden. Some have seen in Ivan IV’s attempts against Livonia the desire to give Russia ‘an outlet to the Baltic Sea and open up communications with Europe’ — aims fulfilled by Peter the Great (1682-1725).⁵ Alliances with England and Sweden would further contribute to this, but it is likely that Ivan’s aims were more pragmatic. In the Habsburgs, England and Russia had a mutal enemy. Soviet historians have also stressed the appropriateness of a tripartite alliance of Russia, England — the nascent democracy — and the ‘Revolutionary Netherlands’ against Reactionary’ Spain.⁶ Seen in terms of Marxist historical philosophy this is fair enough, but it hardly reflects what people thought at the time. Furthermore, despite Russian interest in a military alliance, English interests were entirely commercial. Neither of Ivan’s attempts to conclude an alliance were successful. Soviet writers see political interests behind the commercial interests which led Englishmen to visit Russia in the sixteenth century. Ironically, it is perhaps difficult for the more politically orientated Soviet mind to appreciate the true nature of English expansion, which was essentially one of profit and free enterprise. One must agree with Yu. Tolstoi writing in 1875 that Russia was a country with no ‘political significance’⁷ for England until the opening of Peter’s window on the west at the turn of the seventeenth century. Russia was for the west a rich and powerful country with a touch of the mysterious east, but it was not a threat, and was isolated from the mainstream of European power politics.

What of Russian perceptions of England? Despite the visits of Richard Chancellor and others, the Russians were comparatively unaware of England. Before the Mongol invasions, Russia’s only immediate western contacts were with Constantinople and Bohemia and any western ideas had to pass through those filters.⁸

Ivan the Terrible imported foreign craftsmen, principally Germans, to build up his armaments industry. The ‘German Quarter’ in Moscow was set aside for the foreigners. Even today, the word Nemets (German) is used colloquially for any western foreigner. Despite some contacts with the English, it is fair to say that the only western Europeans with whom pre-Petrine Russia had any significant dealings were Germans.

The Russian Threat

Profitable though trade with Russia was for the English, it did not obscure the bad points of Muscovite society. Russians were seen as coarse and savage, if physically brave and tough. Nevertheless, Milton had to concede that Russia was ‘the most northern Region of Europe reputed civil’.⁹

With the irruption of Russia into the Baltic at the beginning of the eighteenth century and its involvement in the Great Northern War, Russia became known to the English popular imagination. This process was abetted by no less a figure than Daniel Defoe. England at this time was enjoying a period of constitutional development with great emphasis on freedom and human rights. It was natural, therefore, that tales of the Russian system should strike fear into the heart of freedom-loving Englishmen. The Tsar commanded ‘the very Souls and Bodies’ of his subjects, they breathed ‘but by his permission’.¹⁰ Even then, Defoe remarked on the practice of sending prisoners to Siberia, arguably the traditional epitome of Russian tyranny. Notwithstanding the fact that exile to Siberia was no worse, and probably more pleasant than transportation to the English colonies, Defoe managed to print a picture of Russian savagery and repression that mirrors our own.

Besides this negative picture Defoe also painted a positive one — Russian strength. The vast forest and mineral resources of the country impressed him. Even in the sixteenth century Russian raw materials had played a significant part in English ship construction, and by the eighteenth century not only were there sufficient naval materials to build a great Russian fleet but the navies of ‘Great Britain, Holland, France and Sweden’ were furnished with ‘Hemp, Flax, Timber . . . and Tar’ from Russia.¹¹ Even more striking for its modern ring is the realisation that Russia’s human resources gave it tremendous military potential, a fact also noted by Milton.¹² According to Defoe

Once his [the Tsar’s] army is prepared ... to come Hand to Hand with any of the Nations that lie thus on its Front... it will be much Superior to them on Account of the numberless Multitude of his People of whom he is able to raise as many thousands as some of his Neighbours can Hundreds, and that with less Expense than any of them.¹³

The remark about the cheapness of Russian military manpower is particularly perceptive. Defoe sensed the strength and potential of Russia and particularly its potential threat to western Europe. As if able to foretell the events of 1812 and 1941, Defoe predicted that regardless of Russian losses ‘they would rise again in Armies, as if they came out of the Ground’.¹⁴ Defoe also appreciated the great defensive strength of Russia. ‘Wilderness . . . impassable Woods of vast Extent. . .’waited to swallow up the attacker, while his supply problems would be acute. Because of the poverty of the countryside, foraging would be impossible and provisions would have to be carried over great distances and ‘thro’ a thousand Dangers’.¹⁵ With the same keen insight into the future Defoe explained why Charles XII of Sweden had not decided to rid himself of the Russian threat once and for all. ‘Who would ruin a brave Soldiery, and a discipline’d Army in fighting against Nature struggling with Hunger, Cold and Insuperable difficulties.’¹⁶ Here was one assessment of foreign power that would prove astonishingly accurate.*

Nevertheless, with the possible exception of the Armed Neutrality of 1780^† British and Russian interests did not come into direct collision until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was not until then that Russia’s southward march in Asia and Britain’s expansion in India brought the two powers within possible striking distance of each other on land. Both Britain and Russia had acquired great colonial territories, and now it was apparent that the interests of both were on a collision course from the Turkish Straits to the North Pacific. Napoleon was quick to perceive that a considerable and possibly decisive blow could be delivered at England through India. In 1800 Tsar Paul, prompted by Napoleon, conceived a scheme to attack India. The ataman of the Don voiska General Orlov received a letter suggesting he might move through Bokhara and Khiva to the Indus, destroy all English factories in India and bring the subcontinent under Russian rule.¹⁷ It was a far-fetched scheme and came to nothing, but in 1807 Napoleon proposed an invasion of India to Alexander I at Tilsit. This would be conducted by a joint army and to this end Alexander entered into negotiations with the Shah of Persia. Napoleon intended to send his brother, Lucien, to arrange the details of the campaign.¹⁸ This was no secret to the British, who through concern for their coveted India would come to fear the growing power of Russia. Then Franco-Russian relations took a turn for the worse and Britain and Russia found themselves allies once again. In April 1811 Napoleon requested information on the Russian and Swedish fleets. French writers were employed to proclaim that Russia was a threat to Europe, to justify the forthcoming invasion. A book containing the fabricated will of Peter the Great’ was published by Le Sur.¹⁹

Although Britain was the one state not seriously threatened in the will’, it was the one state that took it seriously. Once the French threat had receded somewhat, the Russian menace again became fully apparent. Sir Robert Wilson’s Sketch of the Military and Political Power of Russia in 1817 sensed the great and growing power of Russia and its world vision, a theme that has permeated British assessments of Russia ever since. He saw Russia contending for world dominion with the other, still dangerous candidate, France.

* A similar point was made as early as the fifteenth century. A Russian monk, writing in the fictitious Testament of King Magnus’ (purported to be by Magnus II and VII of Denmark) wrote Tie who invades the land of Russia and ignores the kissing of the cross has the Lord God, and tire and water, against him’. Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades — The Baltic and The Catholic Frontier 1100-1525 (London, 1980), p. 191.

† Russia, Sweden and Denmark banded together to oppose the British right of search at sea. Arguably, this was an earlier collision of interests.

Such contending parties will not come out to skirmish and then mutually retire, nor will they fight for conquest to give away; the one will keep the field, and with it the Dictatorship of the World.²⁰

Irving H. Smith has concluded that by the 1830s British attitudes had crystallised into a distinct Russophobia, a condition that was to persist, with few exceptions, to the present.²¹ By 1838, as Anglo-Russian relations headed for a crisis over Afghanistan, the implications of Russian power for Europe were clearly understood.

The most important political question on which modern times have to decide, is the policy that must now be pursued, in order to maintain the security of Western Europe against the overgrown power of Russia: a power that hangs in threatening darkness over the west, as the thunder cloud of the tropics hangs over the lands destined to feel the fury of the desolating tornado.²²

With the exception of the brief invasion scare of 1859, when fear of France loomed larger, the British popular attitude to Russia remained much the same throughout the nineteenth century, and almost until the First World War.²³ A publication called The Balance of Power in 1888 described Russia as ‘our great enemy’. The Russian threat had been with the British for so long that even after the conclusion of the Convention in 1907, the British could not believe the ‘threat’had disappeared.²⁴ With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in 1917 all the old ideological fears were reawakened, and although the brief period of alliance of 1941-5 cut deeply into the British conscious...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part One: Russia and the Soviet Union
• Part Two: The Power of the New States
• Part Three
• Notes on Contributors
• Index