The Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Lines Between War and Peace

摘要

Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Lines Between War and Peace is a long-awaited work in the field of military studies. The book is an effort to right the wrongs of the past years' Russia military analysis that was preoccupied more with hanging catchy two-word nametags on the Russian way of war than with trying to truly understand it from primary sources. Oscar Jonsson, of the Swedish Defence University and the author of this book, takes one step back. Instead of trying to answer the how, he asks the what. Instead of describing how Russia fights its wars, The Russian Understanding of War looks to answer what war is in contemporary Russian military theory. Has the Russian understanding of the nature of war changed, and if so, how? In the quest to answer his research question, the author guides the reader through Russian military thought from the Bolshevik Revolution until today. The book is a testament that it was not for Russian cunning and maskirovka that developments in the understanding of war went unnoticed but simply for a lack of attention. It was all there, written in monographs, published in articles of Russian military journals, told by prominent military figures at conferences. Jonsson has done a meticulous work to make up for years of skipped homework of Russian military analysis.