Vantage Point North

Next stop: Balkan Russia has been busy lately. Area denial / Anti Access bubbles are popping up from Syria to the Arctic. Snap drills are mobilizing hundreds of thousands of soldiers in a moment’s notice. Brigades and entire divisions are relocating across the vast nation in days. Russia keeps moving its assets with rapid and unannounced moves. While most of these drills, relocation's and exercises have been just what they look like. Russia has been steadily improving its strategic position along its western border. Russian Speznatz Russia is also sending a clear message to the west. “We can go to war at any moment.” A prime example of this signaling was the combined arms invasion of Norway, which was simulated in mid-October. Exercise included thousands of marines and soldiers, a missile brigade and the aircraft-carrier squadron that blocked the route for NATO: s reinforcements. Surprisingly the squadrons most potent platform isn’t the carrier. The Kirov-class battlecru...