The Military-Political Background of the Gerasimov Article

Abstract

The Russian chief of staff, Valerij Gerasimov, was associated with the „hybrid war“ doctrine by a number of foreign and Hungarian experts who were not familiar with Russian military thinking. In order to understand and correctly interpret Gerasimov’s ideas of modern warfare, we need to know the Russian military thinking, military culture, Russia’s internal political affairs, and the status of Russian armed forces. The purpose of this paper is to explore the military background and the political conditions based upon the Russian military reform of Gerasimov’s article titled „Importance of Science in Progress“ published in 2013.