Russia's resurgent military

New naval base, long-range missiles

Moscow's growing military footprint – and the apprehensions of others about it – is evident in a spate of recent news events.

• Last week the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia accused Russian warplanes of invading its airspace and firing a missile, which failed to explode, at a radio station. Russian officials denied the allegation and suggested that Georgian leaders fabricated the incident. Tensions have been high between Russia and Georgia over Moscow's support for two breakaway Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are protected by Russian "peacekeeping" troops.

• Russian naval chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin announced this month that Russia may reclaim a naval base at Tartus, in Syria, from which Soviet warships used to keep tabs on US ships. "The Mediterranean is an important theater of operations for the Russian Black Sea Fleet," he said. "We must restore a permanent presence of the Russian Navy in this region."

• In July, amid worsening relations between Russia and Britain over the still unsolved poisoning death of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, two Russian Tu-95 bombers flew deep into NATO territory for the first time since the cold war's end and, according to Britain's defense ministry, briefly entered British airspace before being escorted away by British fighter planes.

Last week, in another post-Soviet first, Russian bombers "revived the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet US aircraft carriers and greet US pilots visually," ending up near the American Pacific base of Guam, Russian Air Force Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov told Russian media. He added that the pilots on both sides "exchanged grins."

• Russia has recently conducted tests of new land- and sea-based intercontinental missiles, which are expected to soon replace the country's aging Soviet-era nuclear deterrent. As a partial response to US missile defense plans, Russia will develop a missile defense "project that will include not only air defense systems but also antiballistic missile and space defense systems" to protect Moscow and other Russian centers, Russian Air Force chief Col. Gen. Alexandr Zelin told Russian media last week.

Critics are skeptical that, despite major Putin-era infusions of cash, Russia's weak industrial base can deliver on the Kremlin's ambitions to restore a global military presence.

"Now our military leaders have enough money to create a kind of caricature of the Soviet armed forces, and they want to do a lot of the same old things," says Alexander Goltz, military expert with the independent online magazine Yezhednevny Zhurnal. "But their plans are a confused mixture of realistic goals and unworkable Soviet-style symbolism," says Mr. Goltz.

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