In a recent appearance on Russia’s state-run television, Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev suggested that the country’s “empire” should grow to encompass three American states.
“I want the Russian empire with Alaska, Hawaii, California, Finland, and Poland,” he said, as translated by Gerashchenko for the clip he shared. “Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I’m not sure, to be honest. We’ll clean them.”
Lets say Russia magically is able to land on US soil completely intact after passing through the US Navy infested waters of the Atlantic or the Pacific. Lets just assume they can so we can continue this crazy thought experiment.
To take territory you need boots on the ground, troops, tanks, APCs, etc. These are transported by troop transport aircraft and large ships that are naval landing craft. For Russia that would be the Ropucha-class. Each of these ships can carry about 10 tanks and about 310 troops (per ship).
So how many of these ship does Russia have? Hundreds, right? Nope: 11. Thats it. So assuming a full load of every ship thats about 110 tanks and about 3500ish troops. And all of that assumes all 11 ships will make it alive to US soil.
This is just how crazy this Russian claim of taking US States is.
Hmm.
I mean, it’s not gonna happen for other reasons (including the “Russia doesn’t have the naval and air forces to get control of the ocean required to have the ships cross it” point in the Vice article that I link to in another comment), but if we set that aside and assume a hypothetical world where Russia could get control of the sea and the air over the Pacific, I think that there’d be hypothetical ways to work around a limited number of landing ships.
The amphibious forces have to be able to seize and defend a port so that non-amphibious-assault ships get in.
So, the capacity is bounded by the time required to do a round trip to your staging point and the number of ships you have.
And there isn’t really any land nearby to use as a staging point.
But…you don’t actually have to reload at land. I mean, you could do ship-to-ship transfer, then have the landing ships do another run in from an offshore concentration of warships. If you really worked at it, you could probably get pretty good throughput.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underway_replenishment
They also have LCACs. Those can land forces on unimproved beaches as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aist-class_LCAC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebed-class_LCAC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsaplya-class_LCAC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubr-class_LCAC
I assume that they can launch them from Ivan Gren-class LSDs. Maybe it’s possible to load them via crane or something to increase throughput, dunno what doctrine is.
They also have some ships that can carry helicopters, and can use that for insertion from offshore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Naval_Aviation
And they have some landing craft of other sorts than what you mentioned; see the “landing craft” section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_Navy_ships#Landing_craft
NAVY stands for Never Again Volunteer Yourself.
And after basic training and almost dying because of medical stuff unrelated to military service forced me out of the military, I took that to heart. Especially given who won the election in the years following my enlistment. No way was I going back. I’m still adamant to never reenlist, and I will always tell others NOT to enlist in the current US military unless major systemic changes are made so you don’t have to think to yourself “are we the baddies?” when in your bunk. I will happily tell anyone a recruiter is talking to about my experience, my family’s general military experience, and that with current volatility even if you agree with what they’re doing today, your enlistment will last longer than one administration and tomorrow you could be bombing Gaza and Ukraine right alongside other fascists.
All that said, If a foreign country invaded the us, you bet your ass I would be joining up with my ex-military friends for some good old fashioned minutemen militia. I’ve seen their equipment and what Russia is using in Ukraine. Russians would fail against well armed civilians (the ones who also have training, not just money).
The biggest flaw with Red Dawn isn’t that guerilla style combat tactics from teenagers and random adults could repel an enemy invasion coughvietnamcough, it’s that the enemy forces would never have made it to the mainland in such force in the first place.
They wouldn’t need magic. They’d just need a hamburder puppet President in office.
I think you forget that we have 24 hour satellite surveillance all over the globe.
If you think Russia could send a large fraction of its blue water navy to one single point on the globe while also mustering all those troops and equipment on the ground in Russia beforehand without the US knowing about it weeks before hand, you don’t have a good grasp on the level of technology employed in today’s military.
Well, there’s a remote island that belongs to Alaska that’s about two miles away from a remote island that belongs to Russia. You can swim across that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomede_Islands
I mean, I’m sure that Russia can get forces across that. They’ve got a military base on their little island, and we’ve got a small Native American village on our little island.
But then you’ve planted some number of forces on a strategically-irrelevant island in the Pacific. You’ve blown your largest advantage, surprise, and you’ve dumped however many people there, with a supply line that dictates that you need to support them by having ships sail up, while you just kicked off a war with a country with a much larger navy and air force.
And it’s not much of a springboard to a beachhead that you can use for land-based logistics, because there’s no infrastructure up there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing
The Russian side of the strait, in particular, is severely lacking in infrastructure. No railways exist for over 2,800 kilometers (1,700 mi) in any direction from the strait.[24]
The nearest major connecting highway is the M56 Kolyma Highway, which is currently unpaved and around 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) from the strait.[25] However, by 2042, the Anadyr Highway is expected to be completed connecting Ola and Anadyr, which is only about 600 kilometers (370 mi) from the strait.[26]
On the U.S. side, an estimated 1,200 kilometers (750 mi) of highways or railroads would have to be built around Norton Sound, through a pass along the Unalakleet River, and along the Yukon River to connect to Manley Hot Springs Road – in other words, a route similar to that of the Iditarod Trail Race. A project to connect Nome, 100 miles (160 km) from the strait, to the rest of Alaska by a paved highway (part of Alaska Route 2) has been proposed by the Alaskan state government, although the very high cost ($2.3 to $2.7 billion, about $5 million per mile, or $3 million per kilometer) has so far prevented construction.[27]
In 2016, the Alaskan road network was extended westwards by 50 miles (80 km) to Tanana, 460 miles (740 km) from the strait, by building a fairly simple road. The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities project was supported by local indigenous groups such as the Tanana Tribal Council.[28]
I hate the US’s budget for defense. It’s insane. 1% of that could do so much better as social programs.
But every time someone starts talking about a foreign country invading the us it’s just… Unthinkable…
Not like “oh it will never happen, nobody would ever attack US soil again” because that’s just naive. We’ve stuck our noses in other people’s business to too long starting before any of us were alive.
But when people try to argue their point, they simply do not understand the scale of the problem.
You sum it up quite well.
Assuming you HAVE the element of surprise, which is unlikely given intelligence networks inside foreign borders, modern radar technology, observation posts scattered around antagonistic nations, sattelite surveillance… The list just goes on.
You are never getting an invasion force and supporting logistics to the united states (or any of the Americas) without the entire world knowing. You would have to build the largest hidden fleet of silent submarines the world has ever seen to get close.
Even if you magically defeated THE LARGEST navy and second largest air force, as well as the ACTUAL largest air force, you still have to deal with army, marines, coast guard, national guard, and honestly I think my local police department has equivalent equipment to what Russia runs in Ukraine. So add police to that.
And the number one problem when they somehow defeat all those will be the “more than one gun for every citizen” part. I myself have several mostly inherited ones, I know how to use them, and I’m confident in my ability to teach others how to use them effectively. And would happily do so in a foreign invasion. I won’t work for the military again but I’d be happy to defend my friends and family.
The hurdles for an invasion are high in most developed countries.
The us saw those hurdles, and decided “we need them at least 5x larger and made of titanium.” and went to work on the largest military in the world.
I may hate the budget, but ho boy does it make for some fun thought exercises when someone brings up foreign invasions.
Where is Russia 2 miles from Alaska? It’s about 50ish miles. Last I checked, it’s also not a great place to start a ground invasion. The US could blow the shit out of that area of Alaska and nothing much would be missed.
Where is Russia 2 miles from Alaska?
The international border goes between the islands of little and big Diomede. Both of these islands are remote from land in either direction, and they are situated about midway in the narrowest part of the Bering Strait.
Since you asked where, here it is on a map
Yep, that’s pretty close, but nope, that’s not really tactically meaningful.
He’s talking about California. He understands taking Alaska and Hawaii, but cali?
