Welcome to the One CA Podcast.
Please welcome Roberto Carmack who received his PhD in Central Asian and Russian history. He is a Specialist at the 450th Civil Affairs Batallion (Airborne), U.S. Army Reserve. Roberto discusses Russian actions and the way ahead in the region.
Sponsored by the Civil Affairs Association. Produced and edited by John McElligott.
---
Transcript
00:00:29 SPEAKER_01
NATO members in Eastern Europe and even larger countries like Germany and France are very concerned with the potential for Russian aggression because the Russians did, in fact, slice off a piece of a sovereign country, Ukraine, and annex it.
00:01:06 SPEAKER_00
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot. I'll be your host for this episode. We're joined today by a special guest from the 450th Civil Affairs Battalion Airborne. Roberto Carmack is a specialist, but he also has a PhD, so we'll call you Dr. Carmack for this episode if that's okay with you.
00:01:25 SPEAKER_01
That sounds good, sir.
00:01:26 SPEAKER_00
We wanted to talk with you today about your background and the connection between what you'd studied and what you're doing on the civilian side now. and how you think that may tie into civil affairs. So you're really a history buff. You earned a master's degree and a PhD in history. If you could, for everyone, describe your doctoral thesis and what your focus was.
00:01:46 SPEAKER_01
Sure. So I defended my thesis in 2015, and it's about Central Asia during World War II, and in particular about mobilization in Kazakhstan. Basically, what I've done is compare how Soviet authorities, In Russia and in Central Asia, mobilized all these different populations for the war effort, from Muslim Central Asians to Russians to people who were deported to the region during the war. So it's mainly designed to understand how mobilization worked in practice and how all these ethnic policies changed as a result of the war.
00:02:26 SPEAKER_00
To conduct your research, did you have to go to those countries?
00:02:29 SPEAKER_01
Yes, I did. I spent quite a bit of time in Kazakhstan, about a year. I mostly did archival work to locate these government documents that discuss these policies. I also did quite a lot of research in Moscow, something like three months.
00:02:48 SPEAKER_00
Was that speaking Russian and other languages?
00:02:51 SPEAKER_01
Right. So in Kazakhstan, you can get by. using Russian. I do speak Kazakh, but most of the documents for that period were written in Russian because there's a heavy bias towards the Russian language in all Soviet regions.
00:03:07 SPEAKER_00
So everyone else listening to this episode knows Specialist slash Dr. Carmack speaks multiple languages and is actually, you're getting paid by the Army for, what do you have now, Russian and Spanish on the record?
00:03:22 SPEAKER_01
That's right, yeah. Okay.
00:03:24 SPEAKER_00
Well, I would encourage everyone to go ahead and take those language exams and to learn another language. How has the process been for you in taking those exams and getting paid?
00:03:35 SPEAKER_01
You know, these exams are in some ways difficult and others not too bad. I came to Russian pretty late in life. I started studying the language in grad school, so I had to learn it basically from nothing. It took many years to get to a level where I can speak it and read it comfortably. and it requires frequent practice. Spanish was technically my first language, so I was able to reacquire it through review. But yeah, I mean, there are many, many soldiers that have language abilities that they learned in their households or through education. So like you, I definitely encourage them to seek the opportunity to take the exam because it's really great for your record, and the money certainly helps.
00:04:20 SPEAKER_00
Absolutely. Yeah, a little extra cash on top of the Battle Assembly pay is wonderful.
00:04:25 SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
00:04:26 SPEAKER_00
Dr. Carmack, I wanted to talk to you about the connection between the U .S. military and what's going on in Russia and to provide some background about the Russian Federation. So if we could try to break down the armed forces of the Russian Federation and how it compares to the U .S. It's my understanding that the service branches include ground forces. aerospace, Navy, strategic missile, airborne, and special operations forces. I'm not sure if they have anything related to civil affairs. And they have conscription, so citizens must join the military if they're age 18 to 27 for 12 months of service, which, based on my experience in the U .S. Army, that would take up a lot of your training anyway. And there was one estimate I found that mentioned approximately 5 .4 % of GDP spent in the military. Does that stack up against what you know, and how would you rank the strengths of the Russian military compared to those of the U .S.? Yeah,
00:05:26 SPEAKER_01
so that 5 .4 % of GDP going to military expenditures, that's actually quite high compared to most countries in Europe. You know, since 2008, the Russian government has initiated a pretty comprehensive program of military reform. Basically, their goal is to emphasize quality over quantity and modernize the military. So, you know, in general, from a technological and even strategic viewpoint, it doesn't seem that the Russians can match the United States or the NATO alliance in terms of sheer capacity. But thanks to these reforms, their military capacity has generally gone up.
00:06:15 SPEAKER_01
Your listeners probably know that Russia and Georgia, the former Soviet Republic, waged a short but pretty intense war. There were a lot of problems there, mainly because the different branches of the Russian military and even individual elements within the Russian army weren't coordinating their efforts. So there's a lot of miscommunications that definitely degraded their battlefield capacity. But now if we fast forward to recent events in Ukraine and Syria, it's very obvious. that the Russian ability to command and control their forces has improved dramatically. So are they a match for the United States and NATO? In the strictest sense, no. But it would be a mistake to underestimate them because they're improving their capacity practically every year. Okay.
00:07:01 SPEAKER_00
Well, you brought up a couple countries there as examples. You talked about Georgia, Syria, Ukraine. And I wanted to talk to you about the idea of a buffer zone. I've read about it very often, and I think it's a plausible argument. I read connected to geopolitics and the importance of geography. So do you agree that the Russian Federation needs a buffer, buffer zones? And what evidence do you have to support that idea?
00:07:28 SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. And that's not only something that I believe, but I think that the Russian government is definitely adhering to the military and geopolitical strategy. Really, the creation of these buffer zones is the only way to prevent offensive action against the Russian Federation, at least from the perspective of the Kremlin and the people making defense policy. The modern history of the Russian state is just filled with examples of foreign powers invading through vulnerable frontiers. The Nazi invasion during World War II is just a major example of that. It's not altogether surprising that Russian leaders are trying to keep their opponents like the United States and NATO away from their borders. For example, that was one of the major reasons why the Russians decided to intervene in Ukraine in the past few years. They need to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, and that way, by keeping NATO forces out of Ukraine, they have more strategic flexibility to wage an effective defense should there be a war with the alliance.
00:08:35 SPEAKER_00
And what's the connection with Georgia and the Caucasus region?
00:08:40 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Russian military and diplomatic strategy there is largely similar to what's going on in Ukraine. I referenced the 2008 war with Georgia before. You know, this narrow strip of territory between the Caspian and the Black Seas is of highest strategic importance for the Russians. Not only is it a... oil transfer point. But many of these countries in the past, like Georgia, have tried or at least flirted with the notion of joining NATO and establishing very close relations with the EU. The Russians are trying to prevent that by any means at their disposal through economic pressure and, if necessary, military pressure. So we can see the creation of a buffer zone there as a preeminent Russian concern. Okay.
00:09:30 SPEAKER_00
There's another area I wanted to bring up, and I haven't heard about it since Russia took over the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. What has happened since then?
00:09:40 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so I think one of the reasons you haven't heard much out of Crimea is because the annexation has become normalized in a sense. Western media outlets have grown accustomed to it, and they see it as something that's an established fact. Although there's not a lot of armed conflict in the region like there is in those two separatist provinces in eastern Ukraine of Donetsk and Luhansk, there's still plenty going on. On the whole, Russian control on the peninsula is quite stable. The Russians have militarily fortified the peninsula, so any sort of armed incursion from the Ukrainian side is not really feasible. The Russians have accused the Ukrainian government of sending in these small special operations type teams to conduct sabotage operations and collect intel. But for the most part, the peninsula is militarily secure. So inside, the Russians are slowly working to consolidate their control over the governing apparatus and even the population. According to several independent polls, mostly conducted by Western research outfits, the majority of Crimeans, something like 80 percent, support Russian control over the Crimean peninsula. And this largely breaks down along ethnic lines. And it's not too surprising that most ethnic Russians there support Russia as opposed to Ukraine. strongly opposed to Russian control. One of them, and perhaps the most important, is the Crimean Tatars. They're a Turkic Muslim group that's native to the peninsula. And the Russians have been treating them extremely poorly by arresting their leaders, shutting down their representative institutions, and silencing their press. So there's a lot of potential there for future conflicts. So we'll have to see what happens within the next few years.
00:11:40 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, absolutely. And you brought up... Ethnic Russians. I've read that ethnic Russians are in decline, and that may be one reason why Russia is trying to expand again to include non -ethnic Russians within the Federation. What's the history, and where do you think we're headed?
00:12:00 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, there's no question that Russia is facing a demographic crisis. You know, the birth rate is extremely low. for a European country. And really, within the next few decades, it's not going to be likely that they'll be even able to support their military force at current levels. It's something that the leadership is well aware of and is worried about. Hence, they're instituting these pro -birth policies in an attempt to kind of boost the birth rate. And part of the consequence of this is that we have to remember, you know, The technical name for the country is the Russian Federation because it's a federation of many ethnic groups led by the Russians, including many groups that are non -Slavic and even Muslim. I'm talking about groups like the Chechens and the Tatars, and there are many others. These Muslim national or ethnic groups tend to have a higher birth rate than the native Russian population. So what we're going to see in the next 50 years or so is that these Muslim groups are going to gradually outstrip the Russian population. And it's obviously going to have a tremendous impact on Russian national identity and even their military policies.
00:13:18 SPEAKER_00
Have you seen pushback recently? Are ethnic Russians pushing back against non -ethnic Russians, or are they more inclusive?
00:13:29 SPEAKER_01
Well, on the one hand, no. When we're talking about groups like the Tatars, Russians consider them to be citizens of the Russian Federation and not too different from them. Most sattars speak Russian. They're aware of Russian cultural values, et cetera, et cetera. Where the pushback is coming in is with migrants from Central Asia. We're talking about ex -Soviet countries that aren't part of the Russian Federation anymore, countries like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. These countries sent huge numbers of labor migrants to work in places like Moscow and St. Petersburg. And yes, there's tremendous pushback against these populations. This has been going on for more than 10 years. There's been a huge upswing in racist sentiment that breaks down along racial lines and anti -immigrant sentiment. And you're right, as the Russian population experiences this demographic crisis, it seems likely that these kind of extremist sentiments... are going to increase.
00:14:31 SPEAKER_02
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
00:14:54 SPEAKER_00
Each junior NCO and officer selected will also receive a membership to the CA Association. If you'd like to support the podcast, then please visit the CA Association website at civilaffairsassoc .org. That's civilaffairsassoc .org. And please remember that all donations are tax deductible. Thanks for your support.
00:15:35 SPEAKER_03
Welcome back to the 1CA podcast.
00:15:38 SPEAKER_00
I want to ask you about, as the Russian bear flexes its muscles in Eastern Europe, how much flexibility, how much give do you think there is within NATO circles and those Eastern European countries? And where do you think, if we call it a red line or... Where do you think Europe would feel Russia is going too far if they started to annex more territories like Latvia, for example? What's your take on that?
00:16:06 SPEAKER_01
your take on that? Yeah, so if we're talking about the Russian sphere of influence or their perceived sphere of influence, I think we can divide these countries into three broad categories. The first includes one of t