Strategy and Power in Russia 1600-1914

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Автор: Fuller W.C.

Название: Strategy and Power in Russia 1600-1914

Издательство: NewYork: The Free Press, Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan Canada

Год: 1992

Страниц: 558

Формат: pdf

Размер: 193 mb

Язык: английский

The topic of Imperial Russia's strategic complex is an arcane one, but Fuller makes it both insightful and interesting. He argues that the highest officials in Russian policy-making during these three centuries were concerned with three basic things: (1) Maintaining the social status quo; (2) Defending an expansive border; (3) Making the most out of the limited resources at Russia's disposal. Russia was essentially a backward country compared to the emerging imperial powers of Europe in this period. It failed to produce products necessary for war; it lacked a centralized bureaucracy needed for tax collection and law enforcement; it was caught between choosing its western, eastern, or southern territories. In the process of these disadvantages, Russian officials had to improvise. Improvisation was the fundamental Russian strategy for dealing with these three areas. In war, Russia's desperate need for men and machinery forced the Russian military to enact tactics such as luring in the enemy in the inclement and unsteady Russian terrain and not losing wars and wearing the enemy down through attrition rather than offensively winning, as Peter the Great brilliantly executed and Napoleon suffered from. In peace, Russian statesmen may have held coherent strategies, but at perilous costs.

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