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Andrew S. Bowen: Will Russia risk an all-out invasion of Ukraine?
In September 2013, Russia unnerved the Baltic States and several NATO countries by holding military exercises on the borders of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and in the Kaliningrad enclave that involved an estimated 70,000 troops. Earlier, in April, the Russian Air Force had practiced mock bombing runs near Swedish air space. The unease caused by these events -- along with many others, including the resumption of a Russian Naval task force in the Mediterranean and international flights of strategic bombers -- was considerable, prompting many analysts to remark on the Russian military's resurgent confidence and capability. It was confidence and capability born of a massivemodernizatsiia program designed to remedy the inadequacies exposed by the 2008 war with Georgia, and to create a modern, professional military capable of protecting Russia's status as a great power.