The Russian Embassy in the United States is alarmed by the U.S. Army’s new warfare “handbook” on countering the threat of Russian forces, an embassy spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The so-called “Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook” spells out Russian forces’ capabilities and calls for an immediate improvement of its own capacities to counter the threat. It focuses on tactics and strategies Russia employs in Ukraine, such as hybrid warfare and the use of proxy forces, in addition to conventional forces.
Russian Embassy spokesman Nikolai Lakhonin noted that the U.S. Army’s handbook “imagines the possibility of military clashes between U.S. and Russian armed forces.”
“This can only be imagined in a terrible delirium!” he said in comments on the embassy’s Facebook page.
“This evidence of training the U.S. troops for direct conflict with Russia looks very alarming, especially in the current and already difficult situation in European security.”
Frants Klintsevich, deputy head of the State Duma Defense Committee, called the handbook “useless.”
“They are unable to fight the Russians in military and technical terms or in moral and psychological training,” Klintsevich said over the weekend.
The U.S. Army handbook attempts to identify blindspots within its training priorities, highlighting the need to “outthink our opponent and capitalize on his weaknesses.”
The Asymmetric Warfare Group, a U.S. Army unit tasked with advisory support, drafted the handbook in December 2016 and the Public Intelligence research project published its unclassified version on Sept 18.
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