Introduction

Earlier this year, the Financial Times detonated a heavy-pound bomb: 29 Russian top-secret military documents exposed!

These training materials from 2008 to 2014 revealed a cool strategic plan ¨C once Russia is at war with NATO, Russia¡¯s primary target is not a European host but two ¡°neighbors¡± far from China.

The deadlock between east and west

The Financial Times dropped a bombshell and exposed a total of 29 Russian military training materials. These documents are not freshly released combat plans, but "antiquities" compiled between 2008 and 2014. They are presumably released by Western intelligence agencies at the end of 2024.

What is the purpose of this document? it is a script for the PPT and simulation of warfare for Russian officers to be taught. The content, however, is cold to see. The document depicts an extreme scenario: once Russia and NATO are in full conflict, its primary target is not the old European opponents, but Japan and South Korea in East Asia.

The news came out, the Moscow side stood up and denied, saying these are outdated old documents, can not represent the current policy, but also rebelly accused Western media to play, want to shift the international perspective.

Because this "blueprint on paper" is not so much a combat instruction to be executed as a map depicting Russia's deep strategic anxiety. It reveals how a big country, which is attacked by historical grievances and real threats, is engaged in a defensive "offensive" deduction in the big game of Far East.

Spreading out the world map, Russia's embarrassing situation is clear at a glance. This behemoth that spans Eurasia has borne a geopolitical curse since its birth-the eternal nightmare of fighting on two fronts. To its west is the pressing NATO, and to its east is the "bridgehead" laid by the United States in the Asia-Pacific region.

How much pressure is there on the Western Front? NATO's eastward expansion has never stopped.

In 2024, a massive military exercise called ¡°The Solid Defenders¡± gathered 90,000 troops and 50 vessels, and the scenario of the exercise even included highly provocative content such as blocking Russian ports, seizing Kaliningrad, simulating strikes on nuclear facilities.

Looking at the eastern front, the Far East is crucial to Russia. It accounts for more than 30% of the land area and is rich in gold and natural gas resources, but its population is only 8 million and its military strength is relatively weak. On the opposite side of this vast land, Japan and South Korea, as hardcore allies of the United States, are like two nails, nailed to the Asia-Pacific strategic map of the United States.

This is not as simple as a simple garrison. Japan's Yokosuka Naval Base is stationed with American nuclear-powered aircraft carriers all the year round, guarding the southward outlet of the Russian Pacific Fleet. The "Sade" anti-missile system deployed by South Korea has a radar coverage that is wide enough to track the movements of Russian submarines. The existence of these military facilities poses a real threat to Russia's lifeline in the Far East.

Therefore, the tactical logic of "attacking the east and saving the west" in the leaked document surfaced. Attacking Japan and South Korea is not an end in itself, but a means. This is an extremely cruel but pragmatic strategic calculation when resources are limited, especially when the Russia-Ukraine conflict consumes a large amount of military resources and ammunition, and military spending is stretched.

The plan listed approximately 160 strike targets, priorities clearly divided: first strike military facilities, then strike civilian infrastructure. The first 82 Japanese military targets on the list, closely targeted the naval base in Yokohama, a communication station in Qinzong County, and even the surveillance facilities on the Strait of Mala.

The intention of the military strike is clear: to paralyze the U.S. military¡¯s strengthening and logistical capabilities in the Asia-Pacific. By destroying these key nodes, the U.S. military slowed the pace of the move from the Pacific to the battlefield in Europe, and gained valuable strategic breathing time for the main battlefield of the Western Front.

Even worse, nuclear power plants, tunnels, bridges, energy hubs, and even industrial facilities such as steel plants are under attack, with the goal of creating a massive social chaos within Japan and South Korea, which in a short period of time completely loses their potential as NATO¡¯s ¡°logistics warehouse.¡±

It could be said that this is a short-term stability in East Asia in exchange for the strategic initiative of Europe¡¯s main battlefield.

A hundred years old wound.

The almost paranoid vigilance against Japan in the document is by no means groundless. To understand this, you have to roll back the scroll of history for more than a hundred years. For Russia, some historical wounds have never really healed.

The Russo-Japanese War that broke out in 1904 has left a psychological shadow on the Russians. Lushun Port was raided by the Japanese army without declaring war, and in the famous naval battle of Tsushima Strait in 1905, the expeditionary fleet formed by Russia at a huge expense was almost completely wiped out. These two events taught tsarist Russia at that time an unforgettable lesson: the "backyard" will catch fire and burn you to pieces.

This fear continued until the Soviet period, when during the Second World War, even when Germany was the worst at war on the western front, Stalin did not dare to squeeze the forces of the Far East with ease, as he constantly plagued the Japanese Guangdong army in northeastern China. This strategic passivity imprinted the Russian idea of national defense: the eastern line was unstable and the whole situation was lost.

Now, in the eyes of strategists in Moscow, history seems to be repeating itself. Japan adopted a new security strategy in 2022, clearly proposing to increase its defense budget to 2% of GDP. In Russia's view, what is the essential difference between this and the threat posed by the Kwantung Army back then?

Japan¡¯s accelerated deployment of F-35 fighters and high-speed hypersonic missiles has been interpreted as an upgraded version of the historical threat in terms of technology, while the frequency and scale of U.S.-Japan-Korea joint military exercises continues to rise, and intelligence sharing is increasingly tight, which in Russia¡¯s view, is not a modern version of the ¡°combined network¡±?

Therefore, when we look at the seemingly radical strike plan from this perspective, we will find that in Russia's strategic context, it may be regarded as a "defensive" deterrent based on historical lessons.

The underlying slogan behind it is: ¡°Don¡¯t force me, I¡¯ve lost, I know what it feels like to be knocked at the door, so in order to avoid history¡¯s repetition, I¡¯d prefer to preempt.¡±

How true is it on paper?

However, no matter how clear the strategic intention is and no matter how profound the historical motivation is, we have to face the skinny feeling of reality. This "blueprint on paper", which was born before 2014, has seen a huge crack in its feasibility in the face of today's reality. Its exposure is not so much to reveal an imminent war as to turn a secret strategic deduction into a bright card on the game table of great powers.

First of all, how many cards does Russia itself have to play? The Russia-Ukraine conflict is like a huge meat grinder, which has consumed a huge amount of precision-guided weapons. The Kh-101 cruise missiles and Iskander tactical missiles mentioned in the document are widely used on the Ukrainian battlefield, and replenishment is already quite difficult.

Western tough sanctions have caught Russia¡¯s military spending, and military-industrial capacity has been limited, a task that is almost impossible to accomplish to support two high-intensity modernized wars at the same time.

The plan mentions that the Tu-160 strategic bomber can reach the target area in about 45 minutes after taking off from the Far East base. It sounds scary, but in modern warfare, this kind of large bomber is a living target.

Japan and South Korea have built one of the most dense air defense networks in the world around China, including the Aegis destroyer and the Patriot missile system. Coupled with the strong intelligence support of the United States behind it, you can imagine the difficulty of the Tu-160 's penetration.

More importantly, the opponents are not at the level of a decade ago.The ¡°killing chain¡± systems that South Korea has invested heavily in in recent years, and Japan¡¯s active development of cruise missiles, all give them the ability to counter-attack Russian bases in the Far East.

This completely broke the Russian unilateral idea that once the war began, it would inevitably be a situation of mutual destruction. Intelligence sharing and the joint missile defense system between the United States and South Korea also greatly increased the success rate of early warning and interception.

We cannot ignore the information warfare dimension of this leak itself. The document was released by Western intelligence agencies against the background of the stalemate between Russia and Ukraine and NATO's new exercises. Its purpose is self-evident. The NATO Secretary-General took this opportunity to say that this proves that Russia's threat has extended to the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. State Department immediately followed suit, accusing Russia of undermining regional stability. This series of operations is undoubtedly exerting public opinion pressure on Russia, and at the same time further "tightening" the alliance between the United States, Japan and South Korea.

conclusion

So, this exposed Russian military document, more like a mirror, clearly illustrates the strategic anxiety deep inside Russia. This anxiety, originating from the geological difficulties of the two-line warfare that it cannot escape, originates from the historical trauma deeply ingrained in the national memory, and also originates from the awakening perception of the current strength and the gap between the opponent.

The possibility of a conflict directly following this blueprint of a decade ago is small, but its exposure has permanently changed the perception of security in the Asia-Pacific region.

For Japan and South Korea, while officials simply said they would ¡°strengthen alertness¡± and ¡°need to strengthen deterrence,¡± the document would undoubtedly urge them to be more alert as ¡°American allies¡± and accelerate their own military modernization process.