Jacob W. Kipp
Jacob W. Kipp (1942-2021) retired from federal service in September 2009 and then worked as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Kansas. He received his PhD. in Russian History from the Pennsylvania State University in 1970. From 1971 to 1985 he taught Russian and Military History at the Kansas State University. In January 1986 he joined the newly founded Soviet Army Studies Office (SASO) at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, as a senior analyst. In 1991, SASO became the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO). In 2003, Dr. Kipp became director of FMSO and served in that capacity until October 2006, when he joined the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) as Deputy Director. He has published extensively on Russian and Soviet naval and military history. Topics have included Russian naval reform in the 19th century, Soviet naval history and analysis, operational art in theory and practice, and foresight and forecasting in Russian and Soviet military affairs. From 1992 to 2001 he served as the US editor of European Security. Dr. Kipp passed away in October 2021.
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Articles by Jacob W. Kipp
Russia’s Chiefs of the Military Academy of the General Staff, 2007–2015: What They Tell Us About Russian Military Art (Part Two)
To read Part One, please click here. Since 2007, the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has had four different heads, with unique military backgrounds....
Russia’s Chiefs of the Military Academy of the General Staff, 2007–2015: What They Tell Us About Russian Military Art (Part One)
The leadership of institutions can often reveal a great deal about these organizations’ changing place in the state and society. The General Staff has traditionally been the brains of the...
Putin’s Smart Defense: Wars, Rumors of War, and Generations of Wars (Part Two)
Russia’s response to the EuroMaidan, which dislodged president Viktor Yanukovych’s government, utilized a broad range of political and military tools leveraging Moscow’s influence in shaping the future of its close...
Putin’s Smart Defense: Wars, Rumors of War, and Generations of Wars (Part One)
Since Vladimir Putin was elected to the Russian presidency in May 2012, he has promised to place “smart defense” at the heart of Russia’s security strategy (https://www.rg.ru/2012/02/20/putin-armiya.html). Testing new concepts...
The ‘Magician,’ the ‘Mace’ and the Russian Defense Industry (Part Two): When the Magic Does Not Work
As Russian defense manufacturers continue to stumble and produce failure-prone arms and equipment, Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister in charge of the defense industry, has been tasked by the...
The ‘Magician,’ the ‘Mace’ and the Russian Defense Industry (Part One): The Magician Practices His Trade
During the crisis of defense reform associated with Anatoly Serdyukov’s (Russian minister of defense in 2007–2012) so-called “New Look” approach, there appeared a defense expert armed with mighty tools to...
A Depressing Curtain for Russian Naval Power: Admiral Sergei Gorshkov Fails Her Sea Trials (Part Two)
In September 2012, Russia carried out sea trials of the retired Soviet-era heavy carrier “Sergei Gorshkov,” which it is retrofitting and selling to India. The results of the sea trial...
A Depressing Curtain for Russian Naval Power: Admiral Sergei Gorshkov Fails Her Sea Trials (Part One)
After a year of encouraging progress in the refitting of a late Soviet–era carrier, which Russia plans to sell to India, the vessel’s latest sea trials in September 2012 ended...
Whither Russia: Looking East and Ready to Embrace It
The Arab Spring, especially the civil war in Libya and NATO’s “humanitarian intervention” in that conflict, has brought about much closer diplomatic cooperation between China and Russia. Their cooperation has...
The Elections Are Over and Putin Won: Whither Russia?
The Russian parliamentary elections in December 2011 inspired a wave of demonstrations against graft corruption and a rigged vote, as well as political rumblings across the country. Yet, in spite...
Possible Sub-Texts to the Sino-Russian Veto of the Security Council Resolution on Syria (Part Two)
Moscow’s Reappraisal of Prospects for Europe and the ResetTwo recent articles by Sergei Karaganov of the Council on Defense and Foreign Policy offer another perspective on the Russian veto of...
Possible Sub-Texts to the Sino-Russian Veto of the Security Council Resolution on Syria (Part One)
A Sino-Russian Alliance to What End?The emergence of a close alliance between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China would mean a fundamental shift in the strategic balance...
Russian Sixth Generation Warfare and Recent Developments
While press attention on developments in Russia focused on the disputed parliamentary elections and the following protests, which seemed to revive political activism in Moscow and other urban centers, there...
Deadlock On NATO-Russian Cooperation On European Missile Defense and a New Nuclear Arms Race (Part Two)
On October 18, the US arms control expert, Steven Pifer offered an optimistic view on NATO-Russia relations and missile defense, while Russia’s Ambassador to the Alliance Dmitry Rogozin, outlined his...
Deadlock On NATO-Russian Cooperation On European Missile Defense and a New Nuclear Arms Race (Part One)
With it appearing increasingly unlikely that NATO and Russia will come to an agreement on a joint European missile defense system, it seems certain that the US-Russian reset may be...
Russian Strategic Interests Expand In the Arctic
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been the chief proponent of Arctic development among the Russian elite, and he continues to be its booster. Putin promotes the creation of infrastructure...
Reflections On The Putsch That Failed: Twenty Years On
If we can accept the results from a recent survey on what contemporary Russians know about the Putsch of August 1991, there are good reasons to be depressed. Moscow News...
Revolt of the Generals or Shadow Theater For the Discontented?
On July 5, Sergei Konovalov treated the world to the birth of military opposition to Russia’s “New Look” defense reforms. According to Konovalov, three senior officers had resigned from their...
Reflecting On June 22 Seventy Years After
For several generations of Americans, December 7 was a day on which to pause and think about the destiny of the nation. For one generation the remarks of Franklin Delano...
Russian Experts Disagree On Missile Defense Guarantees
Follow-up reports in Moscow in the aftermath of the failed NATO-Russia Council discussions on European missile defense underscored the fact that any idea of a joint system, as opposed to...
European Missile Defense, Strategic Strike Conventional Systems and Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons: The View From 32/34 Smolenskaya-Sennaya Square
The initial response to the outcome of the discussions on European missile defense at the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) on June 9 was quite negative (EDM, June 21, 22). Senior Russian...
NATO-Russian Missile Defense Impasse and Future Negotiations on Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons
(Part Two)The lack of progress on missile defense in recent talks between NATO and Russia, highlighted misperceptions on both sides, and, in the views of Russian commentators, also underestimated shifts...
NATO-Russian Discussions Fail on Missile Defense: Implications for Negotiations on Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons
(Part One)Over the last several months most of the conversation on NATO-Russia cooperation has focused on NATO-Russia discussions of European missile defense. President Dmitry Medvedev during the NATO summit in...
Moscow Responds to the Arab Revolutions: Focus on Libya (Part Two)
The development of the popular uprising in eastern Libya transformed the Arab Revolution from a “spectator sport” for the rest of the world and created real problems for Russian national...
Moscow Responds to the Arab Revolutions: Focus on Libya (Part One)
Each recent decade has witnessed its own tectonic shifts that recast the world. Commentators called them revolutions. In the late 1980’s it was the “Velvet Revolution,” which began in Eastern...
The Emperor Has No Clothes: Military Reform Without Military Science
On March 18, the Russian press carried the announcement of the Presidium of the Academy of Military Sciences that the Academy’s General Assembly would occur on March 26, devoted to...
A Long Way to Zero: Moscow Remains Reluctant to Take the Next Step
With the ratification of the START III agreement by the Russian Duma and Federation Council in addition to its signing by President, Dmitry Medvedev, the treaty reached the final stage...
“Eagle Guardian” and the Strange Case of the Leak Without Legs (Part Two)
As WikiLeaks exposed details concerning “Eagle Guardian,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was concluding the first such state visit to Poland in eight years. For most of that period relations between...
“Eagle Guardian” and the Strange Case of the Leak Without Legs (Part One)
For more than a month the media was full of accounts of the latest revelations from WikiLeaks broadcasting US diplomatic cables to the world. The international speculation about the ramifications...
North Korean Tantrums, Russian Geopolitical Dilemmas and De-escalation
The crisis on the Korean Peninsula has marked a new dimension of the media, once again confirming Marshall McLuhan’s observation that “the media is the message.” In this case, it...
North Korean Tantrums Again Reveal Russia’s Geopolitical Dilemmas
On November 22, the Russian government expected to bask in the light of a successful NATO Summit in Lisbon. President Dmitry Medvedev attended while NATO had produced a new Strategic...
Thirteen is a Lucky Number for the Russian Navy
If August and September were months the Russian navy would like to forget, October 2010 began with very good news for the navy, its high command, and the defense ministry....
Russian Navy and Defense Industry: Anxious August and Sober September
August was the cruelest month for the Russian navy in recent years. Not since the loss of the SSNM Kursk had the news been so bad. Moscow and much of...
Vostok 2010 and the Very Curious Hypothetical Opponent
Recently, Roger McDermott, a regular contributor to this publication, offered an excellent overview of the operational-strategic exercise being conducted in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East by the Russian...
Reset at Sea: US-NATO-Russian Cooperation in the Struggle against Piracy
Piracy has a long history and the struggle with it is closely tied to concepts of national sovereignty, freedom of the seas, and the protection of life and property at...
Moscow Seeks Room to Maneuver as Crisis on the Korean Peninsula Intensifies
The sinking of the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) Corvette, Cheonan, on March 26, has proven to be a slow-building crisis, but one fraught with grave risks of conflict on the...
Promoting the New Look for the Russian Armed Forces: the Contribution of Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksandr Kondratyev
In the summer of 2008 unidentified sources in the Russian defense ministry began to talk about a working document devoted to force structure development to 2030. The terms “new look”...
Moscow’s Perspective on the Tactical Gamble and Strategic Consequences of the New START Treaty: Part Two
While the Russian press has noted the pledges from Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar, members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to begin the ratification process on the...
Moscow’s Perspective on the Tactical Gamble and Strategic Consequences of the new START Treaty: Part One
After intense negotiations and the intervention of both President Barack Obama, and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow and Washington announced on March 26 that a new treaty limiting strategic...
Russia Looks East and Sees Storm Clouds: Part Two
Attention to both combat capabilities and combat-readiness by senior officers in Russian military forces echoes comments made by retired Army-General Makhmut Gareev in early March during a conference organized by...
Russia Looks East and Sees Storm Clouds: Part One
As Roger McDermott has already noted (EDM, March 16), Army-General Makhmut Gareev, the President of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, recently addressed what he called the “eastern vector” of...
Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Eurasian Security
Presidents Barrack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have pledged to accelerate the negotiation of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The new agreement would replace the treaty that lapsed on...
Russia’s Military Doctrine: New Dangers Appear
In the immediate aftermath of President Dmitry Medvedev signing the new Russian military doctrine most attention focused on the fact that a first preemptive nuclear strike was not mentioned in...
Moscow Remembers the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
In late December 2009, the Russian press carried numerous articles reflecting on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its impact on the fate of the Soviet Union. On December 25,...
Medvedev Approves New Russian Military Doctrine
On February 5, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev finally signed the long-awaited new military doctrine, intended to guide defense policy over the next decade. In the presence of the senior...
The Russia-Georgia Conflict as Analyzed by the Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow
Part TwoThe long-term military implications of the Russian-Georgian war are addressed by Viacheslav Tseluiko. He warns that the popular conclusions regarding the weakness of the Georgian army during the conflict...
The Russia-Georgia Conflict: Analyzed by the Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow: Part One
The Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow has published a collection of essays devoted to the Russia-Georgia conflict in August 2008 (Mikhail Barabanov, Anton Lavrov, Viacheslav...
Russian Nuclear First Use: a Case of Self-Defeating Exaggeration?
In mid-October 2009, Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Security Council, used an interview to discuss Russia’s draft military doctrine and highlighted one aspect: the first-use of nuclear weapons in...
Bulava Launch Failure and the Crisis of Russian Defense Industry
The recent Bulava launch failure has implications for US-Russian arms control talks (EDM, December 17) and will determine whether the Russian defense industry is capable of delivering advanced weapons systems...
More Reboot or a Real Strategic Overload?
On December 1, after lengthy consultations with his military and political advisors, President Barrack Obama announced an increase of 30,000 US troops for Afghanistan and sent his Secretary of State,...
Mistral Procurement Divides Russian Defense Leadership
Those favoring the purchase of the Mistral-class amphibious assault ship from France had placed high hopes on events in late November moving the sale forward. Mistral arrived in St. Petersburg...
“New Look” Russian Military: 2009 Training Year and Beyond
On November 17 the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense met to review progress on the new look for the Russian Armed Forces. To no one’s surprise, Defense Minister Anatoliy...
New Dimensions of the Russian Naval Presence: Prospects Versus Realities
Before departing for the APEC Summit in Singapore President Dmitry Medvedev signed into law new legislation concerning the use of Russia’s armed forces abroad. While retaining the stipulation that the...
“Wind from the West” Brings a Storm to Russian Shipyards
“The Wind is coming from the west up the Gulf of Finland.” Those who have read Alexander Pushkin's Mednyi Sadnik (The Bronze Horseman) know that such winds bring with them...
The Russian Navy Recalibrates its Oceanic Ambitions
In early October, the Russian Deputy Minister of Defense Vladimir Popovkin announced the decision to take two heavy nuclear-powered missile cruisers (TAKR) out of conservation and restore them to the...
The Shifting Strategic Priorities of the Russian Navy
Over the last two decades, the oceanic navy that Russia inherited from the Soviet Union has declined in size and quality. There were repeated calls from naval officers over the...
Moscow Examines an Alternative Vision of Military Professionalism
Last week the official Russian defense ministry publication Krasnaya Zvezda carried a three-part article devoted to the American officer corps and its professional experience. The article placed the American officer...
Ten Years of Anti-NATO Exercises by Russian and Belarusian Armed Forces
On September 26 the official publication of the Russian ministry of defense Krasnaya Zvezda announced the beginning of the second phase of Zapad 2009 (West 2009), a large-scale combined arms...