This project began as the vision of General Christopher Cavoli when he was the Commanding General, U.S. Army Europe and Africa (CG, USAREUR-AF). He realized that the U.S. Army Foreign Area Officers (FAOs) assigned to the European theater lacked the detailed understanding of the Russian Federation Armed Forces (RF AF) required to advise him and other senior warfighters. During the period from 1991 to 2014, when the United States considered Russia to be a strategic partner, FAO training had shifted its focus away from Russian military capabilities.
To address this training gap, GEN Cavoli convened a team of retired Russian-speaking Army FAOs, with a combined total of more than 200 years’ experience working the Russian problem set. We named ourselves “the Troika,” a Russian word rich in history and symbolism. GEN Cavoli directed us to create a training course for FAOs focused on the RF AF at the operational and tactical levels. This course became the Russian Way of War (RWOW) Flagship.
After a successful pilot course in January 2021, GEN Cavoli tasked us to develop a one-day version of RWOW for his senior leaders, and a one-week version for staff officers, NCOs, and civilians, which we did. When Russia launched its “Special Military Operation” (SMO) against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Troika watched with rapt attention. We had just completed a flagship course, and our FAO students had planned a notional Russian invasion of Ukraine as part of a course exercise.
Our curriculum was based on Russian taktika (doctrine), theory, professional military journals, exercises, and case studies of recent Russian operations in Chechnya, Ukraine, and Syria. We were anxious to see how well our curriculum held up in a real large-scale Russian combat operation. In fact, it held up quite well. Many of our assumptions turned out to be correct. But there were some surprises, and some things we had overlooked.
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