No, this isn’t a test run of possible strategies against an impossible attack.
As they tracked Russian military maneuvers in recent days, the U.S. government’s career Kremlin-watchers might have been forgiven for wondering if they were seeing recycled newsreels from the worst of the bad old days.
A huge exercise, called Stability 2008, spread tens of thousands of troops, thousands of vehicles and scores of combat aircraft across nearly all 11 time zones of Russian territory in the largest war game since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There was no specified enemy, but the Russian forces appeared to be enacting a nationwide effort to quell unrest along Russia’s southern border — and to repulse a U.S.-led attack by NATO forces, according to experts in Moscow and here.
In a grim finale, commanders launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles, the type that can carry multiple nuclear warheads. It was a clear signal of the drastic endgame the Kremlin might consider should its conventional forces not hold. One of the missiles flew more than 7,100 miles, allowing Russian officials to claim they had set a distance record.
See, it was just the most elaborate attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records ever!