As predicted, it did jus that. However, this easy victory also exposed the serious shortcomings and weaknesses of the mighty Russian armed forces. Although the fog of war and its aftermath has not yet cleared, a number of them can be cited, such as insufficient intelligence and reconnaissance, poor coordination between forces on the ground and lack of precision bombing weapons and technology.On the last item, experts say the war showed that the Russian air force is still short of precision weapons and continues to rely on older type bombs and rockets. Furthermore, they point out that some civilian casualties could probably have been avoided if Russia's equivalent to the US's GPS satellite navigation system was fully working. However, the Russian version of GPS, called GLONASS, doesn't yet have the necessary number of satellites in orbit and more importantly, portable GPS devices are still a rarity in the Russian military.
GLONASS, like America's GPS, has roots in the Cold War technology to guide Soviet strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. It was initiated in 1982 to counter America's GPS, and its first satellite launch took place in the same year, but it took 13 years to be accepted as a functional system. It had a limited number of 12 satellites.
The system was put into operation for the Russian Defense Ministry in September 1993, with an increased number of satellites of 24. However, due to the then prevailing chaotic economic conditions and lack of funds, its operational capacity was reduced significantly. GLONASS was declared a dual-purpose system by the president's decree of Feb. 18, 1999. President Vladimir Putin instructed Roskosmos and the Defense Ministry in December 2005 to accelerate their work to restore the orbital group of the GLONASS system in order to make it even more applicable to the entire territory of the Russian Federation by the beginning of 2008 and turn it into a global system by the end of 2009, that is, one year earlier than planned in the ''Global Navigation System'' federal target program.
However, despite Putin's decree GLONASS is still behind the declared schedule, and for this reason Russian forces were not able to make use of it for precision bombing during the war. This fact probably annoyed Prime Minister Putin, and that is why he signed a directive last Friday that would allocate an additional 67 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) to develop GLONASS. A total of 9.9 billion rubles ($418.25 million) was allocated for GLONASS from the federal budget in 2007, and 4.7 billion rubles ($200 million) in 2006.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov, who is responsible for GLONASS, the majority of funds would go to adding new satellites to the existing GLONASS satellite grouping. ''Six new GLONASS satellites will be put into orbit this year to total 22 spacecraft. We are hoping that GLONASS will provide global navigation and positioning coverage by 2012,'' he announced recently in this respect.
So, in view of these recent developments as regards GLONASS one can say that the war reminded the Russian leadership of the need for a fully operational satellite navigation system for future wars.
The recent boost for GLONASS is one of the unexpected developments of the brief war. Without the war GLONASS probably would not receive the attention and the additional funding. Now, if everything goes as planned, Russia will have a fully functional GPS by 2012, which will make it the second GPS power after the US.
Russia's victory over Georgia was predicted, but not the many developments the war brought about, the boost for GLONASS being one of them.
