The arming of Russia economy

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U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed an increase of $48 billion in U.S. military spending, the largest such rise in two decades. The mid-January announcement is largely in response to Washington's new role in the international war on terrorism. The Russian government -- Washington's old Cold War foe -- has yet to officially comment on the proposal, but two military experts in Moscow are taking opposing views concerning the significance of the U.S. announcement.

Moscow, 25 January 2002 (RFE/RL) -- There has been no official reaction from the Russian government to U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal for an increase of $48 billion in additional spending on the American military.

Bush said the extra money will be used, in part, to give service personnel a pay raise, to acquire more precision-guided weaponry, and to build a national missile-defense shield.

"My [2003 fiscal year] budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending. This will be the largest increase in defense spending in the last 20 years, and it includes another pay raise for the men and women who wear the uniform," Bush said.

In an effort to safeguard Americans at home, Bush said his budget will call for hiring 30,000 airport security workers and an additional 300 federal agents. The money also will be used to buy new equipment to improve mail safety in the wake of the anthrax attacks and for strengthening research on bioterrorism threats.

"The most basic commitment of our government will be the security of our country. We will win this war [against international terrorism]. We will protect our people, and we will work to renew the strength of our economy," Bush said.

If approved by the U.S. Congress, the Defense Department's annual budget would increase to $380 billion.

So far, Russia -- whose military spending is difficult to determine but which is a fraction of the U.S. defense budget -- has not officially commented on Bush's proposal. RFE/RL spoke to two Russian military specialists about the dramatic increase in U.S. military spending. Each holds a different view on the significance of the U.S. announcement.

Sergei Karaganov is chairman of the Russian Council for Defense and Foreign Policy. He told RFE/RL that the U.S. decision to spend more money in the fight against international terrorism can only be considered positive.

"It is good, both for America and the rest of the world, to spend more money in the fight against terrorism," Karaganov said.

While believing in the need to spend money to fight international terrorism, Karaganov said the U.S proposal for a national missile-defense shield is not worth the cost.

"As far as money for the ballistic missile defense system is concerned, I hope that the American military and technological complex may earn profits from it and so does the overall American economy. But I don't think that [such a system] would be useful for the United States and for the rest of the world," Karaganov said. "If the United States will be able to develop [a missile-defense shield], many countries [like Iran, Iraq] and China among them, would have many problems [since they would need to spend more money to update their own defense systems]. Anyway, it is quite improbable that the United States will [even] be able to develop [such a system]."

General Valeri Cheban is an adviser to Andrei Nikolayev, the chairman of the State Duma's Defense Committee. Cheban told RFE/RL that Bush's suggestion to increase U.S. defense spending is worthless, since the September terrorist attacks on the U.S. demonstrated that military might can do little to stop terrorists determined to risk their lives for their cause.

"It is sad that a country that has a strong economic and financial potential and immense political influence gets back on the track of [Cold War] confrontation and tries to solve many problems by military force," Cheban said. "It is also sad that even though the events of 11 September demonstrated that it is not big [military] formations or armadas of tanks and airplanes that achieve today's political goals, but the kind of [terrorist] acts [committed on 11 September], nevertheless, the United States -- following the old pattern -- is now escalating its military power."

Cheban said Bush's announcement did not come as a surprise, since after 11 September, events "started to unfold so rapidly and dynamically and the Americans themselves said that the era of unpredictability called for new solutions."

Cheban said the mood in Russia today is not oriented on spending more money on defense but instead is focusing on peacemaking operations and humanitarian concerns.

"I think that the [Russian] response today does not necessarily have to be an increase in defense spending," Cheban said. "We [in Russia] are inclined to think that today the sources of danger are not of a military nature, so we should shift our focus toward peacemaking operations, law and order enforcement issues, social and humanitarian problems, including refugees and the least-fortunate levels of society."

Alexander Golts is a Moscow-based journalist who regularly covers defense issues. In an interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service, Golts said the Kremlin cannot afford additional military spending, even if the Russian military is badly in need of modernization.

Golts said the idea that Russia still has a military-industrial complex is an illusion.

"Even now, our leadership lives with an illusion that Russia has a military-industrial complex. In reality, it does not exist. We have about 1,000 companies that are listed as military enterprises but [that have] actually long stopped making military products," Golts said. "Those endless talks about new machinery don't go any further than just talks -- be it the matchless Black Shark helicopter or the fifth-generation fighter jet. The thing is that, even if those are possible to make, they are made as single items from parts that are left over from Soviet times."

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Russia's Military Questions

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON -- Starving troops, field-grade officers
committing suicide, soldiers' pay three to four months late
-- these are the news reports coming out of Russia.
The Russian army is a far cry from the Soviet forces
the United States prepared to combat during the Cold War.
It is hard to get a handle on the extent of the
problems in the Russian military, U.S. officials said. Those
who study Russia even disagree on how many people are in the
military. Estimates of its size range from 1.2 million to
1.8 million. Estimates of how much of Russia's gross
national product the military consumes range from about 7
percent to over 8 percent.
"Whatever it is, it's too much," said James H.
Brusstar, a specialist in Russian security policy at the
Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National
Defense University. "The military is more than the
government can afford, and the military is arguing for more
funds."
The U.S. military is not "worried" about the state of
the Russian military, but it is a "matter of concern,"
defense officials said. "There's a breaking point beyond
which you can't push people," said a U.S. defense official.
"[The state of the Russian military] is something Russian
officials bring up each time they meet with senior American
officials. They want to make sure we understand what's
facing them."
The problems are not limited to the ministry of
defense. The Russian government has 17 to 23 ministries that
have military or paramilitary organizations. They are
experiencing some of the same problems as the army. "It is
important to realize the disintegration of the Russian
military is not in our best national interests," said a
defense official. "There needs to be stability in Russia for
democratic institutions to take root and grow."
The heart of the problems is Russian army leaders want
to keep intact the force structure they inherited from the
Soviet Union, analysts said. "There isn't enough money to do
that," Brusstar said.
The large force structure causes many problems. Many
units are undermanned, with skeleton crews manning
companies, battalions and regiments. The military must spend
money on personnel, which leaves less for training. Steaming
hours for the navy and flying hours for aviators have been
reduced so much as to be irrelevant, officials said.
"Instead of trying to reduce the force structure, which
would improve manning levels and training hours, the
military has played hardball, insisting it remain the same
and then underfunding it," Brusstar said.
"Most civilian specialists believe the Russians must
cut their force structure until about 2005," he continued.
"They need to reduce it to about 1.2 million, then take the
money [they save] and put it into training, personnel and
research and development. If Russia's economy gets better by
2005, then they can bring the numbers back up."
U.S. officials also said Russia must make force
structure changes. Factions in the Russian ministry of
defense clearly favor bringing the Russian army down to 12
to 15 trained and ready divisions, said U.S. officials. The
Russians also want a second tier of units that can be
brought up to readiness, if needed.
American analysts say there will be resistance to
downsizing. The Russian airborne, for example, has already
objected to any downsizing attempt.
The military has seen widespread corruption, analysts
said. Part of it is caused by the way funds are allocated.
The military is given lump sum amounts by general category:
personnel, operations, supplies and so on. Commanders easily
siphon off funds. In one case in Chechnya in December 1995,
no money passed down to feed the troops for the entire
month.
"There were cases of malnutrition," Brusstar said. "The
legislature says it is military mismanagement, and the
military says it's because the legislature didn't give them
enough money."
Corruption reaches high in the ministry of defense,
officials said. News reports in the West said past Minister
of Defense Gen. Pavel Grachev's nickname was "Pasha
Mercedes" for his lifestyle and favorite vehicles. The
commander of Russian ground forces was fired for excessive
payments to a helicopter plant where his wife worked.
Western analysts believe the current minister, Igor
Rodionov, is untouched by corruption. He has surrounded
himself with people with similar reputations. This is a ray
of hope for Russia, U.S. officials said, and in fact,
Rodionov has proposed reforms to the military.
Corruption has gone so far in the military that
officers who want to take care of their troops must play the
game to get the funds they need, Brusstar said.
The military performed poorly in Chechnya and in
Afghanistan before that. But they have not really learned
the lessons, said U.S. officials.
"Many of the units that performed poorly were not
Russian army units," said a defense official. "Therefore,
they don't feel the need to reform. Many in the Russian army
even think such 'internal conflicts' as Chechnya are not a
part of their mission. It's a mission for internal forces.
So there's a lot of finger pointing about Chechnya
particularly, but nobody really covered themselves in glory
there."
The official said the mistakes ranged from poor command
and communications to human rights violations to tactical
problems.
Brusstar said if any reform is accomplished in the
Russian military, it must come from the top. "[Russian
President Boris] Yeltsin has never established his authority
over the military," he said. "He's allowed [senior military
officials] to go on with their mismanagement and stumble on
the way they are going." Brusstar theorized Yeltsin may be
afraid of coming down hard on the military.
U.S. officials discount the theory and think the
military sincerely wants to stay out of domestic affairs.
They blame Yeltsin's inaction on his ill health. "He's not
fully engaged with dealing with these issues," said an
official.
With all of the problems the Russian military has, it
can still perform superbly. "The Russian brigade in Bosnia
has done quite well," a U.S. official said. "It was
handpicked from elite units and worked well with the U.S.
forces. It's a credit to their leadership and the U.S.
leaders in Bosnia."

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Russia might share defense plans with the United States and buy American missile technology if a new strategic framework is worked out in talks that open in Washington next week, President George W. Bush's national security adviser says.

Even membership in NATO is not ruled out, Condoleezza Rice said in an Associated Press interview as she outlined the Bush administration's concept for converting a relationship rooted in Cold War hostility to one based on friendly cooperation.

"I am hopeful there can be a new day with Russia," Rice said. "We are talking about a bigger issue than what we do about missile defenses and strategic weapons."

In the talks next Tuesday and Wednesday and subsequent rounds in Moscow and New York, "They will see we have laid out for Russia and most of the world a path of cooperation," Rice said Thursday.

She stressed Russia has not accepted the cooperative concept, and it must adopt stringent curbs on transfer of technology to Iran and North Korea before the United States would permit the Kremlin to buy American equipment.

"We still have a proliferation problem of significant proportion," Rice said.

The talks — Rice prefers to call them consultations rather than traditional negotiations — are the first in a series of three rounds designed to implement the agreement Mr. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached July 22 in Genoa, Italy. It linked U.S. planning for a missile defense system with large cuts the Kremlin wants made in the two nations' still-massive nuclear weapons arsenals.

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To those who look for signals from the sky, the spectacular splashdown in the South Pacific of the Russian space station Mir in March 2001 might have signalled the end of an era. While Russia had its own space programme, it could rightly continue to claim superpower status. Now it has been relegated to being just one of a number of partners in what has become an American-led activity, it leaves the United States in a league of its own. Of course, it would be a mistake to read too much into what is but a symbolic event; the decline of a nation does not take place overnight and, in Russia's case, has been going on for some time. However it does serve as a timely reminder, just as the United States is in the process of re-assessing its defence policy, that the immediate post-Cold War period is over. It is interesting to reflect that a decade ago, the beginning of a `new world order' was heralded by some. Unfortunately, the end of the superpower confrontation, far from bringing about a world characterised by peace and the rule of law, has unleashed a period of upheaval in which the key themes for the future are likely to be complexity and unpredictability

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MOSCOW -- By the end of 2005, Russia's armed forces will be 20 percent smaller than they are today. Plans recently approved by the Security Council, chaired by President Vladimir Putin, call for the number of people in the military and other security agencies to be reduced by 600,000, including 470,000 military and 130,000 civilians personnel.

For years now, it has been clear that Russia could no longer afford to maintain its military force at its present size. The government hopes that this dramatic cutback in personnel will allow it to spend its limited resources on military training, maintenance of existing equipment and the purchase of new weapons.

If everything goes as planned, Russia should have a well-trained, mobile, compact, technologically advanced and effective fighting force by 2010.

That, at least, is the official view. However, many observers outside government remain skeptical that the goals can be achieved.

What nearly everyone agrees on is that drastic reforms are necessary. And while such reforms will be costly, there may never be a better economic time to carry them out.

Russia at the moment is benefiting from relatively high world oil prices. That means that the government is in the best position in years to pay for the compensation and pensions due the 600,000 who will be leaving government service.

In addition, current conditions within the military have become so intolerable that nearly everyone is ready for some type of reform. By some estimates, 70 percent of the current military budget goes merely to feed and clothe the force at its current level, with only 30 percent left for training and equipment.

Finally, while reforming the military has been a top government priority for years, Putin has displayed a particular interest in the problem. A successful reform program seems especially important for his administration.

What remains unclear at this point is what impact such reforms will ultimately have on Russia's nuclear capabilities.

What is apparent is that the current status of the Strategic Missile Force will be reduced and it will no longer be a separate branch of the armed forces. Some experts believe that this could lead to Russia eventually becoming some type of "intermediate" nuclear power. Under this scenario, Russia would remain more powerful than other nuclear states while acknowledging the United States' superiority, at least in terms of operational capabilities.

But in fact, that's just one of the possibilities under review by the Defense Ministry and the General Staff. The key dilemma they seem to be facing is striking the right balance between conventional and nuclear forces.

One side argues that nuclear weapons can't defend the nation against non-nuclear threats, such as those that might arise from a local conflict in the Balkans, for example. Therefore, the nation's conventional forces need to be reinforced and upgraded, they contend. A minimal strategic nuclear force is enough to provide an adequate deterrence.

But others argue that Russia can't afford to maintain conventional forces comparable with those of NATO. Current Western superiority in economic resources, population, non-nuclear weapons technologies and command-and-control systems simply makes parity out of the question. Under this argument, Russia's security relies on a robust strategic nuclear force.

Right now, no one's sure which side of the argument will prevail. For the general public, the only real question is whether the planned reduction will bring an end to the current despised conscription system.

What is clear is that Russia's military budget for 2000 was about $6 billion, or roughly 2 percent of U.S. military spending. Spending is expected to increase only slightly next year.

So, with neither a clear-cut defense policy nor adequate financial resources, independent analysts remain skeptical Russia will actually be able to accomplish its much-needed military reforms.

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MOSCOW, June 11 (AFP) - Over a third of Russia's impoverished armed forces have no permanent home, the chief of the parliamentary defense commission said late Monday as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
"As of today, some 40 percent of Russian military have no home," General Andrei Nikolayev said, adding that hundreds of officers could not be discharged from service as they could not be granted required housing.
Some 150,000 discharged soldiers and officers were still waiting to receive housing, Nikolayev said, adding that many of them had been on the waiting list for a decade.
Special services were not immune to the problem either, and even Russia's FSB, successor to the KGB, could offer its 13,000 homeless employees only 350 apartments a year.
Earlier Moscow attempted to solve the problem by granting every serviceman a housing certificate which would enable them to purchase an apartment themselves.
However, according to Nikolayev the system did not work, as the market price for housing tops official estimates by up to 30 percent.
The Russian army officially comprises 1.2 million servicemen, of which some 40 percent are officers or warrant officers.
Earlier this year, army officials admitted that over 93,000 officers were homeless.

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The United States has said Russia`s new military doctrine contained no new elements likely to raise concern among US policymakers.

''We`ve been following this debate in Russia very closely, and we don`t believe there`s any dramatic new departure,`` State Department spokesman James Rubin said yesterday.

Russia`s powerful Security Council yesterday approved a tough new military doctrine which reaffirms the country`s right to be the first to deliver a nuclear strike. The doctrine, according to the Kremlin, states that ''the Russian federation envisages ... the possibility of using all forces and means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, where all other means to settle the crisis have been exhausted or have proven ineffective.``

However, US officials have found the document consistent with Russia`s post-Soviet nuclear stance, which allows it to use nuclear weapons first, according to the State Department.

''We`ve seen various accounts of their doctrine and so far we`ve not seen any that indicates a dramatic new departure,`` said Rubin